I agree that blaming the museum folks who worked hard to keep exhibits open is not a reasonable thing to do; still you can be sure that they would not have been successful if the exhibit in question had not been of art that reinforces the values of the dominant culture and those it makes rich enough to shell out for it--and it seems to me that museum professionals like everyone else ought to want to be aware that their acts are never neutral. Yes the Smithsonian staff were being larger-hearted than Congress by being willing to pluck out their own hearts (use other exhibit funds, call in extra markers, etc.) to feed their constituents; but the reason Congress is finally doing something is that people are beginning to be hurt by the shutdown and are letting their representatives know it. And what if they've now used up their credit and funding and will not be able to fund exhibits that rich people won't support? I was a university teacher of foreign languages back in the early seventies and watched my language department lose positions and see language requirements abolished because it was unwilling to stoop to the "unprofessional" political act of doing a deal with history and English--so history and English voted to see someone else jettisoned. I have been working in a state government historical agency for sixteen years, where we always try our darnedest to give service when cut to the bone--and it just makes the politicians sure that we can obviously take another cut. The personal (and the professional) IS political--haven't we learned that yet? Pat Galloway MS Dept. of Archives and History