I just read that if every person on earth was positioned side-by-side, they could all fit: on the island of Jamaica. Over populated? We have traveled the “back roads of America” for many years now looking for common sense takes on all the major issues of the day. In Keene, New Hampshire, Ray Rivest posed this question to me: “Do you think God would allow more people on the planet than it could sustain?” Good question. Perhaps a more salient question then is: “Are many of us overusing the resources God has given us to live here?”
hallmarks of a human being…
I’m just in the process of preparing a talk I’ll be giving at Notre Dame University toward the end of the month. I hold to a Consistent Life Ethic that sets me against poverty, pollution, abortion, euthanasia… and anything else that can end life prematurely. Today I was writing a segment about abortion. I noted that in the womb there are 10 fingers, 10 toes and a heartbeat. Now it wouldn’t take, say, a top-flight physician at the Mayo Clinic to figure out that these are: THE HALLMARKS OF A HUMAN BEING! Yet while the fact seems so basic, so simple, many in society have come up with a tremendously complex set of rationalizations (read: rational lies) to justify killing these little babies. Note: While in Mansfield, Ohio, to give a Pro-life talk, I noticed the following bumper sticker: “Call me extreme, but I think dismembering babies in their mothers’ wombs is wrong.”
‘Fly me to the moon?’
Under the Obama administration, NASA continues on. The latest is an Aires I series of spacecraft to take man back to the moon. All the brightest and creative engineering minds out of Harvard, Yale, MIT, have combined on these tremendously expensive, ultra-sophisticated spacecraft to take us to places like the moon… where we can’t breathe the air, there’s no food, and there’s no gravity! I mean, common sense… Note: The other day at the YMCA here, someone had a t-shirt on that read: “Stupidity is not a crime. You’re free to leave.”
global warming, and hats
All eyes are on Copenhagen as the final days of the global warming summit heats up (avg. Joe pun). Kidding aside… It’s my bet the world leaders at the summit will be sitting in quite comfortable temperatures in their various, well-appointed conference rooms. And therein lies the rub. If we want to “Be the change you want to see in the world” (including these world leaders), it’s time to lose the air conditioning in the summer, turn the thermostat down in the winter and wear (Are you ready for this?) hats. No, really. Physiologists (or professionals like that) say 70% of our body heat escapes through the head. (My wife Liz would say that with the hole I have up there, it might be closer to 95%.) At our place in South Bend this winter, we’re regularly turning the thermostat down to 60 degrees and walking around the place wearing hats, sweaters, for some even gloves… During a talk on “environmental stewardship” in Wellington, Ohio, I explained that common sense says that if we want to save the planet for our kids, avert more drought and famine in the more arid countries, etc., etc., etc., we’re going to have to actually: sacrifice. Oops. There’s that “s” word. Note: An advertisement for a transmission shop here reads: South Bend Clutch “We motivate the shiftless.”
gangs and armed robbery
I went to a Catholic Worker social event Saturday night. Sitting next to me was a man I hadn’t seen before. I asked him where he was from. He said he’d just gotten out of prison, for armed robbery. He’d been in for 10 years, this time. Previously, he’d been in for three years for armed robbery. He told me he grew up in the projects of inner city Chicago. From an early age was involved with gangs. It was one of only a few ways to survive down there, he said. During these years, he’d been shot in the eye and lost his sight in it. He said violence was a way of life and it was unusual for him to go through a day in Chicago “without hearing gunshots.” This time out, he has hooked up with a non-profit group called Companions on the Journey and he wants to start a mentoring program through the organization — to help kids who are in similar situations to what he was in as a youth. Note: During an interview with the Bowling Green News in Ohio during a campaign swing, I said in a “saner world” kids wouldn’t have to dodge hunger, needles and bullets growing up in these urban areas. But the only way to really systemmically shift this, is for some of the people in suburban and small town America to take a deep breath, roll up their sleeves, and move into these urban areas to live side by side with those trapped down there. That simple. That hard.
“Where are the voices of reason?”
I recently talked with Ken Peters in South Bend, Indiana. He was stationed at Alamagordo Air Force Base in New Mexico next to White Sands — during the time the first atom bomb was tested. Since then, the U.S. has gone on to amass thousands of nuclear weapons. Peters is opposed to nuclear weapons proliferation and speaks out against it regularly. He points to Jack Mendelsohn, a former US. State Department official, who says America should stop waving the nuclear threat at potential adversaries. “This nation (U.S.) can’t become more secure by reserving for itself the right to use nuclear weapons — while preaching abstinence for the rest of the world,” says Mendelsohn. Ken wonders: “Where are the voices of reason?” … Ken Peters’s wife Ellie gave me a small pamphlet that explained some 57% of our national budget goes to the Military, while 6% goes to Health and Human Services; 4% goes to Education; 4% goes to Housing and Urban Development; 1% goes to the Environmental Protection Agency… Ellie wonders: Where are the voices of reason in these figures? Maybe they all ‘took the last train for the coast.’
Economy of Communion
In the last blog entry, I wrote about part of The New Economy we propose. The essence revolves around a much more simplified, small-scale humanitarian approach. Today I met with Professor Mike Griffin from Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. He, too, is interested in a major shift in the economy. What he proposes is an “Economy of Communion.” That is, the essence of transactions in this kind of economy would be centered on the common good. For instance, Professor Griffin is in the formulating stages of a class about the importance of exploring the dimensions of local agriculture. He would expose students to the concepts of local farmers growing for the local community and selling the food through local grocers, farmer’s markets, community sponsored agriculture… It is in this, that the interdependence between farmer and community members grows exponentially — bringing everyone is strong “communion” with each other. This only makes sense. Spiritual sense. Note: Professor Griffin is also a strong proponent of “fair trade,” which is about bringing us more in “communion” with our brothers and sisters in the Third World. Fair Trade promotes the selling of such things as coffee, clothes, arts & crafts… at “fair” prices to help farmers and artisans in poorer countries. Investing in things like fair trade is “putting flesh on the concept of love,” Professor Griffin added… Professor Griffin is a “friend of the Catholic Worker” in South Bend. The Catholic Worker was started by Dorothy Day. In her book Loaves and Fishes, Ms. Day writes that “poverty has many faces” and we must continually ask, not only how we are to help the poor in the immediate, but why the poor are poor systemically. And when we figure that out, then we are to, well, change the system(s). The New Economy we are working on, does this in spades.
reboot the economy
For the last week, I’ve been somewhat cloistered working on a significant update to our position paper on the economy. One of the resources I draw from is an article that appeared in Yes! Magazine. Author David Kroten writes that it should not be about pumping more stimulus money into a failing economic system construct. But rather, we should be creating: The New Economy. “There is good reason why both the Bush and Obama administrations, different as they are, have responded to the Wall Street crash with bailouts for the guilty, rather than face up to the need for a radical restructuring of the financial system,” writes Kroten. He goes on to propose that we reboot the economy by doing away with Wall Street financial speculation (which he says is nothing more than legalized gambling). And that we would also do well to go back to a small scale, decentralized local production for local consumption model that favors “productive work” and solid local investment. This only makes sense. Common sense.
Arctic ice melts at an alarming rate
An Associated Press article today said that permanent Arctic sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate. Multi-year sea ice used to cover 90% of the Arctic basin, but because of global warming it now covers only 19%. During a recent talk at Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana, I said to just slowly and incrementally cut back our fossil fuel use in the face of this mounting crisis is like “…rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” The U.S., which currently leads the world in the emission of greenhouse gases, needs to move from being a “Society of Consumers to a Society of Conservers,” quick. And there needs to be political leadership with the guts to tell Americans that we need to ration energy use, like things were rationed during World War II. And when you think about it from a common sense standpoint, it is war time again now. That is, there is a war on the environment. Note: The article also included the following paragraph: “The lack of sea ice may be good news to some who want to see the North opened to industry. Without thick ice blocking the way, shpis can more easily gain access to the Arctic’s natural resources.” This begs the question: Have we become that nuts that any of us would see this as “good news.”?
Foreclosure crisis, or opportunity?
An AP story today said that the “foreclosure crisis” is worsening. The latest evidence was a report Thursday that a rising proportion of fixed-rate home loans made to people with good credit are sinking into foreclosure nationwide, according to the article. The state hardest hit is Florida where one in four mortgages were either past due or in foreclosure… Now, this can be viewed as a “crisis.” Or this can be viewed as a step toward a part of the new economy we propose when it comes to real estate. In the new economy, many more people go to house-sharing. This halves expenses. The mortgage is half. The utilities are half. You share furniture, appliances, lawn equipment… Urban sprawl starts to reverse. Global warming gases diminish significantly. And money is freed up to help the poor here and around the world more… On a campaign stop in Winnona, Minnesota, we learned that town has a House-Share Program to help match people. Every town should have a similar program.