[Note to readers:  this column was written a number of weeks ago, but was in holding as I wrote columns about some more immediate travel related subjects.  With the turmoil in Tibet this past week, it is clearly a topic in the news.  I have updated the prior column to include the recent upheavals.] 

When countries or cities submit bids for hosting the Olympics it is usually done with a great sense of pride and boosterism.  The governments and economic vested interests all look to hosting the Olympics as a way to showcase their “world class city”.  In the case of the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, it is clearly the goal of the Chinese government to make clear to the world that the formerly communist country is now a major player on the world stage.  The world has recognized and accepted the growing economic might of the country.  The Chinese government wants to make a further impression on the world that they are culturally and architecturally a world class nation.

I have written here about what has occurred in China over the last 20 years.  Basically they have collapsed the 200 year timeline of the U.S. to move from an agricultural economy to an information economy to a period one tenth in length.  This has never been done on such a magnitude, and as a result there have been many problems, as written here.  I think that this will be the reason that the 2008 Beijing Olympics may turn out …

I just returned from a trip through Normandy with my son.  The focus of our visit was the beaches of D-Day.   I was trying to connect a column billed as “A Future Look at Today” to the powerful emotions I was feeling.  On Omaha beach there is nothing on the beach to acknowledge what occurred on June 6, 1944 except for a very modern sculpture dedicated in 2004 for the 60th anniversary.  Nearby was a plaque with the words of the sculptor, Anilore Banon, as to his creative inspiration for his creation, “The Wings of Hope”

“So that the spirit which carried these men on June 6, 1944 continues to inspire us, reminding us that together it is always possible to change the future”

Connection made

Brasilia, the capitol of Brazil, represents an example of what humanity must do in this early part of the 21st century.  In my last column, I discussed the history of this great city and the fact that it was created in the late 1950s to be “the capitol of the third millennium” and that it was built literally in the middle of Brazil hundreds of miles from the nearest city.  In other words the eyes of the visionaries who built the city were completely focused on the future.  What should a capitol of the future look like?  How should it be laid out?  How can future governmental needs and functionality be anticipated and planned for?

It is this type of thinking on a grand scale that is needed now more than ever as humanity approaches 7 billion in number, the planet is warming, water scarcity is growing and we have entered our global stage of evolution.  Forward thinking these days seems to come primarily from innovative, fast moving, companies in the private sector.  National leaders seem increasingly to be following their citizens rather than leading them.  There seems to be a reliance on past processes as ways to confront the future.  There is a growing number of people who are now realizing that many of the ‘old ways of doing things’ have run their course and that new approaches are essential for facing the issues. This is, to be sure, one of the forces fueling the success of Barack Obama in …

Brasilia is the futuristic capitol of Brazil.  It has been so since 1960 when the federal government moved there from Rio de Janeiro.  I recently spent two days there and it is truly magnificent. It has been a place I have wanted to visit almost my entire life, but more on that later.  First it is important to briefly tell the story of its creation as it is all about vision and how vision can project humanity into the future.

The population of Brazil, since colonization by the Portuguese has always been predominately oriented to the Atlantic coast, where the majority of Brazilians still reside.  The country is the fifth largest in the world in terms of land mass.  In 1823 a statesman named Jose Bonifacio suggested that moving the capitol inland would be a stimulus to the great interior of the country and would also be safer from foreign attack.  He came up with the name Brasilia.  Nothing much came of his efforts until decades later, a priest, living in Italy prophesied that a new civilization would emerge in Brazil between the 15th and 20th parallels.  This caught the attention of Brazil and in the 1891 Constitution, land in the central plateau of Brazil was allocated for the construction of a federal district.  Several legislative directives followed in the decades that followed, but nothing was ever done until a great leader with vision became President.

Juscelino Kubitschek became President in 1955.  During the electoral campaign, he was asked if he would …