Buckeye Back Roads Tour cont: We traveled to Norwalk, Ohio, where I talked at a prayer group Monday night at St. Mary’s and during a Mass at St. Paul’s the following day. I talked about how abortion wouldn’t end until we, frequently, took to the streets. After the talk at St. Paul’s, our family did just that, took to the streets of downtown Norwalk. We held signs saying: ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN; PRAY TO END ABORTION; ABORTION HURTS WOMEN… Tuesday night we went to a prayer vigil to stop abortion at St. Paul’s. Deacon Jim Reichert said that in America now, one in four babies are aborted (read: killed). He said we kill more babies in one year in America now — than the number of all American soldiers killed in all our wars combined. Deacon Jim said that the gospel explains the greatest sacrifice is to lay down one’s life for another. Conversely, abortion is about “sacrificing the other person for my own good,” said the deacon. He also added that the Catholic Church looks at abortion as an “intrinsic evil,” according to a church pamphlet on “Faithful Citizenship.” Note: After the vigil, a group of parishioners got together to talk about setting up a committee to get the teachings about Faithful Citizenship into the hands of as many Catholics at St. Paul’s as possible before the November vote.
6/3/08
URGENT! To get on the ballot in Colorado (which polls show is a key swing state in this election), we need donations totalling $500. We also need nine (9) “electors” in Colorado. An elector is a registered voter who would commit to go to Colorado’s State House in December to cast a vote for us — if we won the election. This is a perfunctory part of the Electoral College System. Perhaps one of our supporters in Colorado could marshall getting nine electors in a particular area so you could, for instance, car pool to the State House. The deadline for all this is June 17. If you can help, would you e-mail me at joeschriner@hotmail.com or call 419-792-9059 Thank you. Note: We have campaigned extensively in Colorado over the years, and if it looks like we’re going to have a showing in Colorado, it might be enough to make our campaign a national story. But we need people to step up to help with this.
6/2/08
Buckeye Backroads Tour cont. We met William McCraken while stumping on the streets of Oberlin, Ohio, last week. He’s a real dynamo when it comes to the environment. He just took a job with the Sierra Club and is involved with an ad-hoc group in Oberlin called POWER. The group is designed to help low income people in the area get help to install alternative technologies and help people also get more insulation… It only stands to reason that if we’re serious about reversing global warming, then those who are environmentally conscious, and more well off financially, would start a local fund to help bring others up to ‘green speed,’ if you will. Common sense would say: We’re all in this global warming thing together.
5/30/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour cont. We are in motion again. This morning I gave a Pro-life talk at Sacred Heart Church in Oberlin, Ohio. Preceding the talk, the priest said that we all too often don’t take the gospel message seriously. He asked, for instance, how many people “…would leave Heaven to save someone from going to Hell?” I followed up by saying in the talk that we are so ensconsed in the comfort of our own homes (air conditioning, television, music…) — read ‘Heaven;’ while 4,400 little unborn babies go to their deaths everyday in America because of abortion. Shouldn’t we be forgoing our comfort to take to the streets regularly to protest, to fill the newspapers with pro-life letters to the editor, to fill our legislators’ offices with letters, to volunteer at, and tremendously fund, local crisis pregnancy centers…? So that babies don’t die and people don’t have to go to ‘Hell’ because of the choices they make to abort. I also posed: “If abortion continues because of our own sins of omission — will we, too, go to Hell?” Note: The priest also asked another fascinating question today. “How many of us would sell all that we own, [give the money to charity] and go live with the poor (in solidarity)?” While not going to that extent, yet, a Sacred Heart Peace and Justice Group member said their church has recently become part of a nine-church Interfaith Hospitality Network in Lorain County. These churches rotate in putting up homeless families.
5/27/08
The Phoenix spacecraft just landed on Mar’s norther polar region. According to an Associated Press article, the Phoenix will be digging trenches in the soil there to get to ice that is believed to be buried inches down. The samples will then be analyzed for organic compounds, “…the chemical building blocks of life.” A thought: We are spending billions of dollars looking at potential water sources on Mars; while literally billions of people on this planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. Wouldn’t the billions of dollars be better spent on, oh I don’t know, maybe helping more with “life” in this planet!? Note: During Campaign 2004, I told the Wapokaneta News in Wapokaneta, Ohio (home of astronaut Neil — “One large step for mankind…” — Armstrong), that as president, I would work hard to end the Space Program.
5/24/08
I just had an article posted on the new e-magazine Liberalati. Go to www.liberalati.com and scroll down. The article it titled: Environmental Murderers. Note: In the last blog entry, I mention we are just readying to leave on our next campaign tour leg and we need donations. If you can help: Schriner Presidential Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113 thank you… Joe
5/20/08
The New York Times carried a piece yesterday describing anti-immigration mob violence in Johanesburg South Africa. Groups of vigilantes were taking to the streets to beat and burn to death recent immigrants to this city from the country of Zimbabwe, where poverty there is off the charts. Many of the Zimbabwe refugees in Johanesburg live in tiny, squatter hovels just trying to scrape by (which is, sadly enough, better than how it was for them in Zimbabwe). Problem is South Africa has a 23% unemployment rate and people here are now being affected by the rising food prices as well. So as a backlash against the people from Zimbabwe who have sought refuge here, the South African mobs are barbarically terrorizing them. The only thing more ‘barbaric’ are people in the First World (Americans included) who continue to surround themselves with nice cars, central air conditioning, televisions, nice furniture, three meals a day and snacks… in the midst of so much relievable world suffering! These people in the hovels are the ‘Lazarrus the beggar at our gate (Biblical parable)’ thanks to, well, the New York Times. And it is our selfishness in America, our self indulgence in regard to things we’ve conned ourselves into thinking are ‘necessities’ in this country (air conditioning, entertainment centers, the newest comfortable mattress, dinners out…), that are keeping so much more life-giving resources from those living (and dying) in desperation in the Third World. In the parable I allude to, there’s a “rich” guy who doesn’t help Lazarrus significantly enough. The ‘rich’ guy goes to Hell. How many of us are gambling our eternities on all the things that aren’t really necessities — while billions of people live in abject poverty (like squater hovels) worldwide? It’s a gamble I believe is tremendously foolish to take. Note: We will be leaving on our next campaign tour next Wednesday and need donations to help with the tour. Our’s, we believe, is a voice that’s vital for our times. Please help us reach as many as possible. Thanks. Schriner Presidential Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113
5/15/08
A couple weeks back, I gave a talk at the Christopher Program, an Alternative High School in downtown Columbus, Ohio. The class I talked in was doing some tremendously creative “Service Learning” projects. One student was doing an education program about “Environmental Awareness in the Work Place.” Another student was working with a local social service agency to help further awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault. Yet another student was doing a form of street theatre to raise awareness about safe driving habits… As a spin-off, I said I’d interviewed a man who owns a Driving School in Loudonville, Ohio. he told me there are 33,000 traffic fatalities every year in America, one death every 13 minutes. That’s almost five deaths every hour, or 120 traffic deaths a day. The man said that would be the equivalent of a half-full airliner going down every day in this country! America has lost a little more than 4,000 Service people in Iraq over five years. We’ve lost some 165,000 motorists during that same time. Our roads have become “war zones,” it’s just that we don’t look at it that way, I said. Among a number of things, I said our administration would push to have highway speed limits go back to 40 mph, like they were in 1941. This would significanlty save on gas, cut down, just as significantly, on carbon dioxide gas emissions, and make the highways tremendously safer. Several students indicated I might not get a lot of votes with that stance… Note: Several days later, I got an e-mail from Jonathan Renard, one of the Christopher Program students. He wrote: “I especially found it interesting when you said: ‘Do you want to vote for a president that says what you want to hear, or do you want to vote for a president that challenges your thoughts?’ I have been thinking about that all weekend,” he added.
5/12/08
We have dilineated between “legal” and “civil” matters in this country. But are we always using common sense in this dilineation? Example: I walk into a retail store and steal a pair of shoes. I’m charged with “shoplifting” and given a fine and, perhaps, some jail time. I walk into a retail store and buy a pair of shoes on my credit card. Instead of paying the monthly fee, however, I take that money to go out and buy more stuff for myself. In this case, have I, in effect, stolen the shoes as well? Common sense would say: yeah. Yet, I’m not prosecuted. Note: It would seem to me that we’ve created a terribly complex, and convoluted, economic system. And this scenario is just one example. What’s more, this has clouded our spiritual perceptions as well. That is, you’re average American consumer would look at the ‘credit card / shoe’ scenario I outline as purely an economics concern, not a spiritual concern as well.
5/8/08
I gave a talk to a high school “Justice Group” in Cleveland this week. It is part of the Catholic Schools for Peace and Justice (www.cspj.net) network here. I learned the group has sponsored such events as “Dance for Darfur,” which raised some $7,000 for Darfur, explained CSPJ coordinator Augie Pacetti. These high school students have also done events to promote “Fair Trade” and help the “Invisible Children” of Uganda. They help with tutoring at a neighborhood “Arrupe House” program. They do street outreach to the inner city poor… When senior Nick Drosos was asked why he’s involved, he simply replied: “I just think it’s right.” Enough said. Note: Our Education platform calls for a paradigm shift, if you will. That is, we would like to see one-third of school curriculum be “Service Learning” projects — like the ones this Cleveland “Justice Group” is involved with –out in the local community, and in the world at large.