Vegas Sculptor’s Blog

Don’t you love to watch kids fight? One child will be playing with a toy and a bigger, stronger child will take it away. Then a third child will take the toy and the victim will cry that the toy was his and he wants it back. He fails to mention that he stole it in the first place.

Unfortunately, these kids grow up and become the leaders of countries where they can continue their bullying and crying on a global stage!

I read on Yahoo News where Spain has filed suit against the American company Odyssey Marine Exploration, over their salvage operations. The Florida based treasure-hunting company found a wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic said to be worth around $500 million.

Odyssey is keeping the location and identity of the wreck secret, but it is widely believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon sunk by a British warship off Portugal in October 1804.

“The established principles regarding sunken ships in which the kingdom of Spain has an interest are that the treasure hunter has no right to salvage them, anything that is recovered has to be returned to Spanish custody and that there is no compensation,” Spain’s Washington-based attorney, James Goold said.

The Yahoo article went on to say, “Spain also temporarily seized the company’s ships last summer, and the Spanish media have portrayed the Americans as buccaneers plundering the nation’s cultural heritage. On June 6, El Pais, Spain’s biggest newspaper, ran an editorial headlined ‘Pirates of the 21st Century.’”

“‘Almost as if it were back to the times of corsairs and freebooters, the new pirates of this century continue to besiege our galleons despite the fact they have been lying at the bottom of the seas for centuries immersed in an eternal sleep,’ it said. ‘How is Spain to defend itself against such a violation of its archaeological and historic patrimony?’”

I’m reminded of Arlo Guthrie, in the song Alice’s Restaurant, where he says “You gotta lot o damn gall”. “I mean.. I mean..” Didn’t Spain have all this gold to be shipping all over the world because they stole it from the native inhabitants of the Americas???

How f’ing stupid is it to claim that gold you stole, and then lost for 200 years, should be given back to you because someone else went to all the work and expense to find it again?

If you were the leader of a Central or South American country, wouldn’t you file suit to claim the treasure from Spain? I say make Spain pay the American company a huge fee for recovering the treasure, then give it back to the rightful owners!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under news/rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.