• The State Fair’s not only getting a new Big Tex after last fall’s fire, but a new voice for the icon. Depending on whose story you believe, Bill Bragg, who has been saying “Howdy” for 11 years, was fired for some unknown but nefarious offense, or just didn’t have his contract renewed. The Fair traditionally has PR problems when it changes Big Tex voices, so there’s no reason why this time should be any different.
• The City Council approved plans to privatize the Farmers Market yesterday, and we’re supposed to get a nifty residential retail, an even niftier restaurant (bold type names Janet Cobb and Kent Rathbun are part of the deal), and more real local produce. The latter, if that actually happens, would be the best change of all.
• Jim Schutze at the Observer dissects the tax controversy surrounding downtown’s Klyde Warren deck park, writing that “things might be on the verge of going where everything else in the Arts District inevitably winds up — you know, directors fired, people accusing each other of inflicting blindness and trying to melt each other and so on.” Once again, we are reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s truism: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”