As The New York Times moves to digitize its archive back to 1852 and make it freely available to TimesSelect subscribers, the New York Post has taken quite the opposite tact. The NYC tabloid has just sent all of its pre-1998 news clippings into storage purgatory in the sub-basement of its Sixth Avenue headquarters — in effect rendering them completely inaccessible.

The move was ordered by one of the paper’s digital czars who (mistakenly) felt the printed history was expendable, if not just clutter. The paper’s ink-stained reporting staff is not too pleased.

This means that the many bold-faced names who had woken up one morning to discover their ceremonious names unceremoniously splashed onto “Page Six” can breathe a sigh of relief. Their past sins — at least those prior to ‘98 — are now literally tombstoned.

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The audacious decision earlier this month by Metropolitan Museum Director Philippe de Montebello to repatriate several pieces of looted Hellenstic art to the Italian government garnered global headlines and many positive accolades. (The Met’s communications chief Harold Holzer should have been pleased.)

A piece in today’s New York Times offers additional insights into Mr. de Montebello’s thinking behind this remarkable decision.

“…he became motivated to begin negotiating with the Italian government for the return of the objects only when he concluded that the issue would not go away. ‘I began to reflect: What’s the best way out?’ he said.”

Does this mean that if the public rumblings, played out in the news media — weren’t so loud, he would have opted to keep the vase? Perhaps the standing ovation he received by his fellow museum heads made the decision less painful.

His decision of course has tremendous implications for museums the world over. A couple of years ago I had a chance to meet with the Greek Minister of Culture who sought to finally have the sculptures , stripped from atop The Parthenon by Lord Elgin (”The Elgin Marbles”), repatriated to his country after two centuries of trying. This is but one of a myriad other examples of museums holding priceless antiquities whose provenance is dubious at best. Will Mr. de Montebello’s decision open the flood gates to their owners’ claims?

I would like to think that Mr. de Montebello made the decision to repatriate because it was the right thing to do, and not because it was “the best way out.”

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Back from holiday where I had a chance to sink my teeth into Scoble and Israel’s Naked Conversations — a most worthwhile read for anyone toiling in our profession. I don’t buy into all the disintermediation stuff and the perspective tends to skew to Silicon Valley PR, but the blogging case studies have tremendous and undeniable value for PR pros.

I was especially enamored with the melding of e-commerce and blogs, and the subsequent boost in sales that blogging produced (versus static websites). And I agree that those wedded to commanding-and-controlling the message in the age of dialogue are in for a very rude awakening. I hope to post more on the book at a later date.

Before I left, I came across a posting by John Cass that I found incredulous. It concerned the 3rd Annual International PR Conference to be held in Iran! Here’s a link to last year’s event. Is this for real? Are bona fide PR practitioners actually heading to Tehran for this event in November?

If so, I am shocked and call for a boycott by our profession. Not only has Iran become a pariah state, but I need not tell you about its Holocaust-denying, terrorist-supporting, unstable and dangerous president whose frequent public pronouncements send shutters throughout the civilized world.

IPRA, PRSA, and all the other “representative” organizations should take a firm stand against supporting this event or any other event this radical government sponsors.

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