Brent Tarter again criticized forum participants who > "[engage] in insulting and irrelevant comments about > other people (which may annoy me so much in the > end that I'll succumb to the temptation to cancel > subscriptions). Mr. Tarter, I for one do wish that you would cancel subscriptions in the worst cases. Also -- and I hope this is just something spurred by an unintentional effect of your choice of subject-line wording -- a long time ago, when I first introduced the subject of the fate of post-Army Fort Monroe in this forum, I checked with you off-list to make sure that it seemed like an appropriate topic. An obvious problem is that it's hard to keep the discussion completely disconnected from present-day politics, since in fact the entire thing comes up _because_ of present-day politics. (It's easy, though, to keep _electoral_ politics and party politics out of it. I also have a lot to say on those, but I've said it at VBDems.org, not here.) The Pentagon has decided to close this post in 2011, the National Trust for Historic Preservation ranks it with Monticello and Mount Vernon, the history is intertwined fundamentally with efforts in (and out of) academe to improve understanding of America's slavery-era past ... and so on. So it does still seem to me to be a valid Virginia history forum topic. Here's my point: Despite the irrelevancies and personal attacks and worse that the Fort Monroe topic somehow brought with it this time, it also brought some conversation that seems to me constructive and fitting. So I plan to continue from time to time to bring it up. But as when I queried you originally, I'm open to being corrected on that. Thanks, and thanks to the Library of Virginia for sustaining this forum, with its imperfectly appreciated spirit. Steve Corneliussen ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html