CITY EDITION THREE SPECIALISTS CHECK THE VITAL SIGNS OF THE ART MUSEUM by William Grimes "At the Whitney Museum of American Art, they don't do things by halves. The topic of a sold-out three-way debate on Sunday night was supposed to be the death of the museum audience. About 90 minutes into the evening, however, Arthur C. Danto, the art critic for The Nation, lobbed a hot potato. 'The art museum as an institution is only 200 years old,' he said. 'There's no reason why it has to go on forever. It's not like a hospital, after all.' David A. Ross, the Whitney's director, handled the potato and pronounced it edible. Calmly waving farewell to his own job, he allowed as how the museum might very well disappear, just another road kill on the data highway. Paintings could be stored in a warehouse, perhaps, while all other functions of the museum would be farmed out. Adam Gopnik, the art critic for The New Yorker, was so shaken by this line of argument that he reached for the most powerful metaphore in the modern-day intellectual's arsenal: baseball. 'This is like baseball fans saying, oh, well, there won't be any more natural grass, and the game will never be played outdoors again--in fact, it may be generated on a computer screen-- but that's life,' he said." (p. C13,18) WHAT DO MEN WANT? by Syed Zubair Ahmed "SHILLONG, India -- The matrilineal Khasi society in northeastern India, one of the few surviving female bastions in the world, is making a fervent effort to keep men in their place." (p. A21 OP-ED) CLASH ON FOSSIL SALES SHADOWS A TRADE FAIR by Malcolm W. Browne "TUCSON, Ariz. -- There was something for everyone: $5 fossil sea urchines for customers on tight budgets, museum-quality dinosaur skeletons at prices up to $1.1 million and hundreds of thousands of other fossils of all types and values. ...Federal officials were looking for new ways to crack down on fossil trading." (p. C1,9) CHRISTOPHER LASCH IS DEAD AT 61; WROTE ABOUT AMERICA'S MALAISE by William Grimes "...the author of 'The Culture of Narcissism,' 'The Minimal Self' and other theoretical works on modern culture, died yesterday at his home in Pittsford, N.Y. He was 61...the cause was cancer, said his wife, Nell Commager." (p. A19) That's all. Robbin Murphy (All the news that fits) [log in to unmask]