Fort Worth Weekly Online -- fwweekly.com | Metropolis

When the city was dangling carrots in front of folks living under the sheltering wings of the Ripley Arnold public housing complex to entice them to move out so that Radio Shack could move in, one of those Bugs Bunny sticks was a promise to fund a five-year study of Life after Ripley. Cost: $100,000. Contractor: UTA. Since no one had ever done such a study, the idea went, this was a golden op to see how such uprooted folks do in transition from public housing to rent-subsidized apartments scattered around the community. Funding was to come from grants, not from taxpayers' pockets.

Now that the first of the Ripleys have moved out, the follow-up needs to begin, but guess what? There's no grant money available right now. Council members were told by city staff two weeks ago that Fort Worth will have to take on the financial burden until some grant money starts trickling in, if it ever does.

Of course there are always smart-mouths like fiscal watchdog Clyde Picht, who noted that the Startlegram has already done a Metro cover story with photos about the first ex-tenant's new digs and how heel-clickingly happy he is with them (even though he had to sell the brand new computer the city gave him so that he could buy groceries). Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper, Picht asked, to just read about the Ripleys in the paper?

It's another comeback

Speaking of the daily, the Star-Telegram's Life and Arts section is like a cat, gracefully stalking the cutting edge of lifestyle trends. The March 21 edition boasted the cover-page headline, "Hair apparent: The Afro makes a comeback." Such vision, such originality, such...picklewash. The city's only daily newspaper printed an identical story three years ago, written by former Star-T (and current Fort Worth Weekly) writer Jeff Prince. The Feb. 14, 1999, Metro section bannered the six-column, above-the-fold story with the headline: "Styles come, go, herald the return of the 'fro." Static is looking forward to future Life and Arts trend stories: "The wheel sure is handy" and "Fire: Good or bad?"