A Woozy Friday Morning With 100 Degrees On Saturday Thinking About Voting For Jim Lane

The sun got up before me on this 27th morning of May.

When my camera looked out my viewing portal on the world, this morning, it was set in aquarium mode, which caused it to take a picture that matched my currently woozy view of the world.

At this point in time the outdoors is chilled to a very pleasant 67 degrees. Thus my windows are open.

The outdoors is currently scheduled to be heating today, eventually, to a relatively warm 93 degrees.

Tomorrow the current forecast is that we will be experiencing the first 100 degree day of 2011 in this particular zone of North Texas.

At 100 degrees all windows are closed. Fans are spinning, A/C is running.

Now, on non-weather related news. Former Fort Worth mayoral candidate, Cathy Hirt, has endorsed Jim Lane for mayor.

Many former Cathy Hirt supporters are now voting for Jim Lane.

I voted for Cathy Hirt. No one I vote for ever wins. This has me thinking I should vote for Betsy Price, even though I prefer Jim Lane.

It's a perplexing conundrum.

A Sunny May Sunday The Day After The Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy Wins Again

The 15th day of May has dawned both sunny and Sunday. It is a chilly 50 degrees out in outdoor world. Same as yesterday's morning.

The chilly 50, yesterday, made the pool feel as if the water was heated. I suspect that will also be the case this morning.

Well. We have had part one of our election here in Fort Worth. Part two is on June 18.

I can not tell you how shocked I am that the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy's picks won.

Betsy Price got 43.3% of the vote. Jim Lane got 26.3%. Cathy Hirt trailed at 21.4%. While Dan Barrett trailed even further at 8.3%.

The number of registered voters voting was up from the 6% who voted to re-elect Fort Worth's current corrupt mayor, Mike Moncrief, with 70% of the vote.

This election a whopping 33,860 registered voters voted, out of a total of 326,623 registered Fort Worth voters.

I am really no good at all when it comes to math, but it appears to my rudimentary math skills that over 10% of Fort Worth's registered voters bothered to vote. A massive increase of 4% over the 6% who bothered to re-elect the aforementioned corrupt Mike Moncrief.

So, congratulations to Kay Granger's and the FWRO's pick for mayor, Betsy Price.

I guess I'll be voting for Jim Lane now. If I bother to vote. Which is sort of unlikely.

I Did Not Wait In A Long Line Today To Vote For Fort Worth's Mayor & My City Council Person

As you might guess, from all the signs, you are looking at my voting place, the East Regional Library.

Yes. I voted.

On my way to the Tandy Hills, which have already dried out from the rains of Wednesday and Thursday.

There were a lot of cars in the parking, which had me fearing a long line that would have me regretting not early voting.

I parked next to a pickup plastered with Cathy Hirt for Mayor signs with a guy campaigning for Cathy Hirt sitting on the tailgate. The vehicle on the other side of my vehicle was a Lupe Arriola for City Council campaigner. I told both the Cathy guy and the Lupe guy I was heading inside to get in line to vote for their girls.

They thanked me.

I was soon to have my fear of a long line disappear. There was no line. There was no one voting til I walked in.

Every time I vote, the method is different. I always end up being a little confused. We had trouble finding my name on the list of registered voters. I guess way too many Joneses made it confusing. As we were looking for my name, another voter arrived. An old lady.

Finally we found my name. I signed in. I was directed to go to the ballot man, where I picked a ballot from a table. Then I was directed to a voting booth. I was looking at the blank sheet of paper, likely looking perplexed, so the ballot man told me to turn to ballot over.

I don't ever remember voting for something in Washington where there are only two things on the ballot. This may be why today's election will have such a low turnout. And be one of the methods Fort Worth's Ruling Oligarchy retains control.

So, it did not take long to vote. My fellow voter, the old lady, was talking to me from her voting booth, telling me she did not know who to vote for for City Council. I told her I did not think I was suppose to make a suggestion.

Then as I walked past her, to stick my ballot in the machine that reads it, I said to her, "vote Lupe."

Oh no, she said, I voted for the wrong one. Then she actually asked ballot man if she could do it over. He said yes. She then walked over to ballot man and as she got another ballot actually asked him who she should vote for. He told her he can not make suggestions.

It was bizarre. Why was this lady bothering to vote, I could not help but wonder?

And then later I was thinking to myself that voters should have to pass some sort of Voter's Test in order to get your Voter's License. I think we'd have much better outcomes in elections. And change the voting age. Instead make the age when you can first apply for your Voter's License to be something like 12 years old.

I suspect I probably would have been able to pass the Voter's Test at 12 years old. That would have given me 6 more years of voting.

Up Before The Sun The Day After Mother's Day Thinking About Fort Worth Politics & The FW Light Rail Transit System

The Shadow of the Skinny Dipping Thin Man got up real early on this second Monday of May.

I talked not to a single mother yesterday on Mother's Day.

Actually, technically, the above sentence is not quite true because I did talk to Alex yesterday and Alex is a single mother. But that is a different meaning of 'single mother' than was intended in the second paragraph.

Don Young, via FW CAN DO, has endorsed Cathy Hirt to replace the corrupt regime of the current Fort Worth mayor, Mike Moncrief.

A couple days ago the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy did an easy assessment of the FW mayor's race, which goes sort of as follows.

If you think everything in Fort Worth is hunky dory then Betsy Price or Jim Lane are you choices, with Betsy leaning to the R side and Jim to the D's. If you think the Trinity River Vision is a boondoggle and that the Moncrief regime has been a corrupt nightmare for Fort Worth then Cathy Hirt and Dan Barrett are your choices, with Cathy leaning to the R side and Dan to the D's.

The 5th guy in the race, I can't remember his name, is irrelevant.

Speaking of FW. I read this morning that the regional light rail system and express bus service which was expected to expand light rail to FW by 2023, as part of the Sound Transit 2 package approved by voters in 2008, will not meet its expected timeline due to tax revenue being down due to the recession which began soon after voters approved the light rail expansion.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm probably confusing locals by referring to FW getting light rail and the voters approving of the project. No, the FW I am talking about is Federal Way in Washington, not Fort Worth in Texas. Everyone knows that the citizens in Fort Worth are not allowed to vote on public works projects. Everyone also knows there is no regional transit plan in the D/FW Metroplex zone.

I need to go swimming now and cool off.

Up Early On The 6th Day Of May Thinking I May Bother Voting Even Though It Is Pointless In Fort Worth

Day number 6 of May has dawned with yet one more blue sky morning in North Texas, with that blue oasis, you can see through the trees, looking particularly inviting.

I must try and remember to early vote today. I don't think there is anything to vote for except the city council person in my district and the mayor of this forsaken town I'm living in.

Unlike people who live in areas of the world that practice the democratic form of government, we don't vote on things like public works projects here, so nothing like that shows up on the ballot.

In these parts you can have a billion dollar project wreaking havoc with something everyone shares, like a river, using public funds to do the havocing and do so with no one voting to approve of the project.

I find the governmental method here to be very bizarre. But, it is what the people here are used to.

So much so, that the vast majority of them don't bother to vote.

I suppose they don't bother to vote because over the years the vast majority have been conditioned to believe their vote does not count, because the ruling gang of the good ol' boy and girl network runs things, with the elections just being shams, sort of like what took place in the old Soviet Union or like what takes place, currently, in places like Iran.

Iran has elections. But the outcome is pre-ordained. Just like in Fort Worth where Betsy Price is the good ol' boy and girl network's pick to be the next mayor of Fort Worth.

I'll likely be voting for either Cathy Hirt or Dan Barrett. Not that it matters. Neither has a ghost's chance in hell of becoming mayor of this company run town.

The Durango Texas Editorial Board Recommends Anyone But Betsy Price & Jim Lane For Mayor Of Fort Worth

In the picture you are looking at the backside of a mailing that was in my mailbox this morning from the Fort Worth mayoral campaign of Dan Barrett.

Dan Barrett says he want to change business as usual at city hall.

I don't know if by changing business as usual Barrett means he wants to end the Fort Worth Way.

What he specifically was referring to, in the mailing, was the business of the city closing Fort Worth's public pools to save the city $445,000 and then a couple months later the city proposed spending a million dollars to build a downtown Heliport for the convenience of incoming millionaires.

Meanwhile, speaking of the Fort Worth Way.

The Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy has made it official, via their mouthpiece, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that Betsy Price is the FWRO's pick to be the next mayor of Fort Worth.

In the article announcing the Star-Telegram Editorial Board's decision we are told that "Two candidates in this race stand out -- Betsy Price and Jim Lane -- and their different approaches to what will be the first item on the to-do list for the new mayor and council provide a clear distinction between the two."

Dan Barrett, Cathy Hirt and Nicholas Zebrun are mentioned, but not given serious consideration. Because all three represent a threat to the Fort Worth Way and the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy.

Now that the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy has made their pick official, there is very little time for the few people who vote, who are not part of the FWRO, to encourage Fort Worth voters to get off their lazy butts and stage a revolution in this town.

Methinks the Anti Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy Group needs to pick between Cathy Hirt and Dan Barrett and then somehow cause a miracle to happen, with Betsy Price not being the next mayor of this company run town.

A Gray Tuesday In Fort Worth Thinking About Mike Moncrief's & Cathy Hirt's Conflicts Of Interest

Monday morning was blue. Tuesday morning is gray in my zone of North Texas, at least as viewed from one of my viewing portals on the outdoor world.

It is currently 75 degrees, heading to a predicted high of 92. From the look of the sky I would guess rain and possible thunderstorms were coming my way, but that is not the forecast, which is breezy with sunny intervals.

This morning I read that one of the people wanting to be mayor of Fort Worth, Cathy Hirt, says that she will likely, if elected, get rid of the stocks she and her husband, Darrell, have in 5 of the gas drillers poking holes in Fort Worth.

Cathy Hirt said owning stocks in those 5 gas drilling companies could raise conflicts of interest issues.

Apparently Cathy Hirt has not heard that Fort Worth City Attorney, David Yett, ruled years ago that Fort Worth's current corrupt mayor, Mike Moncrief's, $600,000 income from gas drillers, poking holes in Fort Worth, did not constitute any conflict of interest.

I guess it is a good thing that Fort Worth has someone running for mayor who understands that conflicts of interest are not a good thing.

Jim Lane says if he gets elected mayor he will closely monitor the Barnett Shale operations. I wonder how much money he makes each year from the gas drillers poking holes in Fort Worth?

It is time for me to stop wondering about conflicts of interest and go swimming to take my mind off of that which perplexes me.