Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 09:58:08 -0600 (CST) From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> To: nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Chat) Subject: Re: Netscape and NIS Message-ID: <199701191558.JAA00281@papillon.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <199701172119.OAA05003@rocky.mt.sri.com> from Nate Williams at "Jan 17, 97 02:19:52 pm"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Nate Williams writes: > Bill Paul writes: > >> The Alamo is where General George Armstrong Custer and his troops were >> slaughtered by indians. > > *laugh* Bill, you may be a great hacker, but a historian you're not. > > The Alamo (as explained before) is/was in Texas, and is where a bunch of > folks were killed by Mexican 'invaders'. Well, I've spent a lot of time in Texas (in fact, that's where I am right now), and I've always wanted to describe my take on the Alamo, so here's some flame fodder: In the early 1830s, what we now know as Texas was part of the Mexican state of Tejas y Coahila (sp?). It was quite a way from Mexico City, but not far from the USA, and gradually English- speaking people started settling there. This apparently didn't worry the Mexican Government until they started talking about secession from the United States (of Mexico). At some point, the Mexican Government sent an army to bend them into shape, led by one General Santa Ana, which I believe is Spanish for "holy donkey". The rebels were outnumbered by some ridiculous factor (10 to 1?), and hid in a church in San Antonio (the Alamo). After a long siege, the Mexicans finally massacred everybody, including people as well-known outside the USA as Jim Bowie (a nasty piece of work, by all accounts) and Davy Crockett. The Alamo was a complete disaster for the separist Tejanos, which is presumably why their descendents are so proud of it today. They did in fact win a resounding victory a year or two later, and became independent for over 10 years before becoming a member of a different set of United States, but for some reason, nobody ever says "Remember Sam Houston". Things haven't stopped, though. Just this morning the main headline of the Austin-American Spaceman reads "Anger simmers at Republic of Texas camp". Seems that Rick McLaren, who's a furriner from Ohio, anyway, "planted a flag outside an abandoned fire station in a nearby [to Fort Davis, West Texas] trailer park. McLaren declared the area soverign soil of the so-called Republic of Texas, whose followers want the state to become an independent nation." Greg
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199701191558.JAA00281>