When Mayor Laura Miller and I spoke about her decision not to run for reelection, we covered a lot ground, politics and policy, all that stuff, and finally I sensed we were about done (the little silence that means, "I need to hang up now, Jim"). So I asked one last question. Why the bridges? Why did she put so much of her prestige into the Cowabunga Bridges that the art loons want to build over the Trinity River--suspension bridges by famed Spanish architect Santiago Cowabunga? Why?
"Oh, the bridges," she said. "I just like them. They're eye candy."
I think it's the most honest thing she or anyone else has ever said about them. Eye candy. The cost of the bridges will be one and a half times what it would cost to resurface every street that needs it in Dallas.
Eye candy. I'm stupefied. Is that the same as stupid? Please don't answer that. --Jim Schutze