An Early Texas Saturday Waiting For The Rapture While Wondering How A City Gives A Right Arm & Other Moncrief Nonsense

I am up early this Saturday morning of May 21, looking through the bars of my patio prison cell at what looks like a cauldron.

So far I have heard no news of the Rolling Rapture of 2011. No earthquakes. No reports of Christians flying skyward.

But I did learn in the Seattle P-I this morning that Rapture 2011 has sparked a lot of End of Earth parties.

When May 22 arrives on schedule tomorrow, what do all those people who spent their life savings buying all those billboards do after their erroneous beliefs are shattered?

Speaking of erroneous beliefs.

This morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram had another article about the plan to finally put a square in Sundance Square.

According to the article, "For years, downtown leaders have wanted to create a plaza, or square, to host events and gatherings."

So? What has stopped those downtown leaders from turning some of those downtown parking lots into a square for all these years?

And then, in a paragraph which has the words "Mayor Moncrief said" without making clear, with quotation marks, what he actually said, the article said this...

"That need became even more evident when ESPN set up its broadcast center during Super Bowl XLV in February on the very lots that Sundance Square wants to transform, Mayor Mike Moncrief said. Those events drew thousands of people downtown."

I added the quotation marks you see at the start and end of the above paragraph.

So, the need for a plaza became apparent after the ESPN debacle where ESPN set up a broadcast center on one of the parking lots, and then retreated when it got really cold and snow arrived. It has only been a few months since this occurred. And yet the Star-Telegram is re-writing history to suit its propaganda. The ESPN "events" only drew people to downtown Fort Worth on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Because it was too COLD on the previous days.

In reference to the downtown Fort Worth parking lots and the dream to turn them into a real square, the Star-Telegram quoted Fort Worth's goofy mayor, again, and this time put what he said in quotation marks.

"A lot of cities would give their right arm to have what we have and will have," Moncrief said.

A lot of cities would give their right arm to have what Fort Worth has? And will have? Give up their right arm to have surface parking lots at the heart of their downtown that will become a square/plaza?

I think it'd be more accurate to say a lot of cities, with a population over 500,000, would be embarrassed that their downtown is so undeveloped that is has acres of surface parking lots at the heart of its downtown.

This downtown square propaganda is reminding me way too much of the downtown Fort Worth and Fort Worth Star-Telegram propaganda about the pathetic Santa Fe Rail Market boondoggle. Sold as the first public market in Texas, modeled after public markets in Europe and Seattle's Pike Place Market, the reality turned out to be lamer than a small town mall's food court.

This morning's article about the downtown plaza, that other cities would lose an arm to have, also said, "Fort Worth's Bass family developed Sundance Square."

How does one family develop a town's downtown? That is sort of bizarre.

Then again, in this week's Fort Worth Weekly, I read about the Bass Machine's secretive project to replace the elderly Will Rogers Coliseum. Apparently an attempt was made to get a bill passed that would have raised the tax rate on downtown Fort Worth hotels. Somehow this was to finance the construction of the new arena.

But, somehow the shady Bass Machine operation came to light and the bill was pulled. There is talk of having an actual bond election where the citizens of Fort Worth would actually be allowed to vote on this project. But so far, The Bass Machine is providing no details of their latest development.

The Day Before Rapture 2011 In Texas With No Pool No Hiking & No Sundance Square

In the picture you are looking at my view of the world from my prone position, still in bed, this morning of May 20, one day before Rapture 2011.

Tomorrow, according to experts in the field of end of world predictions, around 200 million select Christians will disappear, while Planet Earth is rocked by a humongous earthquake.

One horrible disaster after another will follow in the ensuing months before Planet Earth meets its final doom in a calamitous fire on October 21.

According to the Rapture 2011 spokesman, John Dekruyff, tomorrow's Rapture will be what is known as a "Rolling Rapture." Gradually moving through the time zones, with the Rapture beginning at the international date line, then moving westward, with the first major landmass to be Raptured being New Zealand.

The international date line had not been invented at the time the Bible was invented, so how did the Rapture 2011 experts make this particular determination, I can't help but wonder?

As we can clearly see on one of the hundreds of billboards dotting the American landscape, the Bible guarantees Judgment Day May 21. And suggests we "Cry Mightily unto God."

And now on to equally goofy, but totally secular news.

In this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram I learned that a park-like plaza has long been part of the Sundance Square Master Plan.

There has been a long term plan to put a plaza in the square?

I have long opined that it is very goofy to call Fort Worth's downtown "Sundance Square." When there is no square.

When I was first in Fort Worth and saw the signs pointing to Sundance Square I found it confusing. Where was the square? Eventually I decided Sundance Square was the collection of parking lots at the heart of Fort Worth's downtown.

Very few big cities are able to have big downtown parking lots, because downtown real estate is so valuable. Fort Worth is very exceptional. Those big parking lots are just one of the many reasons Fort Worth is the Envy of the Nation.

An interesting tidbit from this morning's revelation about the incoming plaza was this, "Sundance Square is considering constructing two to three buildings as part of its long-planned central plaza project in the heart of its popular downtown entertainment, residential, office and shopping district."

First off, the dullest big city downtown I have ever seen is not popular. There are very few people residing in this dull downtown. Which is why there are no grocery stores in downtown Fort Worth.

Fort Worth is the only city in America, with a population over 500,000, with not a single downtown department store.

No, Macys. No Nordstroms. No Neiman-Marcus. Not even a Sears or a Penneys. Or a Target. Not even a Wal-Mart.

Are you able to detect that it annoys me when the Star-Telegram does its usual propaganda regarding something to do with Fort Worth? When the Star-Telegram misleads the locals into thinking downtown Fort Worth is a dynamic, popular, bustling zone, it does a disservice to the locals.

What does a local think when they visit the downtown of a city which actually does have a popular downtown entertainment, residential, office and shopping district?

Why does the Fort Worth Star-Telegram not put in some effort into determining why downtown Fort Worth is the only city in America with a population over 500,000 with no downtown grocery store or department store?

And yes, I do know, now, that Sundance Square is the name given the downtown Fort Worth re-development project. I shudder to wonder what downtown Fort Worth was like before this re-development.

I really think the Fort Worth Ruling Oligarchy needs to change the Sundance Square misnomer to something else. Or actually build that plaza, rather than study the feasibility of doing so, and call that new plaza Sundance Square, and end the confusion of the out of area tourists who visit downtown Fort Worth and can't figure out where Sundance Square is.

Yes, I realize that downtown Fort Worth does not attract very many out of area tourists, but, still, it would be a good idea to not be confusing to those few who do visit Fort Worth's downtown, who find themselves wasting time looking for the mysterious, non-existent Sundance Square.

Can you tell I am cranky this morning? I can't go swimming this morning because my pool got its first chemical shock of the year, yesterday, late in the afternoon. I have had no salubrious, endorphin producing hiking activity for 2 days. Wednesday due to being stuck up in Hurst, Thursday due to a doctor visit.

I may not get in any salubrious, endorphin producing hiking activity today, due to the likelihood of incoming thunderstorms.

My crankiness is likely going to be increasing exponentially.