If the Constitution and the Liberty Bell were lost in a war to overthrow a
fascist regime, I'd call it a fair trade. Heck, I'd call it getting off
cheap!

(I assume by "Constitution" we mean the original parchment document, and
not words and ideas, and the legal/political system derived thereof.)

This whole episode illuminates the truth of a saying taught to me by an old
museum hand when I was just a young buck: What we museum people do is
interesting; it is not, however, important.  We are not involved in life-or-
death situations.  We are not players in the great social and political
sweep of history.  We can have tremendous impact on quality of life, to be
sure, and that is not to be sneezed at.  But no one is going to die if we
miss our deadlines, close our doors, or lose all our artifacts.

Let the sniping begin.

P.S. to Indigo: It is my understanding that the current populations of the
Middle East /Mediterranean are in fact not the direct descendants of the
ancient civilizations that flourished there.  Nor are they the cultural
descendants.  Those civilizations fell millennia ago; whatever human and/or
cultural remnants may have hung on were pretty much swept aside by the Arab
diaspora beginning around 700 A.D.  I know I've read that about Egypt,
Iran, and Turkey.  I may be wrong, but I assume this is also true of other
countries in the region.

-- Eugene Dillenburg

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