In a message dated 8/11/2002 6:00:46 AM Central Daylight Time, angelync@msn.com writes: > > Has anyone contacted whichever of Louisiana's U.S. Senators is NOT running > for office this year? The one who is not MIGHT be willing to 'buck' the > politically-correct crowd. Where do the New Orlean's mayor and the U.S. > Congressman for the New Orleans district stand? 'Course I don't recall > reading of anyone complaining when a New Orlean's school changed its name > because George Washington owned slaves. Nor was there much of a public > out-cry here in Oklahoma when the Confederate flag was removed from the > area where other flags representing the various 'bodies' that had once > ruled this territory/state were and are flying. > Angelyn > Hello Angelyn, the mayor of New Orleans is new and perhaps you may have heard that he is up to his ears in prosecuting wholesale departments in City Hall for total corruption and is even being threatened because he's trying to clean up years of corruption at City Hall under the previous administrations. As far as our senator who's not running for office this year, John Breaux, I think you can easily forget his helping in this matter. And it's not simply about the priceless artifacts and important documents that so many people use to trace their heritage in the South both before and after the Civil War. This is a very subtle and very, very sophisticated form of theft of priceless artifacts from another day and age. I ran into the curator of the museum today quite by accident and I asked him about the museum being closed and he told me it's a mess what's happened but that while the appeals process is going on he's going to try and re-open the museum. I hope and pray he can and if he does, I hope and pray that any list members who can go down there and check it out will and take advantage of the great books of lists of names who served in the war on both sides that they have for people to look at upon request. In any event I hope people will keep informed about this for other reasons as well. As I understand it and I could be wrong, none of the treaties that any Indian tribe has signed with the United States government cover Indian artifacts. Maybe some laws independently of the treaties have been written to cover Indian artifacts but I don't know of them. These museums and foundations that support them are in the business of acquisitions and they have big buildings to fill and I think they don't care how or from where they get their acquistitions and if there's a question of legal ownership, it seems obvious that they can easily manufacture titles to the artifacts or to the buildings that hold them and put the people who possess the artifacts into a trick bag or squeeze play whereby they either relinquish ownership of the artifacts or watch them auctioned off or stored away forever. Keep the people who run the Confederate War Museum in your prayers. John Craven New Orleans