To the editor: I would like to respond to the letter from Scott Walker (March 10, 2004) about the treatment of rodeo animals. Mr. Walker wrote that rodeo is abusive, barbaric, and ignorant. That statement is vile and distasteful. I suggest that Mr. Walker do some research on the things that Fort Worth is known for. (It damn sure isn't your local anti-rodeo activists' meeting.) Fort Worth draws people from all over and makes money with events such as the rodeo at the coliseum every weekend, the annual Southwestern Stock Show and Rodeo, Tuff Hedeman's Bullriding Challenge, and high school rodeo. When has your "Rodeo Activist Party" ever made money or done something of worth that could ever compare to such events and yet entertain and/or provide a way of living to support your family? If you consider holding a sign chanting "animal abuse" and making a scene in a community full of people who rodeo, then I would be embarrassed to be your child on Career Day and explain what it is that my parent did, especially in a Fort Worth school.

As far as the word "abuse" goes, cattle and horses are here on this earth for multiple purposes, and to single out rodeoing and a horse-slaughtering business is totally shallow on your part. For your information, the horse-slaughtering business is for horses that are crippled or aged to the point where they are no longer good for any use but to eat. Some of the meat is shipped overseas as a delicacy for foreign countries. The rest is used for dog food and for the soap you activists bathe with. When it comes to rodeoing, the cattle are specifically bred for that purpose in most cases. I can tell you for a fact that an animal that weighs 400 to 2,000 lbs. is very hard to abuse, especially since the average bull rider weighs 135 to 165 lbs. As for the roping events, we are talking about something that has been used for many years in order to immobilize cattle in the pasture so they can be doctored.

PETA and SHARK and the other associations are wasting their time with all of your "Save the Abused Baby Cow" bullshit. You will never be large enough as an association to ever delude or convince enough people to ban rodeo. I say in closing to all of you activists against rodeo, don't write checks your egotism and demeanor can't cash.

Cody Burris
Garland

To the editor: My compliments to Betty Brink for her fine article on Fort Worth's tax increment financing debate ("The High Cost of 'Blight,'" April 7, 2004). I've been watching the proposed Alliance Corridor TIF pretty closely, and it's unbelievable that Cabela's, a wildly successful sporting goods retailer, has to be lured with a $40 million, 20-year TIF before they'll agree to open a new moneymaking Goliath for themselves in our city.

The Alliance Corridor is no blighted area. It will probably continue to develop without a special TIF for an extravagant, over-the-top sporting goods retailer.

Don't get me wrong -- Cabela's is a neat store. Indoor waterfalls, realistic wildlife exhibits, and trout ponds make pretty impressive store fixtures. But Cabela's is still a store, one with much to gain by coming here on their own nickel.

In fact, Cabela's has quite a track record for developing for-profit stores with public money -- they were given $27 million in incentives to build in Pennsylvania, $92 million in West Virginia, $27.8 million in Dundee, Mich., and the list goes on. Cabela's reels in the customers and the profits, at taxpayers' expense, across the country.

A few city council members have said that this TIF will spur jobs and development in the Alliance Corridor, projecting that Cabela's in Fort Worth could be Texas' biggest tourist destination. The notion that a sporting goods store from Nebraska could be the biggest tourist attraction in Texas is ridiculous. I advise our mayor and city council members to ask some tough questions before they vote on the Cabela's TIF. We need to make sure this company can deliver what it promises.

Academy has been in Texas since 1938. We employ thousands of people and pay millions in taxes. If Cabela's has its way, our store, along with every taxpaying resident and business in the Fort Worth area, will be forced to pick up the slack for Cabela's financing package for the next 20 years.

Cabela's doesn't need another TIF to make a huge profit here. If a special incentive package is handed out, let's hold Cabela's, our mayor, and our council members, accountable for their promises to create a significant number of real, new, and permanent jobs for Fort Worth with our city's money.

Jim Deger
Manager, Academy Sports and Outdoors
Granbury

To the editor: I was reading about John Terrell (Static, March 31, 2004) and an 18-year-old mutt named Junior. The article said that was 126 in dog years, or "almost as old as Mel Gibson is beginning to look." I'm confused. Is it because I missed some movie that shows Gibson looking really decrepit (I'm around his age) or was it a joke or was it because he made a movie about Jesus (which I haven't seen)? If the writer was trying for a laugh, that makes no sense, because the story goes on to tell us about the rape and murder of high-schooler Carla Walker. Why don't we concentrate on the "bungled investigation," as you say, instead of throwing a lonely stone at Gibson? I'm sorry for Ms. Walker's family. I wonder what they think. I think it was a sad excuse to possibly get a laugh in a very serious situation.

Dickey L. Ferguson
Fort Worth

Editor's note: Fort Worth Weekly has written extensively about the investigation of the Carla Walker case.