I just wrote a letter-to-the-editor of our diocesan Catholic newspaper in Cleveland. It follows: Should the social justice onus for not having a higher minimum wage in America simply be on legislators, or should we all share the blame? In your recent “Just Speaking” column, Dennis Sadowski notes that getting paid $5.15 an hour (prevailing minimum wage) equates to $10,712 a year. That puts a family of three, for instance, at the lower margin of the poverty line. And Mr. Sadowski writes: “It’s a moral outrage to think that most of our elected representatives have abandoned the poor.” And it is. But we, too, have abandoned the poor… A reading at church Sunday was from 2 Corinthians where Paul is exhorting the early church: “…but as a matter of equality, your abundance at the present time should supply their (those less well off) needs.” So, I wonder, what would keep a Cleveland suburbanite family who enjoys “abundance at this present time” from turning off the air conditioning, gettting a bus pass to go to work in the city, foregoing the large screen TV, nixing the dinners at Applebies… finding a family of three living on minimum wage — and giving them the savings, each year? Answer: Selfishness. Note: Tomorrow we celebrate our “freedom.” What that means to me, in it’s essence, is that we have ‘freedom’ to follow God’s will, or not. That is, for example, we have freedom to follow the 2 Corinthians passage (the way it’s written), or not. Note 2: Our family will boycott the fireworks tomorrow. I just read where Independence, Ohio, had to cancel their fireworks this year because they couldn’t raise the $30,000 that’s needed for the display. And, I would imagine, that sum is fairly typical for most intermediate sized towns across America… Scores of little children starving to death daily in the Third World and we’re spending millions of dollars on our 20 minutes of entertainment tomorrow night? Again, we have the ‘freedom’ to do God’s will, or not: Millions on fireworks? Food for starving children? Does anyone really think God would opt for the fireworks. Note 3: Speaking of money, we continue to ask for campaign donations to help get this message out farther: Schriner Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113.

I’ve spent part of the week painting the porch of a young couple’s place in Cleveland. In their bathroom is a daily calender with thoughts from around the world. The June 27th entry was a Ugandan proverb: “Before you throw the knife, look for the needle.” The analogy in Christian circles would be (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘Before you endeavor to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye, remove the plank from your own eye.’ Now, onward to North Korea… This country has one long-range Taepondong 2 missile fueled and ready, perhaps, for a test launch. One missile. A ‘needle,’ metaphorically. Or a ’splinter,’ metaphorically… Meanwhile back in Montana, we have 2,000 long-range nuclear missiles aimed — all over the world. 2,000 missiles. A ‘knife,’ metaphorically. A ‘plank,’ metaphorically. Average Joe Zen-like question: What’s up with this!? Note: On a Campaign 2000 tour leg, I interviewed Fr. Tom McAslin, who was the Social Action Coordinator for the Omaha Diocese in Nebraska. He told me he believed ‘removing the plank from our (America’s) own eye,’ collectively, meant nothing short of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Nebraska proverb: “You do the right thing, and then trust God,” said Fr. McAslin.

For prayer time yesterday, I read the family part of a front page NY Times article about the desperate conditions in the Congo. According to the article, in less than a decade more than 400 million people have died there. It has been the deadliest conflict since World War II. Militias continually drive people out of their villages and into the surrounding jungle to fend for themselves. People are dying of starvation, of disease… The article focused on the small, rural town of Aveba, where some of the refugees are currently arriving. Typical of their state, one single mother and her five children arrived in Aveba with a metal bowl, what little food they had, and a few cooking implements. (Next time you’re in Wal-Mart about to purchase yet another thing you don’t need, you might want to think hard about this mother and her children in Aveba.) Doctors Without Borders is in this area of Africa, but they need way more medical supplies… After the reading, our family passed around an envelope to contribute money to Doctors Without Borders. (Next time you’re about to contribute to your local church’s Building Fund to get the new air-coniditioning system, the new dishwasher for the social hall, the new church addition…, you might want to, again, think hard about the mother and her children in Aveba.) We’ll be judged on this stuff. …Our American consumer culture is so seductive.

I’m coaching an inner city Little League baseball team this summer. After our practice last night, I gathered the youth together and told them I expected them to practice some more between now and the first game. One boy, from a cluster of Black youth who hang out together, approached me and asked: “Can we borrow a ball so we can practice?” Note: During Campaign 2000 we did a stop in Keene, New Hampshire, where I learned about some dialogue between an inner city child in this state and his teacher. The teacher asked the child what he had eaten for breakfast that day. The child replied: “It wasn’t my turn to eat.” …I told the Keene Sentinel newspaper that we were asking suburban Americans to cut back considerably on their lifestyles — so these little inner city kids can eat breakfast, regularly — [and have a ball to throw around.]

I’m just finishing the update on our position paper on “the Environment.” In it I mention meeting with David Orr, one of the top environmentalists in the country and the head of Oberlin College’s Environmental Science Department. He told me it was his belief many in America are: “biophobic.” That is, nature has become an “enemy” to be tamed. We now, for the most part, live “comfortably” in temperature controlled homes, businesses, motor vehicles… The closest people actually come to weather anymore is, well, the Weather Channel. We are, in effect, afraid (read: biophobic) of such conditions as: cold, hot, wet, muddy… And if we look at nature as the “enemy,” we aren’t very apt to want to save it. And so the environmental cancers of urban sprawl, global warming, acid rain, ozone holes… march on.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer Religion section ran a story about Northeast Ohio’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). They referred to the CYO sports league of some 11,000 4th to 8th graders as a landmark program that puts Catholic (id, post_author, post_date, post_content, post_title, post_category, post_excerpt, post_status, comment_status, ping_status, post_password, post_name,to_ping, pinged, post_modified) VALUES ahead of winning…” The first program of it’s kind in the country, the CYO has recently established guaranteed-playing-time-rules. It’s colloqially called: “No Child Left on the Bench.” For instance, on basketball teams of 10 or less (which is the great majority of squads) each player must play at least half the game for fourth to sixth graders. Seventh and eighth graders must play at least one quarter, the article noted… On the inner city rec. league baseball team I’m coaching this summer, not only is each youth required to play each game, but it is also suggested that there be a “rotation.” That is just like in volley ball, after each batter, the players in the field move to the next position (first to second base, left field to center field…) so each youth (ages 8 to 13) get a chance to see where they play best… Note: During Campaign 2000, we came across a ‘Field of Dreams,’ if you will, in tiny Arthur, Illinois, that best epitomizes trading off some competition for character development and community building.

Cleveland — Persistent rains battered the region yesterday… started a Plain Dealer article today. In 24 hours, the area had an average rainfall of about 5 inches. In Kenya, it only rains 9 inches, a year. In Tanzania sometimes, it’s even less. At a campaign stop in Hibbings, Minnesota, several years ago, I interviewed Sheila Arimond who went on a mission trip to Tanzania. She told me that every day she would walk to a dry creek bed with some rural villagers to dig for water. Sometimes they’d find water, sometimes they wouldn’t. And if they didn’t, these people would go thirsty that day… Returning to America, Sheila (who lives in a modest, one-story ranch style home) told me the Tanzanian experience made her reflect on the “opulence” of her life… “I’d feel guilty turning on the water,” she said. Note: In the Environmental Position Paper I continue to update this week, I talk about this Third World water scarcity and what Americans can do to help. At the very least, we can, indeed, feel guilty about our excessive water use (in comparison to the Third World), and we can, for instance, take “GI showers” or share bath water — and funnel the hot water heating savings to humanitarian aid efforts into Tanzania, Kenya… And that’s just a couple of a multitude of conservation strategies to help people in the Third World… And they will ask: “But Lord, when did we see you thirsty?”

A front page story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper today said gas prices may go as high as $3.25 a gallon this summer. Good. That will mean some people will drive less. And if they drive less, there will be less global warming gases. And in all this, we might also move a step (excuse the pun) or two toward a more “decentralized” society. A vignette from our Back Road to the White House book about Campaign 2000: In tiny Sea Level on North Carolina’s east coast, I talked with James Styron, 61. When he grew up here, there were several oyster factories, a couple restaurants, a General Store where the “old guys” played checkers around a pot belly stove and the youth in the town listened to their life stories. “Everyone was close,” Styron said. Then Styron’s grandfather became the first in town to get a Model T., the first affordable car for the “average Joe” in America. The grandfather started to drive out of town a bit, then a bit more. Others in town followed suit in their new Model Ts. With this increased mobility, not only was there more global warming gases, but bigger stores started to go up in more central locations (read: “centralism”) between these small towns. Because the stores were bigger, they could carry items at bigger volume. And because of this volume, the stores could also sell at cheaper prices. This meant that the small downtown establishments in towns like Sea Level started going out of business. (At the far end of the continuum these days, read: Wal Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot…) As the small stores started going out of business, the downtown shopping and gathering places started to evaporate, in kind, leaving only a trace, if that, of an echo of the ‘old guys’ voices. Mr. Styron told me about the grandfather’s Model T. with a touch of pride. Then in the next breath said he was at a loss for what went wrong in the town — and why people “weren’t that close” anymore… I take what I said back at the beginning of this entry. Maybe it would be better if gasoline went to $6.25 a gallon this summer… There goes a few more votes, huh.

I continue to update our position paper on the environment. Yesterday I was writing about “water power.” At a stop in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, during Campaign 2004, we learned there is a project underway there to harness wave action from the Atlantic Ocean. A big, pencil-shaped buoy is being placed off shore. It has the capability of capturing energy from the continual motion of the waves, then transfering it into electricity. In it’s pilot phase, the project will generate electricity for: 500 homes. Wave action is endless and an excellent source of clean, renewable energy… NASA is spending billions of dollars trying to get to Mars to see if there was ever any water there. Meanwhile, there’s water on this planet that can generate all kinds of clean power, as opposed to global warming gases that are now imminently threatening the earth. Question: Wouldn’t it be just plain ole’ common sense that all these billions of NASA dollars be better spent on technology around these big pencil-like things?

The following is an excerpt from the beginning of a column I’m currently working on: Okay, let’s talk “weapons of mass destruction.” They seem to be causing the darndest problems these days. We thought Iraq had them. And boy, look what happened (and is still happening) as a result. What’s more, Iraq, it turns out, didn’t even have weapons of mass destruction. Now it’s Iran (with North Korea is only a test launch away as well). We (read: U.S.) think its Iran’s intention to make nuclear bombs. They say they’re just interested in making nuclear energy. Who is to say for sure? I mean we relied on “intelligence” before, and it turned out not to be, well, so ‘intelligent’… One thing is for sure. The way I see it, you don’t need much intelligence to know: We (read: U.S.) have about 10,000 weapons of mass destruction aimed at countries all over the globe. “What if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana?” I posed to an ABC News correspondent in Findlay, Ohio, just before the Iraq War started… Question: Does anyone out there see a glaring irony in all this?

We took our children to the Michael J. Zone Rec. Center in Cleveland for the start of “Rookie League Baseball.” This first day they were short a coach and asked me if I’d like to step in. Having coached Little League for a season years ago, I said sure… My first act as coach, as was the first act of the other five coaches, was to pick a team. The kids and their parents were sitting in the stands of the gymnasium and it was set up just like a draft. Each coach picked one player at a time. I decided on a “social justice” strategy. That is, my first picks were of kids who looked like they were usually chosen last. Should be an interesting season.

I wrote a column today that is titled: Post Modern Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. My contiention is that most people in America (many unknowingly) have become one of these, or both. An excerpt from the column: A man is walking down the street with his wife and a scantily clad woman is approaching from the opposite direction. He stares. Then he stares intently. And as she walks by, he turns and stares intently some more. At which point, his wife, just as ‘intently,’ slaps him. Now, here’s the irony… That same man could be at home sitting on his couch intently watching scantily clad women on prime time television for hours — while his wife is in the kitchen thinking nothing about it… I shared this scenario in a talk to a graduate Religion Class at Bluffton College several years ago, and the professor reflected: “When you think about this objectively, it would be just the same as if the man watching television would have said to his wife: ‘Honey, I’m going next door to look in the window at Marge for a couple hours.”‘ …This all begs the probing psycho-sociologically significant question: “Have we gone nuts?” Or perhaps more apt: “Have we totally lost our common sense, or in this case, our: moral compass?” Note: I’m a former mental health counselor. And I’ve watched, time and again, how unconscious anger has played havoc with one’s emotional state, and with one’s relationships. And don’t think for a minute that if a spouse is, day in and day out, ‘intently’ watching scantily clad people (no matter what the medium) that there isn’t unconscious anger welling in the other spouse. Anger that can, ultimately, contribute significantly to the break-up of a marriage… Incidentally, the current divorce rate in the country is approaching: 60%. Again, if we start connecting these dots…

I continue with work on updating our position paper on the environment… According to the environmental group Green Scissors (Cutting Wasteful and Environmentally Harmful Spending), cattle grazing in the West has become a monumental problem that is polluting tremendous amounts of water, eroding all kinds of topsoil, killing fish, displacing wildlife and destroying more vegetation than any other land use… On a stop in Rawlins, Wyoming, we went to the Bureau of Land Management there to investigate this. One representative there said the “ideal solution” would be not to lease any more federal land to ranchers so the rangeland could start to heal. However, this is a “political football” she said, because the ranchers comprise such a powerful lobby… Our administration would hold the stance that it’s time to stop playing ‘political football,’ but rather it’s time to start playing ‘hardball’ for programs intended to save the environment. Good environmental stewardship practices would demand this.

I have just started to update our position paper on the environment, based on some 15 years of research… A hot (excuse the pun) topic these days is: global warming. It is, indeed, an Inconvenient Truth. And since the Bush Administration has declined to sign the “Kyoto Protocol” in line with universal standards for the reduction of greenhouse gases, that doesn’t mean that we individual Americans can’t “sign on” to the treaty in spirit — and in action. During an energy seminar at Atnioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I told the assembly that my family and I had created a: “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone,” with a sign to that effect out front, and everything. (Boy was Liz embarassed when I put that up.) Anyway, we’ve decided not to use air-conditioning, turned the thermostat down in the winter, wear sweaters and close off part of the house. I also told the Voice of the People television show in Hibbings, Minnesota, that in an effort to save even more energy, we all share bath water. Although I said I always try to get in the bath before our two-year-old. (Liz was embarassed on that one too.) In addition, we try to walk and bicycle locally at least 90% of the time within a three mile radius. We’ve dramatically reduced our purchasing (it takes burning fossil fuels to produce items). And I could go on with this, but I think you get the “Kyoto Protocol Home Zone” point. We all have the power not to use the power (paradoxical pun). Note: Wouldn’t it be a sight to see homemade Kyoto Protocol Home Zone signs go up in yards all across America, right next to the homemade Vote for Joe signs?

Yesterday National Public Radio did a piece explaining that the homicide rate in America is increasing. Adding to those statistics was a murder last week about 200 yards from our place in Cleveland’s inner city. According to reports, it was 3 a.m. and a man pulled up to a light at the corner of Lorain and Fulton roads here. Two men swiftly approached the car, dragged him out, then beat and stabbed him to death. The murder victim was the father of several young children and there are posters up around the neighborhood asking for leads in finding the murderers… We live in an area that not only seems, but feels, continually on the edge. Poverty, frustration, drugs, mental illness… swirl about here. Children grow up amidst this, often just trying to survive — and seeing virtually no way out. Bruce Springstein sings of an inner city in New Jersey: “Kids down here look just like shadows…” And they do, metaphorically. Below the bravado, the street tough, I’ve consistenlty experienced these kids as often emotionally empty and afraid. A ’shadow’ of one’s self, if you will… So what do we do? Some of us take a deep breath and move back into the inner city to live side-by-side with the disadvantaged. We become friends with the parents and formal, or informal, mentors to some of the kids. We, for instance, live on a street with a cluster of Catholic Workers who have moved into the city to help. They have become friends to their neighbors on 38th St., informal mentors to the kids here as well, fight for affordable housing, help run a drop-in center for the poor… They are, in effect, modern day martyrs. That is, they are risking their safety for a higher good. And it’s my contention that in God’s eyes, whether any of these Catholic Workers die a violent death down here, or not; they, ultimately, will be considered “martyrs” just by the mere fact they were willing to move into a danger zone to help.

I spent the last few days extensively updating our position paper on “Agriculture.” (The updated paper should be up within the next month.) Anyway, one of the things I’m writing about is a seminar I attended in Ohio where a Bluffton College economics professor said that modern corporations, for the most part, see people as “individual markets,” not “individuals living in community.” As a result, making money from the “individual markets” is the priority, and how people live in community isn’t given much of a thought. So corporations often don’t hesitate to pollute, overwork cheap labor, or exploit natural resources… How this translates in the farming world is that corporate mega-farms in America can grow at such volume and ship cheaply enough — that these farms can undercut small family farmers selling to local markets in: Central America. As a result, impoverished people in the Third World become that much more impoverished… Question: Something to be “American Proud” of?

We got our first official Campaign 2008 endorsement. (That is, if we’re not counting my wife saying: “Oh alright, but I’m not sure how many more times I’m going to be able to do this.”) The endorsement came from Matt Swaim in Kentucky on his Apoloblogology site. Incidentally, check out some of Matt’s other entries on his blog. He’s got a lot of insightful things to say (the endorsement withstanding, of course), with a decidedly modern spin.

We took the kids to a jury trial for two Cleveland Catholic Workers who committed a non-violent act of civil disobedience about a month ago. During a prayer/protest rally outside an Armed Services Recruitment Center in Lakewood, Ohio, these two men chose to enter the premises and hold, in effect, a “sit in.” Police arrived and asked them to leave, but they chose to remain — and got arrested. The story made the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and all the regional network news shows… On the stand before an almost full courtroom, Catholic Worker Chris Knestrick said he believed the “gospel of Jesus” calls us to pacifism with phrases like: turn the other cheek; do good to those who have harmed you… Knestrick, who is the Social Justice Coordinator at nearby St. Edward’s High School in Lakewood, said he’s seen, first-hand, the devastation war can wreak. He said his father was a Special Forces Green Beret in Vietnam who developed a bad case of post traumatic stress disorder. It dramatically affected, not only Chris’s dad, but the whole family… Joe Mueller was the other accused Catholic Worker. He had gone to Iraq the year before with a Christian Peacekeeper’s Team. (The next CPT team over to Iraq were kidnapped, made international news, and ultimately one of the members were murdered by insurgents.)… Mueller explained that during the protest in front of the Recruiting Center, the names of the dead soldiers were being read… Both men wanted to talk to recruiters and potential recruits that day, with the hopes of disuading some from becoming part of that list of names… Note: During one of the recesses, I was interviewed by Cleveland’s CBS anchor Harry Boomer. I said these men, like so many people in America these days, are opposed to the Iraq War. I then correlated their non-violent disobedience to similar acts during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America’s South. I said in retrospect, America sees how important those acts were in helping bring about an end to a societal wrong. And while the circumstances around Iraq are complex, these Catholic Workers should be commended for standing up for their beliefs. And, I added, it’s not like these men are criminals. They spend their days trying to help the poor in Cleveland in as many ways as possible, including taking them into their home, running a nightly drop-in center for the disadvantaged, and so on… Mr. Boomer also asked me my take on the Iraq War. I said we went in there predicated on finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. “Yet if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana, what would they find?” I posed. “They would find 2,000 Weapons of Mass Destruction aimed all over the world. Wouldn’t that make us [read: U.S.] look like a terrorist nation to a lot of other countries?” Well, of course it would. Note 2: Mueller and Knestrick lost the court case. Yet we told our kids that they actually won in respect to what they were trying to do — which was to get a point across.

Vice-presidential candidate needed: We are looking for a vice-presidential candidate who is on the same page as us with all of our most important issues. That is, we are looking for someone who has a Consistent Life Ethic, is strong on social justice issues, believes in being a good environmental steward… and, ultimately, is interested in this world being a much better place for this generation and generations to come. The candidate must be 35-years-old or more, and live in a state other than my home state of Ohio — according to Federal election rules. If you are that person, or you can recommend someone… call me at 419-792-9059, or e-mail me at joeschriner@hotmail.com and we can talk about particulars. Thanks. –Joe

Met with Meegan Kresge who is involved with Cleveland’s new “City Fresh” project. Sponsored by Ohio State University’s Agricultural Extension (and a number of other organizations), City Fresh is about inspiring “small scale agriculture” in the city. Ms. Kresge has just completed a 10-week City Fresh course that trains potential “city farmers” in such areas as: growing, composting, selling to area restaurants and other markets… Ms. Kresge said she is working to get a grant, and other financing, to turn part of an old, abandoned parking lot on Cleveland’s near Westside into a pretty substantial garden/farm. Ms. Kresge said Cleveland’s “Forest Service” will drop off free wood chips that will be laid 12 inches thick over the asphalt. This will then be layered with a good amount of topsoil made from composting. Then the plot will be ready for planting… Ms. Kresge said we will start seeing more of this local urban growing across the country as oil prices continue to climb. And with this, peoples’ understanding of how “freshness” adds to a food’s nutritional value will increase as well. Note: During her City Fresh course work, Ms. Kresge said a concept which really fascinated her was the: “Mobile Market.” That is, people were encouraged to consider pulling “veggie carts” around the neighborhoods. I mean, why not. The ice cream guy does it. And what’s better for you anyway, huh?

We had two used tires put on one of our campaign vehicles this week, because the campaign coffers didn’t have enough for new ones. (Have I mentioned we need campaign donations? … Schriner Presidential Election Committee, 2100 W. 38th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44113.)… We got the tires from The Tire Guy, literally. That’s the name of his shop. That’s what I like about the inner city of Cleveland. It’s gritty and people say what they mean, no mincing of words. The Tire Guy.

I went to a meeting on “affordable housing” last night on Cleveland’s near Westside. Attended by some 60 people, the meeting was sponsored by Neighborhood Voices, a dynamic group that has been proactively advocating for affodable housing in this area since 2003. The issue, in a nutshell, is this: The near Westside of Cleveland (like the near West and Eastsides of so many metropolitan areas these days) is caught in the juggernaut of ‘upscaling.’ That is, with gas prices continually rising, young urban professionals — and others from the suburbs — have been moving into the near Westside and rennovating on a grand scale. It is becoming wholesale “gentrification,” which in turn displaces the poor who have been in these neighborhoods for generations… Neighborhood Voices is shooting for a “mix” of socio-economic and racially diversified groups. “We are about inclusiveness, not exclusiveness,” said Neighborhood’s George Herbek, who facilitated the meeting. Herbek stressed the group was working for the “common good” in an area that has an ethnically rich Westside Market, vibrant churches, and all types of outreach help within walking distance… Neighborhood’s Jim Misak said the group was working with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority in lobbying for affordable housing in a series of new “Hope 6″ projects in the neighborhood. And Marge Misak, Jim’s wife, said the group had met with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson who is now philosophically on board about, not just offering one-time affordable housing, but “permanent affordable housing.” Note: Several years ago, St. Patrick’s Church, also on Cleveland’s near Westside, spearheaded a “Project Afford Drive.” Money was raised to purchase and rennovate several homes, which were in turn offered at affordable prices to low income people.

Yesterday USA Today started an eye-opening series on the reality of global warming. A few weeks ago, the Cleveland Plain Dealer did an article on Case Western Reserve University professor Ted Steinberg and his new book: American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn. Some statistics in this were just as eye opening as the USA Today piece. For instance: A car would have to drive at 30 mph for 7,700 miles to create as many polluting hydrocarbon emissions as using a gas powered leaf blower for half an hour (you read that right). [Good argument for going back to rakes, huh.] Americans spend $40 billion on lawn care each year, more than the gross domestic product of Vietnam. [Are we nuts?] And this isn’t even mentioning the exorbitant amount of global warming gases being spewed by conventional (non-emission controlled) lawn mowers. [Call me “retro,” but remember those old, non-engine push mowers? I just used one to cut the grass Tuesday.] And as far as the gas powered weed wackers? Does anyone remember (dare I say) sickles?… Some “average Joe” common sense: If we don’t want global warming — then we have to stop doing stuff that causes global warming.

Memorial Day… We went on a family picnic in the “Metro Park” in Rocky River, Ohio, today. While eating lunch, we talked to our children about their grandfather (on my side) flying jets off aircraft carriers for the Navy. (He got his wings just a few weeks after the Korean Conflict had ended.) We also told them about their great grandfather (also on my side) who fought during the World War I, road an Army motorcylce with a side car, and the fear for him and his Army buddies at the time was, among other things, being exposed to: “mustard gas.” We then prayed. We prayed for the soldiers in Iraq — on both sides. And we prayed that not only would the Iraq War end soon, but that all war would end soon. [Our administration would propose a U.S. Dept. of Peace — see “what joe stands for” (home page) to help bring some of that about.]… There were a lot of people in the Metro Park today. And after setting up our picnic spot, I strategically drove the “average Joe” Mobile (complete with a whole lot of signage) to a high traffic area about a quarter mile away. Well, when you don’t have the millions for advertising… Anyway, while heading back, I walked by a picnic table with an extended family of about 12 from the Medina, Ohio, area who were discussing, of all things, presidential elections. And just as I got a bit closer, one of the family members said (Are you ready for this?): “You watch, the next thing they’ll come up with is a reality show where anyone can run for president.” My cue… I walked right up to the table and told them I was that anyone. They laughed, thinking I was kidding. I showed them my “average Joe Schriner for president” button. They still thought I was kidding. Then, for kicks I guess, they asked me my platform. I smiled and said: “With Social Security, for instance, we’d like to see a paradigm shift. I believe(based on an interview I did with a former teacher of economics at North Carolina State Univeristy) that the American populace should look at the Social Security Fund as merely another form of ‘insurance,’ and not an ‘automatic’ after retirment. If someone is making, say, $70,000 or more on pensions, stocks, etc., annually, they shouldn’t be in need of Social Security as well. This would not only help keep the Fund solvent in the face of the current demographic shift of baby boomers entering retirement in way more numbers than those entering the work force; but it would also free up a lot more capital for those less fortunate.” At this point, the people from Medina didn’t think I was kidding anymore. And how I knew, was the partiarch of the family (he had on a blue apron and a grill fork in his hand) said: “If you get to D.C., are you going to remember us?”

A couple entries back, I asked supporters (no matter where you’re at in the country) to google “Ohio newspapers” and send brief endorsement letters to the editor of some of those papers. We are now in the midst of a “Buckeye Blitz” of Ohio. The reason is simple. Ohio was the bellweather state in the nation last presidential election, and all eyes were focused on it. And it was a razor thin margin in Ohio that, ultimately, determined the election. The demographics in the nation haven’t changed much, and we believe it may well come down to Ohio this next presidential election as well… So, our strategy is to become viable in Ohio as early out as possible. (It helps that we are from Ohio as well.) And if we look viable in the key state, it will be enough to make it a national story — with some staying power. As this happens, we can then mobilize our supporters in other states to get on the ballots, do some stepped up campaigning, and so on… (Because we don’t have the big party machine and all the millions for adverstising, we had to come up with another strategy. And this is it.)… Now, we need your aid in helping raise our profile in Ohio, if you’d consider it. As mentioned above, we are asking people from all over the country to write endorsement letters to the editor of Ohio newspapers about the “Average Joe” Schriner Campaign. Some points to consider stressing in the letters would include: 1) That I am an Ohioan. 2) We consistently tell people that my wife and I are running as your “average concerned Ohio parents.” And we are concerned about such things as mounting levels of: abortion; war; violence in the streets; global warming gasses; nationaly debt; homeless and hungry — both here and in the Third World. This all is not the kind of thing we wanted to leave our children. So instead of lamenting about the state of the world, Liz and I quit our professions and set out to do something about it. 3) We’ve traveled the country the past 15 years looking for people who have come up with common sense solutions to all these problems. And we found them. 4) Our platform is based on good old fashion common sense. 5) Our goal is to help move the country in a direction where once again God is first, family and community are close, there are way less people in need, and the streets are again safe for our children. Note: Please feel free to use any of the latter in the letter, or any other reason(s) you’re supporting the campaign. And if you would, would you let others know about this strategy as well. The more letters, the better. Thanks.

While in Holmes County, Ohio, last week, I interviewed Jonas Miller who is quite a historian when it comes to the Amish in these parts. He, in fact, is a narrator during “Country Coach Adventure Bus Tours” through the heart of Amish country here. He explained to me, for instance, that the Amish have their own form of “health insurance.” That is, many of the Amish churches have collective insurance funds. And what’s more, they often find their hospital and doctor rates low because they believe the Bible “teaches against” suing people. He also said the Amish dress plainly and conservatively because there are premiums placed on modesty and not standing out in community. In fact, the Amish place tremendously emphasis on the importance of community. Mr. Miller explained that recently lightenning had struck an Amish barn, burning it to the ground. In the next few days, the debris had been cleared, a foundation laid and the barn was rebuilt, for free, by 1,200 Amish, from eight different states. Yet another form of “Amish insurance.” If you’re Amish, you’re apparently “…in good hands.” Note: I wrote a letter to the editor of The Daily Record in Wooster, Ohio, saying we as a society would do well to learn much more about Amish ways.

Our campaign manager in Georgia, Thomas Farmer, just sent me an insightful essay he wrote about unequal distribution of wealth worldwide. It follows… “Photojournalist Peter Menzel has published something of a sequel to his 1995 acclaimed work Material World, which studies families from 30 countries around the world and photographs them with all of their possessions. His new work, Hungry Planet (http://www.menzelphoto.com/hungryplanet/) is done in collaboration with Faith D’Alusio and focuses on what families aournd the world eat. Similar in style to Material World, Menzel photographs families with the food that they typically consume in a week. The photography is stunning and, as you might imagine, the contrasts are stark. A German family of four is shown in front of a lavish spread of food including juice, beer, pizza, fresh meat, and produce with a food expenditure for the week of $500 USD. A Darfur family of six is photographed in a refugee camp with a bottle of water and some sacks of grain. Their expenditure for the week is just over $1 USD. Much like Material World, the work is moving in its simplicity. We are given human faces for our largess and the world’s inequities; these images should be fresh in our minds as we consider issues beyond our borders and decide where to expend our resources… We focus on our foreign policy on oil, maintianing our way of life, and preventing another terrorist attack, when several 9/11’s happen in the Third World every d ay due to starvation. Shouldn’t our political debates be addressing these issues? Shouldn’t our tremendous resources as a nation be focused on this battle?… Our policies and actions should uphold the dignity of life, not blindly preserve our way of life in the name of material progress. While we seek to maximize profits and “progress” in our captitalist society, we are seemingly unsure of the goal of our progressions and what to do with our largess… These works offer us a clear vision of the world and our place in it. Such visions should guide us as we head to the voting booth…” Note: “Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.” –GK Chesterton: Orthodoxy, 1908

A Mansfield News Journal article today noted that I thought I could be a factor in the next presidential election — if I look like I’m going to have a showing in Ohio. I will explain more about this strategy in a later entry, but for now: we are asking supporters (both in Ohio and outside) to write endorsement letters to the editor about our campaign to Ohio newspapers across the state. Just google “Ohio newspapers” and a list of those on-line (and off line) will come up. Your help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I interviewed Paul Yoder in Apple Creek, Ohio. His farm sells “100% grassfed beef and lamb, pastured chicken, turkey, pork, eggs…” Mr. Yoder uses no artificial chemicals on his fields or artificial hormones with his livestock. He does everything naturally, or better put “…the way God intended it,” Mr. Yoder says. He also sells shares in his cows, and people in turn get raw milk as well. Milk, Mr. Yoder asserts, that is much healthier than the pasturized and homgenized milk sold in stores. (Pasturization, for instance, kills the good bacteria and enzymes needed to break down the fats and protein, he said.) Mr. Yoder has a circle of health conscious customers from a fairly large radius, as far north as the Cleveland area. He said over the years a trusting relationship has developed between he and his customers, like it was in the old days when local farmers used to grow for local town people. This relationship, he continues, is just as important (if not more) than the actual transactions. It is about building community, as again, there was a lot more of in the old days. Note: Mr. Yoder told me he decided not to use artificial farm chemicals because of the possible detriment to consumer health. Although it was risky financially to begin farming that way, he said doing what was right was more important. I found that extremely refreshing.

We have just posted a tremendously updated position on “Hispanic Immigration” based on some six years of pretty extensive cross-country research. It is a position that looks through the lens, not of “American protectionism,” but rather of social justice. To view the position, go to “what joe stands for” on our home page.

Liz and I gave a talk to an assembly of students at St. Mary’s School in Mansfield, Ohio yesterday. I said a strong platform point of ours was helping the marginilized in society. And several years ago we had moved into the inner city of Cleveland to live side-by-side with some of these marginalized people, one of whom is Richard. Liz explained to the students that we had met Richard at an outreach center to the poor that we volunteer at. Richard is 50, single, a Vietnam veteran — and lives in a tent below a birdge in Cleveland, year round. Richard has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his time in Vietnam. A car backfiring will send Richard spinning back to being shot at in the jungles of Vietnam, paralyzing him for hours. He also continually moves from high anxiety to deep depression, keeping him from holding a steady job. Liz said to the students that what Richard had asked for for Christmas the year before was a small Coleman Stove to stay warm with in the tent… I told the students that Richard needed more than the Coleman Stove. He needs quality, long-term mental health counseling to considerably diminish the PTSD symptomology. He needs job training and/or more education. And Richard needs a home. I then asked to see a show of hands of how many students had garages at home. Every hand went up. I then said we in America shelter cars while people like Richard in Cleveland and little children in Chicago, L.A., Phoenix… sleep on inner city streets. I ended by asking if they thought it would be a good idea for their parents to convert their garages into a living space for some of these marginilized people? Most indicated yes. “Then, if you would, would you go back home and tell your parents about this idea,” I said. They promised they would. (I figured it would be better coming from them, than from me.) Note: Just in case of some of the students forget to tell their parents, I also mentioned the idea to a reporter from the Mansfield News Journal during an interview later in the day… Liz said at the start of her talk that she’d been reading the book The Irresistable Revolution. At one point, the author said that he’d read a poll that said some 80% of Christians questioned believed Jesus spent significant time with the poor. But out of the same group, only 2% said they spend any significant time with the poor. [I couldn’t help but think: Wouldn’t a garage apartment be a good way to start.?]

We are in need of donations.

“Average Joe” sighting… Shortly after we drove into Cleveland, I got a call on my cell phone. It was Stephen Piscura who said he’d been following the campaign for awhile now and when he saw our vehicle going by an Ohio City coffee shop, he “almost knocked over a table” trying to get to the street to flag us down… While we missed connections then, he and a couple of his friends caught up with us later in the day… In his early 20s, Stephen is a senior at Kent State University and is on fire for Christ. He is spending the summer in Bangkok working with a Christian ministry called “Remember Nhu.” This is an outreach to youth forced into the sex slave trade. A growing problem all over the world, the ministry website www.remembernhu.com calls it one of “the darkest moral tragedies of our time.” Stephen said what motivates him to help is that Christ is in the face of each of these tremendously desperate children and teens. (In places like Bangkok, children are sold by their poverty stricken parents into brothels, and the like, so the rest of the family can eat.) Note: If all this isn’t bad enough, these youth are also at great risk, daily, of contracting AIDS.

We headed into Jeromesville, Ohio (pop. no stores, one service station, and a parrot). The parrot’s name is Olive and resides at the Ewing Citco Service Station, in a cage right behind the cash register. The parrot started to loudly squawk (not to in anyway be confused with ‘talk’) as I approached. “She doesn’t like people much,” Ms. Ewing said. Even at that, I wrote I was “pro-parrot” on the flyer I passed on there. And even more of a ‘political parrot coup,’ would have been to get the parrot saying “Vote Joe,” but again, the bird not liking people much, and me being a politician on top of that…