Florida East Coast Tour / Winter ‘07

• As we entered Florida, the state of Virginia passed a resolution expressing “profound regret” for slavery. While stumping in downtown St. Augustine (first city in America), tour trains buzzed about us with guides pointing out where the first hospital in the country was established, the first Catholic Church… A local man pointed to a nearby square and told my wife that this is where the first slaves in the country were sold. “I bet they don’t point that out on the tours,” Liz lamented.
• I gave a talk during a Mass in St. Augustine’s. I noted that a nearby Our Lady of La Leche Shrine displayed a lawn full of small white crosses in commemoration of all the babies killed in abortions. I said we are living in nothing less than a Holocaust of epic proportions. It is a time to sacrifice the entertainment, the consumerism, the sports… and take to the streets hundreds of thousands (or even millions) strong, to protest.
• I gave a talk to a prayer group at the House of Prayer in St. Augustine. I said materialism is out of control in many sectors of society, especially in the face of staggering Third World poverty. Prayer group leader Gary Gornick said people into doing “wicked things” have a tendency to hang out with people of “like mind.” So, for instance, suburbanites will hang with suburbanites talking stock portfolios, new car options and sports… seldom, if ever, confronting each other about their lifestyles – while scores of children starve to death daily throughout the world.
• At St. Augustine Beach, I interviewed Professor Paul Raymond. He teaches Economics at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He said when looking at economics in the light of spirituality, we often come up short. That is instead of trusting God day to day for provision and giving as much as possible to the poor, people often think they need $30,000 in the bank as a cushion, a big home with a lot of equity, a large account for the kids’ college… “The devil will always give you just what you need (big house, large bank accounts…) – to go to Hell,” said the professor.
• Traveling into Daytona Beach, we were greeted with a front-page story about 27-year-old Javan Camon, a Daytona Beach Thunder defensive back who broke his neck during an Arena Football game here the night before -- and died. While playing at the University of South Florida in 2004, Camon was involved in a tackle that left a Tennessee Tech player in a coma for weeks, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal. In our book Back Road to the White House, I mention that while traveling through Colorado Springs, Colorado, during Campaign 2000, we learned a local high school quarterback had just broke his neck during a game and was paralyzed from the neck down, for life. Isn’t it time we start to seriously question this sport?
• The Daytona Beach News Journal also carried a series titled: Crisis On The Coast. An excerpt read: “The breathtaking views that lure tourists and retirees to beachfront hotels and high-rise condominiums have come with a high cost. Erosion, habitat destruction and pollution are ruining the very things that draw them… As much as 80 percent of the natural areas that once stretched along the state’s east coast have been lost to development.” [As president, I would urge an immediate moratorium on this coastal development. And I would propose these areas become part of the State Park System or Federal Park System. We just can’t afford to keep destroying these habitats. If we do destroy all these habitats and species -- we’re next.]
• In New Smyrma Beach, Florida, our kids watched a dolphin playing in some inlet waters. While they looked on fascinated, I found myself in a conversation with Missy Reid, who was vacationing here from Rochester, New York. NASA had just released a report saying they are now not only looking for remnants of water sources on Mars (which they haven’t found yet), but they are now looking for traces of food sources. In noting there are hungry people all over this planet, Ms. Reid said that we might have, oh, lost some common sense when it comes to funding the billions of dollars in costs for these Mars explorations: “What are they (NASA) going to do, like find a banana on Mars and bring it back to feed the people here?” She asked incredulously.