PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY!!! PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY!!!! PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY!!!!

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: LOUDmouth Spring 2008 Issue

LOUDmouth magazine -- a feminist magazine coming out of Cal State LA -- is seeking essays (critical and/or personal), investigative reportage, research, poetry, prose, experimental pieces, critical analysis, fiction, photography,illustrations, artwork (including cover artwork), and more for our Spring issue on the theme of ENVIRONMENT.

ENVIRONMENT is a timely issue for several reasons. Therefore, our list of topics for this issue is longer than usual. For clarity the topics have been categorized by subject. We encourage our contributors to think outside the box. Topics may include but are by no means limited to:
Do It Yourself Ideas
*windowsill gardening and composting for the city dweller
*reusable menstrual pads (perhaps a how to)
*environmental activism:
*your own cup initiatives at local coffee shops
* the "these come from trees" paper
*viral marketing experiment, etc.

Travel
*commuter bikes (there's lots of designs that are a far cry from traditional bike designs to ease commuting, reclining seats, childrencarrying seats, attachable trailers for lugging cargo, etc.) and the general rising interest in bikes, including electric bicycles, as a form of everyday *transportation in the western world
*los angeles's bicycle kitchen
*eric green and his "green machine" pedicab (a hotel busboy turned rickshaw driver in downtown l.a.)

Recycling
*a history of reusable and waste – individuals who grew up during the great depression, reused everything (even old underwear was made into rags and rag rugs); war efforts forced the reuse of nylon and metals; it seems fairly recent that we've become a throw away culture
*the lifecycle of a recycled product in photos would be an interesting thing perhaps
*the "i'm not a plastic bag" phenomenon and recent banning of plastic bags in san francisco grocery markets and developments of different materials to substitute, like potato starch bags - and also how plastic bags aren't a given at supermarkets in many other countries
*knitting with plastic bags (a how to and there are also organizations who are bringing plastic bag weaving to communities who weave as a traditional handicraft as a new material

Economics
*advertising/mass media/public space - the consumer environment
*the selling of the western world's waste, including toxic/nuclear waste, to china and other "developing" nations
*footprint calculators and carbon offsetting - using our wealth to buy off our guilt?
*what is in the average american household & lifestyle that makes us, collectively, the world's top producer of carbon emissions or greenhouse gases or whatever it is
*drinking water
*food choices and the environment
*clothing choices and the environment
*environmentally friendly designers (clothes, furniture, etc.)
*walmart/big box and greenwashing (stacy mitchell's "big box swindle" would probably be a good resource for info here)
Building & the Environment
*green communities & experiments (governmental, like Shanghai's Dongtan billed as the world's first eco-city, or non-governmental, like rainbow family gatherings)
*the environmental price of "development" and the dilemma of the "developing world"'s race to develop environmental ramifications and how the west is addressing it, and whether or not the west should have any say at all
*gentrification/the built environment
* green buildings, houses, schools, solar paneling. Who can afford it and who are these services directed towards.
*What land is sacred? Where do we have the right to build?

Animals
Endangered species
Killing gorillas in the Conga for charcoal that people need to cook and heat their homes
Killing animals for consumerism – animals killed or captured to produce products we need and/or want

International
*Beijing and the 2008 olympics (fake rain, athletes refusing to compete because of the air quality, forced carfree days, etc.)
*Idea of collective building in So.America etc.
*The environment of war – what affect does war have on the political, social and biological environment women exist in, particularly in countries in transition?

Politics/Government
*the political environment (physical - what is the environment of a campaign office or the office of an elected official; theorictal - analyzing the strategies used in campaigns)
*going green. Are politicians going green for political gain?
*bio terrorism

Environmentalist
*Sunita Narain, environmentalist in India, directs New Delhi's Center for Science and Environment and got India's Supreme Court to order the New Delhi bus system to move from diesel to compressed natural gas
*Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx. She has converted illegal dumping grounds into parks in the South Bronx; established smart roofs: a green roof-installation business designed to cool down rooftops and keep energy cost low; secured more than $20 for the South Bronx Greenway, 11 miles of bike and pedestrian paths that will connect rivers to neighborhoods
*Daisy Tonatzin from Proyecto Jardin
*the hype surrounding Al Gore
*environmental engineers. What do they do? What is the purpose of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and is it serving its purpose?

Activism in Action
*specific projects/groups: mothers of east la, proyecto jardin, la ecovillage, cicle.org
*local environmental justice struggles and successes

Gender, Race, Class & the Environment
*landscape as it relates to gender. Is landscape engendered. For example, does a particular type of landscape have a high population of a particular type of woman?
* "environmentalism is not a white thing,"
*nurture vs. nature – Are we a product of our environment biologically and/or socially?
*Health, environment, and the inner city. What is the correlation between asthma, breast cancer and women and children in the inner city? Is the rise in the number of people being diagnosed with these sicknesses related to a depleting environment and/or exposure to more things that are toxic to health

Hot Topics
*peak oil. What is myth and what is true
*Natural Disasters – Are we more vulnerable to natural disasters due to global warming? What is the ecological, social, and political environment like in the aftermath of a natural disaster (New Orleans after Katrina, Southern California after the fires, Indonesia after the Tsunami, etc..)

Trends
*A case stuy/comparison of the veggie oil and electric car. Is this really helping or distracting us from the real issue: how much we drive?
*community gardens, herbal recipes, autonomous zones. How do we build real sustainability? What are intentional communities and what is their relationship feminism? What are the environmental implications of living alone versus living with people?

Deadline for pitches: February 19th
Deadline for unsolicited drafts: February 21st
(What this means: If you want to write about any of
the above topics or another topic related to ENVIRONMENT,
send a pitch regarding your idea as soon as possible.
Just send a brief note about what you're thinking and
we'll start a back-and-forth about how it might work
for this issue.)

Please note: Contributors need not be students nor
Angelenos nor members of any particular identity
group. Contributors do need to write from a feminist
perspective that takes as a given the
interconnectedness of multiple systems of oppression
and that consciously avoids reinforcing whiteness,
heterosexuality and the like as invisible/normative.
Contributors who are enthusiastic and good with
deadlines are greatly appreciated.

Please send all submissions to Crystal Irby, Editor-in-Chief, at loudmouthzine@yahoo.com

LOUDmouth
www.calstatela.edu/usu/loudmouth
feminism: fem'e-niz'em -n. [The]
movement to end sexism, sexist
exploitation and [all] oppression.