David Haberstich's most recent defense of Lawrence Small ("Re: Scandal at the Smithsonian: L's Bells") exceeds his earlier note in both verbosity and turbidity. However. Either Mr. Small's private collecting is a sign of expertise and indicates how he is qualified to serve as Secretary at SI, or Mr. Small's illegal collecting activity is the honest mistake of inexperience, abetted by misinformation from a lawyer. Pick one. Certainly an experienced collector, especially one with such a focused interest as to purchase one thousand pieces at a time, would be aware of laws that affect collecting or transport of art, antiquities and ethnographic objects, and would take the appropriate measures to ensure provenance and legality. There is now several decades of international law governing the transport of art and antiquities, as well as CITES, in no small part because of illegal activity in the Americas. The legal charges are broad and specify his intent; "did possess, transport, cause to be transported, purchase, offer to purchase, carry and cause to be carried, migratory birds and parts thereof." As I wrote earlier, "At best, Small did not exercise due diligence in regard to his collecting activities. He ought to have been aware of both the statutory and the ethical requirements." D.H., please note that these are separate sentences and do not equate collecting activity with unethical behavior. The SI Code of Conduct does state that "Employees will not engage in criminal, dishonest, or other conduct adversely affecting the reputation or operations of the Smithsonian Institution." It certainly appears that Mr. Small has failed at least two of those tests. I would expect Mr. Small's lawyer to advise him regarding the statutory matters (as I wrote, but which David Haberstich had difficulty understanding), but I would expect his lawyer to defer on other matters, such as provenance or even issues of ethics. I don't think it is reasonable to expect his lawyers to provide "a qualified assessment of the collection," though David Haberstich apparently does. I was giving David Haberstich the benefit of the doubt in regard to his statement about prosecuting tribal artists whose work ends up in a private collection overseas. I was obviously mistaken in that assumption. However, my point was and is that the relationship between the artist and Mr. Small is not an equal one. There is considerable evidence of this inequality, as any reasonable study of post-Columbian history would indicate. David Haberstich's assignation of "blame" to the Amazonian artists (who, tellingly, remain anonymous in all of the reporting), while excusing Mr. Small, is stunning. -L.D. ========================================================= 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).