http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Nov18.html


Legislators Protest Beer Logos on Museum Exhibit

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 19, 2003; Page C01


Just weeks before the opening of the Smithsonian's new aviation
museum, 20 House members have asked the Smithsonian to remove beer
logos from a historic aerobatics plane.

In a letter sent this week to Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small,
the congressmen said the Loudenslager Stephens Akro Laser 200, which
won several U.S. aerobatics titles as well as the 1980 World Aerobatic
Championship, deserved to be in the museum. However, they said the Bud
Light emblems were an advertisement and an inducement to drink -- the
wrong signals to send to young visitors.

"The display of the plane with the Bud Light logos would needlessly
commercialize the plane's exhibition while marginalizing its true
historical significance. The logos are nothing more than an
advertisement that would constitute an implicit endorsement of Bud
Light by the Smithsonian Institution," wrote the members of Congress.

"Having a historic plane covered in gratuitous beer advertising sends
misleading and dangerous messages to the millions of annual museum
visitors who will be under the legal drinking age. As you may know,
alcohol is the leading drug problem among American youth. . . .