We’ve come back to Cleveland for a pit stop. On Monday our family attended a Zoning Board meeting at City Hall. Some 60 people had showed to support the Community Garden across the street that has replaced an abandoned asphalt parking lot. The Community Garden includes a chicken coup, which was the main point of contention. The business next door is a funeral home and the owner thought the chickens detracted from his business. Some 20 people in the audience spoke, touting: the addition of this new “green space” in the area; the community building aspects of the Garden; being able to buy organic produce and organic eggs locally… I said it had been a tremendous benefit to our children who regularly work in the garden. What’s more, I said while there has been concern in our area about illegal cock fighting, to my knowledge there was no illegal ‘chicken fighting’ going on. In fact, the kids in the neighborhood were allowed to “adopt a chicken,” even giving each a name. Our Jonathon, 5, named his chicken: “Spider Man Chicken…” The board voted unanimously to allow for the chicken coup based, primarily, on the large outpouring of support, said the Chairperson. Although I actually think once the Board learned the chickens were, in essence, “pets,” I mean, who would vote to take a kid’s pet away? Note: On the steps going down this morning, someone said: “Wasn’t this democracy in action?” And it was.
6/16/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: We sat in on a Conistoga Neighborhood meeting in Port Clinton, Ohio. The mayor and a city patrolman in charge of the Property Maintainance Code was there. The officer referred to broken down vehicles, old rusting refrigerators, et. al. as: “yard art.” He outlined a series of steps neighborhood homeowners can take to report this, etc. Later in the meeting, a local woman gave a short presentation on “stress relief” (especially if the yard art is getting on one’s nerves). Maha Najd from Oasis Healing Arts demonstrated deep breathing techniques — which my wife Liz decided to use during our next, oh, tiff. Speaking of stress relief… We stayed at a campground just south of Bowling Green Friday night. Severe weather was predicted and all the campers congregated at the brick social hall. A high intensity, very brief front blew through with black clouds and 75 mph winds. It lasted no more than five minutes. As our daughter Sarah, 12, and I sat on a bench outside just afterward looking at the clear sky at sunset behind the front, Sarah asked: “Do you think it’s over Dad?” I said (tongue in cheek) that just like there’s total calm in the eye of a hurricane, “…we’re probably sitting in the Midwest’s equivalent of that.” She looked sideways at me and said: “I think I’ll go talk to Mom.”
6/12/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: In the last week, we had some more signage put on the campaign vehicle at The Sign Shack in Findlay, Ohio. Owner Joe Langhals let our kids help in a variety of ways, and it turned into a kind of ‘Graphics 101 Motorhome Schooling Class’ for them. (It’s amazing the breadth of educational experiences they have on the road.) We’ve had other stuff done at The Sign Shack over the years, and find the quality of the work absolutely excellent. In fact, I was telling Mr. Langhals that if his new signs don’t get us to the White House this election — nothing will. Note: Findlay has had two relatively bad floods in the past year and Mr. Langhals said he and one of his employees, Ryan, were featured in a picture on the CNN website as they stood beside their riverside shop — knee deep in water. Shortly after we left Findlay, we heard a tornado touched down in nearby Arlington, Ohio. This natural disaster thing is just getting crazy this year in the Midwest. One would have to soberly ask if the severe Midwestern weather is another dimension of: global warming?
6/9/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour cont.: We headed into Findlay, Ohio, over the weekend. Sarah and I stood at the busy intersection of Bright Ave and Rte 224 holding two signs. They said: ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN; and, LORD, PLEASE FORGIVE OUR NATION… Some people honked and waved their support, others didn’t… We went to an ultra-new and tremendously expensive St. Michael’s Church for Sunday Mass. High gloss marble, high expansive ceilings, costly stained glass, central air condidtioning… One of the prayer intentions this morning was to remember the increasing number of people in the Third World who were hungry because of rising food prices. I wondered how many millions of meals the cost of this new church would have provided — for the poor? There is such a phenomenal spiritual disconnect in this country… We came across a group from the Stoney Ridge Church in Findlay who were walking through the streets praying for their neighbors, and the town in general. Findlay was devastated by a flood in 2007 and the group told us that their church and some 17 other churches in the area had set about praying for the town, and the souls of their neighbors.
6/7/08
Buckeye Back Road tour cont.: We traveled to Luckey, Ohio (pop. 1,000), where we stumped in the downtown area. I passed on a flyer to Town Administrator George Jensen who had a “loaves and fishes” t-shirt on. I smiled and told him I was hoping that loaves and fishes multiplication thing was going to happen with the campaign. George belongs to the Methodist Church here and is quite involved with helping the town food pantry. Great guy. I gave him a card to hang up on the Luckey Municipal Building bulletin board that said: “We’re hoping to get ‘Luckey.'” Get it? (I got a million of ’em.)… We then traveled to Bowling Green, Ohio, — home of Bowling Green State University — where I gave a talk at St. Thomas More Church (primarily to college students). I said people can get so lost in their studies, and academia in general, that they lose sight of trying to tangibly impact the pressing social issues of the day — [like abortion, World Hunger, global warming…] Probably the first time these students were told maybe not to study as much, huh. Note: The following is a link to a Green Party Presidential Candidate Press Conference I participated in last year talking about some of the latter issues.
6/6/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour: The Norwalk Reflector newspaper did a video on our campaign for their website http://www.goreflector.com/ (click on Videos and scroll down to Ordinary Joe in Norwalk). Later that day, our family stood on a street corner in Norwalk holding signs protesting abortion. While in Norwalk, we also took our kids to a park where they played with a 4-year-old boy who had so many inoperable tumors (non-malignant) in his cheek area and neck that he needed a tracheotomy just to breath. Great child, full of life and the nurse who was watching him this day told me he’s been accepted tremendously well by his peers at pre-school. Young kids are so accepting… We headed on to Port Clinton, Ohio, where I gave a talk at Immaculate Conception Church. Fr. John Missler there also gave a talk on “…loving your neighbor as yourself.” Afterward, I said that busying ourselves with extra-curricular activity, with entertainment, with over-working… while 4,400 little unborn babies are killed every day in America — with little protest — could not, in any way, be considered: “…loving your neighbor as yourself.” From Port Clinton, we drove into the heart of Toledo that night to stand in solidarity with a pro-Life group who went to an abortion clinic to pray the rosary outside as a “silent protest.”
6/4/08
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.