[Austin-ghetto-list] Atop the Ruins Update

[jaxon41]

I have more info about my post re madcap Arabs posing atop the rubble at
ground zero.  Some of you guys--exhibiting the skepticism & keen,
questioning minds that have always characterized us ghettoites--challenged
this story as either a crock of shit or something akin to an Urban Legend.
You were absolutely correct in doing so.  Security, you reasoned, would hav=
e
been much too tight for any such incident to have occurred.  Correct again.
I'm now told by my 2nd hand informant that I misunderstood him: those guys
with checkered dishrags on their heads were not at gz but outside the
cordoned-off area--on the street some blocks away, posing & grinning with
WTC smoke billowing up behind them, when Fireman Bill's buddies chased afte=
r
them with baseball bats (only to be stopped by Gotham's Finest).  Sorry tha=
t
I posted something a wee bit too sensational to be true. Twasn't trying to
whip up anti-Arab hysteria but rather expressing my amazement that any
foreigner visiting our country from the Middle East would feel so confident
about his safety as to "rub our nose in it" on our home ground after such a
national disaster.  That, I suppose, says something about what kind of
people we are.  I will not ask you to imagine the fate of rubbernecking
American tourists with NY Yankees caps on their heads, snapping photos of
each other as smoke rises from the crater where Mecca used to be.
Visualizing such a thing is too sickening for even my tuff stummick
(figuratively speaking, alas), not to mention those on the queazy side.

In case the name "Bill Groneman" vaguely rings a bell way back inside some
of you guys' minds:  Yes, he's that fellow who's published several books in
"defense" of Davy Crockett.  Fireman Bill thinks it's a cryin' shame that w=
e
Texans have let one lousy account by a Mexican soldier, Mr. Pe=F1a, change ou=
r
idea of Davy as a fight-to-the-bitter-end kind of guy.  So BG has made it
his mission in life (he's an arson investigator, not a "regular" fireman) t=
o
restore Ol' Davy's reputation and bring it back in line with all our
Disney/Fess Parker/coonskin cap wet dreams.  This Pe=F1a mss is the one that
recently sold at auction for $350,000 and was then donated to Center for
American History at UT by a couple of rich Exes.  When the CAH then threw a
symposium/pep rally to thank these generous donors, poor ol' Fireman Bill
was not invited to the festivities as a speaker.  Why?  Because he's been
claiming in all his books that the mss is a modern forgery, not worth the
paper it's written on!  Why invite the fox into the hen house?  Bill came
anyway, even tho he was denied a voice to speak in opposition (while other
speakers on the podium were assuring the audience that his forgery ideas
were wrong and that this was indeed a valuable acquisition for the CAH).
Felt sorry for the poor bastard, being denied his right of free speech when
he was being roasted & having to sit there and take it...

BG is more of an acquaintance than a friend, but we Texas history nuts have
a bond between us just because we're interested in such an inconsequential
subject & need to justify it somehow.  This "bond" only goes so far, as you
guys will see if you read the forthcoming Oct issue of the Southwestern
Historical Quarterly.  My lead article attacks BG's work as agenda-driven
for sure and probably conclusion-driven as well.  You can slide by in our P=
C
era with agenda stuff (prosper with it actually), but not with the latter.
It amounts to making up your mind ahead of time and then searching for
evidence to support your predisposition.  This is the Ultimate No-No, and I
think BG is guilty of it with his Crockett books.  He's gotten a lot of
mileage out of beating the forgery drum, and his success has caused him to
take the attitude "Hey, if this Mexican account of the battle is a fake, wh=
y
not all the others?  Yeah, these sleazy Mexican flea market guys are faking
this stuff just to separate us norteamericanos who dote on the Alamo from
our cash!"  Sorry Bill, that's too much for ol' jaxon; I nail him good and
so does Dr. David Gracy, a UT prof in a backup article.

Needless to say, I'm glad that Fireman Bill wasn't at gz on Sept 11th.
Think how tacky we Texas historians would have looked, piling on a genuine,
honest-to-god American hero--a martyr no less.  In addition to the mud on
our faces, it would have been a public relations disaster for the SWHQ
(which prides itself as being the "oldest scholarly publication in Texas."
Glad you're still with us Bill, even if you are a conclusion-driven sort of
fellow...