Bangalore, India was a place with a lot of contradictions. There were many new buildings going up with interesting scaffolding (shown in the slide presentation) and right alongside of them would be empty lots with cardboard shacks, or tents, where people lived. The air was dirty with dense smog. Traffic was chaotic and dangerous with just as many motorcycles as cars. It was a free-for-all when it came to driving and I don’t know why they even bothered painting traffic lines in the roads; whether it was for going in one direction or between two way traffic no one paid any attention to them while driving, continuously honking their horns. There were no sidewalks or crossways for people, so they were in the streets along with the sacred cows. These sacred cows were treated like street people left to rummage in the garage for food. This, to me, was not any way to honor anything sacred. There was no planning for the city. I was told there were many lakes at one time, but several of them have been filled-in for the haphazard expansion of the city. Occasionally, there were areas of natural beauty within the land itself, including many coconut and flowering trees, but their surroundings detracted from this. With all of this, astonishingly enough, real estate prices were several times more expensive than New York City in many instances.
This is a place that could really see tremendous benefits from the implementation of The Venus Project.
On the other hand, the dedicated people we met – had a good understanding of the direction of The Venus Project, were truly amazing. There was little exposure of The Zeitgeist Movement or The Venus Project in India and the few members were scattered throughout the large country, but this did not stop them. They did so many innovative things to make this lecture a success. Many people traveled under unpleasant conditions for over 24 hours to get to the lecture and had to go right back the next day. The Zeitgeist Movement’s India Chapter membership and Facebook rose by the hundreds due to the lecture and all their hard work. We deeply appreciate all their dedication and hard work.
Even though the Japan lecture had fewer attendees than the others, the people we met made up for it. There were also significant connections developed. They will be initiating a serious program to introduce The Venus Project to the Japanese people. We will discuss this in more detail as it progresses.
We want to thank Winston McClain, Christopher Madden and Marina Saga for all they did regarding the Japan lecture.
Japan is an interesting place. We even took time to do a little sightseeing. At the science museum someone gave a demonstration of biometrics and showed how it affects invention (a branch of biology that studies biological phenomena and makes discoveries by means of statistical analysis). They took out Velcro and I mentioned how Jacque first came up with this before World War II and tried to introduce it to the Navy. He had noticed that there were far too many buttons on sailor’s pants and laces on their shoes to allow them to get to the upper deck in an emergency.
Jacque was in design and development when drafted, and he suggested he could design shoes and pants that could immediately be fastened by pressing them together.
He got this idea by observing how burrs with many pongs all around them stuck to clothing and felt he could use this process as a fastening device for clothing and shoes.
We were surprised when the person demonstrating that the trigger mechanism for the design of Velcro was from nature took out these same burrs and placed them on a piece of Velcro, saying it was designed in the 1950’s.
Jacque did not follow through with this invention because when he introduced the concept of fastening shoes and pants very quickly to his superiors, they said you forget one thing. Eager to know what this may be, Jacque listened intensely as they proclaimed “tradition.” I wonder how many people tradition has killed.
Well the Perth lecture was a success. It was just a very few seats away from a full house. It has been a fast pace through Australia and we now have a few days of well needed rest before we fly to Japan on May 4th. We are meeting with The Zeitgeist members one last time on Sunday before leaving. As usual they are all fantastic people. We are finding that the people associated with this movement are extraordinary people. People are always telling us how excited they are that we have visited their country but it is just as energizing to us to experience the enthusiasm and genuine interest of so many people.
I also want to mention how grateful we are to Heather Odom for first coming up with the idea of this World Lecture Tour and then taking the tremendous amount of time it took and still is taking to organize the entire tour. She has continuously communicated with everyone in each location working with them along the way as they develop their event. This is no easy task in conjunction with her full time job as a head surgical nurse. We admire and deeply appreciate all she is doing.
We also want to acknowledge all the help we received from Tom Williams in the UK who set up the Eventbrite sites for everyone who is arranging a lecture. There is also much help and support from Andrew Buxton and Julita Wielgat. Andrew is working on an exhibition in Eindhoven in June of Jacque’s work while we are giving a lecture there. There are several events in Holland that we will be writing about as the events gets closer. Heather, Tom, Andrew, and Julita have all become very dear friends.
