Page 18 RAIN January/February 1985 Utne Reader: The Best of the Alternative Press, bimonthly, $18/year, from: UtneReader POBox1974 Marion, OH 43305 If you're one of those people who likes to keep tabs on a variety of ideas, movements, and activities that go unreported in the mass media, but you have neither the time nor the money to purchase and peruse the multitude of periodicals worthy of your attention, then you should know about Utne Reader. For the past year, Eric Utne (rhymes with chutney) and company have been sifting through hundreds of periodicals in an attempt to bring us "the best of the alternative press." What's "alternative"? I've been pleased to find a wide array of - viewpoints represented: leftist, new age, community activist, environmentalist, peace activist, progressive Christian, and others. Perhaps such a digest will encourage readers identified with any one particular camp to consider the views of other camps. And then, if we could just get the different camps actually talking with each other and finding ways to work together ... The purpose of this column is to inform readers of new developments in projects and organizations that we have reported on previously. Nuclear Free Zones We reported on nuclear free zones exactly a year ago in RAIN X:2. The nuclear free zone movement took another big step in last November's election with the passage of NFZ ordinances in 14of16 'cities and counties across the nation. Ten of the new ordinances banning nuclear waste, weapons, and weapons production were approved in Oregon. They include the largest contiguous nuclear-free landmass in the U.S.-the 23,000 square miles of Baker, Grant, Harney, Union, and Wallowa counties in Eastern Oregon, as well as the four coastal counties of Coos, Lincoln, Tillamook, and Clatsop, and the town of Bandon. Backers of these initiatives plan to meet to draw up a statewide initiative to be voted upon in the 1986 election. Other successful campaigns took place in Napa, California; Northampton, ACCESS: Periodicals During its first few months of publication, the magazine had some problems with its production schedule and its identity, as it t,ried to cope with editorial staff turnover, a radical change of format (from a 16-page monthly to a 128-page bimonthly), and other difficulties. But it seems to have settled down now, and will continue in its bimonthly, 128-page format. (Actually, I thought 16 pages was nice, but working at the RAIN office tends to give a person a particularly · severe case of infoglut) . . If you could only afford to subscribe to one magazine (besides RAIN, of course), Utne Reader would be a good choice. -FLS Fourth World Review, bimonthly, $15/ year,_from: Fourth World Review 29 Middagh Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 What is the Fourth World? "The Fourth World is the world of the human scale. It is a world in which authority for all decisions stems'from the base unit of society-the village. We now know that the presumed authority of the individual RAINCHECKS Massachusetts; and 'Whatcom and Skagit counties in Washington state. NFZs were rejected ~n Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Santa Monica, California. Citizens for a Nuclear Free Santa Monica, backers of the NFZ ordinance in that city, plan to resubmit the issue to the voter in the 1986 election. In addition, the New York City Council recently approved a nonbinding resolution banning nuclear weapons within the city limits. With 9 million people, this is the most populous nuclear free zone in the world. Proponents are working on a binding legal ordinance to be voted on by the city council. At The Crossroads At the Crossroads, the 32-page affi~mation of the need for fundamental change in our society (see RAIN X:5, page 27), is mefting with success. Copies are being distributed at the rate of 1,000 per week, and 94,000 are currently in print. Other ways that the document and the ideas it embodies are gaining public attention include the following: inclusion of At the voter to exercise effective control over giant centr,alized governments is far too small in relation to the whole. It is the local neighborhood, whether urban or rural, which is the true focus of citizen concern and ... citizen power. There must be1 some large structures in society, but these need to be controlled and ordained by village councils, otherwise the giant central government rides roughshod over the liberties of privat~ citizens, and envelops them in an overmighty bureaucratic complex." Fourth World Review, published in -England, ~s largely a vehicle for the views of its editor, John Papworth, who does most of the writing. Papworth bases his critique of contemporary "mass society," and his proposals for a better society, primarily on the question of size. He seems to get a lot of his intellectual ammunition from Leopold Kohr's theo- . ries about the problems inherent in large social systems. Papworth has also con- , vened a Fourth World Assembly in each of the last three years. The assemblies are attended by representatives from minority cultures and small communities around the world. The next Fourth World Assembly will be held in Delhi in April 1985. - FLS Crossroads in a television program called · "The New.·American Revolution," planned for broadcast over PBS in May 1985; discussion of the document on a ' radio show scheduled for February 10, 1985 (for details, contact Chuck Alton, U.S. Radio, Box 1899, Burbank, CA 91507; 818/843-4241); and inclusion of the text in a major exhibition, opening in 1986, along the lines of "The Family of Man." Copies of At the Crossroads are still available for $2 each 2-20 copies from Communications Era Task Force, PO Box 36231 Spokane, WA99220. Errata-We forgot to mention that Richard.Conviser's article in the last issue, "Framing Hexagonal Floors," first appeared in Siskiyou Country (Number 9, Dec.ember/January 1?83). Also, the cost of becoming a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence should have been lis1ted as $15 rather .than $25.
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