...sometimes we start doing the right things, even if for the wrong
reasons...as in finally beginning to teach birth control and lowering
the rate of teen pregnancy, but only because of AIDS...now, the tragedy
of 911 may lead to new thinking about pointless, wasteful, ecologically
destructive and personally dangerous travel when it is totally
unnecessary, except as a prop to hotels, restaurants and hookers, who
could do as well if local people had more free time for food and other
forms of fun...

and this could lead to far more democratic meetings, involving far more
people with far more input to a process than is presently - still, mind
boggling as it is - the case...
fs

fyi



WHY FLY WHEN THERE'S INTERNET2?
Issue: Internet
Internet2 members, scheduled to meet in Austin, Texas this week, will
instead take advantage of their technology and meet in cyberspace. The
Sept.
11 attacks made the decision inevitable, a spokesman said. Some people
are
reluctant to fly and some businesses are not allowing employees to fly.
Said
Greg Wood, the Internet2 spokesman, "...[W]e decided we'd take the
opportunity to make the most of the situation and try and use the
technologies we've all been working on for the past few years." The
meeting
will take place using videoconferencing, multicast streaming video and
Web-based collaboration tools for presentation slides. The benefits?
First,
attendance: Normally, between 500-600 people attend the biannual
national
meetings. For this conference, Wood said, the organization is expecting
about 1,000 participants. Portions of the program will be open to the
public
over the commercial Internet.
[SOURCE: Wired News, AUTHOR: Katie Dean]
(http://wired.com/news/school/0,1383,47134,00.html)