Well, it was inevitable was it not?

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In a press release today "Academics Cite Extralegal Cultural Property Policies at the State Department" the ACCG gets very excited about the recent draft text by Urice and Adler (University of Miami Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-20): "The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild's (ACCG) legal actions against the Department of State (DOS) have been vindicated" (!). [Hurraaah]. Even more so in that it actually mentions their little coin collecting interest group and their rather pathetic law suit(!) [Hurraaah]. So it was inevitable that the ACCG would spend more of their members' money on a jubilant press release telling the world about it [Hurraaah]. Executive Director of the ACCG, Wayne Sayles adds his comments that this article is "timely" (indeed it is, suggestively so), it plays right into the ACCG's hands [doh!].

But it is all a bit clutching at straws. To my mind in the present state of the paper (which as ( David Gill remarks is plainly labelled a "draft"), Urice and Adler have not at all proven there is a "consistent" (their word) "pattern" (their word) of outside-the-law dealings by the US government in their attempts to deal with the market in illicit cultural property, this is apart from several other flaws in this text. Gill wonders whether the authors were asked for permission to cite their text by the ACCG press release in a way which suggests the authors share the anti-gubn'mint views of the militantly anti-preservationist dugup ancient coin collectors and traders of the US.

Vignette: Glenn Beck in a tinfoil hat also on the lookout for gubn'mint conspiracies.

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