West Virginia has been my family's home for 4 generations. Our state has beautiful landscape and resources as well as a culture of pride. We are the only state in the history of the United States to have been created out of another state. This relates to the rich history of the Civil War, a major skirmish that nearly torn apart the great country that the value of U.S. has come to stand for.
My city of Wheeling, WV is the only city in this country to have served as the capital of 2 different states(within a years). We were known as the gateway to the West and our Suspension Bridge is the 2nd longest of its style in the world(after the Brooklyn Bridge). In fact, the City of Pittsburgh sued the City of Wheeling in the United States Supreme Court in the 1870s to try to keep the bridge from being build so travelers would need to cross the river at Pittsburgh instead. In 1900, due to the commerce of the city, there were more millionaires here per capita than anywhere else in the country.
The State of West Virginia is a large state geographically while spread in population. We have no city over 80,000 residents, giving us a small town, friendly atmosphere throughout. There are many festivals, community events, very clean state parks, and many other nice, safe and laid-back recreational opportunities. While the state has a low average income, the cost to live and do business here is very reasonable and inexpensive. The residents are helpful, geniune and look out for each other.
You can not find a better place to live or visit.
I highly recommend everyone investigate the opportunities of West Virginia for your next vacation or career move.
One possible link is: http://www.westvirginia.com/wonders/culture.cfm

A native of Denver Colorado but raised in the Iowa heartland on the banks of the Muddy Mississippi, Jordan Danielsen grew up with guitar in hand and a harmonica on his neck. He has spent over a decade hosting open mics, performing in wineries, casino's, pubs, restaurants, festivals and everywhere imaginable from Madison, WI. to St. Louis, MO.

A wandering loner at heart, Jordan has spent much of his musical career as a solo act. However he has also played with some of the finest musicians in the Midwest to create two full length albums and do a bit of touring as well.

In 2011, Jordan released his debut CD Night Alone in the City; an album very diverse from start to finish. Chalked full of soulful horns, electric guitars, acoustic ballads, blues and a tiny bit of hip hop. Jordan's lyrics tell the story of his life growing up in Davenport, IA., and at times borders on the hilarious.

2014 brought the release of Old Soul, an album much different than it's predecessor. Jordan spins his musical tales of river's, road trips, and great grandfathers in the civil war. Sleek piano, organ moans, and haunting fiddle make this collection of songs very soothing yet exciting, and tend to take you along for the ride.

Always on tour and never without a song in his throat, Jordan writes from his life experiences and reflects his personality through his music. With many more songs to record and endless gigs to play, he continues to strive for new audiences every day.

Read About Passion for Justice and Freedom

"Mike’s lyrics speak for the working class more than any other musician around today" -Jim Jordon Electric Pencil

"It’s high time to make the powers that be dance to a different tune and Mike has supplied the soundtrack for that mission. I believe music can be a driving force for change and I’m glad Mike Stout is XXX[ez lee excitable] -Paulo Freire of elecpencil.wordpress.com

Mike Stout is an internationally known socially conscious singer song-writer and in your face take charge social activist. Taking his music to the picket lines and protest rallies Mike leads crusades against economic and environmental injustice calling people to action. Like his musical heroes Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger his songs urge people to unite in solidarity to fight for a better life and to fight for a world safe from war and environmental degradation. For more than three decades, Mike Stout has been writing, recording and performing songs that tell the stories of the working class heroes of U.S. labor history and their struggles for peace, social justice and a decent standard of living.

Working with all-star casts of nationally known Pittsburgh musicians and producers Mike has released 13 independent CDs and recorded over 150 songs. Mike Stout's "Point of Pittsburgh", "Americana Dreams" and "Breaking The Chains" CDs were named notable releases by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. His "Calling Steeler Nation" video was viewed over 100,000 times and was named "One of the best tributes I've ever seen to the borderless 'nation' of Steelers fans" by Dan Gigler in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Blog-N-Gold. The song 'People to People" from his "Full Circle" CD brought him to the attention of music fans in Germany.

On Sept 7, 2012 Mike was invited to perform in tribute to the 100th Anniversary of the birth of folk-singer Woody Guthrie at the PA Labor History Society concert held at the State Theater in State College, Pa. He performed with Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, an Mary), Anne Feeney, and Si Kahn. The event was part of the national Grammy Awards Woody Guthrie celebration. Mike performed his ode to Woody "America's Favorite Son"

As a union leader and social activist Mike Stout has fought for improved worker safety and came to the aid of the unemployed by founding food banks and economic development councils. As an environmentalist he works to educate the public on the dangers of global warming and fracking. Mike was one of the founding members of Pennsylvanians United For Single-Payer Healthcare (PUSH) that has been in the forefront in the fight for single-payer, universal healthcare. In Pittsburgh Stout fought the closing of the Braddock Hospital and successfully stopped the closing of trolley stops used by the elderly.

In 2007 the Pennsylvania Labor and History Society presented Mike Stout with the Mother Jones Award for his efforts as a social leader and as a performer who uses music to bring about change.

Mike was a blue collar steel worker and a union leader. Mike tells stories from his heart about people who are affected by unemployment, social injustice, environmental hazards, or war. Mike is not out to be a rich rock star. As he’s stated on numerous occasions,“the kind of ‘change’ I’m interested in ain’t coins or money, but social movements.”

Stout performs in schools across Pennsylvania teaching students with his songs about the forgotten unsung heroes of history. They are people who fought for worker safety, the 8 hour work day, free speech, and freedom, but who are not mentioned in our school history books. They are working class organizers such abolitionist and renaissance man Martin Delany, the cotton mill women of the 1840’s, Crystal Eastman, Fannie Sellins, the workers of the Pressed Steel Car Strike in McKees Rocks, the union organizers of the New Deal, Father Charles Owen Rice, Captain Sean (George.) and the resisters of the plant shutdowns in the 1980’s. His message is that we should not take for granted the rights that they won for us.

The Cherokees settled in the American Southeast portion of the country. The tribe was of Iroquoian descent. They had originally been from the Great Lakes region of the country, but eventually settled closer to the east coast. They were a strong tribe with several smaller sections, all lead by chiefs. The tribe was highly religious and spiritual. When the American Revolution took place, the Cherokee Indians supported the British soldiers, and even assisted them in battle by taking part in several attacks. The Creek and Choctaw tribes also assisted in the battles on the British side.

Eventually around the 1800s, the Cherokee Indians began to adopt the culture that the white man brought to them. They began to dress more European, and even adopted many of their farming and building methods. In 1828, gold was discovered on the Cherokee’s land. This prompted the overtaking of their homes, and they were forced out. They had been settled in Georgia for many years, but were now being made to leave and find a new place to settle. This is the origin for the historically popular Trail of Tears, where men, women, and children had to pack up their belongings and find new homes, marching a span of thousands of miles. When all was said and done, about 4,000 Cherokee lost their lives on the journey.

Sequoyah also called George Gist was born about 1775 in Taskigi, North Carolina and died in August 1843 near San Fernando, Mexico. He was the creator of the Cherokee writing system (see Cherokee language). Sequoyah was Cherokee on his mother's side. He was an accomplished silversmith, painter, and warrior and served with the U.S. Army in the Creek War in 1813–14.
Sequoyah became convinced that the secret of what he considered the white people’s superior power was the written language, which enabled them to accumulate and transmit more knowledge than was possible for a people dependent on memory and word of mouth.

Accordingly, about 1809 he began working to develop a system of writing for the Cherokees, believing that increased knowledge would help them maintain their independence. He experimented first with pictographs and then with symbols representing the syllables of the spoken Cherokee language, adapting letters from English, Greek, and Hebrew. His daughter helped him to identify the Cherokee syllables. By 1821 he had created a system of 86 symbols, representing all the syllables of the Cherokee language.
Sequoyah convinced his people of the utility of his syllabary by transmitting messages between the Cherokees of Arkansas (with whom he went to live) and those of the east and by teaching his daughter and other young people of the tribe to write. The simplicity of his system enabled pupils to learn it rapidly, and soon Cherokees throughout the nation were teaching it in their schools and publishing books and newspapers in their own Cherokee language.

Sequoyah’s name (spelled Sequoia) was given to the giant redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) of the Pacific Coast and the big trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) of the Sierra Nevada range. The Cherokee rose is now the state flower of Georgia. Today, the largest population of Cherokee Indians live in the state of Oklahoma, where there are three federally recognized Cherokee communities with thousands of residents.

Adapted from http://www.indians.org/articles/cherokee-indians.html and http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sequoyah

The Cajuns are descendants of Roman Catholic French Canadians whom the British, in the 18th century, drove from the captured French colony of Acadia (now Nova Scotia and adjacent areas)who settled in the fertile bayou lands of southern Louisiana. The Cajuns today form small, compact, generally self-contained communities. Their patois is a combination of archaic French forms with idioms taken from their English, Spanish, German, American Indian, and African American (usually “Creole”) neighbors.

Pres. Teddy Roosevelt was a proponent of the ‘melting pot’ philosophy. The movement was led by people in Louisiana such as Progressive Luther Hall, elected governor in 1912. In July of that year, the legislature passed an act allowing the Department of Education to select all books and curricula for public schools. Starting the next year, English was stressed throughout the curricula, essentially banning French from the schools. In 1916, the state legislature approved Act 27, which required that all children attend public school where English was to be the language. This implicitly meant that the Cajun children that were brought up speaking French in their homes would have to learn English. The events were completed in 1921 when the Louisiana Constitution was changed so that all school proceedings had to be conducted in English. This succession of events led to many Cajuns growing up without learning their ancestral language. Stories abound of Cajun children being punished for speaking French at school.

Most of the parents of children in school for the first few decades of the century had grown up speaking French and still spoke it in the home. Children would learn English at school, but still learned some French in the home. As that English-educated generation grew up and had their own families, the use of French in the home was decreased with each generation. Some Cajun families, especially in more rural areas, continued to pass along the Cajun French language throughout the twentieth century.

Things began to turn around in the 1960s. Faced with the prospect of losing their language, CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) was established in 1968 to help bring interest in the French language back to the educational system. Less than 5% of Cajuns born in the last fifty years speak French as their primary language. The French being taught by CODOFIL was not Cajun French. Still, it was a move leading to French language preservation amongst the Cajuns. French immersion programs can now be found across Acadiana, Cajun Louisiana.

Zachary Richard founded Action Cadienne to advocate for the Cajun French language. The group maintains that the language is integral to the continuation of Cajun culture.

Cajun cuisine reflects the mixture of cultures in Louisiana. Among its classic dishes are alligator stew, jambalaya, gumbo—actually a Creole dish, made with a roux—and crayfish (or other seafood) étouffée, served over rice. Many dishes are prepared with some variety of sausage, such as boudin or andouille (a smoked sausage made with pork), and tasso (a pork shoulder preparation borrowed from the Choctaw). Essential seasonings include filé powder (made from sassafras leaves), cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Cajun music likewise shows a blend of several influences, including French, Creole, and Celtic songs. Cajun songs are usually sung in French. Typical ensemble instruments are the fiddle, the diatonic (button) accordion, the guitar, and spoons or the triangle. Tempos can range from a mournful waltz to a lively two-step, but, whatever the tempo, Cajun music is meant to be danced to.

Article mostly from http://www.acadian-cajun.com/clang.htmin content and http://www.britannica.com/topic/Cajun

How would it be to live in a world where enabling mutually enhancing relationships is the primary mode of human and earth relations?

Global culture change leaders worldwide are actively transforming the way we live and work, shifting our shared worldview from one of “power over” to “power with”. Dr. Riane Eisler, JD, author of The Chalice and the Blade and The Power of Partnership, founded the Center for Partnership Studies to accelerate movement to living partnership systems of human rights and nonviolence, gender and racial equity, and long-term economic success.

Be part of the movement toward a Partnership system
Over 250 CPS Leadership & Learning program Alumni from 18 countries are leading the way in their communities, families and institutions, changing our story from a maladaptive, outmoded “domination” paradigm to an emerging Partnership model. Applied Partnership practices offer a win-win recipe for success in education, business, caring economic policies, and organizational and healthcare systems.

Want to learn more?

Visit: http://caringeconomy.org/

http://rianeeisler.com/

http://centerforpartnership.org/

http://pubs.lib.umn.edu/ijps/

Attend a free online course with Riane Eisler:

http://caringeconomy.org/freeclasses

In music class when I was in junior high school my teacher told us something fascinating about former African American slaves who settled off the Southern United States coastline and said that to this day their descendents have their own language developed on the islands. I found it intriguing and it stuck in the back of my head.

The coastline from South Carolina to Northern Florida is the home of the Gullah people, an African American ethnic group. An estimated 300,000 Gullah people live along there. That coastline, "the Low Country" was deemed unhealthy for white owners and their families. The Low Country slaves were therefore freer to speak in their own languages and dialects, and to keep their African culture.

Thus were created the Gullah or Geechee language and people. Gullah allowed the Low Country slaves to communicate with one another coming as they did from an area in Africa in which there was a great deal of linguistic diversity. Settling in the offshore islands their culture and language differed from Mainland African culture and language as they do to this day. Although the Gullah language's vocabulary is much more Anglicized than it originally was, it always was a combination of English and West African languages.

There are many groups working to preserve different aspects of Low Country life. A woman, Marquetta L. Goodwine who has been designated at the official liaison and spokesperson for Gullah/Geechee people and is therefore referred to as "Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation" works with the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition to keep the culture alive and vibrant.

Partially based on http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/gullah.html

Native American Dancers on American Prairie Reserve