At Culture Change we aren't giving our readers and supporters a part-time, share-our-feelings service. No, we are full-time activists living a low-consumptive, engaged lifestyle. Cutting-edge projects have been our hallmark: Pedal Power Produce, banning plastic bags, depaving, initiating or participating in protests, the Sail Transport Network (STN), multi-media materials and events, arts, networking nonstop, and more --

It is a public service that Worldwatch Institute founder Lester Brown, now with his Earth Policy Institute, has helped expose the huge, ongoing financial subsidies to fossil fuels industries. Governments' and corporations' persisting with this policy -- legal corruption of the worst order at a time of out-of-control climate change -- is nothing short of insane or criminal.

Nonviolence is a way of life, an external manifestation of an internal peace. Nonviolence is mindfulness and consciousness of the sacred, of the interconnectedness of ourselves with everything and every being. It is an attitude, an awareness, an understanding, a manner of expression and interaction operating from a deep internal integration that honors this sacred interconnectedness.

I gambled on the weather and lost. They predicted rain today, but it didn't happen, so I rolled out my bedroll in Detroit, way out Woodward Ave. near Wayne State University and in the bushes next to a Unitarian Church between a couple of buttresses (not the flying kind) that blocked most of the chilly wind.

One wrong move, forgetting to take your hat off, the interruption of a phone ringing notwithstanding -- after a spell, a trip to the bank to pay the light bill -- alongside men carrying machine guns -- does get to feel normal.

Such a transit of mind is a testimony to the human ability to adapt, yes? -- and I am reminded of a marvelous tale that dear friend Francis Huxley tells.

I cross yet another polluted river, on an Amtrak bus running late again. I look around the river and contemplate what empties into it, as the nearly full moon illuminates the degraded agribusiness landscape. The 101 Freeway through King City, California has the usual number of typical, inefficient vehicles spewing their exhaust, generating brake dust, tire dust, and dripping toxic crankcase oil and other fluids poisoning wildlife and human alike.

Alas, this understanding is not in the mainstream media and usually not even in progressive websites and publications. Almost a year ago, we published (e.g., in Alternet.org) a warning on the implications of the Arab Spring: Arab World's Turmoil May Spell Sudden Petrocollapse.

Seen on the streets of Santa Cruz while biking on the first day of the new solar year:
• A confused plum tree in nearly full flower, thanks to the unusually sunny and dry December.
• Three armed guards posted outside the Bank of America having a laid-back talk.
• Only two Occupiers at their card table outside the court house, where several dozen had held forth for two months.
• Too many cars for oil reality, mostly big ones, polluting around as usual.

In addition to well-known environmental objections to the Keystone XL Pipeline -- offered to counter the "jobs" and "lessen foreign oil" arguments by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives -- we recommend a long-term approach.

Big Oil money has targeted me for many years. The campaign has taken the form usually of legalistic attacks that have robbed the me and my family of any foundation of material security. Still, Culture Change (and its predecessors Auto-Free Times magazine, Fossil Fuels Policy Action, and Alliance for a Paving Moratorium) always pushed on and contributed to public discourse, fighting the good fight.