On Sat, 10 Sep 1994 08:54:45 -0400, Aaron Goldblatt wrote: >...but this really is an issue with >larger ramifications, as we watch Disney t ake Manasas. It may seem like a large >leap to make, but I sense a dichotomy being set up that is imaginary. The >discussion seems to indicate that the information non-profits have is somehow >less tainted by the drive for filthy lucre than anyone else. I have missed most of this correspondence so what follows may already have been said or be irrelevant, but I would suggest that the tax-exempt status accorded to non-profits is based on a distinction that is not imaginary, or, to put it another way, the recognition that the inevitable costs of at least some worthwhile activities -- whatever we mean by that -- cannot be recovered in the marketplace and that as a society we have some kind of stake in keeping them going. It is also probably true that we have accepted the idea that the "information non-profits have is somehow less tainted" -- or at least that they are disinterested -- a fine word fallen into disuse, unfortunately -- in how they use that information and democratic and open in how they make it available. Isn't that the deal? Ken Yellis Assistant Director for Public Programs Peabody Museum of Natural History 170 Whitney Avenue Box 208118 New Haven, CT 06520-8118 [log in to unmask] (203) 432-9891/9816(fax)