Cover Story
Keep Tucson Together
A dozen families wait in a high-school multi-purpose room, some murmuring, greeting friends and neighbors, others weaving their legs under cafeteria tables. Children chase each other, laughing. Papers rustle in and out of brown envelopes and nondescript manila folders, some aged and rumpled, dull and official-looking. No more than a handful are native Tucsonans; everyone…
8 New Year’s Eve Concerts and Parties in Tucson
If you’re still anxiously considering whom to kiss at midnight to start 2016 off right, you’re on your own figuring that one out. However, if you’re wondering where to go this New Year’s Eve to get a hefty dose of live music, that’s another story. Like the year before, Rialto Theatre (318 E. Congress St.)…
Diane Douglas: Tucson Gets to Keep Its Certification Office
Here’s another logic-based decision from Superintendent Diane Douglas’ Department of Education. Tucson will keep its teacher Certification office which, according to a media release, was scheduled to be shut down. Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas today announced that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) will maintain its Certification office in Tucson so that…
Casa Video Top 10
Well, happy Friday everybody. As I said yesterday, we’re shutting down the blog for a couple days to spend time with our family, friends and cats. We’ll be back in business on Monday. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, hop on down to Casa Video. Their new bar is finished (Grand Opening…
We’re Taking a Couple of Days Off
Sorry, Range readers: We’re taking a few days off from blogging. We’re going to spend the next four days bundled up, drinking some hot chocolate and reading books. We’ll be back to business on Monday. Until then, you’ll just have to satisfy your Weekly reading (and hate commenting) with the stories from the print edition:…
Brother John’s Now Serving Brisket, Baby Back Ribs, Beer and More
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to get a mean case of the meat sweats. That’s because Tucson’s newest dining and drinking addition, Brother John’s Beer, Bourbon & BBQ (1801 N. Stone Ave.), is now open and serving up all things smoked meats. Well, maybe this is a tad pre-emptive, as Brother John’s doesn’t officially open until…
Sylvia Allen To Head the Senate Education Committee. It’s Horrifying and Hysterical, But Does It Really Matter?
Senate President Andy Biggs must be trolling for attention from the national media. He must miss the days when Jon Stewart called Arizona “the meth lab of democracy” and showed TUSD Board member Michael Hicks warning us about the use of burritos as a propaganda tool by the Mexican American Studies program. Seems like Biggs is looking…
Cinema Clips: Joy
Like all things David O. Russell, Joy is a lot of fun. He crams as much as he can into each scene—personalities, conflict, set dressing—and if you cut anything, you’d have to cut a lot. Better to keep his style and the excess than be stuck with a compromise. His unique rhythm thrives in the…
Arizona Getting $25M from EPA to Improve Quality of Drinking Water, Wastewater Infrastructure
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is giving Arizona $25 million to improve the quality of drinking water and wastewater facilities. The funds are given to the state’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority, which will then disperse the money to several projects in smaller and more economically marginalized communities that will tackle those three issues, while also promoting…
Drone Warfare: County Parks Are Now a No-Fly Zone
Pima County has banned the use of drones in county parks. Here’s the press release: Unmanned aerial vehicles – more commonly known as drones — may be on lots of folks’ holiday wish lists, but Pima County Natural Resources, Parks & Recreation is asking you to leave them at home if you’re planning to visit…
Unexpected Revenue Flows Into State Coffers. That’s Great News For Education. Right? Right?
Like the old song says: “We’re in the money, We’re in the money; We’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along!” Last month, the state brought in $84.4 million more in revenue than it expected. That’s after an equally unexpected $66.1 million extra in October. Add them together and you get a…
Latin It Up Sandwich Shop Is Now Open on Fourth Avenue, Go Get a Cuban Sandwich
Tucson, you’ve got a new place to get lunch and late night eats off Fourth Avenue. That’s because the Latin It Up Sandwich Shop (344 N. Fourth Ave.) is now open and cranking out tastes of Central and South America. Sandwiched between Che’s Lounge and late night chain poutine restaurant U.S. Fries, Latin It Up…
Fox Restaurant Concepts is Giving Away a $50 Gift Card
Attention last minute Christmas shoppers: local gift cards are awesome. There are quite a few local businesses we think you should support this holiday season, but here’s something in particular: Fox Restaurants is offering a gift card deal for the holidays: buy $100 in gift cards and get a $20 bonus card. Redeemable at Wildflower,…
K12 Inc. Continues Its Downward Bounce
I’ve been following the fortunes of K12 Inc., the for-profit, publicly traded, online school corporation, since 2008 when I broke the story that it had been outsourcing student essays to an essay-grading company in India without informing the parents. (K12 Inc. said it stopped the practice soon after the story broke). The corporation is the poster…
Tough Luck Club, Che’s Lounge and More Voted as Tucson’s Best Bars
Tucson’s chapter of the United States Bartender’s Guild held their annual bar awards on Sunday, Dec. 20. Of the 12 categories, Tough Luck Club/Reilly Craft Pizza and Che’s Lounge tied for the top with three wins each. Here is the full list of the 2015 winners: Bartender of the Year: Winner: Keith Caywood – Hotel…
Into the Mild: Journal From a Refugee Camp, Week One
Mytilene, Greece – December 2015 This is part two of a journal I’m keeping during my month working at a refugee camp in Greece. Part one, covering my last night in the US and two days in Athens, is here. Dec. 9: It’s go time. After a series of subways and flights, I’m on the…
Shop Local: Bahti Indian Arts
Whether you’re looking for hand-crafted jewelry, Hopi katsinas or Zuni fetishes, Bahti Indian Arts is the place to shop. In business for more than six decades, Bahti is located at 4330 N. Campbell Ave in St. Philip’s Plaza. Or check them out online.
Cinema Clips: Concussion
As a doctor points out in Concussion, the NFL basically owns a day of the week in America, so taking it on is a fool’s errand. Dr. Bennet Omalu did take on the NFL, refusing to back away from his research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease he was the first to diagnose,…
Looks Like We Have a Federal Budget
House Speaker Paul Ryan managed to avoid a government shutdown and a rebellion in his own ranks with a $1.1 trillion spending plan and $662 billion tax-cut package that passed Congress today on a 316-113 vote. For details of what’s in the plan, you can check out this New York Times report. The Arizona congressional…
Shop Local: Kids Center
You’ll find a wide range of toys, puzzles, clothes, legos, books, games and so much more at Kid’s Center. Just walking it will make you feel like a kid again. Stop by the shop, 1725 N. Swan Road, to pick something up for someone you love or to make a last-minute donation to one of…
Troubling News About Desegregation Out of New York
Anyone who follows education nationally knows that TUSD’s problems with desegregation aren’t unique. You find segregated schools across the country in places where, like Tucson, there is enough of an ethnic mix to create schools with diverse student populations. The question is, what are effective ways to get more children of different races and ethnicities…
Human Rights Campaign: Tucson Gets a Perfect Score in LGBT Equality
The Human Rights Campaign gave Tucson a score of 100 for being LGBT inclusive, despite being located in a state that not too long ago promoted legislation that would have allowed businesses to deny service based on sexual orientation. The country’s largest LGBT civil rights organization released its 2015 Municipal Equality Index Thursday, which every year…
Casa Video Top 10
Doesn’t everyone get sick the week before Christmas? It’s freezing, everyone in the retail world are working long and stressful shifts, and the rest of us are overwhelmed trying to figure out last minute gifts for the family members we don’t know very well. That’s rough, and spending an entire Saturday on the couch watching…
Here’s Your Chance To Learn Something About AZ’s Prisons
Etherton Gallery’s current exhibition, Danny Lyon: Conversations with the Dead, highlights a collection of photographs that Lyon took of the grim realities that inmates in Texas prisons faced back in the late 1960s. I’m moderating a panel discussion at the gallery tomorrow night on the increase in inmates in Arizona prisons, the rise in private…
What Will a $350 Million Increase For K-12 Schools Buy?
When the legislature opens for business in January and Republicans stonewall the idea of a substantial increase to the K-12 education budget—a fairly safe prediction—they’ll remind us how generous they were when they decided to add $350 million a year to the school budget. Actually, they haven’t added the money yet. The voters have to…
Shop Local: Yikes
Robots! Books! Sea Monkeys! Local art! This is where we’re shopping today. Brighten someone’s holiday season and shop local with a visit to perennial Best of Tucson winner Yike’s Toys, 2930 E. Broadway.
Friday is the Last Day to Nominate Tucson’s Women of Influence
The people over at our long-time sister paper Inside Tucson Business are wrapping up their annual call for Women of Influence nominations. I’ve said it before: Tucson women are endlessly inspiring. ITB’s event has 18 different award categories, celebrating women for their business prowess, their mentoring skills and their career-long accomplishments. The honorees are decided by reader…
Report: 55 Percent of Tucson Renters Spend More Than One-Third of Income on Rent
An analysis by the website Apartment List says more than half of Tucson renters spend more than one-third of their (our) income on rent. The site used U.S. Census data from 2007 to 2014 to look into which cities and states have the most “cost-burdened renters,” meaning people who give more than 30 percent of…
Christmas Cheer
Looking for a free family event for the holidays?
Editor’s Note
Perhaps some people think it’s strange that there have been people meeting these past two months to talk about preserving Mexican-American history in a town like Tucson.
The Last Dances
In the olden days along the Orinoco River in Venezuela, there was no day, only night. As recounted in the myths of the Warao, the “boat people” who still live along the Orinoco, the darkness was relieved only by firelight and stars.
Dust Devil
Empty storefronts and homes lined up along Grant like prisoners standing against the wall waiting for the firing squad.
GAP Said, Gaslight Said
It’s the good guys versus the bad guys. In some cases, like in the melodrama-style of theater we see at the Gaslight Theatre, it’s very easy to distinguish who’s who and which is which. In life, unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.
Tucson Salvage
The giant Santa that’s facing you towers over the roof of the house. He must be 16-feet tall, and because he’s lit from the inside and sports a big red nose you imagine that he’s a drunk.
Classic Goodness
It’s common to hear movie audiences lament the lack of original ideas in Hollywood. But then, who are the ones buying almost $10 billion worth of tickets to eight Harry Potter films, and who will likely turn the new Star Wars into one of the three highest-grossing films of all time?
Police Dispatch
A Walmart shopper said his wallet was stolen right out of his back pocket by what must have been a very adroit “little old lady.”
B-Sides: Local Focus
If you’ve yet to dive head first into the Tucson music scene, there’s really no better time to do so than the month of December. While touring national acts tend to head home for the holidays, the next couple weeks specifically offer the most opportune time to appreciate what our city has to offer musically.…
Police Dispatch
Someone broke into a UA student’s car, tearing apart its contents but stealing only one odd and inexpensive item—a “wrist exerciser.”
Weather the Storm: Saviours
The San Francisco Bay area area has a deep, albeit fading, history of extreme music.
False Pretense Part I
UA employee charley Dejolie recently recorded—and posted on YouTube—a video of an altercation between three Downtown Tucson Partnership security guards and two homeless men.
Growing Up Pop Punk: Deceptively Innocent
Deceptively Innocent has had one of the steadiest gigs in Tucson: a staple show performing outside the Chicago Store during Second Saturdays.
The Skinny
Paris talks yield an agreement on reducing greenhouse gases to combat climate change, Former lawmaker Clinco wins appointment to the Pima College board, Etherton Gallery hosts a panel discussion on Arizona prisons.
Pleasure Activist
When I was 7 years old, I had saved up some money, and campaigned my older sister for the rest, so that I could purchase this one wondrous item I had my eye on and that I thought would be the perfect gift for my mother. This gift seemed so appetizing, so state-of-the-art, and unquestionably…
Media Watch
Kotalik to start new year back home, Villarreal provides original movie review content for KGUN website, Chris Edwards has done it again.
Ask a Mexican!
Gentle cabrones: Behold the Mexican’s annual Mexican Christmas guide, where I recommend the best Mexi-themed libros for you to give to your loved ones this Navidad instead of yet another tamale to unwrap. Buy them at your local bookstore, or order online, but do buy.
Danehy
Tom says he used to think that America would mature as a country and reject mindless gun violence. He also voted for George McGovern.
Best of Benin: Alafia
About eight months ago, a restaurant quietly took over the former outpost of the original CeeDee Jamaican Kitchen on Swan Road just south of Speedway Boulevard.
Bad Santa
Christmas Club Crawl!
Holograms and Krumpuses (Krumpi?)
The event features all sorts of ornaments and art for sale made in homage to the Eastern European Christmas demon
Last Minute Gifts
It’s not too late to buy gifts for all your loved ones.
Woven Art
new exhibit, which blends craft and fine art, is going to be on display at the Tucson Museum of Art with contemporary fiber art influenced from weaving
