A Ray of Sunshine in What Has Been a Lousy Week of News

Week? How about decade?

I don't know if I'm feeling grim from the steady stream of bad news (although the Mets won and the Phillies lost), the bad dream the other night, or the season. The news; however, out of my favorite cultural institution is apparently very good. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is going to be in good hands.

Per today's New York Times, a successor to Phillippe de Montebello has been named, and he's not a professional fundraiser but a true museum professional. Thomas Campbell has been a curator with the Met for over a dozen years, specializing in medieval and Renaissance tapestries. To quote the Times:

"In selecting Mr. Campbell, the Met seems to have opted for intellectual heft as well as continuity. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute in London, he arrived at the museum in 1995 and made his reputation through much-praised scholarly catalogs and ambitious shows involving complex logistics and diplomacy."

How rare it is to hear that scholarship and technical ability are the prized factors in the selection of an influential position. Since the turn of the century (at least in America), people are appointed to positions of power not for their ability to do the job, but for the ability to raise funds for the people in power ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!")