June 1976. RAIN Page 17 COMMUNICATIONS A Computer Next to Our ~oodstove Johnson-Lenz Lake Oswego for citizen input to com695 Fifth St. munity design plans. Lake Oswego, OR 97034 The neighbors are slow to warm up While I'm up here writing this, down- to the computer. What's it do? What stairs Peter J olinson-Lenz is arriving for about the conspiracy? Why use it? Pria meeting of the APPLE planning com- vacy. Weird unfamiliar thing (like having mittee (APPLE is "a people to people someone handing you the wheel of a living exchange"-but that's listed else- 747). where). Peter down there, and me up It's small. They brought thei.r "box" here with a Johnson-Lenz brochure, over awhile back. Odd day that one. readiHg: David Morris (with the Institute for "What if neighborhoods, towns and Local Self Reliance) arrived, Jiin Long cities could see graphically and over time showed up (who put together the Washwhere their tax monies go and how • . ington County Information Resourc~s much comes baek as whi·ch kinds of ser- Directory~listed elsewhere-he too vices? What if they could see the relation- should get in touch with Don Eichman) tionships between local, state and feder- -and-Kerry Klockner, who is trying to al taxes and what they receive in return get people interested in "Operation . from their government?" Grapevine." . Then I suddenly realize that Peter and Trudy and Peter explain their comTrudy should meet Don Eichman, who puter projects, obviously used to ans- ' put together a catalog of Multnomah wermg a certain range of questions, fears County Public Services, an attempt at and doubts. It's just another tool, and showing persons the relationship be- yes, it will still rain. tween taxes paid, problems addressed, Slowly, the program they designed solutions attempted. to tally information for citizen inputAnd now they can meet each other. .similar to another program they develPeter and Trudy are working with oped for Ken Kesey's Bend in the River· their neighborhood association in Lake Council, state-wide town hall meetingOswego in the art and science of work- •is evolving into a more open exchange ing a small-scale computer in communi- of information among persons in the ty organizing and public interest research neighborhood, what we call loosely a support: Their first project, using com- skills and/or learning, sharing exchange. puter space (time?) donated by the Ore- Johnson-Lenz and RAIN would like gon Museum of Science & Industry, was to hear about similar projects (with or information gathered for the City of without use of computers). (SJ) ~ ~ Co mind. Design Bob Wallace P.O. Box 5415 Seattle, WA 98105 206/524-63 59 Lee visited with Bob and learned that the group in Seattle which has recently gotten together the NW Computer Club are also involved in a retail outlet and access center: The Retail Computer· Store, 410 N.E. 72nd, Seattle, WA 98115,-206/524-4101. Also another of the same kind of place.in Eugene: The Real Oregon Computer Co.,-205 W. 10th, Eugene, OR. The Pacific NW Computer Club, Pacific Science Center, 200 2nd Ave., N., Seattle,WA 98109. Jaybird Information Box 554 Republic, WA 99166 Jaybird Information Trading Cards (of the owner built keysort type) are situated in 40 (or more?) locations, mostly •in the Northwest.Jaybird has taken on the task of staying on top pf the agriculture/fo.od cooperative network news. We have a deck, and have yet to fully implement it (sorry, Joe). But it's a. model concept, and one that deserves support, placing remote rural folk in touch with a regional information base and creating instant "centers" of.infor, mation (Remember McLuhan:·everywhere is a center .in the communications era- though I bet he wasn't thinking of r~cycled e0mputer cards). (SJ) Northwest Alternative Ham Network c/o Randy Brink RFD 2, Box 301-8 Port Orchard, WA 98 3 66 At the Leap Year Conference in February I had my first experience in ham radio communications. There's a strange style to the conversation. First they say .• things then you say things and (as with a telephone) in the meanwhile you look at the receiver. Randy and friends around the Northwest have regular conversations they invite others to participate in, where they trade information, talk about news, their equipment, weather, energy, agriculture, communications, and most anything. It's an exciting use, of the medium. Rarydy is also working with slow scan video transmission and cheap teletype equipment. (SJ) Center for the Study of the Future 4110 N.E. Alameda Portland, OR 9.7212 This church-related group is coming up with unique ways of facilitating information exchange in churches, church.- related groups. They have recently begun using a homemade micro-computer to match needs and skills which they initiated _by holding a craft show where people were asked to create their own displays around crafts and skills. On a larger scale, a network of churches in Portland is using a computer to match job openings to those that need j~_bs. (SJ) CASCADE This regional communication and informatio'n,ex_change package produced by a good .friend is such a nifty idea, but an idea whose existence is dependent on being· invisible (so no address). Our friend has d~signed a folder in which he sends out every so often a packet of information. The enclosures are often other people's pamphlets, reprints, and a 1-2 page summary of valuable.information gathered by •·•our friend." He mails the thing out to 10-15 people who he feels can further spread the news. The idea of a package '(similar to Futures c;onditional), and like an earlier attempt back east, which was called Dumping Place, allows for the individual style of other groups to remain integral. It is also an interesting scale, just sending documents around: a poor person's telefacsimile. (SJ) Continued on page 19
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