ABSTRACT
Two short stories: March 25, 2000. Over 1,000 people crowded the halls of the urban campus of Boston’s
Northeastern University. This was, in terms reminiscent of the 1960s, a teach-in. It was called Biodevastation-in ironic parody of the simultaneous Boston gathering of high-tech entrepreneurs, scientists, and policy wonks of the genetic engineering industry. Public demonstrations and civil disobedience actions were planned for the next day. Calls would be made for an end to the commercialization of genetically engineered products, corporate control over food and health, and ownership of forms of life (patenting of seeds, and so on); and for tighter public regulations of potentially dangerous biotechnologies.3
