The Machine

by Eduardo Galeano

Rebelion.org

April 27, 2002

 [Translated by Francisco González]

Sigmund Freud had learned it from Jean-Martin Charcot: ideas can be implanted by hypnosis in the
human mind.

More than a century has gone by since then, and the technology of manipulation has made great strides.
This is a colossal machine, the size of the planet, that orders us to repeat the messages it puts inside our heads. It‚s a word-abusing machine.

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, had been elected, and reelected, by an overwhelming majority, in a much more transparent election than the one that put George W. Bush in power in the United States

The machine propelled the coup that tried to overthrow Chavez–not because of his messianic style,
or his tendency toward logorrhea, but because of the reforms he proposed and the heresies he committed. Chavez touched the untouchables. And the untouchables–the owners of the media and almost everything else–were outraged. With complete freedom they denounced the crushing of freedom.
Inside and outside his own country, the machine turned Chavez into a „tyrant,‰ a „delirious autocrat‰ and an „enemy of democracy.‰ Against him was the „citizenry‰. Behind him were the „mobs,‰ which did not meet in rooms but in „lairs‰.

The media campaign was decisive in the avalanche that lead to the coup, programmed from abroad against this ferocious dictatorship that did not have a single political prisoner. Then the Presidency was occupied by a businessman for whom nobody voted, and whose first democratic measure was to dissolve the Parliament. The stock market went up the following day, but a popular uprising returned
Chavez to his legitimate post. As Venezuelan writer Luis Britto Garcia put it, the media-engineered coup was able to generate only a virtual power, and it didn‚t last. Venezuelan television–a bastion of information freedom–did not get wind of the upsetting news.

Meanwhile, another voted-by-none figure who also took power by coup d‚etat is displaying his successful
new look: General Pervez Musharraf, military dictator of Pakistan, has been transfigured by the magical kiss of the mass media. Musharraf says–and repeats–that the notion that his people could vote does not even enter his head, but he himself has given a vote of obedience to the so called “international community”, and that is the only vote that really matters in the end, at the time of reckoning.

He has come a long way indeed: only yesterday, Musharraf was the best friend of his neighbors, the Taliban. Today he‚s become the „liberal brave leader of the modernization of Pakistan.”

And in the meantime, the slaughter of Palestinians continues. The world‚s manufacturers of public
opinion call it a „hunting down of terrorists.‰ „Palestinian‰ is a synonym of “terrorist”, but this word is never used to refer to the Israeli army. The territories seized by continuous military invasions are called “disputed
territories.” And Palestinians–who are Semitic–turn out to be „anti-Semitic.‰
For more than a century they have been condemned to atone for the sins
of European anti-Semitism, and to pay with their land and their blood for
a Holocaust they did not perpetrate.

There is a Gutlessness Competition
at the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, which always aims
South, never North.

The commission specializes
in charging against Cuba, and this year Uruguay had the honor to lead the
pack. Nobody said: “I do it so that they buy what I sell”, or: “I do it
so they lend me what I need”, or: “I do it so they loosen the rope that‚s
tightening around my neck”. The art of good governing allows its practitioners
not to think what they say, but it forbids them from saying what they think.
And the media took advantage of the occasion to confirm, once again, that
the blockaded island is one of the baddies.

In the dictionary of the
machine, the bribes that politicians receive are called „contributions,‰
and their betrayals are called „pragmatism.‰ The word „security‰ refers
not to notions of safety and protection, but to investments; and it is
in the stock exchange that these „securities‰ undergo all kinds of crises.
Where we see “the international community demands,” we should read: the
financial dictatorship imposes.

“International community”
is also the pseudonym that shelters the great powers in their military
campaigns of extermination, also called „pacifying missions.‰ The „pacified‰
are the dead. The third war against Iraq is already in the works. As in
the two previous ones, the bombers will be called „allied forces‰ while
the bombed will be „fanatic mobs serving the Butcher of Baghdad.‰ And the
attackers will leave behind a trail of civilian corpses which will be called
„collateral damages.‰

In order to explain this
next war, President Bush does not say: „Big oil and big weapons need it
badly, and my government is a pipeline and an arsenal. „ Nor does he explain
his multibillion project for the militarization of space with words like:
„We are going to annex the sky the way we annexed Texas.‰ No, the explanation
is that the free world that must defend itself against the threat of terrorism,
both here on Earth and beyond, even though terrorism has demonstrated it
prefers kitchen knives to missiles, and despite the fact that the United
States is opposed–along with Iraq–to the International Criminal Court
that has been recently established to punish crimes against humanity.

In general, the words uttered
by power are not meant to express its actions, but to disguise them. More
than a century ago, at the glorious battle of Omdurman, in Sudan, where
Winston Churchill was both reporter and soldier, 48 Britons sacrificed
their lives. In addition, 27,000 savages died. The British were pushing
their colonial expansion by fire and the sword, and they justified it by
saying: „We are civilizing Africa through commerce. They were not saying:
“We are commercializing Africa through civilization.” And nobody was asking
Africans their opinion on the matter.

But we are fortunate enough to live in the information age, and the giants of mass communications love
objectivity. They even allow for the point of view of the enemy to be expressed as well. During the Vietnam war, for example, the point of view of the enemy was 3% of the coverage given by ABC, CBS and NBC.

The Pentagon acknowledges that propaganda is part of the military budget, and the White House has
hired Charlotte Beers, a publicity expert who had pushed certain brands of rice and dog food in the local markets. She is now in charge of pushing the crusade against terrorism into the world market. „We‚re selling a product,‰ quipped Colin Powell.

Brazilian writer Millor Fernandes confirms that „in order not to see reality, the ostrich sinks its head
in the television set.

The machine dictates orders, the machine stones you.

On September 11, the loudspeakers of the second twin tower in New York were also giving stunning orders, when the tower started to creak. As people ran down the stairs, the loudspeakers were ordering everyone to return to their workstations.

Those who survived, disobeyed.

Prolonged slump puts media in the mood to pander to buyers

By Matthew Rose and Suzanne Vranica

THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK, May 9 ˜ On an early
March episode of her talk show, Rosie O‚Donnell chatted about her new diet
and the „great different salads‰ available at Wendy‚s fast-food restaurants.
A sample sat on the table in front of her. Suddenly, Ms. O‚Donnell received
an urgent instruction from off stage: eat the salad. „Any reason you want
me to taste the salad?‰ Ms. O‚Donnell asked, on air. Just do it, came the
response. Shrugging, Ms. O‚Donnell shoveled a fork-full of lettuce into
her mouth, and declared, „Mmmm, that‚s good.‰ This is what it takes to
get advertising these days

        
WHEN WENDY‚S International Inc. committed to spend more than $23 million
on ads with AOL Time Warner Inc.‚s media outlets, the burger chain asked
for ˜ and received ˜ a host of extra goodies. The media giant, which produces
„The Rosie O‚Donnell Show‰ through its Warner Bros. unit, agreed to have
the host eat a „Garden Sensations‰ salad on air. The salad also made an
appearance on TBS Superstation‚s „Dinner & a Movie.‰ And this month,
AOL Time Warner magazines such as Sports Illustrated and InStyle inserted
a Wendy‚s promotion personalized with each subscriber‚s name.

      
Media companies have long sold ads simply by touting the size of their
audiences or the quality of the product. They‚d herd advertisers into neatly
prescribed areas of real estate ˜ a 30-second TV spot, a half-page print
ad. Now, on the heels of the worst advertising slump since World War II,
advertisers
are getting a startling array of services that have turned publishers and
TV channels into full-service marketing companies. On behalf of their advertising
clients, media companies stage and pay for parties and corporate events,
develop elaborate promotions and mailings and agree to unusual product
placements.

        
Advertisers see the shift as long overdue. For years, they have been increasingly
concerned that their messages were getting lost in the clutter of new cable
channels and Internet sites. They‚ve worried about dwindling network television
shares and declining magazine and newspaper sales, and fretted about the
looming era when consumers will be able to zap commercials with the help
of electronic recorders. Now, an 18-month-long advertising recession that
saw ad spending slump nearly 10% last year has shifted the balance of power
in favor of the advertisers. Even though there are signs that the recession
is lifting, many of the changes demanded by advertisers are likely to be
permanent.

      
„The tables have turned,‰ says Don Calhoon, Wendy‚s executive vice president
of marketing. If media companies don‚t play ball, „marketers will take
their ad dollars to other places. There are too many ways to reach consumers.‰

      
The shifting terrain puts media companies ˜ especially magazines and television
networks ˜ in a tough spot. They often pay for events and parties out of
their own pocket and write it off as a new cost of getting ads. This means
that the ads that do run these days aren‚t as profitable. And the new product
placements are blurring the line between content and advertising in ways
that may be jarring to consumers.

      
For instance, in a move that gives new meaning to the term „autoeroticism,‰
Playboy magazine will replace its June centerfold with a fold-out picture
of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG‚s new Mini car, bumping the real Miss June
to another section. BMW paid the equivalent of six ad pages to the Playboy
Enterprises Inc. publication. On the May 1 episode of soap opera „Days
of our Lives,‰ meanwhile, a box of Kleenex tissue got unusually prominent
display in a scene between two weepy characters forced to give up their
baby. Kimberly-Clark Corp. got the plug as part of an elaborate advertising
deal with General Electric Co.‚s NBC.

      
Some in the business lament the changes, especially the smaller players.
„I am frustrated by how much the world has changed,‰ says John Fox Sullivan,
president of the Atlantic Monthly and National Journal. „Consumer magazines
have become such commodities, almost the last thing the advertiser seems
to care about is placing their ads amidst editorial the reader craves.‰

      
But many others shrug it off. „Our world is changing,‰ says Gary Burke,
vice president of prime-time sales at NBC, which has created several promos
tied to ad deals in recent months.

AD BOMBARDMENT

      
Traditional ads alone just don‚t cut it anymore because „folks are bombarded
with advertising,‰ agrees Joe Adney, director of marketing at Baskin-Robbins,
a unit of Allied Domecq PLC. „There is a real desire to be integrated into
the program.‰ Baskin-Robbins‚s media-buying firm, Interpublic Group of
Cos.‚ Initiative Media, recently completed a media-buying deal that included
having the ice-cream brand incorporated into TV shows such as „Top 20 Countdown,‰
a music-video program broadcast on Viacom Inc.‚s VH1. During a recent episode,
the host passed out Baskin-Robbins ice cream from a VH1 truck to passersby.

          
The clout large advertisers wield has grown with the consolidation of companies,
known as media buyers, that act as liaisons between advertisers and media
operations. About 80% of the ad spending in the U.S. is funneled through
only eight firms. WPP Group PLC‚s Mindshare, for example, represents more
than $20 billion in annual budgets with clients including Ford Motor Co.,
American Express Co., and International Business Machines Corp.

      
These firms start throwing their weight around early in the selection process.
Landing in publishers‚ mailboxes recently was a document from Media Planning
Group, a unit of Havas Advertising SA, which represents Ford‚s Volvo unit.
The firm wanted information to help it plan a coming advertising schedule.
Instead of asking standard questions about readership size, age and income
levels, MPG wanted publishers to describe readers‚ typical day, their favorite
movie, author and TV program. „I look at this stuff and ask, ŒIs this creative
writing?‚ ‰ complains one publisher.

      
To prepare its 2002 schedule, Volkswagen AG‚s U.S. media agency, Arnold
MPG, a Havas unit, asked publishers to make a video describing their readers.
Blender, a new music magazine owned by Dennis Publishing, rented a VW Beetle
and sent a production crew on a road trip around Manhattan, mixing nonalcoholic
drinks and confronting random pedestrians. The staffers videotaped interviews
with those who turned out to be Blender readers. When a policeman gave
them a ticket for making an illegal turn onto 42nd Street, they taped him,
too.

      
Blender eventually got a „high single digit‰ number of pages for 2002,
says publisher Malcolm Campbell, but not everyone was so lucky. Of the
120 publications that made a video, only 50 made the cut.

      
Because Volkswagen is a marquee advertiser, media companies are willing
to go the extra mile. But they‚re doing the same for companies without
generous ad budgets. In March, MSNBC, the cable news channel jointly owned
by NBC and Microsoft Corp., signed a deal with financial-services company
Lending Tree Inc. In return for about $5 million, a tiny sum that will
cover all of 2002, MSNBC is creating a twice-weekly financial update which
will be sponsored by Lending Tree.

      
Last summer, Jeff Hicks, the president of Miami-based agency Crispin Porter
+ Bogusky, gathered more than 50 publishers into an auditorium in Manhattan
and asked for „groundbreaking‰ ideas to promote BMW‚s Mini. Even though
the account was valued at only an estimated $20 million ˜ as little as
a third of similar launches ˜ Mr. Hicks was inundated with proposals, including
Playboy‚s centerfold idea. The New Yorker, owned by Condé Nast Publications
Inc., threw a party in a Soho gallery displaying Minis that had been decorated
by top artists. Wenner Media Inc.‚s Rolling Stone magazine ran ads in a
thin strip around the edge of the page showing Minis tearing along a road.
The tagline: „Nothing Corners Like A Mini.‰ Readers had to remove the strip
to read the article.

      
Television networks have gone the furthest in incorporating advertisers‚
messages into once-sacrosanct territory. When Verizon Wireless, a joint
venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain‚s Vodafone Group
PLC, dangled $50 million in the hope of integrating its „Talk Man‰ character
into network programming, eight different channels leaped at the opportunity.
„Talk man‰ is the Verizon pitchman who crisscrosses the country saying,
„Can you hear me now?‰ into his cellphone.

      
By January, „Talk Man‰ escaped from the confines of the traditional ad.
He popped up in a promo for NBC‚s „Frasier‰ and also appeared on a movie
set designed to mimic „Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom‰ to tout a
rerun of the adventure flick on Walt Disney Co.‚s ABC. Following the opening
credits of the WB‚s „Dawson‚s Creek,‰ a teen drama, „Talk Man‰ appears
on the show‚s set and repeats his catchphrase as part of the ad deal.

      
„The networks have been more willing to pursue things like product placement
while two years ago when the market was tighter they were less willing,‰
said Rich Hamilton, chief executive of Zenith Optimedia, which is jointly
owned by Publicis Groupe SA and Cordiant Communications Group PLC and which
represents Verizon Wireless.

      
Suzanne Kold, executive vice president of marketing at WB, doesn‚t see
a problem with this. „I don‚t think most audiences are shocked that there
are advertising relationships with shows or that advertisers fund things,‰
she says. ABC declined to comment on the Verizon deal.

      
To accommodate the new demands, media companies have started to change
the way they do business. Hearst Corp.‚s magazine division, for example,
awards a $1,000 prize each month to the salesperson who comes up with the
best idea to be used by an advertiser. Chief Marketing Officer Michael
Clinton says the company has around 40 proposals floating around at any
one time.

       
One of those proposals led to Hearst‚s announcement last year that it had
teamed up with Brookstone Inc., a Nashua, N.H., gift retailer, to promote
DaimlerChrysler AG‚s Chrysler in Hearst publications and Brookstone‚s catalog
business and 240 gift-store outlets. After six months of planning, the
November issues of 7.8 million Hearst magazines ran a section highlighting
design elements of Chrysler vehicles and Brookstone merchandise. Hearst
says the section enticed 13,600 readers to test-drive a Chrysler.

      
Julie McGowan, the publisher of Food & Wine, reckons the magazine now
throws anywhere from two to five events a week, compared with two a month
in the late 1990s. These range from parties to store openings to wine tastings,
all arranged to leverage the magazine‚s contacts and give more publicity
to advertisers. „Advertisers demand it,‰ she says. Food & Wine is owned
by American Express Publishing Corp., a venture of AOL Time Warner‚s Time
Inc. and American Express.

ELABORATE EVENTS

      
The events are becoming increasingly elaborate. Fortune magazine, published
by Time, holds roughly one mammoth event a month either tied to an ad-page
deal or to schmooze important advertising clients. In March, Fortune and
its sister publications took over the Road Atlanta Racetrack in Braselton,
Ga., on behalf of Merrill Lynch & Co., a key advertiser. The financial-services
company invited some of its own wealthy customers and corporate clients.
Participants were given a chance to drive a race car at 120 miles per hour.

      
Publishers fervently hope that a recovery in the advertising market will
bring some respite. Stocks of major newspaper and advertising companies
are up substantially so far this year. Steven Florio, chief executive of
Condé Nast, says 12 of his 15 magazines, which include Vogue and
Vanity Fair, posted gains in their June issues.

      
But few executives are certain when the turnaround may come. First-quarter
results were generally inconclusive. „I‚ve seen some swallows, but I‚m
not ready to call it summer,‰ says Richard M. Smith, chairman of Washington
Post Co.‚s Newsweek magazine.

      
As far as exhausted media executives are concerned, it might not matter
when the ads return. Arnold, the media-buying agency that put magazines
through their paces for VW, is considering kooky ideas for 2003 pitches.
Publishers are already calling asking, „What is our assignment this year?‰
says Steve Moynihan, senior vice president media director at Arnold MPG.

      
This time around, Mr. Moynihan says he is looking for „bigger and better
ideas‰ from publishers. „I anticipate that they will respond to whatever
we request of them,‰ he says.

From 13 May BUSINESS WEEK:

Lawrence Lessig: The “Dinosaurs” Are Taking Over

If the media giants have
their way, the Net freedom fighter says, content will be rigidly controlled
and innovation stifled

Who should control the Internet?
If Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig is right, the Internet
will soon belong to Hollywood studios, record labels, and cable operators
— corporate giants that he says are trying to cordon off chunks of the
once-open data network. Lessig’s mission is to stop them. At age 40, he’s
already the Net’s most famous freedom fighter. Since 1995, he has been
a seminal thinker on many of the Digital Age’s most important battles —
the AOL-Time Warner merger, Napster, and the Microsoft antitrust case.

In his latest book, The Future
of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World, Lessig argues that
imminent changes to Internet architecture plus court decisions that restrict
the use of intellectual property will co-opt the Net on behalf of Establishment
players — and stifle innovation. On Apr. 29, Lessig spoke with BusinessWeek
Online Technology reporter Jane Black about what he sees as some disturbing
trends. Here are edited excerpts of that conversation:

Q: You argue that the Internet’s
popularity as a new medium is a result of its open architecture. How do
you see this changing? And are the changes a threat to e-business?

A: There are two places
where it’s changing. One is at the physical level of the network. As we
move from narrowband to broadband [access to the Net], broadband operators
are developing technology that gives them control over applications and
content on the network.

    Cable
companies, for example, have a view of what the network should be used
for. And they’re beginning to pick and choose what kinds of content will
flow quickly as a way of favoring — or not favoring — content providers.
For instance, perhaps cable companies can make it more difficult [for Web
sites] to use streaming video if that interferes with their video business.
It’s your father’s AT&T all over again: They, not the user, decide
what the network should be.

Q: What’s the result of a
controlled network?

A: The cost of innovation
goes up significantly. Before, you just had to worry about complying with
basic network protocol. Now you have to worry about making your program
run on the full range of proprietary systems and devices connected to the
network. Before, the network would serve whoever and whatever people wanted
it to. Soon, you will need the permission of network owners.

    Think
about other platforms in our lives, like the highway system. Imagine if
General Motors could build the highway system such that GM trucks ran better
on it than Ford trucks. Or think about the electrical grid. Imagine if
a Sony TV worked better on it than a Panasonic TV. The highway and electricity
grids are all neutral platforms — a common standard that everyone builds
on top of. That’s an extraordinarily important feature for networks to
have.

Q: And the second change
that threatens e-business?

A: Dominant media is a huge
threat. [Record labels and Hollywood studios] make their money because
of the control they assert over the production and distribution of artists’
work. In the music business, a handful of companies control more than 80%
of the music in the world. These companies control not just distribution
but a market where artists have to sell their souls to a record label just
to have a right to develop music that can be distributed.

    That’s
the model for the last century. The economic reasons that might have justified
that tightly controlled structure have disappeared. The Internet can support
much greater competition in production and distribution than [is possible
with] the dominant five companies. The record labels have launched lawsuits
against every company that has a model for distributing [music and entertainment]
content they can’t control. That has sent a clear message to venture capitalists:
Don’t deploy a technology that we don’t approve of, or we will sue you
into the Dark Ages.

    The result
is that the field has been left to dinosaurs. There would have been more
chips, computers, and devices to deliver content if Congress had been more
keen to allow innovation to occur. We’ve given
control over the future to exactly the wrong people. And before
we know it, the possibility for innovation will have disappeared.

Q: Why is it so difficult
to head off these moves?

A: One reason is that Washington
surrounds itself with the same people all the time — [Motion Picture Association
of America President] Jack Valenti and [Recording Industry Association
of America President] Hillary Rosen. They’ve succeeded in making Washington
believe this is a binary choice — between perfect protection or no protection.
No one is seriously arguing for no protection. They are arguing for a balance
that avoids the phenomenon we are seeing now — one where the last generation
of technology controls the next generation of industry.

    In fact,
there are lots of solutions that would promote innovation. For example,
Congress could do what it has always done — establish a flat compulsory
licensing fee [such as the one radio stations pay to music publishers for
playing their songs] so that any company can compete in the marketplace.
That’s what Napster [the free-music sharing Web site the recording industry
sued out of existence] asked Washington for all along — a compulsory license.
That could deal with 80% of the problem of existing content.

    But these
solutions are never recognized because, while the future under perfect
competition would produce an industry with much greater income to artists
and greater opportunities to consumers, the fact is that the concentrated
players are going to lose.

    The
problem is, we’ve given control of the future to the people who will lose
even under the best possible plan. It’s like giving the communists
control over the future of the new Russia. Congress continues to have them
come down and testify. And they step forward and say they want communism
to be protected for the next 100 years.

Q: The current debate over
Web radio is a good example. New fees that the U.S. copyright office has
mandated threaten to put small Webcasters out of business.

A: Web radio is a perfect
example. In the course of its testimony before the CARP hearings [the Copyright
Arbitration Royalty Panel, the government group responsible for setting
compulsory license fee for Webcasters] the RIAA argued that higher rates
would reduce the number of competitors to four or five big players. That’s
their model: To wipe out diversity and get back to a place where only a
few people control delivery.

    I understand
why they want that. But I don’t understand why Congress is giving it to
them. And it’s not just the fees that are ridiculously high — it’s the
data collection that has been mandated [by CARP and is awaiting approval].
If the RIAA has its way, Webcasters would have to report every song that
every listener heard. In essence, it asks to create a national police state
of music listening by forcing Webcasters to collect data and turn it over
to copyright holders. My question is: Why? It kills competition and the
development of niche markets. This is a classic example where the legal
process is being used to destroy creativity and innovation.

Q: What should Washington
do?

A: First in context of copyright,
Congress should pass low fixed compulsory license fees for distribution
of [music and entertainment] content on the Web. Those fees should not
be tied to reporting every usage on the Web. They should be determined
the same way they are now for radio — according to a sampling that gives
some idea of what music is being played.

    Second,
Congress should repeal the 1998 DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
which, among other things makes it a crime to circumvent copyright-protection
technology]. We have no reason to believe that the market won’t work well
enough to prevent abuse. We don’t need the federal government threatening
prosecution.

    Finally,
Congress needs to not pass new legislation, like the [recently introduced]
Hollings’ bill that would mandate a police state in every computer [by
requiring that copyright-protection mechanisms be embedded in PCs, CD players,
and anything else that can play, record, or manipulate data]. (See BW Online,
3/27/02, “Guard Copyright, Don’t Jail Innovation.”)

Q: Do we need a new definition
or vision of copyright and intellectual property in order for e-business
to move forward?

A: We don’t need a new vision.
We just need to recognize what the traditional vision has been. The traditional
vision protects copyright owners from unfair competition. It has never
been a way to give copyright holders perfect control over how consumers
use content. We need to make sure that pirates don’t set up CD pressing
plants or competing entities that sell identical products. We need to stop
worrying about whether you or I use a song on your PC and then transfer
it your MP3 player.

COURTESY I. ROGERS!

From the Globe & Mail, Saturday, May 4, 2002 ˆ Page A1:

Suspicious deaths

The sudden and suspicious deaths of 11 of the world’s leading
microbiologists. Who they were:

1. Nov. 12, 2001:

Benito Que was said to have been beaten in a Miami parking lot and died later.

2. Nov. 16, 2001:

Don C. Wiley went missing. Was found Dec. 20. Investigators said he got dizzy on a Memphis bridge
and fell to his death in a river.

3. Nov. 21, 2001:

Vladimir Pasechnik, former high-level Russian microbiologist who defected in
1989 to the U.K. apparently died from a stroke.

4. Dec. 10, 2001:

Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death in Leesberg, Va. Three Satanists
have been arrested.

5. Dec. 14, 2001:

Nguyen Van Set died in an airlock filled with nitrogen in his lab in Geelong, Australia.

6. Feb. 9, 2002:

Victor Korshunov had his head bashed in near his home in Moscow.

7. Feb. 14, 2002:

Ian Langford was found partially naked and wedged under a chair in Norwich,
England.

8. 9. Feb. 28, 2002:

San Francisco resident Tanya Holzmayer was killed by a microbiologist colleague, Guyang Huang, who shot her as she took delivery of a pizza and then apparently shot himself.

10. March 24, 2002:

David Wynn-Williams died in a road accident near his home in Cambridge,
England.

11. March 25, 2002:

Steven Mostow of the Colorado Health Sciences Centre, killed in a plane he
was flying near Denver.

Scientists’ deaths are under the microscope

By ALANNA MITCHELL, SIMON
COOPER AND CAROLYN ABRAHAM

COMPILED BY ALANNA MITCHELL

It’s a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.

    Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months.

Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues.

Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.

    Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.

    The first three died in the space of just over a week in November. Benito
Que, 52, was an expert in infectious diseases and cellular biology at the
Miami Medical School. Police originally suspected that he had been beaten on
Nov. 12 in a carjacking in the medical school’s parking lot. Strangely
enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to
suspect a stroke.

    Just
four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious came the mysterious

disappearance of Don Wiley,
57, one of the foremost microbiologists in the

United States. Dr. Wiley,
of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard

University, was an expert
on how the immune system responds to viral attacks

such as the classic doomsday
plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza.

    He had
just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the following day.

Police found his rental
car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was

later found in the Mississippi
River. Forensic experts said he may have had

a dizzy spell and have fallen
off the bridge.

    Just
five days after that, the world-class microbiologist and high-profile

Russian defector Valdimir
Pasechnik, 64, fell dead. The pathologist who did

the autopsy, and who also
happened to be associated with Britain’s spy

agency, concluded he died
of a stroke.

    Dr. Pasechnik,
who defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, played a huge

role in Russian biowarfare
and helped to figure out how to modify cruise

missiles to deliver the
agents of mass biological destruction.

    The next
two deaths came four days apart in December. Robert Schwartz, 57,

was stabbed and slashed
with what police believe was a sword in his

farmhouse in Leesberg, Va.
His daughter, who identifies herself as a pagan

high priestess, and several
of her fellow pagans have been charged.

    Dr. Schwartz
was an expert in DNA sequencing and pathogenic micro-organisms,

who worked at the Center
for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Va.

    Four
days later, Nguyen Van Set, 44, died at work in Geelong, Australia, in

a laboratory accident. He
entered an airlocked storage lab and died from

exposure to nitrogen. Other
scientists at the animal diseases facility of

the Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organization had just

come to fame for discovering
a virulent strain of mousepox, which could be

modified to affect smallpox.

    Then
in February, the Russian microbiologist Victor Korshunov, 56, an expert

in intestinal bacteria of
children around the world, was bashed over the

head near his home in Moscow.
Five days later the British microbiologist Ian

Langford, 40, was found
dead in his home near Norwich, England, naked from

the waist down and wedged
under a chair. He was an expert in environmental

risks and disease.

    Two weeks
later, two prominent microbiologists died in San Francisco. Tanya

Holzmayer, 46, a Russian
who moved to the U.S. in 1989, focused on the part

of the human molecular structure
that could be affected best by medicine.

    She was
killed by fellow microbiologist Guyang (Matthew) Huang, 38, who shot

her seven times when she
opened the door to a pizza delivery. Then he shot

himself.

    The final
two deaths came one day after the other in March. David

Wynn-Williams, 55, a respected
astrobiologist with the British Antarctic

Survey, who studied the
habits of microbes that might survive in outer

space, died in a freak road
accident near his home in Cambridge, England. He

was hit by a car while he
was jogging.

    The following
day, Steven Mostow, 63, known as Dr. Flu for his expertise in

treating influenza, and
a noted expert in bioterrorism, died when the

airplane he was piloting
crashed near Denver.

    So what
does any of it mean?

    “Statistically,
what are the chances?” wondered a prominent North American

microbiologist reached last
night at an international meeting of

infectious-disease specialists
in Chicago.

    Janet
Shoemaker, director of public and scientific affairs of the American

Society for Microbiology
in Washington, D.C., pointed out yesterday that

there are about 20,000 academic
researchers in microbiology in the U.S.

Still, not all of these
are of the elevated calibre of those recently

deceased.

    She had
a chilling, final thought. When microbiologists die in a lab,

there’s a way of taking
note of the deaths and adding them up. When they die

in freakish accidents outside
the lab, nobody keeps track.

THANKS: O. KOWARSKY!

from The LATimes:

Drawing Inspiration From the Gods

Stephen Legawiec borrows from world myths to create uncommon productions for his Ziggurat Theatre.

By F. KATHLEEN FOLEY

Philosophers from Plato to Paglia have long acknowledged that myth is society’s building block,
the barometer of a common world culture extending back to the cave. But just what place does myth have in Hollywood, where the high concept is king and humanistic considerations commonly yield to the youth demographic?

    That’s an issue Stephen Legawiec, founder and artistic director of the Ziggurat Theatre, has set out to address, one production at a time.

    During
the past half-dozen years, the Ziggurat Theatre has made a name for itself
with evocative, visually stunning productions inspired by world myths.
The company’s inaugural production in 1997, “Ninshaba,” featured two Middle
Eastern goddesses as central characters. “Twilight World,” mounted in 2000,
was a loose adaptation of the Tereus and Procne story from Ovid’s “Metamorphosis.”
In 2001, “Aquitania” employed the French legends of Charlemagne as a jumping-off
point for a lighthearted meditation on time and utopianism. “Red Thread,”
Ziggurat’s latest production at the Gascon Center in Culver City, opening
Friday, borrows freely from a Chinese folk tale for a timely parable about
a heroic female assassin who must break her new vow of pacifism to save
the kingdom. Ironically, Legawiec makes a living as a television promo
writer–a professional distiller of high concepts. But if by day he is
a spinner of spiels, by night he’s a weaver of tales–the curiously timeless
original theater pieces that he creates.

    A multi-tasker
with a vengeance, Legawiec has written, directed and largely designed (sets
and makeup) every Ziggurat production since the company’s inception. He
comes by his interdisciplinary skills naturally. The son of noted Polish
violinist and composer Walter Legawiec and Eleanor Legawiec, a secretary
and homemaker, Legawiec was an art major before he switched to acting–a
painful transition, as it turned out.

    “I went to two graduate schools for acting–first Cornell, then Rutgers,” Legawiec explains. “They both kicked me out. They thought I wasn’t any good. That was a pretty severe experience.”

    Experience that later stood him in good stead. “Directing comprises so many things,”
he says. “I had a design sense because of art school and a musical sense
because of my father. I think that my art and music and acting backgrounds
all coalesced into the raw skills that one needs for directing.”

    Those
skills impressed Robert Velasquez, Ziggurat’s resident costume designer,
from the outset. “I like Stephen’s work because it’s so innovative,” Velasquez
says. “He writes everything himself, and his work is so unique. That’s
the real challenge. You can’t just pull things from costume shops. Everything
must be designed.”

    After
his acting school debacle, Legawiec eventually teamed up with his friend
Steven Leon (now a Ziggurat board member) to found the White River Theatre
Festival, a Vermont theater that evolved from a summer-only venue to a
six-month season. During the winter months, when the theater was dark,
Legawiec lived in Boston, where he began toying in earnest with the notion
of myth.

    “My family
is Polish,” he says. “And being a Polish Catholic, you are really steeped
in ritual, because of the Mass. I thought a lot about the importance of
myth and ritual in theater–an area I had never turned my attention to
before.”

    Legawiec
used his Polish heritage as a starting point for his initial exploration.
“I assumed everyone in Poland was working in myth and ritual,” he says.
“Of course, that was far from the truth.”

    Acting
on that mistaken assumption, Legawiec wrote to the Krakow-based Teatr Stary,
Poland’s leading repertory theater, explaining that he was a young American
theater director interested in observing a Polish theater’s rehearsal process.

    To his
amazement, his inquiry was met with a firm invitation. “They were very
accommodating,” he says. “They sent me the schedule for the whole year
and said, ‘Come when you can.'”

    Legawiec
spent the winter of 1990-91 in Poland, arriving in time for the country’s
first post-Communist presidential elections. “It was a very tempestuous
time for the country and the theater,” he recalls. “Under the old Communist
system, actors couldn’t be fired; they were employed for life. For the
first time, the theater was in the position of having to fire people.”

    In the
midst of the political upheaval, however, the Teatr Stary remained surprisingly
laid-back. Legawiec was particularly impressed with the theater’s lengthy
rehearsal process. “They would rehearse something for three or four months,
until it was ready to open,” he marvels. “That kind of unlimited rehearsal
time was a real revelation to me.”

    A more
profound revelation was to follow–Legawiec’s visit to Jerzy Grotowski’s
theater and archive. “I didn’t know much about Grotowski at the time. I
just knew he was important,” he says. “I talked to the people who ran the
archive, and they gave me Grotowski’s book, ‘Towards a Poor Theatre,’ and
videotapes of his productions. That night, I slept in the theater. I read
the book from cover to cover and watched the videotapes. It was a surreal
experience.”

    And a
life-altering one. “Grotowski talked a lot about myth in his book, and
it was clear that all his staged productions used ritual in a big way.
Grotowski’s philosophy really had meaning for me. And I was also struck
by the idea that Grotowski spent a year or so on each individual production.
He had no time limit.”

    Returning
to his Vermont theater, Legawiec chafed at the strictures he’d formerly
accepted as routine. “When I was confronted with my short little two-week
rehearsal periods, I didn’t feel I could go on,” he says. “So I proposed
to my non-Equity actors, ‘Give me two extra hours a week to work on a piece.
Maybe we’ll perform it, maybe we won’t.'”

    That
venture, the Invisible Theatre Project, resulted in “The Cure,” later remounted
in Los Angeles in 1998. Subtitled “A Dramatic Ceremony in One Act,” the
play also marked Legawiec’s first experiment with invented language, a
technique he returned to in 2001’s “A Cult of Isis.”

    Although
the words in Legawiec’s invented language pieces may not be intelligible,
the meaning is–a distinction Ziggurat member Jenny Woo appreciates.

    “When
he experiments with invented language, Stephen is trying to tap into the
subconscious, to express something more guttural and emotional,” Woo says.
“At other times, his work is very verbal and intellectual. You have to
listen to the words and really pay attention. But the invented-language
pieces do the opposite. They distance people from the literal understanding
so that they can merely feel.”

    After
his Vermont theater folded, Legawiec moved to L.A. and set out to form
a new company, implementing the principles he’d developed with the Invisible
Theatre Project. Actress Dana Wieluns, a charter member of Ziggurat, then
known as the Gilgamesh Theatre, remembers those days.

    “I responded
to an ad in Back Stage West that called for actors interested in a long
rehearsal process and new theatrical forms,” Wieluns says. “I remember
the ad made that distinction. It was a call for actors wanting to work
in the theater as opposed to film and television. That first piece, ‘Ninshaba,’
rehearsed for six months.”

    In L.A.,
where actors routinely ditch small-theater commitments for more lucrative
bookings, Legawiec’s leisurely process was a hard sell. “On that first
project, we started with nine actors,” Wieluns recalls. “By the second
rehearsal we were down to six, and a week later there were only three of
us. The others realized they couldn’t commit for that length of time.”

    What
inspired such loyalty among the die-hards? “The reason I keep working with
Stephen is that he’s one of the few people who embraces the theatrical,”
Wieluns says. “He wants to put on stage the kinds of things that can’t
be committed to film or TV. I think for Los Angeles that’s a unique thing.”

    An unapologetic purist, Legawiec views the gap between theater and other media as a great
divide. “It seems to me that the spiritual component exists in the theater as in no other medium,” he says. “I’ve never had a spiritual experience in the movies, the feeling that you’re part of something larger, or you are beholding the mystery of life.”

    Legawiec routinely travels the world to research his plays. On a trip to China in
September, he immersed himself in Chinese opera, a style that influences
his staging of “Red Thread.” The play derives from an obscure folk yarn
written during the Tang dynasty. Despite the antiquity of his source material,
Legawiec’s updating resonates in ways he never anticipated.

    “The
story’s about an assassin who swears off killing just when the kingdom
needs her most,” he says. “Coincidentally, the play deals with war versus
pacifism during a time of crisis.”

    The timing
may be coincidental, but the message of “Red Thread” is as fresh as when
the story was written 1,200 years ago. That’s typical of the Ziggurat Theatre,
as it crosses cultural boundaries and spans generations in its own continuing
saga.

“RED THREAD,” Gascon Center Theatre, 8737 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Date: Opens Friday at 8 p.m., then Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 16. Prices: $15-$20. Phone: (310) 842-5737.

04 MAY 02

02 MAY 02: NOW THAT’S
PROGRESS! — CA. SUPREME COURT RULES NIKE CAN’T LIE

From the LATimes:

Nike Can’t Just Say It, Court
Rules

Law: Firms can be found
liable for deceptive public statements, justices decide. Critics call the
decision a blow to free speech.

By MAURA DOLAN, Times Staff
Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Corporations
can be found liable for deceptive advertising if they make misleading public
statements about their operations and conduct, the California Supreme Court
ruled Thursday.

    In its
4-3 decision, the court said Nike and other corporations are not protected
by the First Amendment when they present as fact statements about their
labor policies or company operations in advertisements, press releases,
letters to the editor or public statements.

    “If a
company is going to issue press releases or any information to the consumer
about their factories, they are going to have to tell the truth,” said
Alan Caplan, the plaintiff’s attorney in the case. “That shouldn’t upset
any corporation.”

    The ruling
is expected to increase public scrutiny of corporate image campaigns. But
critics said it also will prevent businesses from engaging in pubic debate
on isues that affect them.

    No other
state high court is believed to have ruled in such a case, and a Nike lawyer
said the firm is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The decision
“sets a dangerous precedent by restraining companies, such as Nike, from
making public statements about their business practices when challenged
in the arena of public debate,” the company said in a statement.

    The court’s
ruling came as a result of statements Nike made to defend itself against
charges that its products were made in Third World sweatshops.

    Several
media outlets published critical stories about working conditions in Asian
factories where Nike’s athletic shoes are made, prompting Nike’s response.
A San Francisco activist contended that Nike lied in its press releases
and letters to newspapers and athletic directors, and sued the company
for false advertising.

    The corporation
argued that its statements were protected by constitutional guarantees
of free speech. Lower courts agreed and dismissed the lawsuit.

    The state
high court, however, said Thursday that the statements were commercial
in nature and subject to a broad California law that prohibits misleading
advertising.

    When
a corporation makes “factual representations about its own products or
its own operations, it must speak truthfully,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard
wrote for the majority.

    Without
deciding whether the athletic shoe and apparel maker lied in its statements,
the court revived the lawsuit, which could lead to a trial and possible
restitution.

    …Labor
and environmental groups presented arguments against Nike in the case,
Kasky vs. Nike, while the American Civil Liberties Union sided with the
corporation.

    The case
arose in 1996 with a report on “48 Hours,” the CBS television news program,
about conditions in factories under contract with Nike in Southeast Asia.
Articles about the workers who make Nike shoes also appeared in several
newspapers.

    The stories
cited claims that the workers were paid less than the applicable minimum
wage, required to work overtime, subject to physical, verbal and sexual
abuse and exposed to toxic chemicals.

    Nike
countered in public statements, ads and letters that the factory workers
were paid in accordance with local labor laws and on average received double
the minimum wage plus free meals and health care.

    Marc
Kasky, 57, who has managed a foundation that preserves San Francisco’s
Ft. Mason, decided to sue Nike after reading an article in the New York
Times about the company’s contract factories.

    If Kasky
ultimately prevails at trial, Nike could be ordered to turn over an unknown
amount of profits it has made in California. The money then could be distributed
either to charities or to consumers who bought Nike products, lawyers said.

   
The state high court relied on U.S. Supreme Court precedents to distinguish
speech that is protected by the 1st Amendment from commercial speech, which
government can regulate and ban if it is false.

   
The California court said speech can be commercial even if it is not in
the form of an advertisement.

    Communications
are subject to government regulation if they are made by a commercial speaker,
such as an officer of a company, intended for a commercial audience and
contain representations of fact that are commercial in nature, Justice
Kennard wrote for the majority.

   
“Speech is commercial in its content if it is likely to influence consumers
in their commercial decisions,” Kennard wrote. “For a significant segment
of the buying public, labor practices do matter in making consumer choices.”

    At the
same time, she said, the ruling “in no way prohibits any business enterprise
from speaking out on issues of public importance or from vigorously defending
its own labor practices.”

    Nike,
in a press release, said it was “extremely disappointed” by the ruling
and stressed that the accusations are unproven.

    The manufacturer
also said it has made significant progress in its contract factories since
the lawsuit was filed in 1998.

    The company,
which has contracts with more than 700 factories in more than 50 countries,
said it forbids child labor and has raised wages by more than 40% over
the last several years for entry-level workers in Indonesian shoe factories.

    Caplan,
an attorney for Kasky, said the ruling will affect corporate public relations
across the country.

    “They
can’t say, ‘We are issuing this for everybody’s ears except those people
under California Supreme Court jurisdiction,'” Caplan said.

    Al Meyerhoff,
a plaintiffs’ lawyer who also worked on the Kasky case, said corporations
should be held accountable if they lie.

    “If companies
are claiming their goods are manufactured under certain conditions–no
clear cutting or organic food or free from child labor–if those statements
are being made, they should be true,” Meyerhoff said.

…