Monday, February 07, 2005

PBS Nitwit Alert!

PBS, a.k.a. yours and my tax money, is doing another one of their "Living History" shows, this one a "Texas Ranch House:"
The latest and most ambitious experiment in living history from the makers of Frontier House and Colonial House is TEXAS RANCH HOUSE. In TEXAS RANCH HOUSE we send a group of modern-day people back to the year 1867. It is the era of Western expansion, a time of rounding up and branding free-roaming cattle. It is a time of taming wild horses and sleeping under the stars. But Texas 1867 is also a time of hard living - long cattle drives, endless, punishing days in the saddle, chowing down on pork and beans, and surviving lonely nights out on the plains.

TEXAS RANCH HOUSE will allow you to follow in the footsteps of the visionary trailblazers of this time, men and women who initiated new industries, forged great wealth and created a new mythic heroism of the West. Modern America was built on the ambition, grit and phenomenal drive of these larger than life characters. Have you got what it takes to join the experience? Could you survive and flourish at the TEXAS RANCH HOUSE for four to five months?
Well, that's a laugh...half the people I know could move in tomorrow! Now I know all you cowboy shooters like me (Wolf Bane, SASS 13557) are pure-D chompin' at the bit to git into this...hell, we already got the clothes, the hardware and a badge!

But wait! What's this turd in the punchbowl?

From the FAQs:
Will we have guns and live ammunition?
No. Our participants will not be permitted to use guns. It is something of a myth that all cowboys carried guns, and in fact guns were banned from most early ranches because they terrified cattle and could cause stampedes. Our show is about living the life of real 1867 cowboys and ranchers, not movie gunslingers.
Well, who'd a thunk it? PBS goes out and researches the Old West and discovers that cows wuz afraid of gunplay! I guess they used Michael Bellesiles' Arming America as their primary research text. Heck, I wouldn't live in Texas now without a gun! Maybe two. Or three.


A tip of the hat to
Tequila for rounding up this little piece of news!




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