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08 February 2012
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Knocking on the Devil's Door: Our Deadly Nuclear Legacy - a documentary of the greatest urgency
by Jan Lundberg   
Image"We must outlaw nuclear reactors." - Admiral Hyman Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Navy, to Congress in his farewell speech

Gary Null, radio talk show host and author, with Producer Richard Gale, has produced a comprehensive indictment of nuclear power and weapons. The first thing the public needs to know is that it is not merely a debate about which way to go with policy. Rather, the nuclear issue is about life and death now. So a big public service is in exposing the nuclear industry's lies that are killing people today

 
Natural Gas: a Bridge to Nowhere? - Oklahoma's petroleum academia hosts critic
by Culture Change   
ImageJan Lundberg, independent oil industry analyst and eco-activist, spoke at University of Oklahoma's Devon Energy Hall on Aug. 30, 2011. From the Summary publicized earlier (see poster at bottom):
Many in industry and government are counting on natural gas -- especially through its less natural fracked derivation -- to propel the present industrial economy for endless growth. Besides the environmental hazards and
 
Students Help Make the Change: Environmental Activism on Apathetic College Campuses
by Austin Tye   
ImageEditor's note: We asked a student leader, "Is there a clear, stronger trend toward more environmentally conscious behavior by students? If not, why? Why is there substantial apathy about the low-intensity war on the students' planet, compared to the 1960s generation's concern about social injustice?" It is a given that there is no militant movement visible today. At Berkeley -- the university community that originated the Free Speech and antiwar movements -- most students believe political activism is about holding a student-government office for decorating their resumés. - JL
 
Six Decades of Leisurely Deterioration for the U.S. Masses in a Mess
by Jan Lundberg   
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.

 
Ohlone's Struggle to Save Sacred Site May Be Succeeding in Santa Cruz
by Jan Lundberg   
ImageEditor'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.

 
The New Congressional Debt Panel: An Opportunity for an Essential Economic Debate
by Brent Blackwelder   
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
 
Native Ohlone of San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area Resist Destruction of Sacred Site
by Jan Lundberg   
ImageWho 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.

 
Celebrating Culture Change's 23rd Birthday
by Jan Lundberg   
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.
 
South Pacific Islanders Revive Sail Power with Traditional Fleet on Tour
by Jan Lundberg   
ImageOn 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

 
Minds, Memes, and Muddles - Back to School!
by Peter Crabb   
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.

 
UK Riots' Resource and Cultural Roots: an in-the-trenches report
by Jan Lundberg and Chris Dilworth   
ImagePublisher'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

 
How The U.S. Population Can Overcome Its World Class Confusion
by Jan Lundberg   
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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