Page 2 RAIN July/August 1984 The earth seen from the moon (FROM: A Hundred Billion Stars—see page 27) RAINDROPS RAIN Volume X, Number 5 July/August 1984 Editor Tanya Kucak Staff Rob Baird (offipe manager) Cathy Baker (intern) Steve Johnson (on leave) Alan Locklear (circulation manager) Steve Manthe (intern) Kris Nelson (assistant editor —bioregions) Lance Regan (intern) Katherine Sadler (intern—promotion) Jeff Strang (Farm Project) Contributors Fritjof Capra Timothy Clark Ruth Downen Denise Henderson Mimi Maduro Alberto Quarto David Sparenberg Charlene Spretnak Beverly Stein John Todd Nancy Jack Todd Graphic Design Susan Applegate Comptroller Lee Lancaster Printing: Argus Printing Typesetting: Irish Setter RAIN magazine publishes information that can help people lead simple and satisfying lives, make their communities and regions economically self-reliant, and build a society that is durable, just, amusing, and ecologically sound. RAIN is published six times a year by the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a nonprofit corporation located at 2270 NW Irving, Portland, OR 97210; 503/227-5110. Subscriptions are $25/ year for institutions, $15/year for individuals ($9.50 for persons with incomes under $6000 a year). For additional information on subscriptions and publications, see page 39. Writers' guidelines are available fora SASE. Editorial and advertising deadlines are two months prior to publication date. RAIN is indexed in the Alternative Press Index and New Periodicals Index. Members of the Rain Umbrella Board of Directors: Bruce Bliatout, Jackie Dehner, Patti Jacobsen, Kim MacColl, Mimi Maduro, Maggie Rogers, Steve Rudman, Sumner Sharpe, and Michael Wells. Cover: Masanobu Fukuoka (photo by Halgar Shorter) "What do you call the day after it's rained for two days?" Alan asked at one of our Monday morning staff meetings. (The answer is Monday.) We haven't been showered with promotion contest entries (details in RAIN X:3, page 2), however. Is anyone reading RAIN? We've received only two or three entries so far, so we're extending the deadline two months—to August 1. The object is to develop a low-cost, well thought-out plan for making RAIN economically self-reliant. As things stand now, subscriptions pay for our printing and postage costs. Rent, utilities, overhead, and salaries (those of us who are paid get about $2-$3 per hour, effectively) must be subsidized in some way. We need to hear from you in order to decide if we should continue publishing. We have only about 1300 subscribers now, and we wonder if it's still worthwhile to talk to the same small, knowledgeable audience. Many areas we used to cover have now been appropriated by specialized journals, and many ideas have entered the mainstream. (Madison Avenue market researchers use living- lightly and bioregional categories to advertise products.) Has RAIN outlived its usefulness? (Send us your promotion ideas today!) Help us get the ideas into mainstream publications, too. Send a copy of RAIN to your local newspapers, and write letters to the editors of the papers telling them why you read RAIN. Encourage them to cover the same kinds of features that we include. Have them write to us for permission to excerpt articles. Talk to librarians about RAIN. Give RAIN subscriptions and publications as gifts. In the last issue, we forgot to introduce a new name in the staff box. Linnea Gilson has moved on after spending almost four years as our graphic designer (that's longer than most people have lasted here). She did a wonderful job and helped RAIN weather several major staff transitions. Our new graphic designer, Susan Applegate, is a book designer in Portland. Three new interns! Both Lance Regan and Steve Manthe come to us from Western Washington University (double- double-u-u) in Bellingham. Lance graduated from Fairhaven College with a self- designed major in social ecology, and Steve graduated from Huxley College of Environmental Studies with a major in environmental studies and mass communications. Within a month, Lance had introduced orderliness to our periodicals collection, and Steve had rescued our library from stacks of unfiled books. Our third intern, Katherine Sadler, is focusing on promoting the magazine. Her background includes promotion for arts organizations in Michigan. Sabbaticals anyone? Steve Johnson continues to work on community computer projects while he is on leave from RAIN. Kris Nelson will be spending the summer on Vancouver Island. —TK For those who wonder: The last issue of your subscription is indicated by the four-digit number in the upper right- hand corner of your mailing label (for instance, 10 03 means your sub expires with volume 10, number 3). We do our best to notify you when your sub is expiring. We send out a flier with a postage-paid envelope before your last issue reaches you, we stamp "Renew now. This is your last issue" on your last issue, and we send another flier and postage-paid envelope to those who haven't already renewed after their last issue. Also, we mail RAIN at the nonprofit third-class postage rate. Under most circumstances, the Post Office will not forward this class of mail. If you wish to receive all your issues of RAIN, you must notify us of your change of address. Please remember that we need your old address as well as your new address. —AL
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