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Frequently I encounter propaganda from a right-thinking
outfit which dubs itself Accuracy in Media.
However,
close examination reveals that its goal is not accuracy,
but to purge American discourse of all material not
previously cleared by the Friends of Torquemada and the
Coalition to Enforce Family Values at Gunpoint.
That question of accuracy in media settled, we must move to others.
You've doubtless seen the ads for Bullwhackers casinos, which feature a long-horned bovine tugging an ore cart through mine haulage drift.
In the lore of Western mining, I find no evidence that bulls were ever used for such transport. Mules usually got the job. At developing prospects, burros were sometimes pressed into service, and it is safe to surmise that small horses could have drawn tram duty.
But a bull with eight feet of spreading horn? That would require a broad tunnel, and no miner ever dug a tunnel any wider than absolutely necessary; once it could fit a sleek mule and a cart, that's as wide as it got.
Granted, cattle often pulled wagons outdoors. But those beasts, when male, were castrated oxen, not fully-equipped bulls. The Bullwhackers campaign has the right first syllable, but that's as far as the accuracy extends.
Last winter I saw a photo of the majestic Maroon Bells,
followed by Strength you can build on. Superior
investment banking. Like the Rocky Mountain region we call
home, Hanifen, Imhoff Inc. offers singular, enduring
strengths to the investment community.
If they were indeed at home in the Rockies, they'd know
that the Maroon Bells offer consistently rotten rock.
Climbers wear helmets to deflect the constant deluge of
deteriorating mountain. As one told me, If those things
are still over 14,000 feet, it's a miracle. I'll swear they
shed 20 feet the day I climbed them.
The Maroon Bells look impressive from afar, but are not strong or enduring on closer examination. That's the opposite of the impression Hanifen, Imhoff wanted to convey. They should get a new ad agency -- one that knows the territory.
Last week, a United Airlines spread in this very
newspaper proclaimed that the Rockies began formation
300 million years ago.
Republicans who follow the party platform will object that the Rockies began but 5,996 years ago, at 9 a.m. on Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.
Geologists say the modern Rockies rose in Tertiary times, only 70 million years ago. Granted, older rocks were brought up by the Laramide Orogeny. But in that sense, you could say the Rockies began forming not a mere 300 million years ago, but a full 1,800 million years ago, the age of those Precambrian schists.
In our examination of advertising, we've gone from bulls to schist, and that pretty well covers the topic.
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