>  Aren't we glad to live in Virginia?

Yes, Virginia has a lot to be glad about, starting with the Library of 
Virginia. No debate there. Still, I can't help but wonder what would have 
happened in another state after an idiotic federal base-closure law framed a 
Monticello-scale national treasure as equivalent to merely a humdrum Fort 
Drab in a cornfield, and consigned most of the very heart of it to 
financially and culturally counterproductive overdevelopment within the 
parochial chaos of the local politics of the city next door. Archives are 
important, and Virginia does great in preserving and enhancing them. But so 
is a historic site that attracts the relentless focus of the Big Money that 
bankrolls state politicians' campaigns. The fake, split national monument at 
Fort Monroe is a failure of Virginia's leadership, and when it gets worse, 
as it is headed to do, it will be something like a Monticello with 
subdivisions on its hillsides, right up to the edge of TJ's house -- even 
though a feeble, toothless resolution in Hampton recently declared 
otherwise, and then only partially. 

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