Chicken Ranch report no. 7

As I prepare to hie myself off to bed, plagued all of the day by a lingering headache (likely brought on by the sleep disruption caused by Bug's 3 a.m. fever and vomiting--a nasty episode that vanished as quickly as it came) I feel compelled to share with you good readers this latest strip from the geeky web comic XKCD. The point is well-made. In researching the Chicken Ranch, I've come across a number of oft-reported "facts" that, near as I can tell, were cut from whole cloth by one over-imaginative individual or another. Once a so-called fact is picked up by one publication, it's often cited by another and they all end up referencing each other with little thought given to the fact that this particular house is built upon a foundation of sand. It's an interesting companion to my musings on plagiarism yesterday.

Tonight's writing sample is a good one. A juicy one. I have to confess, I love the irony of this section and took no small amount of glee in writing this up. I could've gone on quite a bit more, but the book is about prostitution in La Grange, after all. Waco's going to have to be content with a walk-on role, even if it was a thousand times more tawdry than the Chicken Ranch ever dreamed of being!

Along the south banks of the Brazos River near Waco’s famed suspension bridge, a red-light district alternately known as “The Reservation” or “Two Street” existed for more than 40 years, as Waco blazed a trail by becoming the first city in Texas to legalize prostitution. Brothels had business permits and were taxed while prostitutes were licensed and--much as the women of the Chicken Ranch would do decades later--submitted to regular, mandatory medical examinations. Although the Reservation was ostensibly supported by the political establishment as a means of keeping vice segregated from more respectable parts of the city, the vast amounts of revenue generated by taxes and licensing fees levied upon commercial sex held far more sway over public policy than moral concerns.

Hoping to get the current chapter put to bed by this weekend. Wish me luck!

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