Boy, time flies when you’re battling giants. Has it really been 10 years since Don Young first heard about plans to start drilling for natural gas beneath Tandy Hills Natural Area? Young’s heart sped up, and his gut churned. He lives across the street from the city-owned park that features native grasses, rolling hills, and walking trails. He couldn’t imagine an industrial setting like a drill site blending in with the park’s 160 acres of natural beauty.
Young had found a calling, and he dove into it head first. He founded Friends of Tandy Hills Natural Area and its offshoot, FWCanDO, and attended countless task force meetings and public hearings on drilling ordinances. Perhaps his crowning achievement was establishing Prairie Fest in 2006 as the first public protest against urban gas drilling. The event was held in his front yard that year, but has since moved to Tandy Hills and become a unique celebration of the environment, drawing thousands of visitors each year.
The celebration continues on Saturday with the 9th Annual Prairie Fest, featuring nature walks, solar-powered live music, storytelling, plein air painters, and food vendors. Admission is free. And Young will be strolling around all day. You might thank him for all he’s done to try to protect residents from a drilling industry that operates with few restraints.
Chewing Crow
The old saying that those who “live by the sword, die by the sword” stretches all the way back to the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible. Old Mattie is probably chuckling as Static prepares to pen the rest of this column.
Earlier this month, Static mentioned, er, strongly pointed out, er, well, OK, gleefully stuck a sword in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for its dismal showing in the annual Texas Associated Press Managing Editors journalism competition (“And the Winner Isn’t,” April 9, 2014). The column described the daily paper as “green around the gills” and “staring at a bunch of third places and honorable mentions.”
Last weekend, the Fort Worth chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held its First Amendment Awards dinner in Arlington. Fort Worth Weekly staff writers Peter Gorman, Eric Griffey, and Jeff Prince all were finalists. All donned their best duds and went to fetch their hardware and make humble speeches about journalistic devotion and excellence.
Except none of those writers won a damn thing. What does the Bible say about shame and embarrassment? Ah here it is: “Those who gloat over a competitor’s failure shalt remain quiet lest thou be forced to open wide thy mouth and insert thy foot.”
Who are these defiant creeps? Let’s round them all up and take them to a monster truck rally and then force feed them brisket, ribs, sausage and pitchers of beer. They will come around. They had better come around or Rick Perry is gonna personally kick their no good libbtard commie asses for holdin’ out and impedin’ progress. Now just sign the papers and shut up! This is a red state! Now get your ass to church and take your kids out deer huntin’!
I’ll give up my hard-won prairie grass to Dickhead Perry when and only when he pry’s it from my cold dead hands.
How dare you speak of the gubbner in that way. He’s a’ fixin’ tuh make Christian prayer mandatory in all public schools! We need that and so do our kids. We gonna secede frum the union too! Gonna start our own military! Bring back the draft. Gonna build a race of atomic superbeings that will rule the world!
Hmmm… Agent G. Orange? You seem to be a part of the “Yee-hawwww Jesus” crowd. I hate to break it to you, but if your ears weren’t so noisy from the Monster Trucks, firing of your 12 gauge, and the sound of your own voice then you might have actually been able to listen in church to know that Jesus wasn’t a “rope ’em, ride ’em, and hog time ’em” type of guy. Put the beer down long enough to read the book you claim to preach from once in a while. You might be livin’ on a prayer, but your kids are praying that just for one day their Daddy isn’t the crossed-eyed drunk wielding his gun in his hand.
Lissen, yew commanist! Stop questionin’ the way things is and just go with the flow! What do yew wanna start a bunch of shit fer? If yew don’t like it then why don’t yew just move somewhar like New Jersey ‘r’ New Hampshire ‘r’ summthin, huh? And fer yer infermation, Jesus drives a 1970 Camaro RS/SS with the LT1 350 in it…pure class. i done seen him last Friday at the strip so shuddup! If I wanna git preached at it’ll be by a real ordained minister of the gospel, too. Not some two bit, tin horn East Coast Ted Kennedy libbtard that wants tuh raise our taxes through the roof, take away our guns and freedoms and post a bunch of phony baloney anti- cowboy, anti-Texas jibberish on here insultin’ our way of life! You probbly believe in gay marriage and legalizin that damn wacky tobbacky too, donchya’? Figgers.