I talked with a group of students from Creighton University in Oklahoma last week at the Catholic Worker around the corner. They told me they were here for their Spring Break. That is, while a good number of college students were off caught up in frivilous revelry in sunny, southern Florida, these Jesuit students were here in overcast, 30 degree Cleveland, Ohio. They told me they were spending the week volunteering at several Soup Kitchens and at a drop-in center for the homeless because, well, that’s what their faith calls them to… I couldn’t help but think of a young couple we met during a campaign stop in North Carolina several years ago. They were engaged and were to be married soon. For their “honeymoon” they were going on a two week trip to Guatemala to do humanitarian outreach work. “We are concecrating our marriage with an act of service,” said Heather. Note: While traveling through southern Alabama in 2005, I saw a billboard that simply said: “That love thy neighbor thing? I meant that.” –God It seems these Creighton students and the young couple in North Carolina have figured out how to do this.
3/16/09
The economy. It appears to be going in the tank. People are pointing fingers at Wall Street, at banking institutions, at over extended consumers… Yet is there, perhaps, a base moral component many of us are simply not seeing? That is, we are approaching 50 million abortions in the U.S. What’s more, we are absolutely trashing the environment with all the carbon dioxide emissions (read: global warming). Then there are all the suburban Americans living (comparitively speaking) in ease, while billions of our brothers and sisters live in tremendous abject poverty in Third World slums. I could go on with this, but the point is: In the face of all this, maybe what’s happening with the economy is our ‘Jonah/Nineveh moment.’
3/14/09
I talked with Bridgette Kelly who recently returned from a Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua. She toured both the rural areas and the city of Managua. Ms. Kelly said small subsitence farmers there are being tremendously hurt by globalization (NAFTA, CAFTA…) that allows for corporate farms in America to undersell these Nicaraguan farmers — at their own local markets. This is a tremendous social justice travesty. What’s more, Ms. Kelly said of her stop in Managua that she had never seen so many “thin, hungry people.” Meanwhile, 66% of Americans are now considered “overweight.” If you do the math, wouldn’t it make sense (spiritual common sense) for some of us in America to cut back on our food intake and help these people more in Managua? Sure it would.
3/11/09
There was an article yesterday that said NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander had a “set of little globules attached to the struts on Phoenix’s legs.” Researchers say this could indicate there is indeed water on Mars. As I read this, I couldn’t help but think we have spent billions of dollars on Mars missions to, among other things, find out whether there’s water there or not. Yet we know for sure that millions of people on this planet don’t have safe drinking water. Couldn’t that money have been better spent on, oh, helping purify the water for all these desperate people?! Note: On a campaign stop in Wapokeneta, Ohio, I told the newspaper there that as president I’d lobby to end the Space Program and funnel the money into more foreign aid. Incidentally, Wapokeneta is the hometown of astronaut Neil (“One small step for mankind…”) Armstrong. We try not to pander to anyone.
3/9/09
We’re concerned about Iran and North Korea developing nuclear missiles. Meanwhile, we have thousands of nuclear missiles aimed all over the world — including at Iran and North Korea. HELLO AMERICA! During an interview in northwestern Ohio, I posed this question to an ABC News reporter from Toledo: “What if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana?” Note: A friend of ours in Cleveland, Fr. Ben Jimenez, said recently: “Nuclear disarmament begins at home.”
3/7/09
The New York Times reported today that President Obama will be reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research at a ceremony on Monday. According to the article, Obama said this signals a general return to “sound science.” And one proponent sited in the article said that this will return us to an era of “scientists making scientific decisions.” …The article calls these “human embryos.” The word “human” should be, oh, a big hint to us. Who out there hasn’t initially been: a human embryo? Translated: We’re killing people at the earliest stage of their life. I mean, it wouldn’t take an ethics professor, a scientists or even a president who went to Harvard to figure this one out. Note: The national news carried a story today about a man in Cleveland who killed his new wife, her sister and three young children with a semi-automatic weapon. It happened on W. 89th St. just two miles west of us. Today I took our kids to a Recreation Center halfway between W. 89th St. and our place. While playing basketball, I noticed a 10-year-old kid standing nearby. He had a pronounced scar that ran from the corner of his eye all the way down to his chin. I asked what happened. He, rather matter of factedly, said someone knifed him when he was five. America’s big cities are becoming such war zones.
3/4/09
A New York Times story this week noted President Barack Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range nuclear weapons… As president, I would nix all plans to build missile defense systems, anywhere, I told the Gainsville (TX) Daily Register during a campaign tour. I mean, how does this square with the Gospel message? Thousands are dying of hunger everyday worldwide and millions of people don’t have clean drinking water. Yet we’re willing to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into even more protection for us in the face of so much potentially relievable human suffering. C’mmon. Note: I saw the following two bumper stickers on the same car yesterday: 1) I think. Therefore I am. 2) I have no idea where I’m going. Apparently this person’s not ‘thinking’ enough. Just like some of us might not be ‘thinking’ enough on this missile defense system thing.
3/2/09
The March 2009 edition of National Geographic had a piece about saving energy in the face of advancing global warming. It was noted that Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, notes that to stay below the threshold of critical global warming tipping points America alone must cut back it’s CO2 emissions by 80%. The following figures represent pounds of CO2 emitted per item per year in an average U.S. household: washer: 153; electric dryer: 1,521; television: 548; desk top PC: 321; dishwasher: 599; central air conditioner: 4,067… So how do we cut this by 80%? Simple. Sacrifice. Our family has. We don’t use air conditioning. We hang the clothes on a line outside or in the basement. We decided not to have a television. I use the computer at the library on average about a half an hour a day. We don’t have an electric dishwasher, we got kids… I’m tired of hearing how people are slowly easing into this conservation thing. The crisis is immediate! Our response should be immediate!
2/26/09
We had the Republicans weigh in after Mr. Obama’s speech to Congress Tuesday. Now it’s the “average Joe” response: Mr. Obama ended his speech with: “God bless America.” Do we think God is going to bless a nation that is dismembering 4,000 babies in their mothers’ wombs every day? Do we think God is going to bless a nation where a significant number of people are living in suburban comfort, while billions of people worldwide are either homeless or living in Third World slums? Do we think God is going to bless a nation where 66% of it’s occupants are overweight (33% obese), while billions of people are tremendously malnourished and 25,000 people starve to death daily? Who are we kidding, but ourselves? This is what should have been said Tuesday night to that room full of people dressed in their $300 suits. Incidentally, $300 could feed a small Third World village for a month. Note: The road to heaven is narrow and definitely not paved with opinion polls.
2/18/09
President Obama was in Arizona yesterday announcing his new plan to curb home foreclosures. He said there are currently some 6 million homes in foreclosure or at risk of foreclosure. (Many of these are your average size, or bigger, suburban homes.) This wave of foreclosure, the president said, is putting the “American Dream” in jeapordy for many. Maybe it should be the other way around… That is, instead of families scrambling to stay in these places — maybe they should look to home sharing with another family and cut expenses (mortgage, utililites, furniture, appliances…) in half. At this, all of these American families would still be living way better than billions of people who live in the Third World often without just the basics in adequate shelter, food, medicine… So if we connect the dots here: If some of this home-sharing savings in America starts going to more help for people in these Third World countries — doesn’t the “American Dream” get realigned a bit better with, oh I don’t know, maybe the Gospel message? Note: I was just reading the kids a story today in the Bible about a farmer who has a good crop and fills his barn up. But instead of giving the rest of the crop away to the poor, the “fool” (Jesus’s word) decides to build another barn and store it for himself. Are we doing the same by hoarding all this home space for ourselves in America, while billions live worldwide in tiny slum dwellings? Sure we are.