On 4/5/2013 3:33 PM, Louis Hone wrote:
> *Fellas,
> **Can we table this for the moment? I realize that you're having fun, but**
> after all this is the ARSC list.
Well, it's not just a "fun" discussion (I put the term in quotes
becqause discussion of something as horribly destructive as a nuclear
weapon isn't really fun at all).
I brought up the question of the safety of the collections at the LoC
sometime around 2006, at a conference of the American Folklore Society,
pointing out that Washington, DC is a bullseye for every terrorist on
earth, from Al Qaeda to homegrown anti-government fanatics like Timothy
McVeigh. The person at the meeting brushed off my concerns as
xenophobic, but I think they're worth paying some attention to. A great
deal of our cultural heritage is on the shelves of the LoC, the
Smithsonian and other archives in and around DC; I want there to be some
kind of backup. I can see an "Aryan Nation" type attacking the AFS, for
example, on the grounds that it has too much African-American material.
Peace,
Paul
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