Sunday, January 14, 2018

Bud Kennedy Fort Worth Fix Gets Over Dallas

Last night I wrote a couple bloggings about the subject of Fort Worth and the town's identity crisis. And then this morning I saw in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Bud Kennedy had written an excellent article about this same subject, but in a more thoughtful, less snarky way.

You can go to Here’s how to fix Fort Worth. (It’s not about Dallas, or pilots, or the cow.) and read the entire article, including comments. When I read the article this morning there were already multiple comments of the ironic sort, ironic in that those making the comments had zero self awareness they were verbalizing aspects of what's wrong with Fort Worth. That and sounding like the type Trumpistic morons who make ignorant remarks on a FOX NEWS online article.

I'll copy just a little of the article, including the section which nailed something which has long bugged me, that being Fort Worth's perverse Dallas obsession, and then end with those aforementioned embarrassingly stupid comments...

FORT WORTH

The day of reckoning has come for Fort Worth, blurring from a distinct metropolitan city into the western sprawl of the DFW metroglob.

A new business plan for the city included wakeup alarms for city leaders:

▪ Our residents are less likely to have a college degree than Houston’s or Dallas’, and nowhere near as well-educated as Denver’s or Austin’s.

▪ Even our high school graduation rate trails San Antonio’s or Oklahoma City’s, both working-class cities with a rough-and-tumble cowboy past.

So the blunt truth is: Fort Worth and Tarrant County are not very smart.

But we’ve got more problems:

▪ One in 12 city residents has to go to Dallas for work.

▪ Some outsiders see Fort Worth as hostile to young adults, people of color and foreigners.

▪ Worst of all, Fort Worth doesn’t cross anyone’s mind at all. We’re No. 16 in population but No. 48 in Google searches — less sought than Tulsa or Oklahoma City, down there with Buffalo and Fresno.

3. GET OVER DALLAS

The popular local T-shirt says “Life is too short to live in Dallas.”

A newer saying is: “Don’t Dallas my Fort Worth.”

Folks, poking fun at Dallas is a statewide tradition. But it’s meant to be in fun.

Dallas is not Fort Worth’s enemy. Dallas is one of Fort Worth’s biggest assets.

(It’s also becoming one of Fort Worth’s biggest employers.)

“Screw Dallas!” is not a successful marketing slogan. The city to the east was always the region’s banking and business hub, and new parks and bridges have made it more attractive to visit.

Fort Worth could take more of a cue from Arlington, a sales-minded city that has leveraged its center position to pick up Dallas visitors and dollars.

Sure, it’s OK to joke about Dallas. Houston and Austin folks do it, too.

But to the rest of the world, it only makes Fort Worth look small.
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So totally true. The Dallas obsession has always seemed bizarre to me. It comes across as over compensating for a civic inferiority complex. Fort Worth would do itself a favor by losing its Dallas obsession and its related nonsense, that being naming this that and the other thing, like an imaginary island "Panther".

And now those previously mentioned comments....

Gavin Michaels · Sioux City, Iowa
Bud Kennedy is exactly what u would think he is: a pudgy nerd flaming liberal that became a reporter just so he could get his rocks off pretending to be some arrogant genius burdened by the presence of us grunts and rubes. Kids don't grow up to be a Bud Kennedy.

Christine Ewing Hodge
Wow! What an insulting article. We were accused of all sorts of things I feel we don't deserve.

M Keith Smith · University of Texas at Tyler
As FW leaders become more liberal, our citizens become dumber — could be a correlation there, just saying....

Perhaps our schools are failing, specially younger grades, because of the large number of illegal alien children and anchor babies of illegals with limited to no English in their households — could be a correlation there, just saying....

Tax working class to build 'attractions' that create more low-wage jobs and benefit big business...typical high-brow liberal idea, Bud...worked so well everywhere else where in twenty years cities get hold hostage for another new stadium, just saying....

Mike Kelley · Arlington, Texas
WOW! Sounds like you really hate Fort Worth! I personally like the fact that we aren’t like Dallas, Houston, or Austin.

Will Smith
Bud Kennedy found yet another way to denigrate his home town. What is it about these Startlegram reporters and columnists that make them find so many ways to insult Fort Worth?

Arlon Hill
There trying to convert it to a liberal Austin type town full of snowflakes.
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Yeah, sure sounds like Bud Kennedy hates Fort Worth. That or Bud Kennedy clearly sees areas where the town should make some fixes and changes and maybe some day in the future not be such a backwards backwater.

Have you ever had the fun of asking one of these dotard types to define "liberal"? You get about as accurate an answer as asking one of them to explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Or why the sun rises in the morning...

UPDATE: By Monday morning the comments you see above have been deleted. This is sort of understandable. It serves no one well to give ignorant people a platform of any sort to spew their ignorant nonsense...

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