Branson sails Titanic

Well, the good folks in Branson Mo., are at it again. They've added yet another tasteless "family attraction" to go along with Yakov Smirnoff's comedy theater and Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. This time it's the Titanic World Museum.

They've turned this half-scale model of the Titanic into a mega-tourist attraction, complete with water that sprays the ship deck to create the illusion that visitors are actually on the ocean. The ship even has a faux iceberg attached to it.

Isn't this a bit like building a reproduction of the World Trade Center towers and having people shuffle through them while wearing Bermuda shorts and toting video cameras? Why not have a remote control 747 flying around that World Trade Center Museum?

Even though the Titanic sank in 1912 and few people actually remember how much the event affected the world, the ship's passengers deserve a little more respect than this. The museum concept is a good idea— they have artifacts from the Titanic, along with reproductions of several of the ship's more famous areas like the grand staircase.

But it should've been built in a museum-quality structure, not in a poor rendetion of the ship herself. The Titanic's demise isn't something that should be recreated for family vacations. It was the worst non-war related sea disaster in human history and deserves a little more dignity.

Above photo: MSNBC.com