I appreciated the points in David Haberstich's email about the importance of the preservation of historical artifacts and the potential repercussions of the destruction of vast amounts of such. I am compelled to contribute my own view that museums and libraries collections are indeed important (not simply interesting), and are hopefully viewed by a significant population in this country that influences our government that they are far more than a luxury of a prosperous society, and worth continuing to contribute to and protect throughout the world. The reason that I think such is that I consider the eminent higher potential of occurrence of revisionist histories when there are few to no documents and objects left to serve as proof of events or cultural ways of life and experiences of such. Various entities have failed attempts at such throughout time, especially in regard to issues of race, religion and events of war often because of human memory necessarily aided by objects and documentation. The Holocaust, "stolen generations" of Australia, American Indian history and culture and various indigenous cultures experiences throughout the world, racism, what led up to various wars and what really happened, from all perspectives, technological and medical knowledge (what did we lose with the burning of the library of Alexandria?) are only a few examples that come to mind as I contemplate the significance of the looting and burning in Iraq. I won't get into the discussion of comparison of human life vs. shattered pots, even though I realize the thread seems to go there alot. . . to me it isn't that simple. I don't think that comparisons of value are really the issue. I will say though, that to me, a great function of many museums, be they arts, or history, or science is to educate the public that does attend, about the past so that we hopefully won't make the same or similar mistakes in the future! What about the great old, but still relevant saying. . . "History repeats itself" and only through our past can we learn about our future? When anyone expresses that human life is of more value than an object, I would certainly agree! But I would quickly add that an entire collection of objects and documents may prevent far greater loss of human life, events of genocide further down the road, by influencing great understanding and appreciation of cultures and world events. Collections of various nature, be they arts, history, or sciences certainly have influenced me to aspire to contribute to the museum world as an educator via the numerous collections and forms of media that we have access to. Obviously, if a culture loses much of its reference points within only a couple to a few generations there is a possibility they may lose reference to ways of life of their ancestors, parts if not all of their language, not to mention simply the beautiful and poignant expressions of those who went before. I believe that there are quite a few examples of these near losses that have taken decades if not centuries, to recover parts of but I won't go into those here, because of course everyone on this list is aware of various examples themselves. I, for one do not look forward to life in a regressive or sustenance society, due to severe cuts to the arts and education budgets. (I realize it won't be quite "sustenance", but close enough). I feel that we should continue the battle to prove our importance, value and worth (as so many museum professionals indeed are) as cultural and arts and science education institutions in a society that is rapidly losing the scope, becoming more and more myopic in its vision and prioritization in, for example military vs. education, healthcare, and general quality of life. One of the great things about life here and now is the ability to learn about the world via the experiences of the arts, films, education in interesting ways such as exhibits. Just one more point, I can't resist. . . re: dogs don't have theatre or museums. . . that's cute, and I love dogs very much, so no disrespect to them, but I thought that it has been scientifically proven that we're at a higher level intellectually and technologically and culturally than they. Perhaps not. Dogs don't have to work, or go to war either, so perhaps a dog's life would be just the thing. Cindy Collins ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).