Extinction....Species and/or Culture??

I have been cleaning up my room and doing laundry and watching one of the PBS stations out here today, and there have been several interesting programs on. They have covered everything from what used to be in Los Angeles and are no longer there to where we have gotten most of our medicines (from plants and animals), music from all over and how it is disappearing.

But there was one statement made by one of the makers of the program about the disappearance of  cultural music that has hit a chord with me.....he make the statement that, yes, we are loosing species to extinction .... but there is also another "extinction" that is taking place that we seem to just be allowing to take place without anyone making much noise about....and that is the extinction of  "cultures".....and the more I think about that statement the more I agree with it. He was in another country, and the musicians and instrument makers were dieing out and their musical culture was being lost.

I see the same thing happening here, with out "cultures" on a daily basis....all the diversity of our different backgrounds is being swallowed up by "current society" and "the old ways" are being lost...which is a crime!  Just how did we get to where we are....by living and building upon the past....and if we forget the past, we are destined to have a collapse.  

I guess that is why I keep talking about the fact that I am about to start the "Have You Seen America Lately??" blog. I keep passing through small towns/hamlets on the roads out here that you can tell have stories to tell, have had a past that was the backbone of our country, and yet, they are dieing out and being paved over or left to nature to cover up and do away with.  We are loosing our "group" identity....and there were a bunch of groups here at one time....but today the "masses" are being herded to a point that there really are no individual personalities...and I see this happening everywhere.

You have a few different types of truck drivers, but the different groups are being herded into groups that have no patience with each other. There are several different groups of 4-wheeler drivers, but when you really get to looking at them, the only real difference is the amount of money that they are able to invest in the vehicle. But they all have the same urgency to get wherever it is and then get back....don't get in the way!!

But I ramble!!  I am trying to get my thoughts and pictures lined up, and adding pics each week as I can, and getting ready to start my other blog back up...or another one that will be just for what we are loosing. Or perhaps I should say "have lost already"!