Sorry gang but I am down in Durban, on the beach on the Indian Ocean coast in Kwa-Zulu Natal,one of South Africa’s nine provinces, thanks to hospitality from Anant Singh, South Africa’s leading filmmaker. At the opening of the Durban International Film Festiva, I was fortunate to see a new fabulous film from Australia called “RABBIT FENCE.” It is about the treatment of aboriginal peoples. Shocking! See it when you can.

Ran into the fine local film maker JULIE FREDERIKSE of VULEKA productions and DEBBIE ZIMMERMAN of Women Make Movies, based in New York.

On the down side, My Mac is down, and hard to fix in this Microsoft colony which is totally dominated by PC imperialism. I am down also with the flu, forcing a slight change in travel plans. Yuk! But I was more down to get this brief dispatch from Ms. Z, the media whiz of Toronto who tells me that US viewers are not seeing much about the Summit.

Can this be true? (My hunch is that there will be coverage today because Colin Powell is making the BIG SPEECH to an audience very distrustful of US policy and its missing president) See Doonesbury today for THE comment on Dubya’s disappearence.)

Our faithful correspondent writes from the North to which all of these developing nations have spent a week appealing: ‘Hey D …

“Have spent the past few days flipping tween CNN/MSNBC and CBC Newsworld. Thought you would not be surprised to learn that I have caught NOT ONE WORD about Jo Burg on the American cable nets but, because our prime minister isthere scaring the bejeezus out of the Alberta oil industry and good on him,CBC is all over the story.Plus ca change.”

This is from Antonia Zerbisias,Media Columnist, The Toronto Star

Someone tell me: this can’t be true….

I have had two radio interviews and one TV appearence (on Ben Casdan’s “Down to Earth Show for SABC 2) with lots of plugs for mediachannel.org so, hopefully, we will attract new readers. In the mean time, the weblog goes on to the best of my ability. You can reach me at dissector@medichannel.org