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19 marzo Three Cups of TeaI'm very excited that my new hero, Greg Mortenson, will be in my area for a fundraiser. Greg is the director of the Central Asia Institute, and is responsible for building schools which made education possible for over 25,000 children in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. His story is written in the book, Three Cups of Tea. I've just finished reading it and I'm very inspired. In fact, I'm so inspired that I didn't hesitate in purchasing the most expensive fundraiser ticket I've ever bought. Read the book. It's truly uplifting and will bring sunshine to your heart. If you order via the link above, 7% of the sales will go to help provide schooling for a girl in an impoverished area of Asia. 15 marzo Laughter is good medicine12 marzo What has come of this country?My trip to canvass in Ohio was quite an experience. After a long 6 hour drive from Chicago on Friday night , we pulled up to campaign headquarters around 1 am. Surprisingly, the lights were on and a couple people could been seen working inside. We knocked on the door and asked for hotel suggestions. We ended up staying the night at a shabby Days Inn. The next morning we arrived at headquarters and were issued a long list of names and addresses. We were instructed to knock on the doors and ask for the specific voter on the list. Some kind of system had been set up to formulate a list of likely supporters. (Not sure how they do that- but I did notice there weren't many women over 40 on our lists.) The idea was to focus our attention on getting out the vote for people who were likely to support our candidate. Our assigned neighborhood was about a mile away from downtown, if you could call it that. The town's center was little more than a Main Street with a few businesses scattered about. The neighborhood which we canvassed was in much worse shape. The people we visited are on hard times, to say the least. Knocking on those doors was an eye-opening and sometimes heart-wrenching experience. The houses were in a state of extreme disrepair. Windows were broken, boarded, covered with plastic. Houses looked like they hadn't been painted in a decade. Front porches were falling apart. The streets were desolate and there were no business anywhere to be seen. Many of the addresses we had on our lists were empty lots. Despair and hardship hung in the air. Mostly we knocked on doors and got no response. Once in a while someone would answer. Sometimes you could hear someone stirring inside, but they didn't come to the door. Images of people peeking out of windows, through curtains that resembled filthy rags, will stay with me for a long time. My heart went out to those people. Something ...a lot of things have to change in this country. |
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