Monday Morning Raining Texas Blues With The Scrabble Queen Hot In Kauai & Gar The Texan's Psychiatric Woes

That is my Monday morning 9am view this dark winter day in Texas. Rain is predicted to fall all day long. Snow is predicted to arrive, again, on Thursday.

This is the coldest, wettest winter in all the years of my exile in Texas. Meanwhile up north, in my previous place of residence, they are experiencing the warmest winter in recorded history.

The Pacific Northwest winter heat wave may wreak havoc with next week's Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, the Scrabble Queen of Washington is temporarily the Scrabble Queen of Hawaii and is tormenting me with reports of it being too HOT to sit outside. Too HOT in Kauai. Where it rarely gets into the 90s, where it is usually a nice balmy 80 something. And the Scrabble Queen is too HOT.

I can not remember the last time I was too HOT.

And then I have Gar the Texan lamenting that his life full of woe got its start at the now nationally notorious Kermit Hospital. Reading Gar the Texan's blog this morning I learned he's spent decades in psychiatric therapy trying get Kermit out of his head.

I actually watched the entire first half of Super Bowl XLIV yesterday, without getting bored. I think it had something to do with the HD quality of the video rendering watching more watchable. The Who halftime show was good, too. But, I grew bored at some point in the 3rd quarter and ended my active Super Bowl viewing for the year.

Lame commercials this year, for the most part. The Simpsons Coke one was amusing, though. And a few others. My blogging about the Super Bowl, right before it started, turned out to be a bit bizarre, with convoluted errors and an ironic use of the word "who."

In about 3 hours I will start going stir crazy. Maybe the rain will let up before crazy sets in.

Don't Be Tardy For My XLVI Super Bowl Party

It is almost time for Super Bowl XLVI.

Why must the Super Bowl use Roman Numerals? It bugs me every year. I think an X before an L means 10 less than 50, which would be 40. I think VI is a 5 and a 1, which would be 6.

So, is Super Bowl XLVI Super Bowl 46? Why not just call it Super Bowl 46 and make it easier on the Roman Numeral challenged, of which I'm likely one, if I got the number wrong.

Anyway, this is my favorite football game of the year. In that it's the only one I watch. Well, watch some of it. This year I know less than my norm regarding the Super Bowl. I know it is being played in Miami and that one of the teams is the New Orleans Saints. I do not know know who New Orleans is playing.

I also do not know who is playing in the halftime show. The Super Bowl halftime show used to be entertaining. I have not found it to be very entertaining in a long time. I think the last time may have been Janet Jackson's bared boob fiasco, or the U2 post 9/11 Super Bowl.

I have not read one word about this year's Super Bowl commercials. The commercials are usually the part I watch.

I do not like the start time of the Super Bowl in my present Central Time location. On the West Coast the Super Bowl begins around 3 in the afternoon. Here it begins around 5 and gets over past my bedtime.

I have the same problem with the Academy Awards. West Coast they start live before 6. Here it is 8. Getting over way past my bedtime. So, I bail before the end.

I have my Super Bowl Party stuff already to go. I made turkey tacos seasoned with mango ginger salsa. It sounds a bit odd, but tastes really good. At least so far, they've not gotten to the being consumed stage, just the sampling whilst cooking stage.

Okay, I am being told we are in countdown mode leading to the Star Spangled Banner. I'm betting there will be jets involved.

Don't be tardy for the party.

UPDATE: I'm hearing the pre-game stuff in the background. I am not shocked to learn I got my Roman Numerals wrong. I just heard a talking head say "Super Bowl 44." So VI is 4, not 6. It's 5 minus 1, not plus 1. No wonder Latin is a dead language and the Romans a dead empire.

Sunday Fort Worth Drizzling While Gestapo Agents Run A Radar Sting Operation

At noon, when I crossed the Cooks Lane overpass over I-30 on my way to Sam's Club, I saw a Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtrooper standing beside his mechanized transport, aiming a radar gun, west, at the incoming traffic.

On the east side freeway on-ramp, there was an entire mechanized unit of Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtroopers, waiting for the signal from the overpass spy, to take off after speeders.

I saw maybe 5 units waiting on the on-ramp for their attack order, while strung long the side of the freeway, I saw, into the distance, maybe 5 or 6 flashing red lights, indicating 5 or 6 Gestapo agents had successfully caught their quarry.

When I left Sam's Club it was drizzling hard.

I decided to return to my abode, via Cooks Lane, and snap a picture of the Gestapo Agent and his radar gun. But, when I was stopped at the red light for a perfect photo op, the cop, I mean, Gestapo Agent, had retreated from the light drizzle and was hiding in his car.

By the time I crossed back over the freeway again, on the Morrison Street crossing, the cop car had left Cooks Lane, driven back to regular patrolling, I assume, by a little dampness.

I really don't like these type Gestapo raids. It would aggravate me less if I was not eye witness, way too many a time, to a Fort Worth Gestapo Agent in his mechanized vehicle, well over the speed limit, with no sirens blaring, no lights flashing. If it is an emergency, and the cop does not want the perps to hear him coming, then they go into silent running mode, with just the lights flashing. The incidents of speeding cops, that I have witnessed, have been just that, speeding cops.

Why are city cops operating on the federal highway, I could not help but wonder? I thought the federal highways were patrolled by state patrolmen. Who gets to keep the revenue generated by today's Fort Worth Gestapo Stormtrooping? The city? Or does it go to Washington? I mean D.C., of course.

Stings, like what I saw today, seem like a waste of resources. That it'd be a much better plan to have the cops out on the freeway, driving, at the correct speed limit. Drivers tend not to speed past cop cars on the freeway, from what I've seen.

There are safety issues too. It's dangerous pulling off to the side of a busy freeway, both for the Gestapo agent and the stopped driver. Getting back on the freeway, after getting your ticket, is dangerous to the drivers still on the freeway, as the Gestapo's victim tries to re-merge with traffic.

I really think this type revenue generating sting needs to be stopped.

Kermit Texas Nurse Faces 10 Prison Years For Reporting Doctor's Malpractice

There is a whole lotta crazy that goes on in Texas. I've mentioned before that the zone I live in takes on Orwellian aspects at times, what with all the double-speak from various Texas state agencies that are supposed to be protecting the people and the environment.

But it's not just my zone of Texas. A whole lotta crazy comes out of this little town in far West Texas, called Kermit.

Gar the Texan is from Kermit. That's one example. Sheriff Robert L. Roberts Jr., that's him in the picture, is another example of crazy coming out of Kermit.

There is this medical thing called the Hippocratic Oath, that's an oath medical type people take in which they pledge, among other things, to do no harm to patients.

Well, the Hippocratic Oath has been turned upside down in Kermit. A doctor in Kermit, Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., was doing bad things, like doing a skin graft, that failed, in an emergency room where he did not have surgical privileges. Another time Arafiles sutured a rubber tip to a patient's finger, an unorthodox procedure which was deemed inappropriate by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

A nurse, Anne Mitchell, had seen enough of what she believed to be Arafiles' bad medicine. She and a fellow nurse, Vickilyn Galle, sent a letter detailing the bad medicine they had witnessed, to state regulators.

That letter set in motion a bizarre chain of events that now has the good nurse indicted, facing 10 years in prison, for being true to the Hippocratic Oath. Nurse Mitchell is set to stand trial in state court on Monday for "misuse of official information." Whatever that is, it is a 3rd-degree felony in Texas.

The state prosecutor claims he will show that Nurse Mitchell had a history of making inflammatory statements about Dr. Arafiles, intending to damage his reputation, when she reported him to the Texas Medical Board, last April.

Nurse Mitchell, on the other hand, she being a voice of sanity in the troubled town of Kermit, said she had a professional obligation to protect patients from what she saw was a pattern of improper prescribing and surgical procedures.

Charges were dropped against co-letter writer, Nurse Galle.

When the medical board told Dr. Arafiles about the anonymous complaint, he complained to a friend that he was being harassed by a pair of nurses. Arafiles' friend happened to be Winkler County Sheriff, Robert L. Roberts Jr., who credits Arafiles with saving his life, after a heart attack.

Sheriff Roberts showed his appreciation of the bad doctor's good work, in his case, by obtaining a search warrant to seize the 2 nurses' work computers, where he found the evidence of their crime. That being the whistle blowing letter their consciences told them to write, which they felt they were free to do, living, as they do, or so they thought, in the land of the free.

No one had told the nurses they were not living in the land of the free, they were living in Orwellian Texas. It's a totally different country from the rest of America.

Obviously, this has been an extremely twisted nightmare that has been visited upon these nurses. State and national nurses associations have raised over $40,000 for the defense. Legal experts, operating outside of the Malice in Blunderland zone, say Nurse Mitchell would seem to be protected by Texas whistle-blower laws.

The nurses' lawyers have filled a civil suit in federal court charging the county, hospital, sheriff, doctor and prosecutor with vindictive prosecution and denial of the nurses' First Amendment free speech rights.

Nurse Mitchell's co-conspirator, Nurse Galle, said, "We're just in disbelief that you could be arrested for doing something you had been told your whole career was an obligation."

Nurse Galle, it's not just you and Nurse Mitchell who are shaking their heads in disbelief, heads are shaking in disbelief all over America and the world, over the latest scary stuff to come out of Texas, that common sense would seem to dictate would, should never happen.

But, somehow does.

UPDATE: Video of Dr. Arafiles. Watch it and ask yourself if you want him operating on you.

UPDATE: Read the Texas Medical Board document regarding 2007 malpractice charges against Kermit Dr. Arafiles.

Visiting Fort Worth Trinity River Ghosts, Sinkholes & Rutted Levees

When I took off out of here around noon for my daily constitutional I did not know where I was going, except for the Post Office. Sometimes there is something at the Post Office that determines where I go next.

Today the Post Office sent me off towards Beach Street to a Chase Bank. Since I was on Beach Street it made sense to park at the spot where last month I had fun with Express Energy trucks and go for a walk on the Trinity River Levee to see how the ol' girl is doing.

Well, she is still messed up and rutted, in several places, between Beach Street and the site of the recent Express Energy water removal operation.

The Trinity Sink Hole is still in play and seems to be growing slightly bigger. Someone commented that kids have been known to fall into such things. Currently it would take a very small kid to fall into that hole. A horse stepping on that hole would seem to not be a good thing though.

The thing that caught this Texas boy's eyes today was not holes or rutted up river levees. It was the astonishing amount of litter on the banks of the Trinity River.

My pictures never, even remotely, do justice to how bizarre the mess of litter looks.

Maybe, if I crop out a closeup of the litter in the first picture, it'll give you a better idea of how the bank of the Trinity River looks like a garbage dump, in some locations.

Those are not white birds you see in the tree. Those are white plastic sacks, you know, those things you bag your groceries in. From the vantage point from which the picture was taken, the bags look more like white ghosts, waving in the wind, than birds.

Why does it seem that so much litter roams wild and free in Texas? Where I used to live, in the Skagit Valley of Washington, I never saw all that much litter, certainly not on the banks of the Skagit River, which, incidentally, is a much bigger river than the Trinity, and thus could handle a large volume of litter, if someone forced it to.

In Washington I never saw flatbed trailers, loaded with garbage, driving down the freeway with litter flying away. A very resourceful disposal method, which must be sanctioned as appropriate, because I've seen it happen so many times while driving the highways of Texas.

It the litter problem here in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex a function of so many people living in a relatively small area? As in there are more people living in this Texas Metroplex than the entire state of Washington.

But, in areas of Washington where it is densely populated, such as the Seattle/Tacoma/Everett Metroplex of about 3 million, there are several rivers flowing through the populated area, none of which I ever recollect seeing Trinity River levels of litter.

It's very perplexing to me. Texans seem to like their state. Many Texans are quite quick to let you know how proud they are of Texas and that they truly believe it to be a special place. Then why do so many Texans see nothing wrong about trashing up the place?

I have rambled on long enough that I have space to show you a picture of the current state of the Express Energy Services damaged Trinity River Levee on this, the first Saturday of February. In the background you can see some of the litter "ghosts" that I showed you, closeup, above.

It's coming up on Saturday night. I'm fixin' to have myself a fine time in Texas tonight. See you tomorrow. Or sooner.

I Am Excited To Go To Hummusland Even Though Hummus Is Making Me Fat

I don't remember if I've mentioned one of my recent conundrums, that being my inexplicable weight gain. As in the past few months I have steadily been heavier each time I step on the scale.

I thought maybe the greatly reduced amount of swimming time was the culprit. And less other type exercise, due to the weather restrictions imposed by this bad Texas winter we are currently having.

I'm not an over eater. I'm a bit of a health food nut, sort of. Have been that way for decades. I rarely eat in restaurants. I don't like candy. I don't even eat dinner, at night I just have a healthy snack.

So, what is causing the weight gain? I'm almost 100% certain it's not all added muscle. I have not had clothes fitting tighter. I can easily get into my skinny jeans that I could not easily get into before I moved to Texas. I just realized, those are old jeans.

Anyway, this morning I was trying to think of anything I've done different the past few months. I realized I've consumed massive quantities of hummus. But that's pretty much a health food, garbanzos, roasted red peppers, garlic, lemon, tahini, onion, other good stuff.

This morning I Googled to find out the caloric count for hummus. Over 400 calories a cup? It is easy to eat 2 cups of the stuff. That is not sufficient calories to explain the weight gain. My research continues.

In the meantime, Googling hummus brought up something really bizarre.

After Lebanon won the Guinness World Record for the largest plate of hummus, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism announced plans to win the record back by building a massive hummus themed resort and spa in an area called Shebaa Farms in a disputed 12 mile strip of land on the border of Israel and Lebanon.

Hummusland will have a huge Lagoon filled with hummus, in which Hummusland visitors will be able to swim, ride canoes and take in the rejuvenating powers of the anti-oxidizing pulverized garbanzos.

The Hummusland Lagoon will also have a wave pool, a creek, waterfalls and a shark reef. All filled with hummus.

Are sharks going to be happy swimming in hummus? I can't help but wonder.

The director of the Hummusland project, Amos Cohen, says, “The total volume of hummus that is pumped through the park each day will exceed a million cubic meters. This will make the Lebanese 2,506 kilogram dish seem like a joke. Our kiddie pool alone will have twenty times that much hummus in it.”

Cohen says there are plans to add other Israeli dishes, like zaatar, couscous, shawarma and falafel, to the park's attractions. Falafel Mountain is currently under development. This will be a roller coaster which tunnels inside a giant Falafel, as big as a football stadium.

I don't know about these Israelis. Hummusland sounds like something nutty I'd read here about some kooky Texas plan, like Bearfire Resort.

I forgot to mention, that is an artist's rendering of an overview of Hummusland at the top.

The Fosdic Lake Dam Vision Is Back With Elsie Hotpepper & The Westside Redneck

My therapist, Dr. L.C., this morning, insisted I get outside to try and recover from my severe case of SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) helped by the return of blue sky, well, some blue sky, here in my zone of Texas.

With recent wetness limiting my outdoor choices, I went to the same place I went for a wet, drizzly walk yesterday, that being Oakland Lake Park, to walk around Fosdic Lake.

Yesterday I did not walk across Fosdic Dam. So, I did not see that the Fort Worth Parks People had cleared a lot more foliage from the dry side of the dam.

Some time ago we learned this was being done so that an inspection of the dam could be made.

It was sometime around then, when I had my Fosdic Lake Vision. Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief had agreed to donate the ill-gotten gains he's gotten from the Barnett Shale gas drillers operating in Fort Worth, to fund the Fosdic Lake Vision. Later the mayor reneged on his promise. I think that's what happened. I have way too much that I try to remember.

This morning there was a comment from the Westside Redneck regarding yesterday's blogging about walking around Fosdic Lake.

The Westside Redneck commented...

I was thinking that Fort Worth could expand your Fosdic Lake vision and make it city wide. There's Fosdic Lake to the east. Echo Park Lake to the south. Lake Como on the west side and Marine Lake on the north. And of course there is always Lake Worth which Fort Worth Weekly featured recently. We need more than eating and shopping establishments in our old town.

As you can see, the Westside Redneck has a much broader vision than mine. I like the way he looks.

I heard from someone else, Anonymous, this morning. Asking me who Elsie Hotpepper was. This curiousity arose, I suppose, after Anonymous read this morning's blogging about the Fort Worth Moncrief's history of conspiracy, greed & the IRS almost destroying that infamous Texas oil family.

Anonymous also asked if I had a picture of Elsie Hotpepper. I can sort of see where someone might be curious to see what someone named Elsie Hotpepper looks like.

Since I have seen Elsie, in person, there is no mystery for me.

Elsie is a free-spirited gal, likes to take on causes. Elsie often makes herself up in outlandish disguises when she is out and about. All in all, a real fun girl. Except when she drinks. She's a mean drunk.

And on a totally unrelated note, back to the Westside Redneck. The Redneck repeated his comment a couple times. This happens when a commenter does not realize the comment does not show up til the moderator approves it. The moderator has to moderate, because there are a lot of comments that the moderator would not want people to be reading. That, and there is a lot of spam commenting.

A couple times a commenter, who does not realize the comment will not show up immediately, works up to being quite upset, as he tries once more, to comment, not realizing that the moderator is going to see each of the attempts. I remember a person from Tacoma doing this and pretty much ending up foaming at the mouth by the 5th attempt. It made for blogging fodder.

Fort Worth's Moncrief's History of Conspiracy, Greed & The IRS Almost Destroyed This Legendary Texas Oil Family

Yesterday morning I opined that I thought the FBI should turn its attention to Fort Worth and investigate how it was the City of Fort Worth came to send in agents to raid Steve Doeung's home on Carter Avenue.

Find out who gave the orders and then find out their connection to the natural gas drillers currently poking holes all over Fort Worth and you'll have yourself another North Texas Corruption Scandal, maybe bigger than the current big one in Dallas.

Well, I had barely hit the publish button on "Largest Corruption Case in Dallas History, Is Fort Worth Next" when I got a message from my #1 Blogging Co-Hort, Elsie Hotpepper, telling me something very interesting that I find very bizarre that I had never heard a word about. Til Elsie told me.

Okay, let's say, hypothetically, that it was Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief who gave the raid on Steve Doeung's home order. We already know he is in deep with Conflicts of Interest due to making over $600,000 a year from the various gas drillers operating in Fort Worth.

Well, that is just ridiculous, you're thinking, Mayor Moncrief would not stoop so low as to order a raid on a private citizen to intimidate him into not fighting Chesapeake Energy and its plan to run non-odorized gas under his property.

Apparently Mike Moncrief has relatives, other Moncriefs, who do believe he will stoop so low as to engineer a raid when he's feuding with someone.

Back in the early 1990s Mike Moncrief was feuding with his relatives over the splitting up of the family fortune, going so far as to sue his uncle, Tex Moncrief, over how his grandparent's estate was divvied up. Tex Moncrief told his son, Charles, that Mike Moncrief was an "ingrate" for turning against his family.

The Moncrief Family Feud escalated to Fort Worth Scandal status early one morning in 1994 when a swarm of gun-toting IRS Agents raided the Moncrief's headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, removing a truckload of documents.

The IRS had been pointed towards the Moncrief documents by Moncrief accountant Billy Wayne Jarvis. Jarvis had been an accountant for the Moncriefs for 14 years and claimed he was afraid of getting in trouble for helping the Moncriefs commit tax fraud. And so he went to the IRS.

In addition to talking to the IRS, Jarvis was also talking to Mike Moncrief. Due to the connection between Jarvis and Mike Moncrief, the Charles Moncrief side of the Moncrief family suspected Fort Worth's current mayor helped bring the IRS ire on the family.

By 1996 the government dropped criminal charges against the Moncriefs, who settled with the IRS to the tune of $23 million. In 1998 Tex Moncrief lambasted the IRS and called for reform when he appeared before the United States Senate's Finance Committee. The Moncriefs were additionally outraged to learn in federal court that their accountant, Jarvis, had conspired with his lawyers to turn in the Moncriefs for a $25 million reward.

Charles Moncrief, hoping to restore his side of the Moncrief family's good name, wrote a book, Wildcatters: The True Story of How Conspiracy, Greed, and the IRS Almost Destroyed a Legendary Texas Oil Family.

Charles Moncrief makes it real clear, in his book, that his side of the family does not approve of Mayor Mike's side of the Moncrief family, charging Mike Moncrief with "living off the hard work his family has done in the oilfields."

The feud between the two sides of the Moncrief family continues in current day Fort Worth. The Charles Moncrief side of the Moncrief family contributed funds to the opponents of Mike Moncrief in the last mayoral election. An election which Moncrief won with 70% of the vote of the 6% of Fort Worth eligible voters who bothered to vote.

Were the Moncriefs the inspiration for the fictional Ewing family of Dallas fame?

Depressing News From My Therapist While The Fosdic Ducks Possibly Caucus About Tonight's NCTCA Meeting

I had insomnia night before last. Last night I slept some, but got up early. Early morning I tried the shock therapy of an icy pool dip, hoping it'd break me out of my dark gray depression.

It did not work. I think I'm entering Howard Hughes territory. I clip my fingernails, but my hair has grown long and I don't remember when last I scraped a razor across my face.

In other words. I'm a mess.

My therapist, Dr. L.C., instead of her usual prescription that I exit my depressing abode and do something aerobic outdoors, sent me a link to a video.

Just when I think the bad stuff bad people do to good people, here in Texas. And elsewhere. Can't get worse. Something comes along and adds more depressing information to my overload.

After viewing that video, without my therapist's prescription to do so, I took off out of here, anyway, seeking some sort of peace among the Fosducks at Fosdick Lake in Oakland Lake Park.

It was not all that warm today, here in Fort Worth, but the ducks were in march on land mode, more than huddle in the water, keeping warm mode. There seemed to be a lot of quacking among the ducks, as if they were having a very serious discussion.

There is a meeting of the North Central Texas Communities Alliance (NCTCA) taking place in a couple hours at the Hotel Trinity Inn Suites on the south side of I-30 at Beach Street. Dr. Al Armendariz, the new Regional Administrator for the EPA Region 6, will be there and speaking.

A person, or two, has asked if I'm going to be there.

Well, like I said, I'm a mess, not really, currently, fit for a meeting with coffee, networking and news interviews.

BREAKING NEWS: Saturday's Tandy Hills Brush Bash Rescheduled

The Tandy Hills Natural Area and the rest of North Texas is wet. Very very wet.

So, due to all that excess moisture, the Tandy Hills Brush Bash, scheduled for February 6 has been postponed by Mother Nature and Her #1 Fort Worth Spokesperson, Don Young.

2010 Brush Bash 2 has been rescheduled for February 20th from 10am til 3pm.

I am pretty sure the other details of Brush Bash 2 remain the same, so I include them below.

Place: Tandy Hills Natural Area
3400 View Street
Fort Worth

What to Bring: Work gloves, water and a can-do spirit.

Lunch: > > > Bring your own or purchase, on-site, from Don’s Dawgs. (see menu below)

More Information: Contact Don Young at
donyoungglass@earthlink.net or 817-731-2787

See you on the prairie.

Don's Dawgs Menu for Brush Bash 2010

Hot Dogs - $3.00
Veggie Dogs - $3.00
Hot Links - $4.00
Nacho's - $3.00
Chili - $3.50

Above items include your choice of toppings. Chili, Cheese, Sauerkraut, Jalapeños, or Chopped Onions.

Assorted Chips - $1.00

Assorted Soft Drinks and Water - $1.00

Hot Chocolate - $1.50
Hot Spiced Cider - $1.50

We will accept Cash/Visa/MC/Discover