Re: Entry fees & all that

[HASIOTIS STEPHEN TOM <hasiotis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stefan:

You (nor Napolean) couldn't have said it better that what was said
centuries ago...

Those "things" housed in museums are treasures for people, rich and
poor...

For those "shopkeepers" the compromise my be voluntary donations to help
out, but it is the taxes that should maintain and up-keep those treasures
which record history and prehistory...

I say "bullocks" to those who want to charge for such rare and awesome
beauties housed in our "treasure chests"...  Why don't we put the shoe on
the other foot and make other people pay for other courtesys like social
programs, which seem to perpetuate and magnify problems rather than
educate and solve them.  Taxes are paid for these programs, but yet solve
situations and help very little in the long term...

Let us make short- and long-term committments to the education of the
present and fuure public at large by supporting our museums, museum
staff, and research, to fullfil the glory of knowledge and
learning...   Let us not buckle under to some administrative
or bureaucratic desire to cut corners and save pennies all for the glory
of dollar (or pound, franc, dracma)...  Fight the good fight... 

__
Stephen T. Hasiotis
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Colorado, Boulder
Campus Box 250
Boulder, CO 80309-0250
TEL: (303) 492-8141; FAX: (303) 492-2606

On Fri, 22 Nov 1996, Stefan Revets wrote:

> Napoleon's words come to mind, except that the nation of shopkeepers seems
> this time to stretch way  beyond the lands of Albion.
> 
> Musea, especially natural history ones, under whatever form, are
> repositories of our common natural and cultural heritage. "Things" are
> assembled there for the safe keeping for present and future generations. We
> have been entrusted with them by our ancestors, to look after them and to
> pass them on to our children, just as they did for us. We seem to forget
> too easily and very conveniently that we, curators, scientists, directors,
> &c, are passing through: the specimens remain. It is an honour and
> privilege to look after them and pass them on in as good a state as
> possible to those following us and we should take every opportunity to
> share this heritage.
> 
> Because we have been entrusted with their safe keeping, we should avoid
> making the by now all too common mistake to think we somehow "own" them. We
> do not. They "belong" to every one of us, past, present and future.
> 
> It is therefore an outrage to ask people like you and me, in newspeak known
> also as "the general public" to pay in order to look at them. After all, it
> is as much "theirs" as it is "ours" (strictly speaking of course, no one's
> property). Those things we hold in common with any other citizen on this
> planet are a joint responsability and the ways and means to look after them
> therfore should come from all of us. The means coming from all of us is
> what is generally known as taxes. We all pay our governments (large amounts
> of) money to keep our societies running (at least, that is the whole point
> of governments as well as taxes). Having to pay at the gates of a building
> which happens to house some very nice paitings, artefacts, fossils,
> minerals, plants, &c is a rip-off as you have already paid, i.e. when your
> taxform arrived.
> 
> I think it is very very wrong to ask people to pay when wishing to enter a
> museum: it is something that should be resisted as strenuously as possible.
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, history shows that that he who kicked out the merchants from
> the temple ended up on the cross, that Napoleon was defeated by the
> shopkeepers. Sadly, it seems that, in the end, the lure of money wins.
> 
> 
> Stefan A. Revets
> The Natural History Museum, Department of Palaeontology
> Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
> Tel. + 44 171 938 9046
> Fax. + 44 171 938 9277
> E-Mail. S.Revets@nhm.ac.uk
> 
>