Indigenous People's Day Celebrating The Invasion Of Columbus

This morning I was dealing with an aggravating aggravation that aggravated me so much I forgot today was Indigenous People's Day, formerly known, by most, as Columbus Day.

The day some Americans honor a guy from Italy who sailed the oceans blue, in 1492, finding islands in what we now call the Caribbean, but which Columbus, that intrepid explorer, thought must be India, and so the Indigenous People's Columbus discovered became known to the incoming European invaders as Indians.

Columbus plundered what he could from the Indigenous People, left them with some diseases, to which they were not immune, kidnapped about a dozen of the "Indians", shackled them and floated them back to Spain to show to his benefactors, Isabella and Ferdinand.

The Indigenous People Columbus kidnapped were never returned to their homeland. I don't recollect how the kidnapped IPs died or where they were buried.

The Spanish method of dealing with Indigenous People was to convert them from their heathen ways to being good Christians and if met with resistance to torture and kill the resistors so as to save their mortal souls. Sort of an ISIS of its day.

I think I will continue my Indigenous People's Day celebrating by making an Asian stir fry for lunch.

It Was A Dark Stormy Night In Texas

It was a dark and stormy night, last night, in North Texas. This morning it is less dark and stormy than last night.

Even though rain and hail added a couple inches to the pool I managed to have myself a stormy swim this morning. I retreated, briefly, to the hot tub one time only, for a minute or two, til I overheated, then it was back into the refreshing pool.

I do know how many hours the storm kept me awake last night. I do know I am tired this morning.

The storm started gradual, wind picking up, then a slight pelting of raindrops on the windows. After an hour of prelude thunder in the distance announced the approach of the main show.

The main show started with strong wind, then heavy rain, with some of the aforementioned hail. There were three lightning strikes close enough to my abode that the flash and the boom were simultaneous.

I've not heard any reports of wind damage as severe as that from the windstorm a couple Thursday's ago. The strong wind did not last long at my location, but it was wickedly strong when it was gusting.

I was considering going on a bike ride tour of my neighborhood, but just stepping outside to take the above picture was a bit bracing. Currently 62 with wind making it feel colder.

I Do Not Know If Waterspouts Are In The North Texas Forecast For Indigenous People's Day

I came upon this waterspout photo whilst perusing the KOMO TV news online this morning. The Pierce County referenced in the headline is in the State of Washington. It is the county in which Tacoma is located.

The water is spouting in front of Anderson Island. Anderson Island is a real island, surrounded by a wide body of water, unlike Fort Worth's Panther Island, which is not surrounded by a wide body of water, or any water to be more precise.

I have only seen a waterspout once, years ago looking towards Bellingham from Samish Island.

Samish Island is sort of like Fort Worth's Panther Island in that it is not actually an island. Except, unlike Fort Worth's imaginary island, Samish Island used to be a real island before Dutch dikers blocked the saltwater, turning what had been underwater into farmland.

Anyway, apparently here in North Texas we are heading into some stormy weather on Indigenous People's Day. I don't know if any waterspouting is possible. There is not a lot of water to do any spouting in North Texas.

I learned of the incoming storming this morning via the Texas Master of Weatherology, John Basham....

Weather Update: Okay my fellow North Texans... I hope you enjoyed the great cooler temperatures today (Saturday). Here we go. Winds will turn around to the South on Sunday and begin to pick up by late afternoon  / early evening. By 7pm Sunday night winds will be out of the South at 15-25 mph and gusty. Meanwhile a cold front will be rapidly moving across the Southern Plains and it will arrive in the DFW metro by early Monday morning. Ahead of the front we may see a few thunderstorms (Sunday night after 7pm) a few of these storms could be severe with large hail and gusty winds. But the real show starts between 5am and 9am Monday across the D/FW metro with a squall line of storms rapidly moving East across North Texas at 35mph. This forward motion along with ANY gusty winds will cause Severe Thunderstorm winds Monday morning (Columbus Day) will add to the 35mph allowing for winds in excess of 75mph. After the storms pass Monday morning winds will shift back around to the North-Northwest at 20-30mph and will be very gusty. So in short get ready for some wind, rain, and lightning late Sunday night into Monday morning and more cool wet weather. Basham

At Fosdick Lake Walking By Uprooted Trees With Wildflowers Prior To A Town Talk Visit Ending South Of The Border

Inclement weather, in the form of rain mixed with some thunder, last night, again rendered Gateway Park and the Tandy Hills likely muddy, so, just like last Saturday, I opted to walk around Fosdick Lake in Oakland Lake Park for my Saturday pre-Town Talk communing with nature.

The wind damage from the storm two Thursday's ago is still in evidence all over Oakland Lake Park. The fallen trees have been chainsawed into pieces, for the most part, with the brush and wood chunks gathered in dozens of piles, either awaiting being picked up or dried up enough to become a few dozen bonfires.

Most of the tree damage was in the form of the wind snapping off a chunk of a tree, or snapping the tree midway up the trunk. The tree remains you see above is the only instance I saw where the wind totally yanked the tree out of the ground, leaving a big hole, currently filled with water.

Yesterday the outer world was heated well into the 90s, with shorts being my only outerwear for most of the day. This morning the outer world was chilled to somewhere in the 50s, making the pool feel much warmer than the air. Out and about today I was in long pants with a long sleeved shirt. And was still a bit chilly whilst walking, at first. Eventually I warmed up, a little. Currently, at 2 in the afternoon, we are still chilled into the 50s, 59 to be precise.

Changing the subject back to walking around Fosdick Lake.

The past week or two I've been seeing the wildflower you see below sprouting colorful at the various locations I find myself rolling or walking.

I don't remember wildflowers blooming this time of the year. But, my memory is very faulty, so I've likely forgotten. I'm thinking maybe renowned Fort Worth Horticulturist, CatsPaw may be able to identify this late bloomer.

Every gas station I came across today whilst out and about had gas under $3. The cheapest I saw was $2.93.

The Town Talk parking lot was near capacity, filling me with a little dread of a crowd inside. But, inside the store was not overcrowded and I had zero wait in the checkout line to get a case of yogurt made from soy and coconut, a big bag of orange, yellow and red mini-sweet peppers, cheese from my home country of Holland, red beans, white spuds, orange carrots and other stuff I am not remembering right now.

Leaving Town Talk I headed north on Beach Street with the El Rancho Supermercado as my destination. I wanted some of their hot out of the oven flour tortillas. That and I find this store to be like a trip south of the border.

Speaking of tortillas. Hunger pains are telling me it is time now to make me some bean and cheese tortillas.

Legalizing Recreational Use Of Marijuana Is Not On The November Texas Ballot

A couple days ago I blogged a blogging titled Looking Forward To Celebrating Indigenous People's Day Possibly With The Texas Kickapoo Tribe in which I mentioned that I often will read something in one of the online news sources emanating from my old home zone and think to myself, self, that is something you'd never read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A couple weeks ago my great nephew Spencer Jack's dad emailed me a photo of an advertisement in my old home zone's newspaper, the Skagit Valley Herald.

I blogged about this on my Washington blog in a blogging titled In Washington Marijuana Is State Approved With Loving Farms Open For Business.

If my memory is serving me accurately this is the 3rd marijuana selling store to open in my old home zone.

I have read that the marijuana selling stores in Washington are having trouble stocking their stores with the weed that is now legal to sell. Apparently only marijuana certified by some means by the state can be sold. Which apparently means you can not grow your own and sell it in a state sanctioned store.

It is perfectly legal to grow your own for your own use. And even to partner up with your neighbors and grow a communal pot plot.

Marijuana is very easy to grow, so I really don't quite understand how these pot selling stores are going to make a go of it.

Anyway, back to the you'll never see this in the Star-Telegram, or any Texas newspaper, theme.

How long do you think it will be before recreational use of marijuana becomes legal in Texas? Making it legal seems to be spreading. Lately I read Oregon and New York are considering the de-criminalizing pot issue.

Rolling Wheels In My Neighborhood On A Street Named After A Fungal Disease

Today I rolled  my bike wheels without rolling my motorized vehicle's wheels first. In other words I took my handlebars on a tour of the neighborhood.

The roads to the west of my neighborhood power line greenbelt are smoothly paved, wide, hilly, and with little traffic.

At one point I stopped my handlebars to take a picture of the odd item springing from the ground you see on the left. Is this some sort of art installation?

Rolling my wheels on these roads reminds me very much of rolling my wheels in my old home zone, that being the Thunderbird area of Mount Vernon.

In Thunderbird all the streets had Indian names. I lived on Pawnee Lane. Pawnee is a cul-de-sac that connects to Apache Drive. Apache Drive comes in contact with Kiowa Drive, Seneca Drive, Mohawk Drive, Cherokee Lane, Comanche Drive, Iroquois Drive, and, well, you get the idea.

Where I rolled my wheels today the streets mostly seem to be named after vegetation. Such as Palo Verde Lane, Cholla Lane, Lantana Lane, Silverleaf Drive. Well, those four are the only ones I remember and of the four the only one that I am almost certain is vegetation is Palo Verde. I think that means Green Bush.

I must go Google now and find out for sure what Palo Verde means. Silverleaf, too. Silverleaf sounds like it must be vegetation.

Wow.

Turns out my initial instinct was correct. The streets are named after vegetation. Well, vegetation related. Palo Verde is a green bush. Cholla is a type of cactus. Lantana is a tropical evergreen shrub. Silverleaf is a fungal disease of ornamental and fruit trees.

Why would anyone name a street after a fungal disease?

Washington's Deception Pass Bridge Took A Deceptively Short Time To Build

Continuing on with my extremely popular series of bloggings looking at bridges which took around four years, or less, to build, in my continuing quest to get an answer as to why it is projected to take four years for Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle to build Three Bridges Over Nothing, today we are going to take a look at one of the most iconic bridges of the Pacific Northwest, Deception Pass Bridge.

Deception Pass Bridge is a short distance from where I lived  in Washington. Deception Pass State Park has some of my all time favorite hiking trails. It is a place I frequented frequently and a bridge I've crossed countless times.

A couple blurbs from the Wikipedia Deception Pass Bridge article, along with Wikipedia's bulleted list of facts about this bridge.

In the spring of 1792, Joseph Whidbey, master of HMS Discovery and Captain Vancouver's chief navigator proved that it was not really a small bay as charted by the Spaniards (hence the name "Deception"), but a deep and turbulent channel that connects the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the Saratoga Passage, which separates the mainland from what they believed was a peninsula (actually Fidalgo Island and Whidbey Island). Thomas Coupe, a sea captain and founder of Coupeville, was the only man ever to sail a full-rigged ship through the strait discovered by Whidbey.

The bridge, one of the scenic wonders of the Pacific Northwest, is actually two spans, one over Canoe Pass to the north, and another over Deception Pass to the south. The Wallace Bridge and Structural Co. of Seattle, Washington provided 460 tons of steel for the 511-foot Canoe Pass arch and 1130 tons for the 976-foot Deception Pass span. The cost of the New Deal-era construction was $482,000, made possible through the Public Works Administration and county funds.

Bridge Facts

• Height from water to roadway: about 180 feet, depending on the tide
• Roadway: two 11-foot lanes, one in each direction
• Sidewalks: 3 foot sidewalk on each side
• Width of bridge deck: 28 feet
• Total length: 1487 feet (more than a quarter mile)
• Canoe Pass: one 350-ft arch and three concrete T-beam approach spans
• Deception Pass: two 175-ft cantilever spans, one 200-ft suspended span, and four concrete T-beam approach spans
• Vehicle crossings: 20,000 per day, average
• Maximum speed of current in Deception Pass at flood/ebb tide: 9 kts
• Maximum speed of current in Canoe Pass at flood/ebb tide: 10 kts
• Suicides from jumping from the bridge total 12 in 2009 and 15 in 2010

I really do not think that suicide count can possibly be correct. Over the years there have been bridge jumpers, but 25 in a two year period? I think this would have been something I'd heard about.

A couple things from the Wikipedia article stood out to me. One was the mention made of the bridge being one of the scenic wonders of the Pacific Northwest. Do you think a Wikipedia article in the future will be referring to Fort Worth's Bridges Over Nothing as one of the scenic wonders of North Texas?

Did you notice that the Deception Pass Bridge was not built over nothing? But built high above extremely fast moving water.

When there is an extreme tide level differential the water moving through Deception Pass is an amazing display of hydraulic force.

So, you must be wondering how long it took to build this feat of bridge engineering.

Well.

Construction began in August of 1934.

And was completed and opened to traffic on July 31, 1935.

The Deception Pass Bridge took less than a year to build.

On the left you are looking at a postcard showing Deception Pass Bridge under construction.

I took this picture postcard from a blogging I blogged years ago on my Washington blog about Deception Pass Bridge.

Now I ask, yet again, how in the world can Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing take four years to build?  The Bridges Over Nothing are simple, relatively small bridges. There is no feat of engineering involved in the Boondoggle's bridges.

Four years? How can it take four years to build these vitally important bridges which are key to building the un-needed flood diversion channel which may, someday, flow under the bridges, giving them, finally, a reason for being?

Looking Forward To Celebrating Indigenous People's Day Possibly With The Texas Kickapoo Tribe

Every once in awhile, well, actually, almost every day, I'll be reading one the online versions of one of the newspapers in my old home zone of Washington and find myself thinking, well, that is a headline that will likely never been seen in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Like the headline above.

Can you imagine the Fort Worth City Council causing natives to get celebratory by replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day? I don't know if there are any Indigenous People still in Fort Worth to do any celebrating. Most were moved via a primitive form of eminent domain abuse, a long, long time ago, with most who survived being slaughtered ending up in Oklahoma, like Quanah Parker.

We do have a Quanah Parker Park in Fort Worth, though. So, there is that.

Seattle is not the first American town to celebrate Indigenous People's Day. That honor goes to Berkeley, California and Denver, Colorado.

I have long known that Columbus Day is a federal holiday. I did not know til today that four states opt out of Columbus Day. Those four would be Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and South Dakota. I don't know if Alaska, Hawaii  and Oregon have a Columbus Day replacement, like Indigenous People's Day, but I do know that South Dakota replaces Columbus Day with Native American Day.

It is fitting that South Dakota celebrates Native American Day. What with the shady way the Black Hills were taken from the Sioux. And what with the last massacre of the Indian Wars taking place in South Dakota at Wounded Knee.

Other American towns have cancelled Columbus Day, such as San Francisco, which celebrates Italian Heritage Day instead, I'm assuming because a lot of San Franciscans are of Italian descent and Christopher Columbus was Italian. I may be assuming incorrectly.

One would think Columbus, Ohio would celebrate Columbus Day. Instead the Columbus, Ohio Columbus Day Parade has been cancelled since the 1990s, due to the revisionist modern view of Christopher Columbus and his "discovery" exploits.

Unlike Texas, Washington has a large population of Native Americans, with some 30 tribes owning tribal land. Below, from Wikipedia, is a list of all the federally recognized reservations in Washington, followed by a list of the federally recognized reservations in Texas....

Name of Reservation	Date Reservation Established	Area of Reservation (acres)	Location of Reservation
Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation	1860	4,225	southeastern Grays Harbor County and southwestern Thurston County
Colville Indian Reservation	1872	1,400,000[2]	primarily southeastern section of Okanogan County and the southern half of Ferry County
Cowlitz			Cowlitz County near Longview, Washington
Hoh Indian Reservation	1893[3]	477	the Pacific Coast of Jefferson County
Jamestown S'Klallam Indian Reservation			near Sequim Bay, in extreme eastern Clallam County
Kalispel Indian Reservation			the town of Cusick, in Pend Oreille County
Lower Elwha Indian Reservation			the mouth of the Elwha River, in Clallam County
Lummi Indian Reservation	1855	13,600	west of Bellingham, in western Whatcom County
Makah Indian Reservation	1855	30,010	on Cape Flattery in Clallam County
Muckleshoot Indian Reservation	1874[3]	3,533	southeast of Auburn in King County.
Nisqually Indian Reservation	1854	5,000 (approx.)[4]	western Pierce County and eastern Thurston County
Nooksack Indian Reservation			town of Deming, Washington in western Whatcom County
Port Gamble Indian Reservation			Port Gamble Bay in Clallam County
Port Madison Reservation (Suquamish Indian Reservation)			western and northern shores of Port Madison, northern Kitsap County
Puyallup Indian Reservation	1854–1856[3]	18,062	primarily northern Pierce County
Quileute Indian Reservation			southwestern portion of the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County
Quinault Indian Reservation	1856	208,150	primarily the north coast of Grays Harbor County
Samish Indian Reservation			Anacortes, pending outcome of legal claims
Sauk-Suiattle Indian Reservation
Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation
Skokomish Indian Reservation
Snoqualmie Indian Reservation
Spokane Indian Reservation	1881	133,344
Squaxin Island Indian Reservation	1854	1,418 (Squaxin Island) / 1,715 (total)
Stillaguamish Indian Reservation
Swinomish Indian Reservation
Tulalip Indian Reservation	1855	24,300
Upper Skagit Indian Reservation
Yakama Indian Reservation	1890s–1914	1,118,149

Wikipedia's American Indian reservations in Texas article does not have a table listing all the tribe's reservations in Texas, because there are only three tribes to list....

• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas
• Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas
• Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

The only one of the three Texas tribes I'd heard of before is the Kickapoo, due to having made a webpage about the town of Eagle Pass, which is near the Kickapoo reservation and their Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino.

I wonder if the Kickapoo celebrate Columbus Day? Or do they opt to celebrate Indigenous People's Day instead?

The Star-Telegram Needs To Be Spanked For Its Unreasonable Endorsement Of Kay Granger

 I returned from a biking inspection of my neighborhood to find an email with a subject line I'd not seen before.

"Spank 'em!".

The 'em being referred to is Fort Worth's prolific propaganda purveyor, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the mouthpiece of the good ol' network which runs Fort Worth helping keeping the Fort Worth Way of operating alive and kicking, despite a lot of people alive and kicking trying to bring progressive modern American times to Fort Worth and its surrounding area.

The "Spank 'em!" email in its entirety....

Durango,

The Star-Telegram has issued its non-endorsement in our race today, and we hope that you will help barrage them with Letters-to-the Editor in protest. While these won’t change their decision, it will take them to task for their irresponsibility in filling an important advisory role to the voters, and raise our campaign’s profile in the process.  

Their tepid endorsement of Granger reads:

“Granger, a former Fort Worth mayor, was elected in 1997 to serve House District 12 (western Tarrant County, all of Parker County and the southeastern portion of Wise County). She’s vice chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Democrat Mark Greene has raised the profile of the race, but neither he nor Libertarian Ed Colliver can overcome Granger’s name recognition and leadership.”

Again, Granger voted for the sequester, to shut down the government, twice to default on the debt, against funding CHIP, against equal pay for women, and steamrolled the Trinity River Vision project into being – a huge and irresponsible burden around the necks of her constituents.

We shared our thoughts on our Facebook page this morning:

“We are clearly disappointed that the Star-Telegram sees its role as that of handicapper, rather than as a reasoned evaluator of legislative competence and vision. It is a safe stance to take, but clearly not one helpful to voters seeking more from their elected representatives than they are currently getting...”

While the Star-Telegram’s endorsement/non-endorsement was not unexpected, the fact that they present no grounds on which to support Granger over us – with Congress’ approval ratings near single digits and her party veering badly off the rails, leaves ample room for criticism. Again, letters must be under 200 words, in your own words, accompanied by your contact information, and received timely. Mail to: letters@star-telegram.com.

Thanks for all you do,

Hometown By Handlebar Provides Definitive Detail Of How Long It Took To Build Fort Worth's Paddock Viaduct

Earlier today in my quest to find out why the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing are projected to take four years to build I looked at Fort Worth's Paddock Viaduct.

I was unable to pin down exact dates as to the start and end of construction of the Paddock Viaduct, yet I was able to determine that it is yet one more much more complicated, much more impressive feat of bridge engineering than the Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing.

And that the Paddock Viaduct was built in less than four years.

In Fort Worth there is this guy, Mike Nichols, who has a website called Hometown by Handlebar, in which he does such a good job of telling the story of the history of Fort Worth that I am regularly amazed at the material he comes up with.

For instance, years ago when I came upon the memorial to Al Haynes and the Texas Spring Palace, at that point in time in run down eyesore condition, since restored, I webpaged what little info I could find about this piece of Fort Worth history.

Recently Hometown by Handlebar told the story of the Texas Spring Palace and Al Haynes in Three Parts. How this information gets discovered at this level of detail by Mr. Nichols is a mystery to me.  The story of the Texas Spring Palace and Al Haynes really needs to be made into a movie.

The Hometown by Handlebar history of the Texas Spring Palace and Al Haynes in Three Parts: Texas Spring Palace (Part 1): Cowtown’s Karporama, Texas Spring Palace (Part 2): A Blaze of Glory and Texas Spring Palace (Part 3): “No Truer Hero Ever Died”

Pointing me to the Hometown by Handlebar Paddock Viaduct information came via a blog comment....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Century Ago Fort Worth's Biggest Bridge Was Built Over The Trinity River In Less Than Four Years": 

The Hometown by Handlebar guy has further info on the Paddock Viaduct:

http://hometownbyhandlebar.com/?p=11828