Graded In Class Assignment

Themes of Luther Standing Bear statement:
- Native Americans did not see the land as something to be conquered but yet a "parent" who one could give and take necessary items for life.
- Animals and plants has just the same amount of right to grow and thrive as man does
- The Native American culture only dies when the ideas and traditions have died within the community


Chief Seattle Speech:
- The only way for their traditions to survive was to accept the protection and restrictions that the Governor was proposing.
- The red man's god and the white man's god can not be one in the same because God was not fighting for the rights of the red man.
- The Native Americans could not fight the fact that their numbers were dwindling and so they had to accept their fate.

Because the Chief Seattle Speech was not recorded and published the same year it was spoken, many translations or versions have been produced. The authentic version was lost to the winds of time as the words left Chief Seattle's mouth, however many have tried to copy and reinvent this speech even it means completely contradicting the true meaning. The American Indian Quarterly Journal wrote about this authenticity issue in an article called "Contemporary Reinvention of Chief Seattle: Variant Texts of Chief Seattle's 1854 Speech. It explains that even as recently as 1992 writers have tried to republish this speech in many different ways. The first published version however was in 1887 almost 30 years afterwards by Dr. Smith, a man who did not even speak the same language as Seattle.

To read more from this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1185598?seq=1

Seattle 1854

"I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame." -Chief Seattle 1854

In the pre-wartime America, the Native American populations were almost extinct except for the last few tribes on the western coast. During this year the governor of Washington state brought a treaty that was to be given to one of these tribes. When Chief Seattle was greeted by the governor he gave a very eloquent speech to his people about his thoughts on the treaty and the fate of his people.  This speech was one of the last from the great chiefs of the the Northwest Coast Indians although its authenticity is a very questionable. It was written down by a man who did not speak the language and was published 33 years after the actual speech was given.  Since then many publications of the variations of this speech have emerged, even with some of them completely contradicting themselves. 

But who is to say what the original truly sounded like? I think it is a matter for each person to decide for themselves. 

http://www.chiefseattle.com/history/chiefseattle/speech/speech.htm <-- the "original" speech

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1185598?seq=1 <--- a book describing the controversy of authenticy.

Exploring the natural world and what it has to offer technology

a flower that inspired a new drill and the way a shark moves which inspired different research methods

Shark skin actually inspired a new line of swimming equipment that reduces friction in the water.

This building in Zimbabwe actually mimics the ventialation system of a termite mound.

Queing

This week I was notified that there was an internship available on campus and I began to think of how students come to college to form lines. You must get in a line to have your ID made, you have to get in a line to get tickets to the football game, you have to stand in line to get your food, to graduate, to take classes. Lines, lines, lines, lines. But who decided that straight lines are the best or that lines were the best way to wait for something. In nature barely anything is in a line except if we make it that way. So naturally our mindset is going to be that of a line, instead of a circle like everything else. Things we make go from production -> to consumer -> to waste, that's it, we do not think any further than that. However, if we thought in forms of circles we would complete the loop and make our waste problems part of the past. Now I am not saying that you should constantly be told to be in a circle around campus or while waiting in line to get food but if we as humans figured out a way to reincorporate ourselves without always being in lines I believe that we would start thinking in whole different ways.

Taking Religion into Account

Breathing the air, eating the food, and drinking the water from this earth is something we all have to do; every being on the planet does, so why are humans supposedly exempt from giving back and taking care of the world we live in? Saying that it is someone's "God given right" to pollute, destroy and conquer is just a way for the insecure male-dominated society to justify what they are doing. A woman has never ruled a civilization and said "we must conquer all the land around us for the use of our people." Though there are few women rulers to base that opinion off of, it still seems to say something about a male-dominated world. Religion, morals, and faith should not have anything to do with the fact that humans are destroying our Earth before our very eyes. If one is so-called "Godly", "Religious" than they should be just as prone to saving the planet as someone without a religion. As a person who thinks that religion is the most hypocritical philosophy that exists, I am just as willing to get my hands dirty to help those that need it. This fight shouldn't be about religion, race or geographical location because we are all affected whether we choose to believe it or not. People can ignore climate change all they want but ignoring landfills, polluted water and dying animals is like ignoring an elephant in your living room.

The First Wave of Inspiration

I first became very interested in the field of biomimicry after watching this ted video of Michael Pawlyn and his amazing work. I viewed this video back in February 2011 and the field has "blossomed" in a matter of a few months. All of the work done by Pawlyn and his team is exquisite and the first of its kind. He also invokes a new way of thinking for Americans and many other countries around the world.