Stop the FTAA. The next stop on the anti-globalization protest circuit is Quebec City’s Summit of the Americas, April 20-22, where thirty-four countries (the Western Hemisphere excluding Cuba) will be negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an “expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)” formulated and negotiated behind closed doors with the business sector fist-in-glove with government representatives. “It will be a resistance based on one No and many Yeses. No to corporate greed, violence, exploitation and irresponsibility. Yes to real democracy, human rights, peace and equity.”

Man returns armored truck money: “A man suspected of walking off with more than 125 pounds of cash that
fell out an armored truck returned all $640,000, still wrapped in
plastic, to authorities Friday.” CNN

Giuliani Internalized: “The next mayor will inherit a city where the left is
dead, capitalism is embraced and residents have made
their peace with bourgeois values. But then you never
really believed those squeegee guys had rights, now
did you?” New York Times Magazine

Gays in the British Military: Ask, Tell and Then Move On. The UK moves toward the future while the US moves toward the rear. New York Times

Researchers Say New Drug Could Reduce Sepsis Deaths: “The drug, a genetically engineered version of a natural
substance from human cells called activated protein C, will
be marketed under the brand name Zovant if it is approved.
Experts predicted that Zovant would be very expensive, but
a spokesman for Lilly declined to discuss the price.

The drug is not an antibiotic, and does not treat the
underlying infections that lead to sepsis. Instead, it quells
inflammation and abnormalities in blood clotting, which
contribute to the high death rates of 30 percent to 50
percent among patients who contract sepsis.” New York Times

Cockburn and St.Clair: “…And now the bloodbath will begin…” The Crimes of Ariel: “Sharon’s history offers a monochromatic
record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes
going back to the early 1950s.” Counterpunch

When Local ISPs Go National, All Customers Get Is Grief. My dialup access is through one of the nation’s oldest independent ISPs, the World at Software Tool and Die around the corner from my house in Brookline, MA. Certainly belongs on someone’s best-kept secrets list: never a busy signal, optimal speed, prompt competent technical assistance, constant quality improvement… I dread the day they’re bought out. Now if they’d only partner with someone to offer DSL with the same quality…

Sleeping Illness Drug in Production. “A U.S. company has agreed to supply a cure for
the deadly sleeping sickness disease for free to poor African
villages because the drug has another, moneymaking use –
reducing women’s facial hair.” AP

The devil has always been in the dance: “The idea of uncontrolled, wild dancing as something dangerous
stays with us: the club must be licensed for entertainment; the
rave strictly policed. The idea of people enjoying themselves,
whirling like banshees out of control is deeply unsettling to
authority. Uncontrolled passion must be restrained.

Yet in the not-so-distant past, hundreds of thousands of people
took part in frenzied outdoor orgies and wild displays of dancing
that lasted for weeks. People would dance themselves into a
state of elation, tearing off their clothes, laughing, weeping and
having sex with strangers.” The Guardian

Beckett Reels: The Beckett-on-Film Project is finished and the 19 films will be screened this week in repertory in Dublin. What would Beckett have thought of them, as the garrulous playwright who embraced the possibilities of 20th century media, wrote his plays not only as texts but entire theatrical events, and was not shy about citing deviations from his intent? Irish Times

Going to Extremes: Challenging films win in both the dramatic and documentary categories at Sundance.

Powered by a fierce, compelling
performance by Ryan Gosling, the
smart, provocative Believer was an
unexpected but popular choice for the
top prize. Written as well as directed
by (Henry) Bean and based on a true story
that’s been on his mind for 25 years,
this is an intensely verbal and discomforting character study about a young
Orthodox Jew who becomes a violent neo-Nazi only to find that it as difficult to live
without his Judaism as it is to live with it.

“The only reason I was willing to submit this film to Sundance was because I
thought we’d never get in,” Bean said in accepting the award Saturday night. “To
have won something is incredible.”

The intimate, moving Southern Comfort, which filmmaker (Kate) Davis shot on a
digital camera, often with herself as her only crew, involves us in the life of Robert
Eads, a 52-year-old female-to-male transsexual who, his impeccably masculine
presence notwithstanding, is both dying of ovarian cancer and falling in love with
a male-to-female transsexual named Lola Cola.
A truly mind-bending film, disorienting in the best possible way, Southern
Comfort not only gives us a caring, accepting look at a rarely examined world, it
also expands our sense of what human sexuality can encompass. “Being a man
or being a woman has nothing to do with your genitalia,” Eads says. “It’s what’s in
your mind or in your heart.” LA Times

The fine line between action and ignorance: Should we be inspired by or scornful of those who walk out?

I am always intrigued by people who walk out of things. Out of movies, out of plays,
out of concerts and out of operas. They often seem like jack-in-the-boxes with hair
triggers to me: one long monologue, one bar of atonal music, one four-letter word,
one nude body, one dream sequence and they’re on their feet. They operate on equal
parts impatience, outrage and confidence. And for some reason, there’s something
about their grim, affronted posture as they sidle through the darkness between knees
and seatbacks that makes me think of George W. Bush. The Globe and Mail

“Is Nothing Sacred?” Dept.: For Hire: Phony Talk Radio Calls: ‘A controversial new service is providing professional
callers for radio stations that feel ordinary phone-in
listeners are not lively enough.

Stations that use the professional callers rarely identify
them as ringers – which is apparently part of the appeal
of “Callers On Demand,” one of several programming
services offered by Manhattan-based United Stations, a
syndication company partly owned by TV veteran Dick
Clark.’ New York Post

The Best of 2001 “Here’s a challenge: You have an unlimited travel budget
and time to attend the top cultural events
in the Western world in 2001.
But what are they?” The Globe and Mail