History for the Wistful Present & Future Generations
Giving Thanks: A Native American Cultural Tradition
Governance, Selling & Making Products & Services with Beauty & a Bright Future
Think of these History Lesson Series like the human body: The brain and nervous system are the legal structure “Governing” requiring electricity and a complex language to communicate. Transportation (arteries, veins … AI farms, rail, rivers, airport, roads) distributes sugars, fats, proteins for Commerce, Industry & Technology (muscles, one of which is the heart), all to flex within business & property rights’ (skeleton) boundaries. The West’s crowning achievement is its diversity: forms, hair, multiple skin colors creating Beauty: parks, schools, hospitals and churches. A one sentence MBA might read, “Business is the making and selling of a product or a service at a profit.” The post WW II GI Bills and the Homestead Acts “shuffled the cards” allowing the West to be built on meritocracy, with the freedom to “engage in business” (initially agriculture), allowing those with ability who accumulate skill and knowledge the freedom to apply their interests and work efforts in order to prosper. The issue for the Future is that our governments, human bodies and minds are primitive and slow changing, while technology and knowledge accumulation is surging, and we have been careless with the Earth. If we were to give all publicly owned lands in the West –National Park-like protections (“National Parks with biodiversity” … not “National or State Forests monocultures”) and change our destructive and inattentive behaviors, the West could be a Beacon of Light for the World. We could end the Rocky Mountain Floristic species extinction parade by changing publicly owned Land Use in the West while trading business exploitations for more beauty, less carbon and poisons in the air and water, and a cooler climate. If only we can learn from the West’s history and double-down on proven achievements of our ancestors, we can truly benefit future generations. Our ancestors did not create the issues facing the World today, it was this writer’s generation. They cannot be appeased.
This author once taught at both Oregon State University and the University of Oregon (in the ’60s). When he thinks of Oregon (crewing along the Willamette River), this is what is remembered.
Reproducible Student Worksheet
Color or paint this Native Animal
History for the Wistful Present & Future Generations
State of Oregon History
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