Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Lucky Duck and the Alamo

Nickelodeon spent the last few weeks spreading misinformation concerning the Battle at the Alamo. I lived in San Antonio for four years and visited the Alamo many, many times, basically everytime we had out-of-town visitors. Matter of fact, the day before I went into labor with my first son, I spent the day walking the river walk right to the end at the Alamo. I can still remember sitting next to the memorial to take a rest in the scorching Texas September heat. It was 2 days post my due date at the time.

There's two things about the Alamo: 1) It is much smaller in person than what you'd think. 2) The people of Texas and San Antonio are very proud of the Alamo and the historical facts.

However, this is not a history lesson. Here's a tidbit from the first link:
Despite being warned by respected historian R. Bruce Winders that the description was simplistic and inaccurate, the network ran the piece.

"We recognize that there were several key issues in the Battle of the Alamo and one of them was slavery," said Mark Lyons, a senior producer for Nick News at Lucky Duck Productions in New York, which contracts for the Viacom Inc.-owned network.

Texas declared independence in 1836 when Mexico's leader, Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, revoked the existing constitution that allowed white settlement of the nation's northernmost province.

"The slavery issue was a factor but not the main one," Winders wrote Nickelodeon prior to the piece airing. "The revolt in Texas started as an effort to restore the Federal Republic under the (Mexican) constitution of 1824, but quickly evolved into a separatist movement."

About 200 Texan fighters held off thousands of Mexico troops for 13 days until Santa Anna finally crushed them on March 6, 1836. However, the siege gave other Texas units a chance to move east and gather for an ultimately pivotal battle near Houston in April 1836 that secured Texas independence.
What justice exists when a guy that works for a company named "Lucky Duck" gets to bastardize our proud history to a nationwide audience? Go sit at the foot of that memorial and read the names of the men that died fighting for independence and you'll feel the same as me.