Ducking under the animal thread, to revisit, briefly, the question of Epcot: From a 1989 Speech by Neil Postman at the Fifteenth General Conference of ICOM: (On being summoned to consult on recommendations to "enhance EPCOT's educational functions.") "From my point of view, the task was hopeless. The problem is not that EPCOT has become more amusement park than museum; the problem is that EPCOT is a museum providing a mistimed truth to a people in desperate need of moral and civic guidance. . . the theme of EPCOT is "technology uber alles." In every exhibit, in every conceivable way, EPCOT proclaims that paradise is to be achieved through technological progress, and only through technological progress. . . For a society that has now totally committed itself to the idea that technology is divine, there couldn't be a more mistimed vision of the future than this. What can EPCOT teach Americans, or inspire us to think? We have already organized our society to accomodate every possible technological innovation. We have deliriously, willingly, mindlessly ignored all the consequences of our actions. And have, because technology seemed to require it, turned our back on religion, family, children, history and education. As a result of what we have done, American civilization is collapsing. Everyone knows this to be true but seems powerless in the face of it." Postman goes on to suggest that "useful" museums presents *alternative visions*. "For as I see it, that museum is best that helps to free a society from the tyranny of a redundant and conventional vision; that is to say, from the tyranny of the present. . . .The most vital function of museums is to balance, to regulate what we might call the symbolic ecology of cultures, by putting forward alternative views and thus keeping choice, and critical dialogue, alive. . . .What we require are museums that tell us what we once were, and what is wrong with what we are, and what new directions are possible." Apart from the somewhat breathless prose, I find this an extraordinary plea for humanity in the museum profession. Anybody know where this kind of work is going on? Mary Worthington