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by Jan Lundberg
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Greetings from Oklahoma City, where I came to speak at the University of Oklahoma on "Natural Gas: a Bridge to Nowhere?" More on that in a later post.
My reflection this evening is on the transformation of USAmericans into a leisure society of individuals. It began in the 1950s and flowered in the '60s and early '70s. It developed into guitar playing rebels, surfers -- "Baw dip da dip dip" -- and, above all, television watchers, as prominent types among the new affluent generation. Institutions such as school and church weren't offering much cohesion. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 Editor's note: This report/photo spread is a follow-up to Native Ohlone of San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area Resist Destruction of Sacred Site, published Aug. 23, 2011. This story is about preventing cultural genocide after actual genocide was committed by our government's policies.
The campaign to halt desecration of a 6,000-year-old village site and burial ground on Ohlone ancestral land has leaped forward. |
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by Brent Blackwelder
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Editor's note: Brent Blackwelder's flawless analysis of advisable revenue changes shows that the tiny minority strangling this country gets away with untapped astronomical riches. Culture Change would also emphasize slashing the worst of the waste in expenditures, the out-of-control war machine. Another way to slash costs on the debt burden is to enter into a debt for nature swap with China, which happens to need carbon credits more than ever.
Blackwelder calls for four major changes:
• Putting a price on carbon through a carbon tax or a fuel tax
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by Jan Lundberg
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 Who were the inhabitants of what we now call San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Monterey, and of the little open land left around these cities? They are the Ohlone.
For thousands of years the Ohlone culture, consisting of several related languages, was sustainable, as the people were part of the land and waters. Less is known about them than other tribes or groupings that were not almost entirely obliterated. The Ohlone don't have monuments or other forms of respect, such as dedicated lands, in this valuable real-estate market of the San Francisco-Monterey Bay area. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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Let's take stock of Culture Change on the 23rd anniversary of its founding. It was during the first "global warming summer," August 1988, when we announced with some fanfare, at the International Club in Washington, D.C., the formation of a nonprofit group that sprang out of my 16-year career as a reluctant oil industry analyst.
Before we take stock and give reason to celebrate, can you send us a birthday present?
Please know:
We can't bring you a 24th year without your participation and support. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 On April 19, 2011, five 60-foot boats left Auckland, New Zealand to set off on a year's voyage. Stops have included a sacred Polynesian homeland known as Hawaii, the end of one of the longer legs of a round-the-Pacific tour. A sixth boat had joined at Cook Islands, and a seventh in Tahiti. The crews represent the biggest traditional transport and exchange of Polynesian islanders in modern times.
The nearly identical boats are traditional but modern canoes, a catamaran rig called a waka (or vaka |
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by Peter Crabb
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As a technology watcher I am fascinated by a particular story that emerges from the archeological record. For over 1 million years, up until about 100,000 years ago, early humans in Africa, Asia, and Europe produced almost identical stone hand axes that barely deviated in design, either across time or space. There was no innovation. That unwavering reproduction of tool templates over the course of so many generations is evidence that the mind of early Homo was well-designed as a high-fidelity replicator of cultural forms.
Today we are also stuck in a technological stasis created by the same blindly replicating mind. |
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by Jan Lundberg and Chris Dilworth
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 Publisher's note: Thanks to the submission of a report from a UK youth/homeless counselor and educator who sees the big picture consistent with Culture Change, we present his poignant and profound observations (see Chris Dilworth's section at end). - Jan Lundberg
I have stayed in Hackney, a poor section of London where rioting has been going on. It was a squat turned into a quasi-public word-of-mouth home, shared with revolving travelers and seekers. In the neighborhood I noticed anti-landlord graffiti. I was impressed by the |
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by Jan Lundberg
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When we think of the millions of U.S. Americans who have needlessly attacked or harmed millions of others in dozens of countries, and have harmed themselves -- without fully knowing why -- and when we acknowledge that many in the U.S. seem resigned to allow more of the same, one can extend this phenomenon to the nation's population in general. We can call it a common trait, and find it to be a U.S. tendency upon historical analysis or reading between the lines of corporate news. Let us name the national condition confusion. Under this we can lump poor education, being propagandized, exploitation of the |
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by Depaver Jan
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We're here because we're here because we're here -- one of the wiser songs of my kiddie past, sung to the tune Auld Lang Syne. Later we got too serious and mantraed "Be here now."
Meditating -- it's not what you think.
But if so, why can't we make an exception. I propose something I'll be happy to debate with the toughest meditation gurus: dwelling on the universe can be a kind of meditation. "Okay, now I'm aware I'm thinking about the universe, so I must be meditating." |
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by Chris Harries
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The alchemists’ dream is alive and well, just ask the blokes.
This is a story about men and
their dreams -- alchemist dreams.
Part science, part magic, part
religion. Seriously, it’s about our
common future, so listen up!
Much has been studied and
written about why women love to
shop. In short, this innocent
pastime apparently satisfies a
basic and natural instinct: to gather. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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The U.S. is faltering economically, seeing the chickens come home to roost financially since erasing the budget surpluses of the Clinton Era. It's not just a coincidence that in the 1990s the U.S. "enjoyed" low oil prices and engaged in much less war spending. With the U.S. deficit crisis there needs to be a win-win solution if possible with this nation's huge creditor, China the world powerhouse. The debt-ceiling impasse in Washington cannot actually be solved with smoke and mirrors, contrary to Inside-the-Beltway delusions -- certainly not long-term.
So what does China have to say, when it owns nearly $900 billion in U.S. debt? |
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