Our sons played in a Rec. Center football game tonight in Cleveland. It was a hard fought game that was well coached, on both sides. The only thing that was missing was, well, much of an audience. Besides myself, there were only two other parents cheering for our team. But so it often goes in the cities. So many of these kids are latch key kids, often with just one parent at home. The kids down here just as often fend for themselves, trying daily to dodge hunger, drugs, bullets… Sometimes they’re successful, often they’re not… Note: There’s an essay on our site that flushes this out a bit more. Note 2: Call me an overly proud parent, but our Jonathan, 7, was the smallest (and youngest) kid on the field tonight, yet he got in there most plays and mixed it up quite well with the big boys. So much so, the coach took him aside after the game and complimented him on his spirit and toughness.
collective, rather exhorbitant, lifestyles
Talked today with two human rights advocates who work in Colombia. Chris Knestrick told me that malaria is a huge problem in that country and he had recently gone on a mission to bring a man deathly sick with the disease to a hospital. The team had to hike 20 hours into rural Colombia and another 20 hours back to get this man to the hospital… Another huge problem in Colombia are international companies who come in virtually rape the land of natural resources (trees, minerals…), which, in turn, leads to all sorts of human rights travesties. This weekend at St. Patrick’s Church in Cleveland, Deacon Bill Merriman said during his sermon that America takes a huge amount of natural resources from around the world to fuel it’s collective, rather exhorbitant lifestyle. Once again, as I mention in the last post, wouldn’t it be common sense that we begin to connect the dots between the collective lifestyle we’re maintaining here and the human rights abuses happening in other parts of the country. Note: While shopping for my Fall presidential candidate wardrobe at the thrift store (needless to say I spent a bit less than the $150,000 Ms. Palin spent on hers last election) around the corner today, a saw a t-shirt that read: I hear voices in my head… and they don’t like you.
‘this side of the fence?’
Over the weekend, I talked to a counselor who works at a local mental health agency here in Cleveland. I said to him that I’d recently read that some 21,000 people had been killed in Mexico in the Drug Wars in the last four years. This counselor responded that it would be good to do a study to try to understand the psycho-social dynamics that lead to someone becoming involved with a drug cartel. What’s more, I said, wouldn’t it be common sense for us in the U.S. to get a better handle on what’s driving our drug addictions on ‘this side of the fence?’ I mean, ultimately, isn’t the demand we’re creating for the drugs at the root of the whole thing?
city on the edge…
We’re back home in Cleveland. A few entries back, I wrote about the relative tranquility and security often found in small town America. Here, it’s different. As I write this late Saturday night, a police helicopter is flying low and searching the neighborhood. Pit bulls stand guard behind rusty fences. People drink and smoke pot on their porches, play loud rap music and, with some frequency, yell at each other, fight. It’s a different world. One decidedly on the edge… Earlier in the evening, I talked with Cleveland lawyer/activist Maria Smith. She has been to Nicaragua a number of times as part of tours with Witness for Peace. She said the poverty in Nicaragua increases, in large part because of NAFTA. With free trade, she said corporate mega-farms in America are now regularly undercutting small Nicaraguan subsitence farmers trying to sell to local markets in that country. What a tremendous travesty. Note: I saw a bumper sticker today that read: Fair Trade, Not Free Trade
‘walking with her’
We were in Wapokenta, Ohio, this week and met with Kimi Brown. She’s the mother of six and one of her daughters works in a restaurant. She came home one night and explained that another waitress, who was 28-years-old and a single mother of a four-year-old, had broken up with a man recently and shortly after found out she was pregnant. She had decided to abort the baby. Kimi contacted the woman, asked her not to go through with the abortion, and offered to “walk with her” each step of the way. Kimi then contacted a circle of her pro-life friends and was able to raise $3,000. Last minute, the woman decided against the abortion and the money was given to her to help her through the pregnancy. What’s more, she decided to put the baby up for adoption and one of Kimi’s aunts decided to adopt the baby. The baby was born Dec. 11 and is now with his new family… This is such an excellent example of pro-life people, not just saying no to abortion, but reaching out to try to tangibly help. No strings attached, just love.
barber poles, “Sips” and a round-a-bout
We were in rural Knox County, Ohio, working on a friend’s farm here for the day. A tremendous wind shear had just come through and our family spent the morning helping clear trees from the fence line… In the afternoon, I went into Mt. Vernon, Ohio, where I parked our campaign vehicle on a high visibility area on the town round-a-bout. I passed out campaign flyers on the square, put one up on the bulletin board at the post office, then it was off to a nearby barber shop (with an old-fashion swirling barber pole, the whole thing) to pass out yet more cards. Walking out of the barber shop, I noticed a rather large group of employees were getting out for the day at the three-story bank across the street. On the sidewalk outside the building, I passed out a good number of cards to them. Then it was off to Sips Coffee Shop (great name, huh) where the owner said he’d put some of the cards on his display table. It’s actually a rather politically oriented place, various Mt. Vernon councilmembers come here Saturday mornings to answer citizen questions, etc. From Sips, it was off to Joey’s Diner where I passed out some more cards. Note: We’re asking supporters to pass out campaign flyers in their towns, maybe get some creative average Joe for U.S. president signage for their vehicles — and park these vehicles in high visibility areas as well. It’s our answer to the big, multi-million dollar campaigns. And yes once again, we’re doing this all without paid political consultants.
farming and “the beaver”
Catching up more on our Buckeye State stop… In rural Bluffton, Ohio, I rode along for a time in combine as a local farmer harvested some soy beans. This was a 1985 combine and is the smallest model out there. He said this model new today would cost about $250,000. He continued that small farmers are at a real disadvantage to compete today with farming implement prices the way they are. What’s more, he said that currently on average farmers, across the board, get about $30 an acre subsidy from the government every year. He said this is a tremendous advantage to mega-corporate farms that encompass thousands of acres. Our agriculture platform calls for categorizing these huge corporate farms as monopolies, breaking them up and mobilizing the return of the small family farm, en masse. The small family farm was once the backbone of our country. And should be again… Note: Bluffton, Ohio, is the home of Bluffton University. Their mascott is “the beaver.” Last week the Bluffton News carried the following Sports Page headline about the university’s football team: Beavers Bite Down On Fall Season. I just love small town newspapers.
Israeli / Palestinian Conflict, soccer and deadly misquitoes
I was interviewed by a reporter from AOL News. He asked me, among other things, my take on the Israeli / Palestinian Conflict. I said that I believed the Israelis were participating in an illegal land grab that’s forbidden by the Geneva Convention. That is, it is prohibited that an occupying country can settle it’s own civilians on militarily controlled lands. In east Jerusalem, for instance, the Israelis are building 900 new homes as part of the Gilo settlement. I said as president I would push for a moratorium on these types of settlements, and I would push for a two state solution… We are staying at a friend’s farm in rural Bluffton, Ohio. They have a soccer net up against an old barn. Near sunset, I walked out to watch our kids play soccer with a couple boys on the farm. The corn in the background, an orange sky, kids running about playing and laughing, a soccer ball aloft… It was such a sort of Norman Rockwell scene. Earlier today in Findlay, Ohio, a man named Ray, who grew up in a ghetto area of Montreal, Canada, said to me: “Many people in small town America have no idea what an absolute blessing it is to live here.” …I was reading a National Geographic article about malaria tonight. In Zambia, one of the major reasons 20% of all children there die before they are five, is because of malaria. Tragically, many of these children never even get a chance to kick a soccer ball.
Common man. Common sense! …and a buckeye
Stopped at the Sign Shack in Findlay, Ohio. (Findlay, incidentally, is where Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger played his high schooll ball.) Over the years, we have had our campaign vehicle signage made almost exclusively by owner Joe Langhals at the Sign Shack. (When it comes to graphic design, he’s excellent.) This time around, I ordered the words: Common man. Common sense! And it was a ‘common sense’ conversation that I got into with Langhals and employee Josh Unverferth while waiting for the lettering. These two common “working guys” were, among other things, concerned about the Federal Debt (which is now over $12 trillion). Josh said that wouldn’t it make sense — common sense — to, for one, cut government expenditure until we pay off the debt. I said our platform called for the old-fashion concept of (If anyone remembers this…): “frugality.” That is when people were in debt in the old days, they actually tightened their belts and paid it off. At the end of the conversation at the Sign Shack, Josh said he’d liked what he heard and offered to pass out our campaign cards at a festival in Kalida, Ohio, this weekend. If you don’t carry Kalida, you’re not going to carry the country. Note: After leaving the Sign Shack, “Tom from Columbus” approached me in the parking lot at Arbys. He said he was impressed with the signage on our vehicle and added that his wife was recently back from the Glenn Beck rally in D.C. Tom said he would like to see change in D.C., and wished me luck. Noticing he was wearing an Ohio State University shirt, I passed on a campaign flyer to him and added: “When I get to D.C., one of the first things I’m going to do is have a big buckeye put on top of the Capitol Dome.” [I’ve gotta stop doing that. It’s getting to be like an addiction, or something.]
America’s best town
We’ve made a pit stop in Bluffton, Ohio, America’s Best Town…