I I I j i - r F\ fr SOLAR Solar Industry Index,l977, g8 from: Solar Energy Industry Assn. 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 2OO36 This nerv directory, by SEIA, of the solar energy industry contains much good material but has most of the drawbacks of the prototype "ERDA 75,' directory published I-1/2 years ago by FIRDA. 'l'he new (SEIA) directory gives names, addresses and products of several hundred manufacturers, sales companies and consultants involved in solar heating, windmills, etc. Some of the entries provide useful specifications of products and services. But the shortcomings of the directory are lmpre sslve: . _ Only a small fraction of the existing solar-energy companies are listed. For example , only 35 companies the names of which start with "Solar . . ." are listed. Yet this reviewer knows of 150 such companies. . There is no inclusive index or list of companies. If you wish to find out about Solar Such-and-Such Corp., you must first guess which of eight broad categories is applicable-which of eight alphabetical indexes to cohsult. These are scattered about. Thev have no clear titles. There are no tabs Lr finder-flags. . The subject categories are somewhat arbiuary, vague, overlapping. Many firms are described (somewhat repetitiously) under several categories. Crisp, meaningful categories such as collectors, glazing, storage tanks, instruments, controls, are conspicuous by their absence. . University groups are omitted. professional scicieties are omitted. Nearly all foreign companies are omitted. ArJune 1977 RAIN Page 7 chitects are omitted. Solar home owners are omitted. o There is no cross index of persons. . Most of the entries were prepared by the companies themselves and ire filled with self-serving claims and, in some instances, highly inflated boasts. . Some of rhe glamorous-appearing presentations pertain to companies consisting of little more than two or three men with high hopes and low overhead. . A 65-page section near rhe back of the volume is devoted to elementary discttssions of solar design principles and solar heating economics. Such tutorial material is out of place in a directory. Is the directory on rhe whole valuable? Perhaps, if the reader remembers that many of the companies listed are miniscule and hundreds of important companics have been omitted. The price ($8) is gratifyingly low. -William A. Shurcliff On Balance Androgyny is a much simplified example of a basic principle by which people of many cultures harmonize their lives and societies with the ever-changing flow of the universe. That principle is balance-the seeking or giving of the ingredient most necessary to counter the dominant direction of life at any point-to nudge the ever-swinging pendulum of our personalities or societies from a parh of increasing stagnario; or decay back towards the cenrer of new and vital life. The I Cbi'ng tells us that everything carries within it rhe seed for its own downfall-at its moment of greatest splendor its very suc.cess^is preparing a way for the emergence of a new and balancing force. The greater the dominancJ of any one thing, the greater becomes the power of its opposite. The dominant force has transformed the world into balance with its own nature, and only a markedly different nature has the power to unbaiance and bring change into that world. This principle of a dynamic flowof balance becomes manifest even in the way people of countries such as Vietnam or China seek their leaders-seeking a person whose personality, whose nature, whose whole being..hoes the forces they feei necessary to counter and bring back to balance the forces dominant in their society ar thar particular time. ^ Frances Fitzgerald speaks of this in Fire in tbe Lake (g2.25 from Vintage Books, 201 E. 5Oth St., New york, Ny tOOZ2 (p. 40), "At the beginning of the first Indochina war paul Mus asked an old friend of his, a Vietnamese intellectual, whether he supported the Emperor Bao Dai or Ho Chi Minh. ,,Ho Chi Minh," said the intellectual. "Ho Chi Minh because he is pointed, whereas Bao Dai is circular like a drop of water. Like water, he will rot everything he touches. What we wanr is pointed fire and flames like Ho Chi Minh." As Mus explained, the traditional Viernamese, like so many peasanr p.opi., ,"*' history not as a straight-line progression brrt as an'organic cycle of growth, fruition, and delay; for them theseieasonal changes were associated with t.*t,ri.s and pictures-the images as old as China itself. In times of prosperity and stability the" empire appeared circular-the image of water and fecundity, or a time when, in the words of the great Vietnamese poet, Nguyen Du, "The emperor's virtues spread like rain over all the land, penetraring deeply into the hearts of men." Inevirably times would change' rich and secure, the dynasty would isolate itself from the people and grow corrupr-rhe image of degeneration, the stagnani pool. Then revoluiion would-comethe cleansing fire to burn away rhe rot of the old order. At such times the Vietnamese would look for a leader who, in his absolute rectitude, his puritanical discipline, would iead the communiry back ro the strengrh and vigor of its youth. And it was this picture that the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong presented to the Vietnamese of the twentieth century.,' _T-B F
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