improving the speed, efficiency and productivity of . . . biological systems.” In other words, to do with the stuff of life that which the alchemists strove to do with the earth’s minerals: bring it to perfection. • New microorganisms are being developed which eat certain metals allowing them to be extracted from ores economically, eliminating the need for miners. • Biomass, a renewable resource made up of plant and animal material is being talked about as a replacement for petroleum. • The genetic trait which allows buffalo to thrive on grass or hay could be engineered into beef cattle which feed on more expensive grains. In fact, any trait that can be “ mapped” can be programmed directly into the fetus. This leads, of course, to the question of human genetic engineering. Rifkin tells us; "Scientists are already looking to the day when ‘harmful’ genetic traits can be eliminated from the fetus at conception. Eliminating the specific genes that are the cause of many dreaded diseases only scratches the surface of the possibilities that lie ahead. Researchers believe'that when today’s babies are old enough to have children of their own, they may be able to select from a wide range of beneficial gene traits they would like to have programmed directly into their offspring at the fetal stage, from manual dexterity skills to improved memory retention capability.” The computer, claims Rifkin, will be both the language and the organizing mechanism for this age of biotechnology. The first “ gene machine” has already been developed — “ One need only type out the genetic code for a particular gene on the computer’s keyboard and within a matter of a few hours ‘the machine delivers a quantity of synthetic gene fragments that can be spliced together and put into the DNA of living organisms.’ ” “ In the future, biocomputers will be engineered directly into living systems, just as microcomputers are engineered into mechanical systems today. They will monitor activity, adjust performance, speed up and slow down metabolic activity, transform living material into products, and perform a host of other supervisory functions. Scientists even envision the day when computers made out of living material will automatically reproduce themselves, finally blurring the last remaining distinction between living and * mechanical processes.” Whether the Power of the Universe will punish humankind for this arrogance is a question time will answer. The past leaves a discouraging record of industrial technology backfiring: acid rain, DDT poisoning, Love Canal, smog, London fog, radioactive wastes, Agent Orange, asbestos- caused diseases, urban slums, modern alienation, stress syndrome . . . . Space considerations prevent a complete list here. Whatever the results, Rifkin’s book, due to be published April 1 by Viking Press, is a stimulating and thoughtful analysis of the future we are creating and “ an account of the process by which the new concept of. nature has been arrived at.” Much-acclaimed Portland artist Henk Pander has explored some of the possible results of this new concept: algeny. ■ Peggy Lindquist is an editor of the Clinton St. Quarterly Henk Pander is a Portland artist whose portrait of Governor Tom McCall was recently unveiled at the Oregon State Capitol library window installations 3 A" video editing film/video exhibitions 911 E. Pine St. Seattle 98122 • 911 324-5880 A CONTEMPORARY ARTS/MED IA CENTER • N.Y. Times • Anchorage Daily News • Pravda • China Daily • Denver Post • El Sol de Mexico • LA. Times • Oregonian • International Herald NEWSPAPER LOVERS! Find more than 100 papers from 35 cities across the country and 15 countries around the world. V\fe also have more than 400 different magazines to choose from. Read All About lt_ Buy your papers a from a | human “ being a instead “ of a Q machine. □ At First and Pike, in the Market a I> Mon.-Sat. 8-7, Sun. 8-5 Ph. 624-0140 • Die Zeit • Vancouver Sun • Village Voice • Honolulu Star • London Times • Le Monde • De • Financial Times • Japan Times • NME YESTERSHADES VICTORIAN STYLE LAMPSHADES Silks & Satins with Fringes & Beads Custom Designing to Suit Your Tastes & Needs 3534 S.E. Hawthorne 238-5755 Portland, Oregon 97214 28 Clinton St. Quarterly S i — M It took 2000 years, to improve this bed. It’ll take just one night to improve your sleep. Futon. Six-inch thick Japanese beds, all cotton or with two- inch foam cores. Sound sleep at sound prices. 516 15th Ave. East 323 -0936 Hours: Mon-Fri 11-6/Thurs 11-7/Sat 11-5 M ( ) R T M MM E ST FUTON LEARNING TO LIVE NONVIOLENTLY Continued from page 4 Aldridge in the early 1970s. He had been a missile designer for Lockheed for sixteen years and participated in the designing of every submarine launched ballistic missile still in use by the United States today. He became convinced the U.S. was actively pursuing the capability of destroying all the Soviets’ forces in a preemptive first strike; he resigned his job and dedicated himself to increasing public awareness of U.S. nuclear policy. It was through Robert Aldridge that the Douglasses first learned of the Trident submarines. The Douglasses became involved in the Trident campaign in January 1975 when Robert Aldridge visited the British Columbia area where they were living at the time. The Douglasses then participated in the formation of the Pacific Life Community, a nonviolent organization founded to work against the nuclear arms race in general and the Trident submarine in particular. But the Douglasses’ involvement in the peace movement and in nonviolent resistance goes back many years farther. Jim, born in the Similkameen Valley in British Columbia, is the author of three books on the theology and philosophy of nonviolence. He has taught at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky, and Notre Dame, where he helped found the Institute for Nonviolence in 1969. Shelley was born in Washington, D.C., and was raised “ all over the place because my parents both worked for the CIA, which led me naturally to getting involved in the civil rights movement in the early ’60s at the University of Wisconsin, and from there into the peace movement.” She has a B.A. in Social Theory and has done graduate work in Theology. She and Jim were married in 1969; each has three children from a previous marriage and they have one child together. With the rest of the Ground Zero community, a group of seven full-time workers, the Douglasses are engaged in a campaign of resistance to the Trident that is rooted in a personal commitment to spiritually based nonviolence as a way of life. The source of security in their lives is not a faith in the protective powers of advanced technologies, but rather, as they describe it, a faith in the power of truth and love. They believe that this power is real in everybody’s life and that it is monumentally strong, capable of effecting the quick changes necessary to defuse the constant ticking towards nuclear disaster. Their lives and actions are experiments aimed at discovering how to release this power. In this they have been influenced by the example of Mohandas K. Gandhi and his struggle for independence in India. They prefer to call their campaign by his word, satyagraha, which only imprecisely translates as “ nonviolence.” Rather than indicating a lack of violence, satyagraha is the presence of something greater than violence. For Gandhi the term came to mean a truthforce or soul-force, or perhaps the power of truth by means of love; he firmly believed this to be the most powerful force in existence, bar none, including the powers of fission and fusion. For the Douglasses living non- violently is being satyagrahi — seekers of the truth, or people who live in accordance with the deepest truths they can find. “The belief of Gandhi,” Jim says, “ is that if you choose the truth, the deepest truth that you can find, then that is the most nonviolent thing that you can choose, and that will in the end have the greatest effect for change.” The question of the Douglasses is not whether nonviolence is a useful strategy for change within the confines of a complacent American psyche. The goal of their satyagraha is to change that psyche. “ In a sense
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