News gathered by Alden Crow & Musea

Price Fixing Update: The auction house Sotheby's was fined $45 million for price fixing with Christies (who worked with the feds) and both lost a civil lawsuit to thousands of sellers and buyers for $512 million. The former CEO of Sotheby's International, Dede Brooks, said to the judge, "At the direction of a superior at Sotheby's Holdings, I had a number of meetings and conversations with a representative of (rival auction house) Christie's International in which ... we agreed to fix prices." Book 'em Dano!

Cue Cat as Ploy: Cue Cat is the new gizmo that scans a TV or newspaper number and directs your computer to that page. It is also a way to segregate commercial big biz sites from the rest. Musea will obviously never be a part of Cue Cat. And we encourage you to avoid it too.

In other net news Musea is very encouraged by the pay-per-click micropayment systems on the net. Each time you click on a page you pay from .001 cent to $10.00. That's exciting because it means content and quality count. And sites like Musea who stress quality art work without ads, will succeed over corporate art. We suggest this arrangement: part of the site free to all (like free TV) and part a click fee (like cable TV). That way quality artists can get royalties on their work on the net, and companies, like Musea, could promote great art and make a profit at the same time. It may be the future of the net (and the art revolution!)

And finally, what works on the net? Well, it isn't cat food or garden supplies. You buy those at the store. It IS whatever the net can do better than any store. Look at two examples of net sites that couldn't be done other way: eBay the auction house, and Napster, the music file sharing site. When even the mainstream pundits say, "...sites that rely solely on advertising are generally thought to be doomed." You begin to get the picture.

City Planning The Dallas suburb, Irving, has joined more than 100 other Texas cities in banning new billboards. We salute. Now let's get rid of the old ones! Hawaii has become the biggest ecological catastrophe in the U.S. "Invasion by non-native species, economic development, suburban sprawl, even environmental destruction by hooved animals - all these have added up to devastation for native animals, plants and the ecological connections that bind them, scientists say. St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Media Blocked News Here are three items you didn't see in the mainstream news - 1. Incidents of torture were reported in more than 150 countries with criminals and suspects the most frequent victims. A lot of it is through the use of electroshock equipment. There are 50 companies in the U.S. alone that manufacture stun belts, batons, etc. (Amnesty International); 2. Violent crime fell 10% in U.S. in '99 - the largest 1-year drop since the survey began in 1973; 3. Bryan Lankford, a member of the Wiccan religion, was scheduled to give the invocation that opens the Dallas City Council meeting. City Secretary Shirley Acy said she was told by the mayor's office Friday to cancel the invitation. Mr. Lankford said he tried to reschedule his appearance but was told the positions were booked up through the year. "We were hoping to bridge understanding. So much of our religion gets distorted," said another Wiccan Maeven Eller. Musea agrees and believes in religious freedom NOT just for the majority but for all. (DMN)

CHUMPS OF THE MONTH The Grinch character is appearing in a post office commercial. The U.S. Post Office should NOT be promoting Hollywood movies. They're CHUMP ONE.

Immune Response Corp. of Carlsbad, CA makes Remune, an anti-HIV vaccine. They paid for a study of the drug, but when the study found that the drug was NOT effective, they tried to keep it from being published, citing that the data belonged to the company and that they would not give permission to publish it. The report WAS published in the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA). Now the company is suing the Universities and researchers who published the findings. They're CHUMP TWO. (NYT) (By the way, this scenario is exactly what happened in a Musea short story published in the 90's)

Johnson & Johnson, whose subsidiary manufactures Tylenol, threatened to pull all its advertising on the USA Network if they didn't cancel a movie based on the 1986 death of 2 Seattle area residents who took cyanide-laced Excedrin. CHUMP THREE.(AP)

Musea says "Ads are Big Brother and just like Big Brother, re-wrote history to suit his current philosophy, so today (years after 1984) advertisers re-write history to suit their needs. STAY REVOLUTIONARY! And vigilant. - Art S. Revolutionary

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