IN $1.50-No Advertising VOLUME VI, NO. 7 MAY 1980
Page 2 RAIN May 1980 tettefS Dear Friends, Thanks for the article on owner-builders and code reform (Jan. '80). It's nice to keep up on events in other parts of the country. Vermont still has relatively few building regulations in rural areas, but in my more pessimistic moments I suppose the tide is inexorable. The sometimes hostile attitude of local officials seems to have caused the most problems for people we have worked with, often made worse by owner-builder defensiveness. Efforts at code reform are a step in the right direction, since the process involves creative dialogue to be successful. Lenders are another story. RAIN readers might be interested in two other references on the subject. The Owner-Builder and the Code by Ken Kern, et al, is a good overview of the problems owner-builders can face, and discusses different ways to cope with technical provisions of codes, enforcement, and officials. It includes an encouraging history of the United Stand struggle to reform the California code. Building Regulations: A SelfHelp Guide for the Owner-Builder by Edmund Vitale is new from Scribner's. I haven't seen it yet, but it got a good review by J. Baldwin in the Fall '79 CoEvolution Quarterly, and sounds potentially useful. Vitale probably provides technical information and advice, while Kern gives moral support. Both are necessary. Thanks again for a good article. Best wishes, Paul Hanke P.S. to Tom Bender: The unit price of a bar of soap is based only on the weight of the soap, the weight of air at sea level doesn't add anything. Eight ounces of cream still weighs eight ounces after it has been whipped. Dear RAIN, This is just a short note in praise of those who haven't. Those who haven't plugged back into grants-person-shit. Whether it be NCAT, DOE, TVAoranyotherco-opting, big spending government program that wastes so much good human energy that can never be reclaimed. Praise to those who haven't pulled off some slick written funding proposal which reminds you at the bottom that the IRS knows how much you got and who and where you are. Praise to those who haven't hustled and pushed and pulled to get the very last word on "passive reverse juice blocking thermic diodes" and these people themselves becoming energy inefficient. Praise to those who haven't zoomed off to the latest energy conference to say "well, no, I haven't quite got my own solar water heater hooked up yet-but you know I'm just too busy!" And finally, praise to those who don't get around to reading this because they' re out pounding nails and skinning knuckles putting up insulation that couldn't wait any longer. Tom Knight Tallulah Falls, GA RAIN To the Editor, There's hope that Appropriate Technology will really appeal to future genera- \ tions: My 10-year-old nephew was looking at my typewriter and asked how you turn it on. I said you don't need to because it's not electric. He pressed a key, and when it typed the letter, he said, "Wow, that's neat!" Dorothy Mack Indianapolis, IN P.S. Your magazine is terrific! Dear Carlotta, Just a brief note to thank you for the mention of the National Family Farm Coalition and the National Family Farm Education Project in the Feb ./Mar. issue of RAIN. However, I have to ask you to make a correction that may seem nit-picky to you but which looms large to the Internal Revenue Service. The National Family Farm Coalition is a lobbying group set up to work in the Family Farm Development Act. The National Family Farm Education Project is a research I education /networking organization that does not lobby. The Education Project is trying to do public education about why it is important to all Americans that family farms are protected and encouraged by public policy, but it is not advocating any specific legislative solutions. Thanks again for all your help. I hope you are liking Portland and the new job.. Best, Cathy Lerza National Family Farm Education Project Washington, DC Sorry, Cathy, I'd never want to sic the IRS on anyone, and yes, I like Portland and the new job, a lot. -Carlotta Journal of Appropriate Technology RAIN is a national information access journal making connections for people seeking more simple and satisfying lifestyles, working to make their communities and regions economically self-reliant, building a society that is durable, just and ecologically sound. \IN STAFF: Carlotta Collette, Mark Roseland, Pauline Deppen, Jill Stapleton, Dawn Brenholtz, John Ferrell, Karen Struening 1 Becky Banyas-Koach RAIN, Journal of Appropriate Technology, is published 10 times yearly by the Rain Umbrella, Inc.; a non-profit corporation located at 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, Oregon 97210, telephone 503/227-5110. Copyright © 1980 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho
, GOOD THINGS The Divining Hand, Christopher Bird, 1979, $24.95 from: E.P. Dutton 2 Park Avenue New York, NY 10016 I first bumped into the phenomenon of dowsing some eight years ago while researching the ancient Chinese art off engsh ui which was used to align homes, communities, temples and graves with the flows of "energy" in nature. During that research I met a Catholic priest from St. Johns Abbey in Minnesota who taught me how to dowse for water and also showed me his abilities in medical dowsing and map • dowsing for minerals and oil. Cris Bird, • who co-authored Secrets of the Great Pyramid, has put together an absorbing account of the history of dowsing in finding oil and water; its use by U.S. Marines to locate underground tunnels in Vietnam, early attempts to explain the phenomenon, apd current research that is zeroing in on how and why this mysterious phenomenon operates. ~Tom Bender ------ ----- ----- WORK Workplace Democracy, Daniel Zwerdling, 1978, $5.95 from: Harper&Row 10 E. •53rd Street New York, NY 10022 One of the most painful obstacles to·organizations trying to implement more democratic and people-centered ways to work is having to grapple in isolation wi~h the problems already tackled by,others. Zwerdling has assembled a sourcebook on existing projects-succ·essful ones and failures, shams set up by corporations to give· workers rhe illusion of partidpation to goad them to extra effort, and genuine workerowned, -controlled and -centered workplaces. No firm answe_rs here, but a status report on a spectrum of efforts in the everchanging attempt to find more viab1e alternative ways to work. A heartening but sober report. -Tom Bender The North Will Rise Again: Pensions, .Politics and Power in the 1980's, Jeremy Rifkin and Randy Barber, 1978, $4.95 from:- Beacon Press 25 Beacon St. Boston, MA 02108 Employee pension funds now represent the largest pool of private capital in the world-owning already 20-25 percent of the stock of companies on the New York and American Exchanges, and growing at 10 percent per year. The actual control of these funds has traditionally been left to the "professional skills" of investment bankers. These investment oankers have it turns out, used the funds for their own profit, to take losses from firms they cop- . trolled, and to make ir;ivestments that eventually cost the employees their jobs. The result? A lower return on the funds than a totally random investment would provide, a drive for unions and public employees to take control of their own funds and invest May 1980 RAIN them in ways to control runaway plants, investment redlining and union-breaking practices . A good primer on the problems faced by unions and the public sector and the potentials for using pension funds in ways to help resolve them. - Tom Bender Community Jo.bs, monthly, 6 mo. for • $5.95, from: Community Jobs 1704 R Street N.W. Washington, DC 20009 A newsletter of job opportunitie_s available in institutions and alternative organizations wor½ing for social change. Nationwide listings of openings for organizers, editors, fund raisers, lawyers, counselors, lobbyists and people with or without other skills. A valuable publication for any organization that is constantly asked, "I want to do something useful, but where do I start?" - Tom Bender
Page4 STOREFRpNT ACTORS' THEATRE,,6 S.W. Third, Portland, OR 97204, 503/224-4001. The Storefront formed in 1970 as a radical response to the shootings at Kent State. At that time the company involved about 10 people doing mostly guerilla the'ater. Within a week of its first performances the group had grown to 25 people, which is about how many people now make up the core. Storefront draws on a larger community of over 50 supporters who participate to varying degrees in each performance. Besides creating and performing their regular theater, the Storefront offers a touring children's theater which last ye~u performed to 120 schools, and programs which involve senior citizens and emotionally and physically disabled people in the theater's process. The Storefront celebrates its 10th anniversary this spring by mov- ~,i':COLLECli'JEll ·RUM RAIN, as you may or may not know, is put together each month by a collective. Some of us have been in coller;~ives before and others of us have not. We are all fairly new to this one. 1n examining our goals together we decided to look at other collectives to determine our similarities and our dif- • ferences. We chose the "creative" collectives below _because we also wanted to explore ways in which artists are resisting the "dependency tendency" which locks them in competitive struggles for '.'mainstream" ·recognition. One thing we found early in our interviews is that there are no two identical ways of being a collective. Each of the collectives we met with (in some cases we spoke to only one member, more in the others) has its own style, its own personality, its own • way of interacting. We narrowed this interaction down to a few areas that seemed to be key to each of the collectives, then let the collectives speak for themselves. -CC & JS -on forming a collective S.T. A group ofus got together who wanted to explore theater in alternative terms .. . not only the political structure of the theater i"tself but the lifestyles of the people who were involved at the time. We're constantly defining it ourselves. We're sometimes at a loss for words to figure out the nature of the beast. There are collective aspects of Storefront ... the way we run, the way we interact.with each other, but that doesn't say it all by any means. A~C. At the first meeting I talked about working in isolation and , my desire to be in community-to be in touch with people. I had a fantasy about film study. I had a fantasy about sharing my work •both flnished and works-in-progress. I was looking for and wanting to give support and feedback. There were\ at the outset, group projects. That was a real rush for everyone. The idea that people could possibly work on their own projects and be part of a collective project as well. It changed, people drifted away or got over the first r_ush and found that animation was work-tons of hours and commitment that they wen;n't willing to make. Little by little, people lost interest, expected that high energy to be there all the time, expecteci other people to be providing that high energy. There was a kind of stimulus-response s1tuation. There were a certain a111ount of people who were high energy and , stimulating and then there were people in the group who came to respond an'd be fed. I think the people who were giving out got a little tired of doing it, and the people who came to receive were a little disillusioned when they weren't encountering that super-high energy all the time.
MOVING SPACE INC., 215 S.E. 9th, Poqland, OR 97215, 503/235-2138. The Moving Space collective was started in 1974 by 10 members who at that time called themselves the Portland-Dance Collective. Six years later they have seven members, and share a common space as well as the common perception of dance and movement as healers. In this shared space they perform, practice and teach T'ai Chi, gymnastics and several movement approaches. "The teaching is generally not performance oriented; its purpose is participation, to help people gain more physical il'!,telligence." They also make their space available to other communify artists as well as guest artists that they bring to town in collaboration with other Portland groups. B.G. We didn't have a v~ry wealthy patron. You have to be very wealthy to start-a gallery, and the one thing we wanted was to start a.gallery. -We wanted to have control over that gallery. We wanted to promote our own work. • Because you have the power. Other outfits, the.board of trustees and the directors-they make the decisions. Here, we make the_decisions. THE BLACKFISH GALLERY, 325 N_.W. 6th, Portland, OR 97209, 503/224-2634. The Blackfish Collective came together in the winter of 1978 to begin to dream about and plan for the Blackfish Gallery. The Gallery ope.ned in March of 1979with 13 members. There are currently 24 members who exhibit in the space. During the past year they also exhibited the work of non-member regional artists in four invitational shows. Each show is accompanied by a slide lecture presentation by the artist. They're·still in the planning stage with some of their other ideas for the space, such as having dancers, musicians and poets perform there.
Page 6 RAIN May 1980 M.S. When we star.ted there were ten of us interested in working independently as artists, and we didn't want to-work together. Basically, we were all interested in doing different things. We had no common thread through our work. So we decided instead of forming a company to rent and share space. It's worked well. I think that's why it survived through the years. Somehow we've maintained our low-key existence. ' -on structure s:T. We have a stru~ture to an extent. We have an administrative structure. We have-a board of advisors that are members of the the-· ater ... representatives who are elected by the group to handle the everyday mundane business that the whole group didn't really need to decide or want to decide. We still have group,meetings . . . we have reps. meetings about once a week ... we take care of busine~s and analyze problems and suggest solutions .. .,then it takes a vote of the general meeting to make any real decisions ... the board does11't run the theater artistically ... it's far more efficient n_ow and far more productive. A.C. We tried to get too·structured. We decided to write a charter and form subgroups that would research this and that. It got to be unwieldy and a lot of people got turned off. There was a split where some of us wanted more structure and to have meetings run in an efficient way and,there were the quasi-anarchists. They wanted meetings to be spontaneous without agendas. Polarization took place within the group. • B.G. Our primary function is to be a really viable professional commercial gallery. We want to s_ell work and we wantto operate commercially. We want to fulfill our own need ~ithout having to justify directly .or indirectly to the community in terms of performing education. We thought that we're always going to perform that function. In terms of financing the gallery, grant money tends to dry up. We thought it may be harder initially to make it commercially, but that in the long run we'd be better off to start out this way and stick it out. , We have a board of directors made up of a majority of our members and a minority from the community. We haven't used them quite in the way we might have, but we're still figuring it out: We'll be a year old in April. M.S. Theoretically, we all share. There may be fixed tasks we may take on. It's not an efficiently-run business operation. We do what we can., . Our business skills are getting better. There's a certain atti- . tude about business skills: "They're not that important," "They're boring," or "They're drudgery." And then there's everybody's own political trip about money. It slows us down, keeps us slowed down for a long time. We're stepping up our operating procedures a bit,· and as a result we're get;ing better in terms of the space itself. Right now, everythin.g's working! Andthe people who are there are interested in the space and·they are committed to it. We've tightened our structure to a point that if people aren't inten;sted in business skills and sharing that kind of work then they are not invited into the situation anymore. We're interes,ted in the process of working and what it means to be a whrking artist. And in simply maintaining the space. That has a shared kind of concept. People have since dropped out or decided that kind of,structure wasn't working for them. -on goals within the collective . S.T. I see us coming out of that political u:npetus and developing goals whic,h are a little broader than political theatei;. Our basic goal is to do quality origina1l or alternative theater . . . within the group not everybody is 100 percent involved in every production .. . the thing is we support each other's differences. We all agree that we should be working at Storefront and pursuing our own crafts .. . developing our crafts .. ._ I wanted to work with a creative grou_p, and I got it. , A.C. People were coming fro~ lots of different angles. You had people in the collective who were uncompromising experimental ani:rpators and you had people who were involved in making very cute cartoon characters for Volkswagen TV commercials. It didn't matter. It's the same world9f ki'netics, making things move in magical ways. In th~ first years of the collective nothing seemed to make any difference·at all, except the fact that this community did exist. That there was the opportunity for people to talk to each other about the basic issues of animation. • B.G. It made us feel very optimistic to open a gallery and know we had a chance.to sell the work. Whether _I'm going to be able to sell the work does not affect imagery but it makes you feel better. Space is very important. What h~ppens is that a lot of people see the work on _an on-going basis-, and then you starf'selling. 1~ ,1 ~·····•···•·••·•· ; ~ ~-■It■ .d .,. -.. •• i: i: ·e· • -Steve Rudman • Non-Profit Corporations, prganiz~tions and Associati,ms, ~ Hctw.. • ard L. Oleck, Prentke~Hall, Inc., 3~ ed., 1~4. . .· • _.•·. .... . . <i • • Funding for Social (;hange, How to Bec.ome an ij,nplo,yer an.d &Jin ? · Tax Exempt Status, Volume 1, byStella,Alvo and Kate Sha.c~foni1 . M.S. The hardest thing about being an artist and working in a collective situation is that people have many different beliefs 'about what their art is , their p;rsonal visipn, etc. The nature of art being what it is, people should go at their own pace and with'their own • vision, - I think it's important to affect people'~vision, and to explore my own. ·How you see and how you feel are impo~tant things to • share with people. I believe in lo9sening things up in people so that we have strong spiritual and emotional bases that we're working from. Then performance becomes another form of communication between people-a personal tapping into our psyches. '
-on conflict and imbalance S.T. A problem would originate because·a person was not being responsible to what the rest of us thought he should be responsible to ... not that he had lost sight ·of the common goal, but that he was losing sight of his own particular tree in the forest ... that was dealt with at those general meetings, and sometimes it would go for four or five hours and it would get very painful and other times' it would go for weeks ... we used to do group therapy. We don't tend to be the most tactful . . . the group comes into it at the very end, the whole thing kicks and screams before it gets to ~he group, if the group has to deal with it that meahs it's very serious. You haven't dealt with it first. - . •. Stor~front doesn't get any gold stars yet for developed group dynamics, but it sure gets an E for effort. / ·· .. A.C. We have lost a lot of the spirit of the philosophy of the collective that we very much wanted to see happen at the outset-living in community, lots of support and feedback-I'm not sure whf that is. I think the people who were focused on the collective in single-minded ways, way back when, are now not so focused on the collective in their lives. They maybe are involved in the music or photography, or maybe they are having a love affair that is taking up a lot of their time. They are getting strokes there that they were getting in the collective. How many primary relafionships can you have? • May 1980 RAIN Page 7 There really is not a mechanism or way within the animation collective foi; people to really talk freely-about their feelings. There are some collectives where that's done. It does take a lot of energy and continuity to build that kind of trust. B.G. We're, continually facing new issues. At these meetings ther(s always something new coming up and we're strugglihg to find out what we think and to work out a solution: We're all very aware of the nature of the enterprise being difficult, and we ha.veto get along to a certain extent. We have to be able to reach decisions and not get absorbed in our own egos for too long if we want the enterprise to survive, and we're pretty clear about that objective. We really try to reach decisions based on what's feasible and what we can do at the time. M.S. There has been conflict in the past in terms of people's needs. When we were having performance periods we were dominating the space for rehearsal and that was a conflict, but generally we work it out. -on the synergy of the group S.T. We're somewhat incestuous. We hang out with each other an awful lot. It's true we live in each other's pocket. We support the broadest range of individual differences, and .even if yoq don't agree with somebody's individual difference there is a group support. So that the ~hole group is not feminist, but we will support that kind of production happening at St_orefront because we believe that they have that right .. . otherwise it would be boring. There're too many things to explore. That exploring is very •important ... it's our process-... the culmination of it ... that's the intangible magic, yes, of the theater. • A.C. Now the Animation Collective is truly trying to find its own level. It's got a nice feeling about it-it's sorta back to zero. It's very relaxed, it's very unstructured and it's sort of like a little party. That's where it is now and it's a very healthy place for'it to be. There is no structure to speak_of. We've tried structure and it• doesn't work-there's a lot of resistance. People come when they feel like it. There isn't a real sense of community-it's something that's still held in people's minds but it's not a working premise for the group at large. What's the hurry? .My naturopa.th says to me, "the best things in life happen slowly." You lo·ok around and it's three years later, the same people are there, and you realize that you really do know these people. You have some feeling" some caring. There are the grounds for doing things, for trusting, so that things can happen. B.G. I don't know 1f it's political, but one thing that it does illustrate is that artists can organize very effectively and very seriously. Artists aren't inarticulate flakes. It is a profession, and given the right combination of necessity and people and .desire you can do a lot of things. You can even start a business. We felt so together, i~ was like going to church on Sunday, because we talked for about a year before we even got the space. M.S. ,We come together for meetings, we don't always get together to share. It's gone through so many evolutions. Each year has its own quality. Through the years it's honed.it down to a small group. It's taken a long_time. • -on being poor S.T. There's that unifying bond. B.G. When no one is making money, you can all be friends. ·•
Page8 RAIN PU An OP operates somewhat like a~ Open University (alternately called Free U). An OP does for the unknown or exotic writer what an Open U does for an uncredentialed instructor. Here's how it might work. Anyone may participate in an OP by sending material ready for photocopying. She encloses a small fee (if she can afford to) which pays for holding her article and for inclusion of her abstract in the OP's catalog. This catalog contains summaries of all the works in the OP's files. It is advertised and sold as widely as possible. The OP only prints the catalog; it doesn't print the manuscripts themselves. The manuscripts are photocopied only as needed to fill, orders. This way funds aren't risked making and stocking thousands of copies of items which may not sell well. Optionally, those writers who wish to may print their works themselves and supply finished copies to the OP. Each author sets her own selling price. The OP pays her ·everything over its mini~ . mums. [Alternatively, a more-if-you-can, less-if-you-can't sliding fee scale could be set up to.insure that this information is really by Pat Underh~ll Traditional publishing forms are well suited to the mass market. But magazines and book houses cannot afford to print what interests only a few. Consequently many findings and ideas never get far beyond the brains of their writers. I've learned this as a reader, during long hours spent scanning periodical directories and book lists for unorthodox sources. And I've learned this as a writer, by quickly running out of likely publishers. • Where is the communication bottleneck? No longer are smaJI. runs ruled.out by typesetting and press set-up costs, since the.newer photocopying machines can produce even a single copy of a book for less than the price of the hard-bound printed version. I think the bottleneck is in distribution: Here's a scheme for breaking the bottleneck. I call it "Open Publi~hing".(OP). available to everyone.] . The OP probably doesn't edit or judge submissions. Like some Free U course offerings, some of the stuff will interest nobody. But nobody has to buy. • Does anything like an OP already exist? The only outfits at all similar, that I know of, are Amateur Press Associations (APA) and subsidy book publishers (vanity,presses). APAs include so,ne poetry ·magazines and science tiction magazines. An APA will pu\:>lish almost anything which member-subscribers send in. However, unlike an.OP, an APA sells only the whole package; a subscriber must pay for much which she doesn't' want in order to get what she wants. With poetry the APA way seems best. (How does one abstract a poem?) But for non-fiction it's wasteful. • THI AlRRNATIVI PRISS MOVIMINl Alternative or small press~s have always been instrumental to people's struggles. They offer qui'ck, low-cost media access to • • groups which otherwise would.be unable to publish. Most alternative presses are run by ind\viduals or collectives committed to mak- .ing media a puhlic and political resource. Many presses limit themselves to' booklets and pamphlets, since they are low-·co~t, easy to distribute, easy to assimilate, and in general more accessible to people. The anti-nuke movement comes to mind as one which has passed on a great deal of information to the general public through its proliferation of leaflets and pamphlets. Alternative presses have taken several steps to democratize publishing. Come! Unity Press has been operating for eight years down on E. 17th Street in New York City. Come! Unity teaches political groups how to use their presses and only charges for m?terials. All groups are required to distribute their work on a more-if-you-can, less-if-you-can't basis. Often a donation is suggested and people ~ho·can pay more are encouraged t.o do so i_n order to make up for those who cannot afford the donation. •Copyrights can be used to monopoli~e information. Alternative presses often state that any group may reprint information without permission, though credit is appreciated. Many also state that no part of their publications may be used for profit. Distribution and cataloguing, traditionally a stumbling block to alternative presses, have become more organized in recent years. Alternatives in Print (AIP) is an excellent guide to ·social change publications. "AIP was produced as SRRT (Socra:1 Responsibilities ' Round Table-of the American Library Association) publication to fill the gap created by big publishing's inattention to the alternative press. They not only neglected to publish these materials, but basic Environmental Action Reprint Service '(EARS) · 2239 East Colfax Denver, CO 80206 EARS has been re.printing articles and pamphlets on nuclear energy, solar architecture, solar legislation, greenhouses, methane, wind power and conservation since 1973. They distribute major alternative technology books as well as posters, plans, blueprints and T-shirts. Write for their list of publications. ~ommunity Press Features #2 P,ark Square Boston, MA 02116 617/482-66951 Community Press Features is a regular series of graphics from and for alternative •and community periodicals relating to tenants rights, workplace organizing, peace work, anti-nuke activities, women, gay, minority, Third World~ an~ a host of other concerns. A handy resource for low- _budget publications!
1' I I ! Subsidy houses perform a useful function. But they publish only books. And most of an author's hefty deposit goes for typesetting, printing and binding, rather than for advertising and distribution. The result may look nice. But only rarely does an author so much as break even. Up until now, small journals, newsletters and pamphlets have partly filled th-e specialized-media void. But, lacking the magazinerack space available to the mass-appeal publications, most small presses depend entirely on the mails for solicitation and distribution. And more and more are being squeezed out by skyrocketing postage rates. Mailing costs would affect OPs too, by.t not so severely because far fewer pages need be mailed. , In a sense an OP would be a journal individually customized for each reader. A sales pitch might go: "Pay for and get only what you want; nothing else." How much specialization would be advisable? Should one OP solicit everything from art reviews to zoo-~anagement treatises? Or should it concentrate on one field? An OP might be fairly b_road at first to gain maxil!lum distribution of its catalog; then split into specialty divisions as it grows, before its catalog swells to the size (and cost) of Montgomery Wards'. • Who could launch an OP? People who especially come to mind are: (1) A photocopy parlor---;-an OP would keep their machines humming profitably during slack periods. (2) A mail order speci,dty book/pamphlet distributor, who could start an OP as an extension of her present business. (3) A writers' magazine or newsletter-it's already in contact with sources. (4) A conventional trade/tech/ hobby magazine; an OP offers a place for articles which don't get into the magazine, providing an extra'attraction to writers-and readers. An OP would help decentralize information access and distribution, making hard-to-locate resources available to all. A May 1980 RAIN Page 9 Alternativ_es in Print: Catalog of Social Change Publications (1977-78), by Social Responsibilities Round Table Task ··.Force on Alternatives iri Print, from: 1 Glide Publications • 330 Ellis Street San Francisco, CA 94102 "We vigilantly. support the movement's attempt to increase its control ove.r the pub~ lishing/ distributing system vital to political and economic democracy. To counteract the built-in censorship of the publishing • establishment's distribution system is to move towards intellectual freedom." Alternative Prf!SS Index:An Index to Alternative and Radical Publications, April-June 1977, Volume 9, Nuinber 25, $}5 individuals, $25 for high schoQls and movement groups, $60 for libraries, from: Alternative Press Center P.O. Box 7229 Baltimore, MD 21218 . Alternative Press Index is a guide to articles that.have appeared in alternative periodi- . cals_. A tremendous help for .radical research, although they have fallen rather far behind in their indexing. RAIN readers who can volunteer time or resources to this valuable project should contact the center, New England Free Press 60 Union Square Somerville, MA 02143 New England Free Press carries a very impressive list of publications on .feminism, labor, imperialism, revolution, marxism, lesbian and gay rights, third world rights and non-violence. directories created to guide readerno publications did not even list them. We attributed this reluctance to the fact that n:i,6st movement publications are not produced for profit and, more important, that their messages are inimical to the self-interest of the powerful members of the publishing movement." . Come! Unity Press 13 E. 17th Street New York, NY 10003 Come·! Unity Press works with many movement groups including anti-nuke, lesbian, prison, feminist and third world organizations. Frog in the Well 667 Lytton St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 Frog in the Well is a collective which publishes and distributes short, inexpensive pamphlets on non-violence, social organization, land use ownership and anarchism. Write for their catalog. KNOW,Inc. P.O. Box 86031 Pittsburg, PA 15221 KNOW began in 1969 as one of the first feminist press collectives. They now publish over two hundred articles and several books. Their topics include work, sexu~lity, lesbianism; women's studies, child care, and law. There is great power in the written word. Most of us can recall the excitement of reading something that helped us realize that we're no.t alone, that there are many others ½;'ith common goals and shared visions. The alternative press movement has been facilitating these connections for many years. -KS Literature being reeled off-'=-:_- and sold in chunk
Page 10 RAIN May 1980 ENERGY Energy Self-Sufficiency in Northhamp- , ton, Mass., (DOE/PW/4706), $11.00 A Reprint of Soft Energy Notes-access, to Tools for Soft Energy Path Studies (DOE/PE-0016/1) Renewable Energy Development: Local Issues and Capabilities (DOE/PE/0017), $12.50 • All available from: U.S. Dept. of Energy NTIS 5285 Port Royal Rd. Springfield, VA 22161 Publications by the U.S. Dept. of Energy are frequently dull. The longer they'are the less relevant they are and DOE's publications are as gripping as the white pages of the phone book. Nevertheless, Rainreaders - may be interested in three longish reports hot off the press from DOE. Someone in DOE (I won't say who) is preparing relevant, timely and useful reports. Unbelievable, isn't it? · Energy Self-Sufficiency in Northhampton, Mass. presents arguments for and against municipal-scale energy ,self-sufficiency in a study prepared by HampshireCollege for DOE. This is one of several self-sufficiency reports following up the original California examination two years ago. A self-sufficiency study examines an area's (municipality, h~re, but nation, county and island elsewhere) end use energy requirements extrapolated to a future date and its integral ability to supply those . energy requiregients. Since local sources of energy are the only ones eligible, such studies often prop9se innovative methods of supplying future energy. In the Northhampton case a whole new "self~ sufficiency" industry would need to be installed, resulting in an increased number of quality jobs for the small town. Another feature of such an examination is the premise o~ which these studies are based: no changes in lifestyle and no technological breakthroughs are a?sumed to. influence the balance of supply and demand. In fact, the studies are so conser" vatively biased in their economics that the. cost benefit ratios of conversion to selfsufficiency are often even more encc;mraging than suggested. The importance of these studies, however; is the presentation of benefits that are social, .environmental, and political. Here a strategy is outlined that can truly put a small town on the soft path. For readers of RAIN, if you haven't waded through one of these publications yet, it's time to get'your feet wet. .Another publication that is useful is the reissue of material originally published by Friends of the Earth: A Reprint of Soft Energy Notes-Access to Tools for Soft Path Energy Studies. The articles reprinted include energy related topics from Chinese biogas to Brazilian alcohol and British selfsufficiency .' The third long report from DOE is a much needed cross-index and directory to •the people who are active in renewable energy and to the.ir interests and capabilities. This information is gathered from replies to a DOE questionnaire and is' cross-listed by technology, geographical area, and organization or firm, One chapter lists issues •and concerns which the respondents iden- 'tify; another chapter suggests uses to which their capabilities might be putwithin the context of DOE's goals and implementation strategies. The major part .of the publication is the directory itself, containing summaries of over 300 replies, listed alphabetically by state, that detail in- · terests, concerns, and capabilities in ' renewable energy. Very encouraging to read about all those people doing aJl that good work: Renewable Energy Development: Local Issues and Capabilities. -An Painter An has ·been involved irt community energy/ environment projects for the last 8 years in North Carolina, the Virgin Islands, and now New Mexico. Thf Energy Controversy: Soft Path Questions and Answers, by Amory Lovins and his Critics, edited by Hugh Nash, 450 pp., $6.95 from: Friends of the Earth Books 124 Spear Street , San Francisco, CA 9410& This book will be read with considerable relish by Amory Lovins' admirers. Ever since October 1976, when his classic essay "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" appeared in the pages of Foreign Affairs, critics from the utilities, the nuclear industry, and the federal energy bureaucracy - have vehe~ently attacked his cogent arguments for a "soft energy" strategy centered around decentralized, renewable resources. Soft Path Questions and Answers gives Lovins his opportunity to respond to the critics, and he uses it to-demolish one objection-after another with his usual lucid mixture of facts, figures, wit and common sense. -JF • "Energy War: Energy Peace," by Ronald Pogue, Winter Solstice and Midwinter issues of AERO Sun Times I $12/yr. (living lightly rates negotiable), from: Alternative Energy Resources Organization (AERO) 435 Stapleton Building Billings, MT 59101. If .the Amory Lovins perspective on the energy crisis/phenomena still seems complicated to·you, this AERO analysis in two parts should clear it up. Ronald Pogue culls from Amory's writings the basics of the whole.soft path rationale and·strategy. Mixing these with a few schemes of his own he synthesize~ a viable future for energy use. . • The articles serve as cogent complements to the "hands on" technical info and access that the Sun Times has been supplying the Mountain States with for years. AERO just keeps getting more interesting as it reaches out with new programs and new ideas. -CC ' Planning for Energy Self-Reliance: A . Case Study of the District of Columbia, 1979, $12.0o,·from: Institute for Local Self-Reliance 1 171718th Street N.W. Washington, DC 70009 Only three percent of every dollar,Washington, DC res-idents spend 01;1 energy is retained by the community in wages and salaries. Another nine percent goes to the DC government as taxes. The re~t goes to Exxon's corporate coffers, to oil workers in Alaska, to Japanese tanker manufacturers and to the Middle East, doing nothing to provide jobs or income to the residents of DC. This pioneering study examines the potential for energy conservation and conversion to renewable energy sources in the city from a central focus of its effect on the - urban economy. As well as energy and monetary savings possible through investment in conservation and renewables, ILSR examines the effects upon local employment and manufacturing that multiply 1 those savings by keeping the money cycling in the local economy. DC has already lowered energy use py 17 percent. ILSR concludes conservatively that another third reduction in end-use energy is possible· . even with the projected addition of tens of millions of square feet of office and residential space. They also analyze how solar and solid waste can provide for up to 50 percent of the remaining energy need, for a total reduction in needed energy imports to the city of 75 percent! Don't wait for the Feds to help you-get this report and figure out for your own rnmmunity/oounty/ state how to keep your energy dollars in your own pockets instead of s~nding them abroad. -Tom Bender
Recycling, by the National Commission on Supplies and Shortages. Reprinted as a pamphlet by U.S. EPA, publication #SW-601, 1977, free, ask your congressperson or regional EPA office for copies to circulate. Recyclers and energy activists should take the time to become familiar with the contents of this pamphlet. Implementation of the simple and straightforward recommendations it contains could reverse some of the worst trends in the web of degenerative processes that are progressively strangling our culture. Best of all, recycling could be transitioned from a break-even proposition in most communities to a position of prominence as a major materials supplier to a revitalized, more self-reliant economy. The Commission's recommendations: 1) End tax subsides such as percentage depletion allowances which currently be!lefit producers who use virgin materials. 2) Continue to remove or relax regulations that discriminate against procurement, processing, and transport of recycled materials. 3) Impose product disposal charges or excise taxes, which would be added to the price of items that are routinely a disposal problem-containers, packaging, paper, even cars. Funds collected would be used to pay collection, processing, and storage costs for dealing appropriately with the materials when they become wastes, as they must eventually. 4) Base resource recovery on source separation; do not invest in high-technology operations that try to separate garbage after . it is thoroughly mixed. I especially liked the section on product charge legislation. It's hard to believe that a jerry-built system of subsidy/supports is about all that props up our rickety, deficitridden economy, but it's true. Or maybe the two (supports and deficits) are really just two halves of the same progressively deadening reality. In any event, the way out-a way outhas got to be to stop the daily replication of this flabby-minded, irresponsible, mistaken, misdirected, and misguided ripoff of the natural world, and to set ourselves up to recover and use what we already have all around us, in abundance. -Daniel Knapp EPA Monographs: The Leachate Damage Assessment Series. EPA/530/SW509,514,517 (3 volumes, 1976). Case studies of the Sayville Disposal Site in Islip, NY, the Fox Valley site in Aurora, Illinois, and the People's Avenue site in Rockford, Illinois. Also: Hazardous Waste Disposal Damage Reports; Documents #1, 2 and 3. (3 vols., 1976) EPA Publication Nos. PB 261-155,156,157. Taken together, these short narratives form a valuable historical record of what happens when hazardous and offensive materials originating in disposal sites migrate to other locations, permanently damaging wells and causing destruction of aquifers and streams. Generally speaking, what happens is that feeble and inadequate attempts are made to compensate people (often low-income rural residents) whose water supplies are destroyed. While a potable water supply is eventually restored, sometimes more than a year later, the cost includes annexation to the city which generated the wastes that destroyed the water supply, and hookup to the city's remotely controlled water system. Along the way, a natural system is replaced by a human-made substitute; the exchange is greased by money. Recovery of costs is up to those damaged; recovery of damages is rarely more than a small fraction of what is asked. Public bodies and landfill operators often deny responsibility. There are no examples of air pollution damage in the stories I read from this series, but the outline would probably be the same. What I take from this is that no one can May 1980 RAIN Page 11 e Schatz's recycling _poster series commissioned by Oregon Departent of Environmental Quality someone, somewhere, to find some way of putting hazardous and toxic wastes "out of sight, out of mind." The EPA materials agree with this conclusion: The problems associated with improper land disposal of hazardous wastes-unlike the problems of air and water pollutionhave not been widely recognized by the public, although the damages may be as severe and difficult to remedy. In addition, the hazardous waste disposal problem continues to become even more significant, as the.progressive implementation of air and water pollution control programs, ocean dumping bans, and cancellation of pesticide registrations results in increased tonnages of land-disposed wastes, with adverse impact on public health and the environment. The problem is manifested in groundwater contamination via leachate, surface water contami~tion via runoff, air pollution via open burning, evaporation, sublimation and wind erosion, poisonings via direct contact and through the food chain, and fires and explosions at land disposal sites. (Hazardous Waste Disposal Damage Reports, U.S. EPA Publication No. SW-151.3. 1976. P. iii) In other words, "buyer beware." The operation and siting of every landfill, incinerator, or other "disposal facility" should be scrutinized from every possible angle, all in the context of a hardheaded insistence that source separation, source reduction, and techniques such as product disposal charges be tried first, and become the standard against which all competing systems are judged. The reverse is true now: it is garbage disposal that is the standard, and so it will be until an aroused public puts an "end to the trend." ' -Daniel Knapp afford to ignore threats to their local life- ~~e1fJ,j,~,-J, support systems caused by the need of ~~~~~
Page 12 RAIN May 1980 i TAKIN' TO THE STREETS Jim Williams mentions in his article the "long-standing social bias [in this country] that somehow cultural work is not legitimate, valid, or essential in relationship to all other forms of work." Where does this bias come from? To my mind, the prices and pretentiousness that govern the accessibility of many (especially II fine") art mediums have more to do with people's appreciation of cultural work than any supposed esotericness of the art forms themselves. In part to test this notion, several years ago I founded and played with Boston's first organized classical street musicians. Known as the Street Quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello), our purpose was to present free, informal and reasonably polished performances of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, etc. on streetcorners and public plazas. With the exception of the police, who harassed us kindly but regularly, the city responded with enthusiasm. Four or five sweltering, humid days each summer week the Street Quartet would perform 2-3 hours of free classical music above the din of construction and traffic. Our listeners-construction workers, shoppers, taxi drivers, secretaries, tourists, bums, grandparents, children and people of color in an otherwise racially tense town-were the most nonsectarian audience ever gathered. People who'd never seen a violin or a cello before were invited to touch them, see how the wood was carved along the grain, discover that they don't have frets, or perhaps try drawing a bow across a string. An elderly gentleman who hadn't played violin since high school agreed to sit down with us and give it a try. Sometimes passing musicians would hop off the bus to pull out their instrum·ents and join us. We soon developed quite a following around town, including frequent media coverage. But the response that gave us the most satisfaction was the response on the street, the people's faces. The blank, harsh, me-against-the-world expressions gave way to joyous smiles of community and solidarity. Total strangers became friends. As we work toward decentralization and community self-reliance, it would be wise to consider the arts in these terms as well. Not only do they serve local pride and stimulate local economies, the arts are also job-creative and ecologically enhancing. Ironically, in my experience, the first official recognition of this tidbit of wisdom came from the state rather than the city. Our second season we were awarded a substantial matching grant from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Even so, it was another two or three years before the city embraced the concept (by blessing and advertising music in the subways) and then, without financial support. It's time for cities across the country to take an active role in arts support, to establish the arts by public, city ordinance (as some cities have) as "an essential city service, equal to all other essential city services." -MR ~ ~ ~ ~
-~-WOMEN'S MUSIC: May 1980 RAIN Page 13 by Connie Smith THE LOVE OF WOMEN Outside the established record and concert circuit, feminist music flourishes. Commonly known on the inside as Women's Music, G C :P C this new genre emerged out of the last decade of feminist struggle and awareness to fill a cultural and emotional void. Women were going to tell it 11their way." By questioning old values and daring to speak their truths, Women's Music opened new realms of experience previously unexamined in popular music or examined only from a male viewpoint. One of the messages in popular music is that there are no strong women in the world who care about anything other than the men in their lives. There are no songs about women loving other women or even women loving themselves. The themes of Women's Music are self-love, love of other women as lovers and friends, love of animals and nature, the damage done to women by society, the healing power of sisterhood, women as spiritual beings, the rising tide of feminist power and the creation of a new social order. The qualities are celebration, passion, gentleness, sensitivity, anger and strength. Women's Music also means women in roles usually reserved for men: writers, arrangers, promoters, operators of studios, sound systems and lights. Women's record companies cut the records, feminist publications and bookstores in Canada, the U.S. and parts of Europe sell them, and the network of women producers put on the concerts. Depending on the performer and the needs of the group, concerts may be for women only as well as general admission. This gives the performer and her woman-audience a chance to choose with whom they wish to share their experience. Then, every summer in Illinois, Michigan, and on the Northwest Coast, thousands of women attend one or all of the three women-only music festivals (the International Festival was held in Sweden last year). The record companies (Redwood, Olivia, Pleiades, Wise Women Enterprises, Submaureen, Full Count-Lima Bean, Atthis Productions, Paredon, Ladyslipper-to mention a few) operate collectively. They are not interested in becoming a female version of the male record industry. They consider themselves political organizations as well as recording companies. Another important aspect in philosophy is the elimination of the 11star trip." All women in the industry, including the audience, are considered equally vital. Musicians also retain complete control over their albums. The range of music is as diverse as the women involved: blue- , grass, jazz, latina, rhythm and blues, classical, gospel; with one thing in common. The music is all for the love of women defined by women. This is the element which has always been missing from any other form of music. And this is the element which sets Women's Music apart. Reprinted with permission from June 1979 Open Door, $8/yr. (10 issues) from: Open Door Music Society, 1925 W. 4th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6] 1M7 Canada. Access: Mark Levy has written and recorded "Radiation Nation on a Three Mile Isle" . (1979), available from: New Clear Productions, P.O. Box 559, Felton, CA 95018.
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