Buckeye Back Road Tour: We stumped in downtown Bainbridge, Ohio, yesterday. At Paxton Restaurant, Don Shoemaker told me he refers to Bainbridge’s Fall Festival of Leaves as the Fall Festival of Theives. “The carnies come in every year and take all our money,” he smiled. Shoemaker, who is a dairy farmer, said his biggest lament is so many farmers have to have additional jobs off the land to make ends meet these days… We then drove into Chilicothe, Ohio, the state’s first capitol. I talked to a man who said he used to live in Missouri and supported one candidate for governor who, for social justice reasons, proposed turning the State House there into a homeless shelter. (Coincidentally, that’s what we propose turning the White House into. I mean, ‘what would Jesus do’ with all the space?)… Today we took a back road into Kinnikinnick. (I still can’t pronounce it and someone took great pains to teach me how to pronounce it.) Anyway, Kinnikinnick is a Native American name for: “bark from the willow tree.” The Native Americans actually smoked this. Something the country won’t have to worry about me ‘inhaling.’ …Then it was on to Aldelphi, which is 7 miles from Tar Hollow. There on the street I met Terry Seymour who was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. I told him I was an Ohio State fan, but was going to give him a flyer anyway. He smiled and told me that in 1908, Ohio State had lost to Michigan 88-0 — and they actually called the game in the middle of the third quarter. On the train ride back, apparently the Ohio State guys came up with the words to their “fight song.” (Michigan fans like to tell ya that kind of stuff.) I then walked into Henerson Hardware in Aldelphi, and right into the middle of the town brain trust. A group of guys were sitting around in the circle discussing, well, things. Dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt and dirty work books — I told them I was running for president. It was like one of those old Merrill Lynch commercials, everybody got real quiet. Ok, some I’m not a household name yet.
2/7/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour: We stopped in a number of small towns and burgs in Adams County, Ohio, this week. In Unity, Ohio (Amish country), we visited Ryan’s Grocery. It is a very small store with old wooden floors and a couple black van seats positioned near a space heater. A spot, I’m sure, where the town brain trust meets regularly and a scene not unlike one Norman Rockwell would have featured in his painting. Owner Eugene Ryan, 82, told me he’s the third generation to own the store. But, sadly, none of his children want to take it over. Besides, it’s struggling (like many similar, small local stores these days) to stay afloat because the big stores are taking a good deal of his business. Mr. Ryan, who is Presbyterian, said Jesus was continually saying in the gospel message that we are to “help” those around us as much as possible. Yet, Mr. Ryan continued, we’ve instead set up a system where we primarily “compete” with those around us. The folly of man vs. the wisdom of God, Mr. Ryan concluded. Note: For a remedy to our hyper-competitive equation in America, see our position paper on what we feel would be a saner version of the economy.
2/4/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour: We stopped in tiny Dunkinsville, Ohio, early this morning. There was a church with a yard sign out front that had a flag and the words: God Bless America. I left a flyer for the pastor and wrote on the top: God Bless America (and the rest of the world, too)… We then went to Mass at Holy Trinity Church in West Union where, wouldn’t you know, the opening song was, well, This Is My Song. A few lines: “This is my home, the country where my heart is; Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine; But other hearts in other lands are beating, With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.” Referencing the song, Holy Trinity Pastor Fr. Ted Kosse said that maybe we “have this immigration thing wrong.” That is, “home is home,” he continued, and seldom do people want to leave their home for another land. It’s just that the poverty is often so extreme that people are forced to go elsewhere just to feed their children, etc. (At one point, our research took us to the border town of Juarez, Mexico, where 200,000 people live in cobbled together shacks with no running water, no electricity and the adults are making a mere $3 a shift at multi-national factories.) Fr. Kosse suggested we mobilize many humanitarian initiatives into some of these other countries to help make them as sustainable as possible, so people didn’t have to leave their homes. Note: Several days earlier during another church service, Fr. Kosse noted that we are currently spending $2 billion dollars a week on the Iraq War. And he said he thought this money could be much better spent on water purification systems for the Third World, on food for those starving in the Third World, etc. Today he said our policy on Iraq exudes “arrogance.” That is, the U.S. seems to be erroneously saying with it’s actions that it is “working on God’s behalf to take care of the globe.” What’s more, Fr. Kosse said to the Iraq culture (and others in the Middle East) our blatant sexuality and blatant greed are the anti-thesis of their cultural moores; yet these things are now invading, and tremendously influencing, some Iraqis. Fr. Kosse also added that the U.S. also displays “blatant selectivity.” He pointed to China and their human rights abuses and said we wouldn’t take them on over it because China is a “big boy.” However, we’re not afraid to take on smaller countries.
2/2/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour: We spent last the evening with Moses Keim, his wife and his son’s family in Oliver Township, Ohio. They are Amish. We talked about declinining, moral standards (like modesty of dress), our nuclear proliferation, abortion… I find many Amish to be extremely clear thinkers, filled with common sense and unfettered by much of society’s mad, convoluted rush at this point. And Mr. Keim is no exception. He is well read and quite a deep thinker. This evening we also talked about an accident that occured just up the road from the Keim’s. An Amish buggy with a family of six was hit head on by an SUV a couple weeks back. Although the whole family was ejected from the buggy, everyone, except the mother who had some head trauma, miraculously escaped serious injury. Mr. Keim said it would be best if we went back to a society where horse power was provided by, well, horses. That is, a decentralized society where people buggied, bicycled or walked most places locally. (This could also include, say, some slow solar powered and electric vehicles for local tansportation as well.) Meanwhile, gasoline would be reserved solely for public transportation and some necessary trucking. He continued that this would immediately curtail our dependence on foreign oil, which in turn would de-escalate international tensions. I couldn’t help but think how dramatically this would also cut back on our global warming emmissions, moving us toward much better environmental stewardship. And the streets would be safer, with an exponent of 100. And before any of us scoff at the proposal, maybe we should all be doing a whole lot more ‘deep thinking’ about it.
2/1/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour: We campaigned in West Union, Ohio, where I was interviewed by People’s Defender newspaper reporter Carleta Weyrich. She lives on a farm and said she is concerned about rural issues, as are many people in Adams County. County Commissioner Brian Baldridge told me that many people here are now doing the “6 O’clock shuffle,” as he colloquially refers to it. That is, with the relatively new, four-lane Route 32 coming out of the Cincinnati area, many here are now commuting an hour each way into Cincinnati to work. This, for one, sends continual plumes of global warming emmissions upward. And with the advent of Route 32, Adams County will soon be in the jaws of urban sprawl, a cancer that is eating away at farmland all over the country. As a solution, we propose the “20-hour-work-week-shuffle.” Translated: We ask people to cut back dramatically on their lifestyles, go to things like house sharing to halve expenses, and job share in local settings.
1/31/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour: We were in Peebles, Ohio, today where my son Jonathon, 4, and I walked about the town passing out flyers. Afterward we went to the Village Inn Restaurant to get Jonathon some hot chocolate (well, I have to take care of the staff). While in the restaurant, I heard someone ask a friend for a cigarette. The friend suggested they should quit. “What I should do, and what I do — are two different things,” the smoker smiled… Later today I wrote a letter to the editor of the Peebles Messenger. (When you don’t have millions for advertising, flyers, local articles and letters-to-the-editor are often the best you can do.) In the letter I mentioned that many people these days seem to be like this smoker, not doing what they “should do, or not do” Then I mentioned, for instance, that there’s an astronomical 60% divorce rate in the country. In no small part because people are not turning most television off. During a talk to a Moral Theology Class at Bluffton College several years ago, I said that husbands and/or wives sit for hours watching prime time television featuring provocatively dressed men and women. (The actual act of intentionally watching these shows, in no small part, breaks the 9th Commandment about ‘coveting your neighbors wife/husband.’ And the reason you’re seldom, if ever, confronted by a priest or minister about this these days is because, you guessed it, the priests and ministers are watching the same prime time shows.) Anyway, unconsciously the other spouse starts to get angry and jealous about this viewing and begins acting out overtly or passive aggressively. This continues to escalate — compounded by other dysfunction — and eventually the couple becomes part of the 60% divorce rate, and children tragically get caught in the crossfire as well.
1/30/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour: I headed down the Appalachian Highway in southwest Ohio today, stopping first in Seaman, which is totally land locked. Go figure. At Best Hardware I handed the guy behind the counter a flyer that was signed “my best.” And I’m doing this all without a political consultant. I then stumped in the Seaman Barber Shop, which has a big, granite “10 Commandments” stone in the window. The 10th Commandment jumped out at me: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods.” So let’s say I have a perfectly good 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Then I watch an advertisement for a new Honda Accord, start to covet it, and eventually spend some 22,000 bucks on it (or whatever). Some 22,000 bucks I could have spent helping homeless people in Cleveland. So, have I broken the 10th Commandment? Well, sure. The only reason you’re not hearing that from the pulpit these days is most priests, ministers, etc., are, that’s right, driving new Honda Accords (or whatever)… From Seaman, I drove to Winchester, Ohio, where I stumped with the regulars at Alice’s Restaurant where, that’s right again, “…you can get anything you want.” (That’s actually what the sign says out front.) And one of the things the menu says is that it is a: clean restaurant. “Not necessarily squeaky clean in a neurotic sense, but comfortably clean like Grandma’s house.” After then passing out some flyers around town, I headed further west to Sardinia, Ohio. In Sardinia I talked to Dave Carrington at Carrington Auto Care. He said he remembered the raitioning of sugar and gasoline during World War II. I couldn’t help but think we should consider gas rationing in this country again in the face of the catastrophic global warming we’re facing now. I mean it’s a war situation as well. That is, we’re making ‘war’ on the environment with our gluttonous American lifestyles. Note: I put up a flyer in a gorcery store in Sardinia that said: “Sardinia: VOTE OUTSIDE THE CAN!” I got a million of ’em.
1/29/08
Buckeye Back Road Tour: Worked on changing the transmission fluid and oil on our campaign vehicle with Eli Hostetler and Mark Hedge in Jelloway, Ohio, over the weekend. At Mass on Sunday in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, I talked with Kelly Schermerhorn whose daughter is going on a missions trip through Ashland University to an orphanage in Cambodia. During our Campaign 2004 research, I interviewed a Mary Knoll priest who was working amidst the abject poverty in Cambodia. He called Americans “food terrorists” because we massively overeat, let tremendous amounts of food spoil and spend billions of dollars on non-nutritional junk food — while 24,000 people starve to death every day in the world… On Monday we stumped on the square in Mt. Vernon and photographer Eric Burdett from the Mt. Vernon News captured it on film… We then traveled some backroads to Centerburg, Ohio, where I stumped at the In Town Restaurant which was located, that’s right, ‘in town.’ (Not much gets passed me.)… It was then on to Washington Court House, Ohio, where we campaigned at the Court House View Restaurant which has a view of, that’s right again, the downtown Court House. Afterward, I was interviewed by The Record Herald for a video piece on their website.
1/28/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour: From Mansfield, we traveled south to Jelloway, Ohio. (Not in anyway a reflection on the campaign of course, Jello.) We stayed at the Hedge farm here where Liz and I stacked wood Saturday morning. Amidst strain and perspiration, Liz quoted author Gene Logsdon: “Wood warms you twice, once when you’re collecting it and again when you’re burning it.” That evening, we were involved with the equivalent of a small town hall meeting at Eli Hostetler’s home up the road here. We talked politics in relation to the Christian message. Everyone here, for instance, was pro-life and I added what I believe is another dimension to the pro-life message. That is, if say in God’s mind he wants a family to have six children, but because of lifestyle choices and artificial contraception, the couple chooses to have only three children — are the three children you don’t have: abortions?
1/26/08
Buckeye Back Roads Tour: We did a “whistle-stop” in downtown Mansfield, Ohio, yesterday. It was frigid 7 degrees. A reporter from, coincidentally enough, Channel 7 News asked me what some of my main issues were. I said one of the top ones was global warming (this day not withstanding)… After the event, my son Joseph and I walked over to the square to take some pictures of the Martin Luther King Jr. monument. It is a dark marble stone, with a tremendously moving, almost surreal-looking, painting of Dr. King leading a Civil Rights march.