If the history of the universe were 

placed on a calendar year, humans 

would only exist starting around 

11:59 PM on December 31.

  

1968

A Year of Militancy and Protest

 

In 1968 Edward Abbey’s most famous book, Desert Solitaire, was published.

 

“A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself. If industrial man continues to multiply its numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making. He will make himself an exile from the earth.”

 

The average cost of a new house was $15K

 

The average cost of a new car was $2,800

 

A gallon of gas cost 00.34 cents

 

Top Grossing film was 2001: A Space Odessey

 

The Beatles release “Hey Jude” (hottest single of the year) and “Revolution”:

 

“You say you want a revolution, well, you know
We all wanna change the world
You tell me that it's evolution, well, you know
We all wanna change the world”

 

The Vietnam War

 

            Battle of Khe Sanh Marine Base

 

            The Tet Offensive

 

            The Massacre at Hué (Viet Cong massacre 4K to 6K civilians with clubs)

 

            Walter Cronkite on the evening news calls for negotiations

 

            Anti-war sentiment becomes widespread across the US, especially college campuses

 

MyLai Massacre, US forces massacre 300 to 500 civilians in the MyLai village

 

Millions of students turn out for war protests in the US and Europe

 

Martin Luther King, Jr assassinated (Race Riots and demonstrations across the US)

 

Robert F. Kennedy assassinated (JFK’s brother, would have been elected president)

 

The 1968 Civil Rights Act (prohibited discrimination based on race)

 

Multiple Militant Ethnic and Racial movements across the US (i.e. Black Power)

 

Women’s and Gay Rights groups turn militant

 

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers on television

 

Mexico City Summer Olympics (two African American athletes raise their fists on podium)

 

1968 Presidential Election, Nixon elected

 

Chicago Riots (Chicago site of National Democratic Convention)

 

  

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

 

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.”

 “A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”

 “You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.”

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

 

 “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.  May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

 “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

 “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

 “Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while, then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

 

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

 

“If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture—that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.”

 

“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”

 

“Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”

 

“The ugliest thing in America is greed, the lust for power and domination, the lunatic ideology of perpetual Growth - with a capital G. 'Progress' in our nation has for too long been confused with 'Growth'; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better - toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the coyote, the crocodile, whatever, each and every species has as much right to be here as we do.”

 

“Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.”

 

“Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one.”

 

“An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.”

 

“I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patriotism.”

 

“When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.”

 

“Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.

 

“I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.”

 

“If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.”

 

“If industrial man continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making.”

 

“All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 

 

  

 

Men are like plants, the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow.  We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment.

 

--From J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

  

What’s Going On?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M

 

Mercy Mercy Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiDnHS3fzk

 

Big Yellow Taxi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20

 

This Land Is Your Land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s

 

Don’t Go Near the Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpJ-pLYmDHU

 

Beds Are Burning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejorQVy3m8E

 

  

The American Passenger Pigeon, Once Numbered in the Billions, is Extinct

 

Passenger pigeons, estimated at 3 to 5 billion, were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. The last confirmed wild bird is thought to have been shot in 1901. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of this species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.

 

There were so many, seemingly endless numbers, that few people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ever conceived of their extinction.

 

Anthropocene extinction, also known as the sixth mass distinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Anthropocene epoch (age of humans) as a result of human activity. The included extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals.  With widespread degradation of habitats such as coral reefs and rain forests, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates.