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e-culture newsletter, January 10, 2004
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e-culture: Spindletop, Corporate History, Test of Wills
January 10, 2004



IN THIS ISSUE

This Day in History
Corporate History Tour
A Test of Human Will
An Island in the Sky
Glozalization Issues
MLK Celebrations






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This Day in History

On January 10, 1901, Austrian-born drilling engineer Anthony Lucas struck black gold at Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas.

Oil wells drilled in previous decades yielded up to 50 barrels per day; the Lucas well at Spindletop yielded 80,000 barrels of oil per day.

The world was forever changed in ways the pioneers of the Nineteenth Century and the inventors of the Twentieth Century may have raced for, but could never have imagined. Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel may have predicted a much different future. Diesel, a French-born German engineer, firmly believed in high efficiency engines, which consumed renewable energy from plant sources.

Imagine Henry Ford's misguided confusion when he said, "It is not the employer who pays the wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays the wages." In those early days, American corporations catered to the demands of the people. But things are different now; the population serves the corporations' interests. Jobs are at the mercy of corporate profits, while the true private enterprise, small business and family farming, is nearly a thing of the past. The measure of our nation's success depends, not on rugged individualism, but on the public's ability to fill up the company coffers, as we are most aware during the "holiday shopping season."

The Spindletop boom ushered in a new culture of dependency, where communities became dependent on national companies and nations became more dependent than ever before on policies of distant governments and banking trade organizations that look out for the interests of businesses over individuals. Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel could never have imagined the world in 2004.


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Corporate History Tour

The dominant corporate culture of our country, and its byproducts, the cultures of rich and poor, are both interesting and important to understand. Sometime in the upcoming year we will embark on a new kind of educational adventure - a Corporate History Tour of our region.

In addition to Spindletop and the Texas Energy Museum in Beaumont, we will visit the Longue Vue House of New Orleans, home of Edgar Bloom Stern, a cotton broker, and wife Edith, heir to the Sears Roebuck fortune. We will tour the Laura, San Francisco and Oak Alley Plantations to get a sense of rich and poor in our history.

To consider opportunity in the post-Civil War U.S. we will visit the historic district called "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We will visit Woolaroc, the Osage Nation, and Phillips 66 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and the original Walton's in Bentonville, Arkansas, along with S.H. Kress 5 & dime stores. The tour will make stops at the East Texas Oil Museum in Kilgore and the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville, Texas, among others.

We will seek participants for the tour, but not set dates until we have determined the level of interest.

We also invite you to join our "Town Hall" committee to promote discussions on important cultural and social issues. Please contact me, mark@houstonculture.org, if you would like to take part in establishing this very important forum.


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A Test of Human Will

Traveling is a difficult thing to do; it's easier to just stay home. But a week of travel can rival a semester of study. A lifetime of travel will most certainly bring more rewards than life without travel.

It is often difficult to explain the benefits of our travel programs, since we plan to visit a series of places or participate in certain activities, but most of our great experiences happen because we make the effort to go to new places where unpredictable things happen.

We seem to get a wealth of great experience out of these trips whether there are two or twelve of us. To benefit more people, we want to increase overall participation in our educational adventures.

On the last trip we faced harsh winter conditions, but the will to experience great things paid off. Here's a brief rundown of the things we considered and the places we visited:

Albuquerque, New Mexico
We were exposed to the music of oud virtuoso Rahim AlHaj, a highly revered musician who trained at the Institute of Music in Baghdad. He lived in Jordan and Syria following the Gulf War in 1991, before moving to the U.S. in March 2000. Now an Albuquerque resident, he recorded his highly acclaimed debut "The Second Baghdad" in July 2002. His recent CD, "Iraqi Music in a Time of War," was recorded in concert in New York City April 5, 2003.

At the same time we discovered VOXLOX, a music label based in Santa Fe that "advocates for human rights and acoustic ecology." Their human rights recordings "present exile, refugee, diasporic, and indigenous voices muted or censored by mainstream media," and their acoustic ecology recordings "present uniquely marginal, forgotten, endangered, and rapidly changing sound environments."

We toured the beautifully restored 1927 pueblo-deco style KiMo Theatre, built by Italian immigrant Orestre Bachecchi. The active theater houses German painter Karl Von Hassler's murals depicting the Seven Cities of Cibola.

On the way to Santa Fe, we hiked the beautiful Kasa-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, operated by the Bureau of Land Management and the Pueblo of Coachiti.

Santa Fe, New Mexico
At the Museum of International Folk Art we viewed many of the 10,000 folk art pieces of the Girard Collection and 2,500 pieces collected by Lloyd Cotsen of the Neutrogena Corporation. We were treated to several excellent temporary exhibits: "The Color of Henna," textiles produced in the Anti Atlas Mountains of Morocco; "A Handmade Planet: Florence Bartlett's Vision for the Museum of International Folk Art"; and, "Al Portal de Nuestros Antepasados", containing several Day of the Dead altars.

At the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture we toured "Jewels of the Navajo Loom: The Rugs of Teec Noc Pos" and "Timeless Textiles! Traditional Pueblo Arts". And at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown, we viewed "Georgi Zelma: Documentary Photographs of Eastern Europe, 1924-44".

We also visited the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, housed in a 1930 Spanish Pueblo revival style building, and the Institute of American Indian Arts. We spent Christmas Eve on the square and Canyon Road, with traditional bonfires, farolitos and hot chocolate. This seemed like the friendliest place on Earth for the holiday, with carollers, and chidren and dogs running all about.

Taos, New Mexico
Taking the mountain route through many small towns, we attended the usual feast day dances at Taos Pueblo. We were interested to know if the celebration would go on if it weren't for the tourists. Everyone told us that the dances were part of important traditions and that they are done for the people of Taos Pueblo, and that the interests of tourists, such as permission to take pictures, are often disregarded when planning activities.

We returned by way of Alcalde, on the Rio Grande, and visited the Los Luceros winery, where we learned about folklore of the storied area, French traders and French grapes in the Spanish territory. We also discovered the mysterious German painter and author who resided in Guatemala, OMA Ziegenfuss.

Las Vegas, New Mexico
Around the site where General Kearney proclaimed New Mexico was a U.S. territory, we surveyed many of the 940 historic buildings on the National Registry, including the 1898 Castenada Hotel (originally a Fred Harvey House hotel, a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail), El Fidel Hotel and Plaza Hotel. We visited the 1903 Carnegie Library, which still serves as a library, and the 1884 Montezuma Castle.

We visited the nearby town of Watrous (formerly La Junta), where we heard local lore and discovered interesting authors, who deal with cultural issues in New Mexico.

We stopped at the Fort Union National Monument. In operation from 1851-91, its soldiers, along with volunteers from New Mexico and Colorado, blocked a March 1862 Confederate invasion at Glorieta Pass.

And we briefly studied area history at the Raton historical district and museum.

Pecos, New Mexico
We revisited the Pecos National Historical Park, including ruins of an extensive pueblo (on the trade frontier between settled Pueblo Indians and nomadic Plains Indians), Spanish colonial mission, and Kozlowski ranch and stage stop on the Santa Fe Trail.

Issues in New Mexico
We wondered how New Mexicans feel about toxic waste being trucked through Albuquerque this winter on its way to be stored near Carlsbad. Many were still unhappy about the decision to permanently store the waste in the state, more than the current issue of trucking it across the state. Closer to home, some are worried about toxic materials seeping into the water supply from past projects at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory north of Santa Fe, near the Rio Grande, as well as safety concerns at the Sandia Nuclear Lab near Albuquerque. At the Frontier Restaurant near the UNM Campus, a man told us New Mexico's history would make "an ideal study in environmental racism." Referring to the development and testing of nuclear weapons, he explained, "The population is low, (many) people are poor and mostly rural, and they don't look like the rest of the U.S."

We also learned about A-76, a government plan to make public archaeologists compete with private archaeologists as they work to uncover and interpret the nation's history.

Trinidad, Colorado
We visited several historically and culturally significant places in Colorado that are endangered, according to Colorado Preservation, Inc. In Las Animas County, we toured El Corazon de Trinidad National Historic District, the Toltec Hotel, and the "Hispanic Cultural Landscape of the Purgatoire River Valley" (listed in 1998). We also visited a site where a 1914 march by women and children to protest the arrest of activist Mother Jones ended in violence.

We viewed ruins of the St. Aloysius Church, which was built 1917 in the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company town serving the Morley Coal Mine north of Raton Pass. And we visited Ludlow, site of the massacre of striking miners (who worked for John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron company) and children by a Colorado militia during a 1914 strike. Forty were killed and the Cleveland Leader wrote, "The charred bodies of two dozen women and children show that Rockefeller knows how to win!"

Pueblo, Colorado
We drove by several historic sites near downtown, including the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company mill, and also saw the historic downtown and prison complex of nearby Canon, Colorado.

Issues in Colorado
Most centered around mining, oil and gas, including "split estates," where property and mineral rights are owned separately. Disagreements are creating poor relations between mineral owners and surface property owners, who say energy companies hastily develop the land to get at oil underneath with little regard for the property owners' concerns, often as the property owner is away. Naturally, since Denver is experiencing a resurgence of pollution problems and the population of the state is changing, the declining efficiency of automobiles and increased tourism benefits of the state's natural beauty vs. more industrial uses of the land are hot topics.

Yellowstone National Park
In the winter wonderland that is America's first national park, we viewed many forms of wildlife, from roaming herds of bison, to clever coyotes and otters. We hiked several of the parks geothermal springs and saw elk grazing near rivers warmed by the hot springs. We saw many eagles and waterfowl, such as swans and geese, and funny little birds called dippers.

We toured on snowshoes and in old military vehicles, now called "snowcoaches," equipped with treads and skis to plow through deep snow. We heard different sides of the snowmobile issue and recreational uses of the park's natural habitat, and we learned more about the ways the administration monitors the wolf population that has been brought back to Yellowstone.

The Yellowstone winter is exciting for a few days for hearty tourists, but survival for many species living in the park is precarious.

Getting to Yellowstone was a different matter all together. We were stranded in a powerful blizzard that brought 18 inches of snow, five foot drifts, sudden nightfall and white-out conditions upon us as we left Sheridan, Wyoming going north into Montana. A Crow dispatcher told the newspaper in Billings, "I know we needed snow, just not sideways." We found refuge in a temporary shelter on the Crow Reservation in the Bighorn Casino. The Crow Agency Police worked weather-related accidents along the Interstate all night, bringing dozens of stranded motorists to the shelter after we arrived. The Crow Agency boarded about 150 and Red Cross shelters further up the road took in several hundred people. We were truly grateful to the Crow Agency and the Bighorn Casino, and we found it an interesting, almost likeable, experience.

Issues in Montana and Wyoming
Facing a draught that may rival the Dust Bowl, NOAA acknowledges that the five years of draught is "reaching severity levels as extreme as the 1930s." Most believe the draught won't have the appearance of the great dust storms because of better farming methods.

We arrived in this cattle region soon after Mad Cow Disease was discovered in nearby Washington State. The issue always came up in context of the economic loss to the cattle ranching states that is expected to result. Brucellosis, a disease carried by bison, which can cause undulant fever in humans, has prompted the state of Montana to allow the killing of bison that wonder away from Yellowstone. The ranchers' fear of bison, and even wolves, will surely be overshadowed by the new fear of Mad Cow Disease.

Salt Lake City, Utah
We celebrated the New Year at the First Night Festival featuring over 100 events in numerous art spaces and facilities of the Mormon Church at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. Events ranged from Macedonian and Bulgarian music and dance to '70s disco and Italian opera, with free ice-skating and Belly Dance lessons. There were local favorite singers in the Mormon Tabernacle, a "First Night Powwow" in the Salt Palace Convention Center and the Raijin Taiko Drummers on the World Music Stage. As part of this unique experience, Polynesian dancers and drummers acted out the story of Joseph Smith. The countdown to midnight came frantically with local "calypsonic" ska band, Two and a Half White Guys and Utah Jazz mascot and dancers, followed by a fireworks display.

Issues in Utah
The Utah state legislature is considering a ban on firing squad executions, which have been conducted as recently as 1996. In a state founded on the basis of a single religion, as the state population diversifies, many are interested in the Bush administration's new immigration policy. As migrant laborers are staying in the U.S. longer, it is believed to be due to the increased border security. In the southern part of the state, naturalists are concerned with overgrazing of cattle and extensive recreational use of national forests.

Moab, Utah
At Arches and Canyonlands National Parks we hiked the Windows, Delicate Arch and Upheaval Dome, and took in the rare winterscape in the Utah desert.

Montrose, Colorado
Snow made the road up to Black Canyon of the Gunnison impassible, so we spent a little extra time at the Ute Indian Museum and went on to Gunnison for a night of subzero temperatures. We crossed 11,300-foot Monarch Pass, with a temperature of one degree above zero at Noon, and followed the icy Arkansas River to the Rocky Mountains Front Range to complete our circuit. All in all, a great adventure.

See our upcoming adventures:
http://www.houstonculture.org/travel

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An Island in the Sky

Tucked away in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona, the Chiricahua National Monument is one of our nation's unknown treasures. Trails through mazes of unusual rock formations will interest day hikers and 10,000' pine-covered ridges will lure serious backpackers to this fantastic "island in the sky." This remote corner of Arizona features 400 species of birds, a wide range of mountain and desert environments, and a little known diverse cultural history as well.

Chiricahua National Monument
Monday, January 12, 7:00pm
REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc)
7538 Westheimer Road at Voss
Houston, TX 77063
(713) 353-2582

Learn more about the free presentation:
http://www.houstonculture.org/travel/presjan04.html


Find out more about Camp Dos Cabezas:
http://www.houstonculture.org/camp

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Glozalization Issues

The Globalization Working Group will meet to discuss plans for an upcoming conference. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, January 14, 7:30pm at the Houston Peace and Justice Center, 1627 W. Alabama. Please attend if you would like to help improve understanding of globalization issues.


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MLK Celebrations

The annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade will take place on Monday, January 19th, at 10:00am in downtown Houston. A Battle of the Bands competition will take place at Robertson Stadium on the University of Houston campus beginning at 3:00pm.



Thank you for participating in these great programs.

____________________________________________________
M  a  r  k @houstonculture.org


Cultural and Community Organization Listings:
http://www.houstonculture.org/listings

2003 Report to Friends and Volunteers:
http://www.houstonculture.org/report

Support Houston Institute for Culture:
http://www.houstonculture.org/giving




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