A Dozen Bogus Reasons For Flocking To Fort Worth

Yesterday's blogging about yet one more bridge feat of engineering completed in less than four years generated a comment which led to some amusing bum puzzlement....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wondering Again How It Can Take Fort Worth 4 Years To Build 3 Simple Bridges":

Hey now Mr. Jones, more people than ever are flocking to Fort Worth and there are 12 reasons why! Durrr!

A dozen reasons folks are flocking to Fort Worth like never before

You know an article's gonna be great when a photo from Brian Luenser is included! Double durrr!! 

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Yikes! Yet one more embarrassing piece of inflated propaganda. You can click the above link to see all 12 amazing reasons for the flocking to Fort Worth.

Among the dozen reasons people are flocking to Fort Worth is....

#10 Best Downtown in the Country
Fort Worth has the No. 1 Downtown in the U.S.

When I saw this propaganda yesterday there were two comments at that point in time....

Helo: #1 Downtown in the US?

What is this research? Even us here in Fort Worth know that's not true!

Scott Pederson: -> helo
http://www.livability.com/top-10/downtowns/10-best-downtowns/2014/tx/fort-worth...

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This is not the first time we have seen this livability.com Top 10 list used to tout Fort Worth as having the best downtown in America, to the utter befuddlement of people who have been to other downtown's in America.

This particular livability.com Top 10 list has been blogging fodder several times, including....

Is Fort Worth's The Best Small Downtown In America? and America Is In Deep Trouble If Fort Worth Is The Best Downtown In America.

This particular Top 10 Best Downtown's in America list was looking at the downtown's of small American towns. I don't know how Fort Worth, with a population of around 800,000, qualifies as a small town, but that's how the town looked to livability.com, apparently.

I was born  in one of the small towns on this Top 10 Best Downtown's list, that being Eugene, Oregon. I have lived in another of the small towns, Bellingham, Washington. Both Bellingham and Eugene have lively downtown's of the sort that, unlike Fort Worth's, are not ghost towns on the biggest shopping day of the year.

Isn't it sort of an act of false advertising to boldly proclaim Fort Worth has the #1 Downtown in America, due to being on this livability.com list of 10 small towns?

Wondering Again How It Can Take Fort Worth 4 Years To Build 3 Simple Bridges

My Favorite Oregon Cousin, Scott, took the picture you are looking at here, yesterday or the day before yesterday.

In the picture we are in Oregon, looking north across the Columbia River, with Washington hidden in the fog.

That bridge is known as the Astoria-Megler Bridge.

I do not remember if I have blogged about this bridge previously in one of my continuing series of bloggings about feats of engineering, usually bridges, built in four years, or less.

Over water.

I am motivated to blog about these feats of engineering due to the astonishing fact that a bridge building project, currently sort of underway in Fort Worth, has a four year project timeline.

Four years to build three simple, little bridges.

Over dry land.

Eventually, some day, way in the future, if money can be found to do so, a ditch may be dug under Fort Worth's bridges, with water added, which at that point the bridges will be connecting the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

No one has an explanation as to why it will take Fort Worth's infamous Boondoggle four years to build three simple, little bridges. Most people's best guess is there is a shortage of funds causing the slow motion construction.

The Astoria-Megler Bridge is not a simple, little bridge. The bridge is 4.1 miles long. The bridge is designed to handle wind blows of 150 mph and a river current of 9 mph. This bridge is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.

Obviously this bridge was built over water. With that water affected by tidal changes. While under construction the engineers had to contend with ship traffic making its way upriver from the Pacific, or heading downriver, out to sea.

Bridge building complications of the sort Fort Worth can only dream of.

And yet this bridge took less than four years to build, with construction beginning November 5, 1962, finished July 29, 1966.

As you can see via the above photo, the bridge as it leaves Astoria soars quite high. That is so ships can pass. Note that big pier upon which the cantilevered span rests.

I wonder if the local Astoria press made a big deal out of when that pier started to rise out of the water, like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram did when America's Biggest Boondoggle's pitiful little wooden forms for the bridge's V piers became visible rising from dry land?

I suspect not....

Listen To The Fort Worth Voice Of The Pulte Wall Of Shame

I think the first time I blogged about the Pulte Wall of Shame was back on September 29 in a blogging titled Why Is Fort Worth's Best Public Servant Ignoring The Pulte Wall Of Shame?

Then on December 4 I blogged about the Pulte Wall of Shame again in a blogging titled Arlington Pit & Fort Worth Wall Of Shame Examples Of Civic Irresponsibility.

On that same day, December 4, I heard from one of the primary Fort Worth victims of the Pulte Wall of Shame, via a text message on Facebook. However, due to a snafu with Facebook Messenger, I did not see that text message til yesterday.

The text message is worth repeating in its entirety for your enlightenment as to what it is like to live in a town with a corrupt city government and no newspapers practicing journalism of the sort practiced in more democratic locations in America and the world....

Durango,

Thank you so much for shining a light on our situation. Nearly 9 months later; most have simply walked away because it's not their wall and not their problem.

Please feel free to share my message here & the information I share with you in the comments section of your blog or a separate post or email or any medium you deem necessary.

You are 100% correct that The Star Telegram has essentially refused to cover our story despite my continued efforts to elicit their cooperation in running a story. I think I reached out to 4 various employees including editors AND reporters.

What's MORE interesting is how we were approached at City Hall by a reporter, Caty Hirst, to cover our story but who, after ONE conversation, which I'm sure was followed by her digging into the various sources and fact checking what I provided her, never interviewed me or wrote anything. We never truly spoke again. It appeared for weeks as if we were playing phone tag but in actuality, Caty may have been dodging me all together & never followed up on our story nor did anyone else at the Telegram. Coincidence? I think not. And I also think it absurd for any professional journalist to insinuate this isn't a good story...tragic as it is because it's MY real LIFE...this is good news that would draw in readers/viewers. So, suddenly dropping a story that you found so intriguing is suspicious to me.

As far as the Fort Worth Weekly...they reached out to us and I took the time (a lot of time, actually) to gather up all the documentation I could give them that THEY requested even when I told them that there was a LOT of information and documentation but that I was happy to walk them through it. And I did walk one reporter through it over the phone at length and he told me that he wanted to get something together quickly to run in the next couple of days in the public opinions section and that he'd then work on a big, full story. So, I even summarized for him the grabbing highlights he could use for the smaller section. All he had to do was print it. He contacted me two days later saying that their paper felt our story was "too complicated" for them and they wouldn't be covering it. 

Too complicated?!? Isn't that a journalists JOB...to "uncomplicate" and summarize/provide an overview of a situation and tell a story that the reader/viewer can grasp? Are journalists simply not capable of this anymore? I mean, I had even done the heavy lifting for him so navigating through it wouldn't have been so difficult. No, journalists are completely capable of this but in Fort Worth loose lips sink ships and the media here is more concerned with politics and staying in the old boy's club than actually doing what they're here for...to TELL THE STORIES of the people who live within the city; to SHINE A LIGHT on corruption or problems or public causes or needs.

If I've learned ANYthing over the last several months it's that journalism is NOT what it used to be. For someone, who as a young girl, idolized journalism and has the heart of a writer; this discovery was heartbreaking. Our media is bought, plain and simple. And you and I don't have pockets deep enough to buy any of it.

As far as Betsy...no, she still is yet to return a call, email or come out to see the catastrophe for herself. Heck, would've been nice if her office had even just reached out during these terrible floods to ask if we needed sandbags!! Councilman Moon paid nice lip service as well that he would help and outside of one completely useless email that took THREE WEEKS to get; he did nothing.

Even if our arrogant city refuses to own up to their part in this devastation; the very least they could do is pretend to CARE about my family. To think that we sat in a meeting with EVERY SINGLE department in this city and they looked in our eyes and those of my two little children and not only didn't fulfill what they promised but haven't even bothered to have an intern shoot off an email to inquire as to how we are after the terrible weather?!? That's purely disgusting. That's the best, most polite word I have for it. Disgusting.

Sorry for the length of this but I wanted to answer some of your questions.

Thank you again for continuing to call out responsible parties and shine a light that the city keeps trying to cover.

-Krissy Irizarry-

Fort Worth Boondoggle's Second Roundabout Public Art Revealed?

Last week Fort Worth locals were stunned at the million dollar reveal of a work of public art stuck at the center of the only one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's roundabouts currently under construction.

Opinions vary as to what that roundabout work of art looks like. Ruins of a water tower? A garbage can?  A drain trap?

Yesterday as I was merrily scrolling along in Facebook I came upon that which you see here and instantly wondered if I was looking at an artist's rendering of another of The Boondoggle's public art works installations.

However, I quickly learned that this work of art is, or was, located in the Texas tourist town of Fredericksburg.

This Frederickburg work of art is known as the Fredericksburg Christmas Pyramid.

I do not know if this art installation is currently installed in Fredericksburg, of if this is from a Christmas past.

This Fredericksburg work of public art does look like it would fit in just fine at the center of one of The Boondoggle's roundabouts. It'd probably cost a lot less than a million bucks.

Changing the subject, slightly.

Yesterday a fellow former Pacific Northwesterner and I were talking about America's Biggest Boondoggle and that embarrassing work of art The Boondoggle dedicated with a ceremony last week, when the former PNWer opined that would it not make more sense to simply plant a tall tree at that roundabout location, with Texas friendly vegetation surrounding the tree, creating an eye pleasing green space? Perhaps with a water feature to add to the overall eye pleasing aesthetics?

And another thing about the million dollar roundabout garbage can water tower ruin that occurred to me. Could not a local Fort Worth artist be found to design an eye pleasing installation at the center of that roundabout?

Has anyone eye witnessed the Fredericksburg Christmas Pyramid?

Fort Worth Public Artfully Wraps Ugly Except For Outhouses

Eagle Eyed Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to this interesting tidbit of Fort Worth news about some new Fort Worth public art.

Fort Worth public art, paid for via a 2% fee charged to a Fort Worth public works project, is a bit controversial of late, due to a visually distracting traffic eyesore that cost nearly a million dollars and sits in the middle of one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's traffic roundabouts, installed well before the construction of the roundabout was completed.

Some have questioned whether America's Biggest Boondoggle qualifies for the 2% public arts deal, due to the fact that the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision is a quasi-public works project that is the feeble brainchild of a quasi-public agency known as the Tarrant Regional Water District.

Another reason for the validity of the 2% public arts deal being in question, regarding The Boondoggle getting funds for such, is the fact that the public has never voted on any aspect of this imaginary public works project, nor has the public been allowed to participate in any sort of public hearings regarding same, in any meaningful way.

The new works of public art which Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to is detailed in the following three paragraphs....

COMING SOON: Fort Worth Public Art is also looking for local artists to create 14 artwork images for traffic control cabinets on East Lancaster Avenue. Houston already has these fancy boxes around the city.

The idea is to make art out of drab, ugly boxes that house traffic signal controls.

“These structures provide an opportunity for the city of Fort Worth to poetically invest in its utility infrastructure,” FWPA explains on its website. “The artist designed wraps will contribute to a growing collection of public art blossoming along the corridor that connect different neighborhoods along the way.”

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I have never noticed ugly traffic control boxes in need of an aesthetic covering. Have you?

However, in many of Fort Worth's public parks I have noticed an ugly item which might benefit from an artistic cover.

Outhouses.

Fort Worth has more outhouses in more public parks than any other major city in America.

America's Biggest Boondoggle sort of  pretties up the outhouses located at its imaginary world class music venue called Panther Island Pavilion, where there is no island or pavilion, but there are outhouses shrouded in concrete enclosures, slightly mitigating the eyesore aspect.

Wouldn't covering Fort Worth's army of outhouses in colorful wraps be a good use of public art funds? And a lot more people would see this "art" than those who might notice artfully disguised traffic control boxes.....

Bertha Will Be Done Digging Before Fort Worth's Boondoggle Bridge Ditch Is Dug

I saw that which you see here in the Seattle Times. I thought it to be interesting, the contrast between how a problem with a public works project is covered in a Seattle newspaper as compared to how the Star-Telegram covers a problem, or problems, with a local pseudo public works project.

The Highway 99 tunnel project in downtown Seattle has been stalled for about two years due to the world's biggest tunnel boring machine, named Bertha, running into some unexpected steel, causing a lot of damage to Bertha.

As you can read, via the text under the picture of the hole Bertha is in, the new tunnel was originally supposed to open this month.

If Bertha manages to bore successfully, the project timeline now has the tunnel open in  2018.

While Bertha was stalled, other parts of the approximately $4 billion project continued and are on schedule.

The Bertha problems and the ongoing fix have been reported in detail in Seattle media.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, there also is a stalled public works project, which used to be known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision.

But is now known simply as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Even with the delay Bertha will end up taking about four years to dig the biggest diameter tunnel ever bored.

While in Fort Worth, America's Biggest Boondoggle started construction on long delayed bridges in October of 2014, with a four year project timeline. To build three simple little bridges over dry land.

The Fort Worth bridge construction had no mechanical malfunctions to explain why it was a year after the supposed start of construction that big fanfare ensued due to bridge piers finally being under construction for one of the bridges.

Yes, you read that right. One year later only one of the Fort Worth bridges is under construction. And a big fuss was made because the wood forms for the bridge's piers could be seen.

Now, unlike the Seattle Times, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram makes no effort to explain to its few readers why this Fort Worth pseudo public works project has accomplished so little in a project which has spanned most of this century.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has not asked The Boondoggle for the real reason the bridges are being built over dry land, since it is obvious The Boondoggle's claim that the over dry land construction is a cost saving tactic is bogus. Because the reality of The Boondoggle's bridges is there will be no water under those bridges until a ditch is dug under them and water is diverted from the Trinity River.

Why does the Star-Telegram repeat The Boondoggle's propaganda about the bridge construction without questioning the obvious disinformation?

Why does the Star-Telegram not do some investigative journalism looking into the finances of The Boondoggle?

How many taxpayer dollars have been spent on the TRVA worker's salaries, including J.D. Granger's, over the course of this overly extended slow motion project? How much has the dithering added to the cost due to having to pay the people running The Boondoggle for years longer than if this had been a well executed project?

How much money has been spent on the frequent propaganda mailers sent out by The Boondoggle?

How much money has been spent on The Boondoggle's signage?

How much money has been spent on the The Boondoggle's Epstein propaganda purveyors?

How much money did The Boondoggle spend to dig the pond for the defunct Cowtown Wakepark?

If The Boondoggle was taking place in Seattle, or any other town in America with a real newspaper, you would have the answers to those questions, instead of reading the questions, unanswered, in a blog like this.

Come And Take It Durango

Someone I shall not name emailed me that which you see here.

What message is this conveying?

DURANGO COME AND TAKE IT

Come and take what?

And why is this message on the bottom of what appears to be a shoe?

Who is walking around with a shoe advertising this message?

I have a bad feeling I am never going to get any answers to these probing questions....

Are You One Of The Great American Embarrassments Supporting Trump?

Today when I hit the publish button on a blogging, and then checked to see that it published correctly, I was a bit, well, mortified, to see I was sort of advertising the world's currently most notorious human.

Donald Trump.

Well, maybe not the world's most notorious human, that title is likely still held by that other little man with bad hair, you know, that creepy killer who rules North Korea with bombast and firing squads.

But, I can not think of a human, currently, more notorious in America than The Donald.

I have no control over what ads Google's AdSense puts on my blog. I can only control the category of ads. Like maybe block political ads, but I'm not sure that blocking political ads is a blocking option.

The ads Google AdSense displays are contextual. Meaning Google tries to match ads with the content of the blog post and what Google determines are what the blog reader may be interested in. I must have been to some Trump-related thing, or maybe I mentioned Trump in a blog post, or maybe some Trump entity is paying a lot of many to put this Trump ad on any fool blog out there.

I really don't know.

What I do know is it is somehow just a little embarrassing to find myself, even indirectly, advertising anything to do with Mr.Trump.

I used to have a non-negative opinion of Donald Trump. Back when he was simply a billionaire who sort of made an ass of himself firing people on a reality TV show. He seemed innocuous til the day he announced he was going to attempt to become the next Republican president. His announcement was ripe with absurdly stupid hatespeak, which only signaled the beginning of a lot of absurdly stupid hatespeak to come.

The Donald's hatespeak has gotten so much worse.

But, he speaks the language of the great mass of under educated, ill-informed, nonsense spewers who are what I refer to as The Great American Embarrassment.

The Great American Embarrassment is all over the Internet. Or listen to right wing talk radio. Or read the comments to a FOX News online article. Or attend a Tea Party meeting. Or a Sarah Palin speech.

Methinks the Great American Majority has had their fill of the Great American Embarrassment, with a big change coming via the next election.

Then again, I have previously admitted I am a hopeless optimist who is frequently disappointed and thus fully prepared to seek refugee status in Canada, should Donald Trump or Ted Cruz get elected by the Great American Embarrassment, which would mean that the Great American Embarrassment had become the Great American Majority, to the shuddering horror of a lot of Americans and the rest of the world....

Why Is America's Biggest Boondoggle Celebrating A Brewery Birthday?

That is J.D. Granger you are looking at here, holding what appears to be some sort of adult libation. I am not sure who the lady is standing next to J.D., except for being fairly certain it is not J.D.'s wife. The lady does look like a lady we saw years ago in a Dallas hotel with J.D., but the name escapes me.

A blog comment showed up this morning which pointed me to this photo...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Dam Failure Endangers Dallas With No Army Corps Of Engineers Help":

J.D. Granger and Matt Oliver sightings if you have any interest:

Pics: Panther Island Brewing's 1st birthday party

Granger - pic #141
Oliver - pics #37, #51 and #142

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The Matt Oliver being referred to is, along with J.D. Granger, one of the TRWD's most infamous nepotism cases, what with Matt Oliver being among the Jim Oliver relatives on the TRWD payroll.

The concept that nepotism is a form of corruption did not get taught in civics class at this location on the planet.

So, it has been a big week for America's Biggest Boondoggle. We had the ridiculous dedication ceremony for a piece of alleged "art" which has been met with widespread revulsion and disgust plus a party to celebrate the one year anniversary of a brewery associated with The Boondoggle.

It gives one pause to wonder if a qualified project manager had been put in charge of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle if we would be seeing things like the goofy dedication of an ugly artwork in an unfinished construction zone and a party to celebrate a brewery anniversary?

Would we be seeing this Panther Island nomenclature embarrassment plastered all over? Would a qualified project manager have nixed putting time and money into "branding" with that branding labeling a chunk of land as an island, when it is not an island, and will only be an imaginary/pseudo island if a ditch is dug into which river water is diverted?

If a qualified project manager had been hired would we being seeing things like a flooded wakeboard pond? Would we be seeing inner tube floats in the polluted Trinity River? Would we have seen resources diverted to create a barebones, shoddy, tacky, outhouse serviced, music venue, touted as Panther Island Pavilion?

Would we be seeing multiple beer and booze parties, in various iterations, throughout the year?

Would we be seeing a pitiful ice rink showing up for a few weeks during the winter, called Panther Island Ice?

Would what is now known as America's Biggest Boondoggle already be completed if a competent qualified project engineer had been hired? Would a competent qualified project engineer sign off on a project timeline of four years to build three simple, little bridges over dry land?

Or would a qualified project engineer have been mortified regarding the damage to his reputation that would result from being part of taking four years to build three simple, little bridges?

Over dry land

Alleging doing so to save money, as opposed to building over water. Where there will be no water until the river is diverted into the un-dug ditch.

How many more years will J.D. Granger be being paid his over $100,000, plus expenses, annual salary? How much has it added to the cost of America's Biggest Boondoggle to be paying J.D. and his cohorts in incompetency years beyond what it would have taken a well-managed project to be completed?

America's Biggest Boondoggle is very boggling.....

Happy Birthday B.K.S. Iyengar You Yoga Monster

This morning's attempt to do a yoga routine did not go much better than my last attempt. The Reverse Plough, which I used to easily do, continues to vex me.

And then, a few minutes after being vexed by the Reverse Plough I go to look up something on Google to suddenly find  myself wondering why is Google mocking my yoga woes?

However, I quickly figured out that I was being hypersensitive regarding my yoga issues, with all knowing Google knowing nothing about them.

I eventually figured out the reason a skinny cartoon figure was doing yoga positions on my Google screen was due to today being the 97th birthday of someone named B.K.S Iyengar.

I had no clue what this Iyengar guy had to do with yoga, so I Googled his name to learn....

Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar, better known as B.K.S. Iyengar, was the founder of the style of yoga known as "Iyengar Yoga" and was considered one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world.
I do not know what the style is of the yoga I am inept at doing. I'd not heard  of the Iyengar Yoga style til today.

I suspect B.K.S. Iyengar was easily able to do the Reverse Plough position, likely up til the day he died.....