Vote for Joe

photo by Joe

Fascinating. I recently wrote a newspaper article about this cabin. It sits on skids in the backyard of a local couple’s place. They live in a modest, two-bedroom house about 25 yards from the cabin. They use it for “staycations.” That is, if they want to “get away,” they head out to the cabin for a day, or two, or more… They watch TV, read books, relax on the porch… The cabin was built in Amish country in Indiana, then trucked here. Because it is not hooked into water (they simply use the house for water, although they are about to put a free-standing chemical toilet in), and just, again, sits on skids, its zoned the same way a shed would be, including no additional taxes, or zoning requirements, and such. What’s more, when people visit, it’s turned into a relatively cute B&B. The cabin cost $10,000, delivered. Note: I couldn’t help but think that, social justice wise, something like this could be a great, temporary place for, say, immigrants trying to get a foothold in this country — as a temporary, transition place, or longer. We could get a lot more creative in this country, helping people trying to flee extreme poverty, violence, and so on, in other countries. The Beatitudes: “…shelter the homeless.” Our position paper on foreign relations is replete with creative ways to tangibly help “foreigners.”

Nov. 2023 edition

In my ongoing research on the environment, I was just reading part of an article in this National Geographic Magazine edition on various strategies to curb global warming. Klaus Lackner is a physicist with the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University. He’s experimenting with “…three story tall, carbon sucking, filtering and storing devices.” He colloquially calls them: “mechanical trees.” He says they work, and Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (signed in 2022) provides billions of dollars, potentially, to companies working on “…direct air [carbon] capture technology.” Lackner noted that, recently, some $1.2 billion from this federal fund was awarded to plants in Texas and Louisiana, which are building “direct air [carbon] capture plants.” I couldn’t help thinking, yeah, okay… but what about planting more non-mechanical trees, too? And what about, collectively, as a nation, developing much more of a [carbon] conservation mind-set, and…? Common [carbon] sense. Note: For more on our campaign’s take on energy/global warming/et. Al…, *see.

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.”

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!

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…]