Yes, but, doesn't all this sound abstract, something that of youths in college would dutifully copy into their notebooks after asking the professors, "Are we responsible for this on the test?" Not to the 10,000 or so protesters who gathered in Seattle in late November-December of 1999 for a peaceful protest that got out of hand, as lunatic fringes on the far left began breaking windows of the downtown stores for reasons that are obscure to us in our theater seats.

Stuart Townsend wisely made a docu-drama out of the incident, sidelining a classic documentary which would have brought out the usual array of dull talking heads. In fact, to his credit, there are no talking heads in "Battle In Seattle," most of which is filmed by Barry Ackroyd in Vancouver, the last week of the filming taking place on location in Washington's leading city.

The film is anchored by a charismatic performance from kiwi-born Martin Henderson in the role of Jay, the group's leader, a young man who is most concerned that violence not take place, action that would provoke the police department and result in beatings of demonstrators and mass arrests. With a romance between Jay and Lou (Michelle Rodriguez) because some love interest must take place to up the entertainment ante, "Battle" opens with Fernando Villena's rapidly edited introduction to the history of trade organizations from 1947 to 1999—too quickly for allow the concepts to sink into audience minds. At least as interested in keeping the demonstration peaceful is the city's Mayor Tobin (Ray Liotta), a worrier whose job evaluation with the voters will depend in part on how he handles the demonstrators. The mayor resists the call of the governor (Tzi Ma), who wants to call out the national guard and set a strict curfew. When anarchist vandalize stores, including one that finds Ella (Charlize Theron) behind the counter with her four-month pregnancy, the police respond in full-scale riot gear and tear gas, the police, acting in much the way they did during Vietnam protests (lousy, privileged, commie students), are the ones who riot. One cop in fact causes major damage to Ella's developing pregnancy to the concern of both her and her husband, Dale (Woody Harrelson).

It's nice to know that there's still some energy in the protest movement, especially so since the issues are, as stated above, seemingly abstract to the young people who are yelling "The whole world is watching." Apparently these kids know, or at least they believe—contrary to right-wingers who think that human beings cannot possibly be the cause of global warning, sweatshop conditions, independent farms in the Third World. If they're demonstrating to meet the opposite sex or to listen to rock music as some did during Vietnam, such is not the case here.

There are good guys on the other side of the student lines, such as Abassi (Isaach De Bankole), who speaks for an African state, and Dr. Maric (Rade Sherbedzija), representing Doctors without Borders at the conference, browbeating the members about the African AIDS epidemic. An especially fine performance comes from a veteran campaigner, Django (Andre Benjamin), who does his best to keep up the groups' spirits even when things look especially bad for them in jail. The crew did a fine job merging archival film from the 1999 events with the fictionalized account, making a case that perhaps all documentaries would be improved by the docudrama technique. After all, it's the spirit of the actions that count, not just the facts.

"Flow" opens with a quote from WH Auden, who said, "All that we are not stares back at what we are." Ooops, wrong, context. Auden said, "Thousands have lived without love; none without water." True enough, though the film does not state that we human beings can live for two months without food but for maybe four days without food or water. When you're practically dying of thirst, you're going to pay more for a liter of water than for a carful of oil.

But I digress. The talking heads in "Flow" are easy to take because director Salina does not have them sitting in a chair talking to some faceless interviewer—though let's not sell interrogators short: they can always ask interesting questions like, "Sarah Palin, can you tell us why you do not own a passport?"

Some of the shots are visceral, most particularly one of some water in a Bolivian stream that feeds into Lake Titicaca (our favorite name back in Middle School), which runs red, not blue or clear, thanks to the action at the nearby slaughterhouse. One of the world's most sacred spots catches the interest of photographer Pablo de Selva, who shares lenses with the director: that spot is the Ganges River, whose holy liquid is dropped into the mouths of newborns and repeated at the funeral, when ashes of the deceased are floated out to assure passage to a better life later on.

Corporations wear the black hats. Thanks to the big multinationals, water—which we repeatedly hear from the speakers should be the free property of all--is gobbled out not only by Coke but by manufacturers of bottled water, eighteen brands of which are owned by Nestles. Interesting, isn't it, that there is only one person in the United States in charge of regulating the industry to try to catch the one-third of bottled brands containing arsenic, and maybe some old lace? Go to http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp to find out what you didn't want to know about the bottles you imbibe. (If arsenic does not get you, you might get hit from some of the 116,000 human-made chemicals finding their way into the public water systems which maybe thirty percent of bottled water does not filter out.)

There's a shortage of humor in the doc, which all the more punctuates the relief of a quick Penn and Teller skit wherein folks in a fancy restaurant pay seven bucks for a bottle of tap water with a fancy French name (that means "tap water") and who insist that it tastes much better than the stuff they wash their cars with.

Each of us owns our own body, including the seventy percent that is water. Unfortunately you won't find people making $1 a day in India or Bolivia or South Africa and scores of other countries who can afford to pay three days' wages for a liter of Poland Spring. Is everything hopeless? Maybe not. Socially conscious people are waging war against the greedy, in one case filing a suit to enjoin Coca Coca from draining the water in Michigan. After the district judge handed down an injunction, Coke appealed and won the right to continue the drainage while the appeal slogged its way through the judicial system. Finally, the company got a slap on the wrist from the Michigan Supreme Court, which allows Coca-Cola to use "a reasonable amount" of Michigan's water for the gunk that it makes.

If you have a double-feature movie in your area, such as we had in the 1940s and 1950s, see this pic together with Stuart Townsend's "Battle in Seattle," which deals with the rigorous demonstrations in Washington's leading city in 1999 against the World Trade Organization. That's a group which the protesters consider nothing but an arm of (you guessed it) the multinational corporations.

"Dalai Lama Renaissance" has won more than a dozen film festival awards, and is the official selection of 38 film festivals around the world, where it consistently has attracted sold out audiences.

In the documentary, the Dalai Lama discusses the calls for economic sanctions against China, and emphasizes that he could not support economic sanctions towards China since it would hurt the ordinary Chinese poor.

"I narrated Dalai Lama Renaissance," said Harrison Ford, "Because I believe His Holiness is making a positive influence in our world. For me, the film represented an opportunity to continue assisting the optimistic efforts of an extraordinary individual."

The film features two of the starring quantum physicists from the hit theatrical documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know," Physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami. Also appearing in "Dalai Lama Renaissance" are Michael Beckwith (who appears in the film "The Secret" with Wolf), Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, and others.

Barker’s life as a performing artist mime has been an active one: a member of the New York-based Claude Kipnis Mime Theatre; performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Omaha Symphony; taught at the University of California in Santa Barbara; Douglass College; Scottsdale Community College; and is currently a Professor of Theatre at Arizona State University where he teaches the movement curriculum in the MFA Performance program. In 1984 he founded the Aurora Mime Theatre, the only professional mime company in Arizona. He served as

Artistic Director for five years leading the company to two appearances at the Movement Theatre International Festival in Philadelphia.

This production benefits the Scholarship Fund and the Development Fund for the MCC THEATRE ARTS & FILM Department to assist the many students in theatre who work full time while attending classes full time.

OUT OF MY MIME FOR 30 YEARS runs September 5 & 6 at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday Matinee, September 7 at 2 p.m. at Theatre Outback, 1833 West Southern Avenue in Mesa, located on the south side of campus, Bldg. TH 29.

ABOUT THEATRE ARTS

The Mesa Community College THEATRE ARTS & FILM Department provides excellent theatrical experience in production and performance with opportunities for participation by students, staff, faculty and the community. A balanced well rounded theatrical experience develops confidence and assurance that enables individuals to move from competence to excellence in whatever profession they’ve chosen.

For example, those who took first jobs at such times had to settle for lower salaries and climb more rungs, according to Columbia University economics professor Till von Wachter, University of Toronto economics professor Phil Oreopoulos and Andrew Heisz of Statistics Canada, who studied the fate of Canadian graduating classes of 1982-1999. They found it took some 10 years for the recession-era grads to reach salary parity with grads who entered the workforce in flusher times.

"But if the recession is bad, it can take longer," von Wachter said.

A lifetime, say. Stanford Business School economics professor Paul Oyer’s research found that MBAs who start investment banking careers during bull markets will earn $1.5 million to $5 million more on average over a career than those who graduate during recessions. Even those who expediently work in other fields temporarily are less likely to ever become investment bankers.

Oyer finds the consequences can last 20 years. That’s why, he said, bankers are not born to work on Wall Street, but made by circumstances.

Missing the Train

Job offers have been rescinded. Compromise is in the air.

"People are willing to look for alternatives to what they had planned originally," said Nachmann. "There are trains that, if you don’t catch them after the MBA, you’ll never catch them, and you may not be able to work in what you like for the rest of your life."

Some fields are more resilient than others: grads have been offered fewer financial services jobs, but more in management consulting, said Everette Fortner, career development director at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. And at least companies still seem interested hiring, which wasn’t the case in 2001, according to Pamela Mittman, an assistant dean at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

"Less well-trained grads from less prestigious schools, and those with less marketable degrees - woe to the English majors - will have the hardest time getting a foothold in recessionary markets," von Wachter said.

But employment experts consider certain fields, like health care, food services and mining, virtually recession-proof. People need those items regardless of the economic climate, according to a Department of Labor analysis. Construction, manufacturing and employment services are hardest-hit.

Coping

Sunny prospects for health care jobs - as prices soar and Americans age - are one reason freelance photographer Jason Sangster decided switch to nursing. Heavy competition, an unpredictable schedule and, above all, instability, encouraged him to enroll in a University of Portland nursing program. "I though about the stability, being able to find a job anywhere, anytime, a job I would probably be very well compensated for," he explained.

"Overall I would consider nursing to be a rather recession-proof profession," agreed Brenda Morris, baccalaureate program director at Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation. Even in 2001, Arizona nursing students had no trouble finding jobs, she said.

Education also seems sound, at least for now. "We haven’t seen a real dramatic impact for our graduates," said Michele Crew, career services coordinator at Oklahoma State University’s College of Education.

Since most jobs are found by word of mouth, building networks, cultivating relationships and pursing internships are excellent strategies, careers writer Jason R. Rich advised.

Or grads could go abroad. Lorraine Corlet, a 32-year-old NYU business student from Mozambique, said that oil and growth economies enjoying booms but lacking experienced people to fully exploit them could provide ample job opportunities for Americans. She suggested grads look at Dubai, China or Hong Kong.

"They don’t have experienced people, and they’re looking for them," said. But Corlet is staying in the United States - for a summer internship in private equity.

The silver lining: earnings of those who begin their first professional jobs in bad times do eventually recover. "You spend ten years of your life earning less," von Wachter pointed out, "and the summary of your lifetime earning is worse." But "people do catch up." Eventually, he said, the financial disadvantages of graduating during a recession tend to fade away.