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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| I Say, Yee-Haw, Chaps! |
| 2004-08-07 |
| Those of you who get the Trio channel on digital cable or satellite (this does not include me) might like to check out TEXAS: America Supersized, written and narrated and hosted by Christopher Hitchens, premiering tonight at 9pm Eastern. The Houston Chronicle is understandably nervous: Christopher Hitchens can be nasty when he wants to be, which is often. The renowned British journalist has taken infamous swipes of his poisonous pen at Henry Kissinger, Princess Diana and, for goodness' sake, Mother Teresa...[I]t pays to be wary when Hitchens comes calling, as he does Sunday with the documentary Texas: America Supersized. But it's safe to come out now...Hitchens leaves the Lone Star State intact. This Slate article says, Hitchens...asks: "With a Texan in the White House, are Texan values taking over America?"...[Hitchens is] a dapper chap who appears to enjoy the limelight as he drives around the state, buying elephant-leather cowboy boots or riding in a border patrol vessel along the Mexican border, his lank locks flowing behind him in the wind. The New York Daily News has a photo of Hitchens in cowboy get-up. Spot of all right, ain't it? Molly Ivins, Kinky Friedman, and Larry McMurtry are interviewed. The documentary airs several times over the month, and is part of a month-long Texas focus by Trio, including programs such as Teenage Texas Virgins, Turning Muslim in Texas, and Good Clean Porn: Debbie Does Dallas. (No, really. I think it's a kind of "making of" thing.) See the Trio site for details and times. Ordinarily I would not shill for a TV channel, especially one I can't watch, but I thought y'all would get a kick out of Hitchens as cowboy. |
| Posted by:Angie Schultz |
| #4 .com, I guarantee you've got more of it than you think you do. Take a trip home if you don't believe me. (I lived in Thailand for two years.) Culture shock is way more fun when it's your own culture that's shocking you. That said, Hitch has a reasonably good understanding of the US. That might help him in Texas, or might confuse him. Unfortunately, I can't watch this any more than Angie can. |
| Posted by: Kathy K 2004-08-07 4:22:20 PM |
| #3 DateLine 2045 Oklahoma and New Mexico given ultimatum on boundary dispute. 1st Ranger divison is said to be moving north from occupation duties in the City of Mexico. Texas Senate calls for Peace and Understanding Or Else, UN ponders the message. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-07 1:51:13 PM |
| #2 Compliments the 100 million firearms and billions of rounds of ammo, Ship, heh. Whether Hitchins will understand diddley-squat in some little short tour is neither here nor there... I doubt that many people are such quick studies that they can "get" the people in a very different locale in a single short pass. I've spent well over a year in Thailand - and I just barely "get it" - I'll view or read Hitchens with amusement, nothing more. Texas is a damned interesting place. Lots of BS, sure, but underneath there is a very real sense of individualism, the self-determination and self-reliance kind, and that's the heart and soul of America. You see it in many locales, still going strong, such as in the mountain states full of ranchers, the plains states full of farmers, *flyover country* and those hardcore old New Englanders who fish for a living. I really found a "home" in Jackson Hole when I was a kid working on a dude ranch, heh. Wild place back then! America's loonies are concentrated in those places where individualism has been twisted and PC-ized - the self-reliance part has been snuffed out and the self-determination replaced by lock-step loonyism or PC-gutlessness. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-08-07 1:36:56 PM |
| #1 DateLine 2044 Texas, the Lone Star Republic. A closer ally than even Great Britain, takes Frances old position in the Security Council and demands 5 vetoes because of historical reasons and that they have 20 million Texans who are extra moody. CowBoy State demands beer for 6 million horses, whiskey for 12 million voters, threats made. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-07 1:20:29 PM |