Crossing Borders Festival @ SUNY Potsdam

Journalist and author John Hockenberry gave the keynote address at the SUNY Potsdam Crossing Borders Festival Friday, April 2, in Hosmer Hall. The theme of the festival is globalization in the arts, sciences and society. Over 100 presentations and performances marked the event.

Bill McKibben has been working on global warming since 1989. McKibben is a journalist, author and environmentalist. That year, his book, The End of Nature, sounded one of the first alarms about global warming. In the years since, science has confirmed his fears, and has predicted alarming consequences of global warming. Martha Foley has more.

Dr. Schulz, the executive director of the human-rights watch group Amnesty International USA, addressed the Crossing Borders Festival at SUNY Potsdam, March 28, 2004. His address, sponsored by the SUNY Potsdam Student Government Association, spotlighted changes in the balance between security and liberty since the 9/11 attacks, and drew from his recent book Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights. His complete lecture, and audience questions and answers, are included.

The Crossing Borders Festival continues at SUNY Potsdam this weekend with lectures, workshops, exhibits, films and theatrical performances. Potsdam's Dance and Drama Department presents the play Madwoman tonight and Saturday night at 8 pm and Sunday afternoon at 3 pm in Satterlee Hall's College Theatre. It's based on Jean Giraudoux's 1945 social spoof, The Madwoman of Chaillot. Todd Moe spoke with director Nola Rocco and some of her cast and crew.

Widespread concern over the outsourcing of jobs to other countries has put free trade agreements like NAFTA at the center of the political debate in America. One product of NAFTA has been a vast corporate industrial zone along the U.S.-Mexico border, where low wages, intense pollution, birth defects and other health problems are well-documented. The factories there are called 'maquiladoras'. David Sommerstein spoke with Martha Ojeda, a second generation maquiladora worker, who directs Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras. She is giving talks this week as a part of SUNY Potsdam's Crossing Borders festival. She describes conditions at a SONY factory she worked at in 1994, when the NAFTA agreement was signed.