God smiling down… and: “How about them apples?”

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High School Baccalaureate …photo by Joe

The other night, our village high school held their Baccalaureate. It was small town (spiritual) Americana at its finest. Some students gave their testimonies, thanking God, their parents, their classmates… for help along their walk all these years in the village. Part of the high school choir led a number of modern Christian songs (*see photo), as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the Youth For Christ campus, which is just across the street from the high school. (*What a blessing that place had been in many of their walks.) It was a tremendously moving event, and I had to believe God was smiling down on it all that night. And speaking of spirituality… I wrote a newspaper article recently about the opening of a Johnny Appleseed Museum/Education Center in nearby Urbana College. They have more Johnny Appleseed memorabilia there, than anywhere else in the country — including his Bible. You see, Johnny was planting two kinds of seeds. Apple seeds. Faith seeds. Besides his strong environmental stewardship bent, he was also a Christian evangelist in general, who regularly talked and passed out literature along the way. This year marks the 250th year since his birth. Note: For more on our take on the environment, see…

painting and politics

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outskirts of Bluffton …photo by Joe (…the painter)

Keeping up my populist image, not to mention having to pay for rent, food, gas… I was doing some exterior painting recently at an artist studio on the outskirts of Bluffton, adjacent to the Bluffton University Nature Preserve. Scenic setting. On my coffee breaks, I read a National Geographic article on “Conservation in America.” One of the statements that most stood out: “…some people have attempted to reconcile conservation with capitalism.” For instance, the Cumberland Forest Project, with only moderate, targeted logging, would never make enough money for investors — *unless, of course, you also sold credits on the carbon market around the trees that weren’t logged. And speaking of economic things… While I don’t have access to Janet Yellen, I did have access to Laurence Lutvak today. He is visiting the area from Massachusetts, is a financial advisor, and stopped in the office for a chat. (*I try to stay accessible to the public as possible. Wink.) It turns out, when he was younger, Mr. Lutvak worked on the Fred Harris campaign. Harris was a Democrat Senator from Oklahoma and vied for the Democratic Presidential nomination in both 1972 and ’76. Mr. Lutvak came across as quite knowledgeable about the economy, government, and a combination thereof. He said, for instance, that Social Security is, indeed, in jeopardy, and perhaps — as just one approach — there should be an income ceiling on who could draw from the SS Fund, in order to help keep it buoyant for the next generation. Our campaign has a similar stance. But the $64,000 question on this one would be: “What would, say, a yearly income cutoff point be?” Mr. Lutvak said he is also an advocate for continuing to fund Ukraine, in regard to the war. He said the money we are sending (last allotment was $60 billion) is a “…drop in the bucket,” in regard to the U.S. budget. But more importantly, he (anecdotally) said that this is an existential struggle “…of the good guys against the bad guys.”

“…demands our respect.” Memorial Day 2024

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Leading the way for Bluffton, Ohio’s 2024 Memorial Day Parade…

That’s right, while I wasn’t at Arlington Cemetery for Memorial Day, I was at Bluffton, Ohio’s Memorial Day Parade today. Pictured here are some of our local Military Veterans leading the way in the parade. It was, as it has been in years past, tremendously poignant — with people along the route take their caps off, saluting, putting their hands over their hearts. Our military position paper, based on a good deal of research, spells out how our administration would step up even more help for these veterans, across the board. I mean, they were willing to sacrifice their lives for their fellow Americans. That demands, not only our respect, but it demands we make every effort to help them throughout their lives.

mock prom crash… and a broader lesson

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mock-prom-crash scene

Students at a nearby high school were treated to, perhaps, the most elaborate Mock-Prom-Crash-Scene of anywhere in the country. Seriously! *Local college theatre make-up artists made the crash victims look realistic. There were two totaled cars face to face in the parking lot, as EMS, police and firefighting vehicles successively showed up. Firefighters cut the kids out with Jaws of Life. A Life Flight helicopter then showed up. A volunteer parent, playing the role of the mother of one of the kids that were supposedly hurt, showed up and started screaming at the driver. I wrote a newspaper article about it all, explaining how realistic, and how poignant, it all had been. And yeah, drunk driving, distracted driving… can, indeed, lead to some extreme tragedies. But what about the ‘tragedy’ of setting up a transportation infra-structure that is tremendously dangerous in the first place. What’s more, we then condition our kids to assimilate into it. Some 33,000 people die on American roads every year now. That would be like a half-full airliner going down every day in America! We’d close the skies. Yet we drive on, and on, and… Our position paper on transportation is a look at a much safer, and saner, transportation infra-structure, which we should shift to, quick!

A “Catch-22” in Cuba

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Cuban flag

Cuba continues to be a Communist country, ruled by an iron-fisted government. It has a reputation of being replete with human rights abuses. Concurrently, the U.S. Trade Embargo with Cuba has recently passed the 50-year mark. However, Obama did loosen restrictions on Cuban/American travel, and some business ventures. Trump, however, rolled that all back. Recently, the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister was interviewed by network news here. Another issue between the countries is Cuban refugees continuing to come to this country, fleeing poverty and the oppressive Cuban government practices. Cuba currently allows one plane load a month of refugees to be sent back to Cuba from the U.S.. And the Foreign Minister, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, said his country might consider taking back more refugees. But here’s the rub… Given the Cuban government’s “iron-fisted-ways,” and its record for mis-treating so-called dissidents, and such, one would have to wonder how these fleeing refugees will be treated after they are sent back? Note: Our administration would put in place a comprehensive re-settlement program, across the board, for refugees fleeing poverty, war, oppressive governments… And parts of our, for instance, Hispanic immigration position paper reflects that, in spades.

Carrying our cross, worldwide

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Good Friday 2024 …photo by Joe

And a little child will lead them… This was a scene from a few weeks back in my hometown. Each year, there is a Good Friday “Crosswalk.” People, including children, take turns carrying this heavy, rough-hewn wooden cross from church to church in the downtown area (there are six churches). At each of the churches, a pastor gives a “Reflection.” For example, Presbyterian Pastor Bill Carr said that “…the way of the cross is a way of suffering.” He noted that Christ was flogged/scourged, but steadfastly kept going on the way to His crucifixion. Likewise, the pastor continued, Christians are called to carry their own crosses, metaphorically. [*And what’s more, Christians are called to help others carry their crosses as well, whether that’s helping people in Haiti, Gaza, Ukraine… or America’s inner cities for that matter. For our Foreign Policy position paper, which is heavy on all this, and a good deal different in its intensity and scope than most American politician’s stances, see…]

‘Surfing’ Ohio’s infra-gravity waves

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“Up, up, and away…” –photo by Joe

Bluffton was one of 53 sites along the recent total solar eclipse “Path of Totality” for NASA’s Eclipse Balloon Project. College teams from as far away as Alaska participated, with the University of Wyoming team traveling some 1,200 miles to get to Bluffton. Team leader Phil Bergmair told me the helium balloons (sent up each hour over a 30-hour span) were attached to devices to monitor the fluctuation of temperature, humidity, and the presence of lower atmospheric infra-gravity waves. *If you didn’t know there are lower atmospheric infra-gravity waves — you are not alone. *Note: While interviewing the students, I learned that a good number of them, involved with the overall project nationwide, were majoring in STEM, and some would be publishing their data in various scientific journals. Note 2: During a talk at the University of Notre Dame a number of years ago, I said that NASA is using the brightest minds to calculate getting us to places, like the moon, Mars, et. Al, where there is virtually no gravity, no oxygen, no soil to grow stuff in… The caveat to this post of course being: Is the science these students are engaged in, in this case the Balloon Project, actually worthwhile? It’s a question we should be asking a lot more of in America, with subjects across the board.

“Better living through (pharmaceutical) chemistry?”

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I recently interviewed a former Assistant Dean in the Pharmacy School at a local university for a newspaper article. He said modern pharmaceutical costs are, indeed, admittedly high. Conversely, he said that baked into these costs were advertising expenditures; drug development (including all the time that goes into experimenting with new drugs that never make it into the market), and so on. Note: We, as a society, have tremendously bought into the axiom “…better living through (pharmaceutical, in this case) chemistry.” Our healthcare platform challenges this to a degree, a large degree. We believe there should be a lot more focus on preventative strategies, in tandem with a much more holistic (natural medicines, and such) approach to healthcare strategies.

SOTU R-Rebuttal short on sound spirituality

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Joe as a Rec. Center coach in the heart of Cleveland

Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) gave the Republican response to the State of the Union Address from her kitchen in what I am sure is a pretty nice, well-appointed, safe home in the suburbs. She echoed the predominant Republican talking points: a more secure border; a better economy; protecting the American Dream in general. Problem is: These are, for the most part, selfish talking points. A majority of people coming here from south of the border are in desperate straits from extreme abject poverty, cartel violence… The answer isn’t to shut them out. The answer is to have a simple, user-friendly asylum process, and concurrently, a sound vetting process. And middle-class, and up (like Ms. Britt’s family), Americans should be sacrificing their lifestyles to help as many people as possible make a solid transition to our country. Or, frankly, many of us are going to meet a (tall) border wall at Heaven. And on the better economy and the “America First,” protecting the American Dream deal… Once again, this, in its current paradigm, is so tremendously First World selfish — in the face of billions of people living in deplorable slum conditions world-wide. People who are continually food insecure world-wide, don’t have access to clean drinking water, adequate medicine, adequate schools… Note: And the reason for the photo above? For five years, our family did outreach in a hardscrabble part of Cleveland, amidst poverty, gang violence, drugs… These kids, these families, in our cities, have also been abandoned by many of our myopic pursuits, and upward ascent, of the American Dream as well. And, with some more sacrifices, we have the wherewithal to help them considerably too. For more on our experience in the city, see…

State of the Union Rebuttal (Part II)

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State of the Union Rebuttal (Part II)… Biden’s agenda, on multiple fronts, as mentioned in the last post, is, indeed, nothing short of tremendously evil. No question. However, sprinkled into his agenda (because who, of course, would go along with a totally evil platform), is some good points. He wants to expand access for children in poverty to go to day care. He wants public school teachers to get a raise. He wants big corporations to pay their “fair share.” Biden is pushing to raise the federal minimum wage. He wants to keep battling climate change, including establishing a “Climate Corps,” similar to the Peace Corps, for some 20,000 young people. Now, I’d be on the same page, or close, on most of the latter. But our campaign, as is noted throughout this paper, would propose going much further in each of these areas. *And we would be doing it, not to covertly sell the evil (abortion, gender fluidity…) See the following “Fireside Podchats” to listen to what our going further with all this would look like. *And State of the Union Rebuttal Part III will soon follow.