Cover Story
Slashing the State
The state of Arizona stands on the brink of financial collapse Thanks to the collapse of the building industry, a tanking economy and plummeting tax collections, the state is on track to spend $1.5 billion more than it is expected to collect in the fiscal year that ends in less than six months. The bad…
Maurice Grossman Memorial Service Scheduled
We were unable to get this into the Tucson Weekly before going to press: The memorial service for Maurice Grossman is going to be at 5:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 7, at the Tucson Museum of Art. In this week’s issue, you’ll find a story about Maurice in our special pride section, and later today, we’ll…
Farley Report: “The Attack On Arizona Teachers Continues”
The latest bulletin from Rep. Steve Farley: Howdy, Friends O’Farley… It’s been a quiet week in State Wobegon… Actually, it has been anything but a quiet week. More legislators are declaring their intentions to run for more offices, committees are pumping out some really suspect bills, House Republicans are trotting out their corporate-bailout deficit-expansion package,…
‘I’m just a happy traveler’
After the jump is a wonderful Arizona Public Media interview that ran last night about artist and LGBT activist Maurice Grossman, who died last week at age 82. The Tucson Weekly looks back at Grossman’s life in our quarterly Pride issue this Thursday. After speaking to a few people who knew Maurice well, I’m left…
1-2-3: A Rose is a Rose…
©KISH’10
Why Does John McCain Hate Fruit Fly Research?
Tedski notes that Sen. John McCain is going after his GOP challenger, J.D. Hayworth, as a big spender. We can expect to see lots of that as they try to out-conservatize one another. More puzzling is McCain repeated attacks on fruit fly research. Does he not understand why scientists use fruit flies in their research?…
Cook Report Downgrades Giffords’ Chances
Republican Jonathan Paton is spreading the news that the Cook Political Report has downgraded Democrat Gabrielle Giffords’ chances of hanging on to her seat in Congressional District 8 since Paton got into the race. Cook moved Giffords from the Likely Democratic column to Leaning Democratic.
Az Gov Race: Martin & Brewer in Dead Heat in GOP Primary
Some new numbers in the Arizona governor’s race from Rasmussen Reports: Governor Jan Brewer is now running almost even with her leading challenger, State Treasurer Dean Martin, in Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial primary race. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Martin barely leading Brewer 31% to 29%.…
Your Turn To Steer the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter & Other News From Mars
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona The HiRISE gang at the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab have a beautiful new batch of Mars photos. They’re also introducing a new feature: HiWish, which lets you suggest areas you’d like the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to target. If you’re interested in learning more about our sister planet,…
AZ Gov Race: Munger Raises More Than $200K
We haven’t dug through the contributors, but GOP gubernatorial candidate John Munger is reporting that he raised more than $200,000 for his campaign. That’s certainly the low-hanging fruit for Munger. The question for him: How much more will he be able to raise? His Clean Elections opponents, Gov. Jan Brewer and state Treasurer Dean Martin,…
Video: “Ask a Mexican” eats at Taco Bell
Gustavo Arellano, the writer of the Ask A Mexican column, is out with another video version of his column. We featured his return to video previously on The Range and this week he puts off answering questions to eat food from Taco Bell.
Just Wanna be a Haggis Hero
Good morning, Monday! Time to celebrate. The U.S. is lifting a 21-year ban on haggis. Read all about it right here.
Friday Roundtable: McCain Makes Misstep on Rosemont Mine, Paton Vs. Giffords and the State Continues Its Skid Toward Financial Collapse
We recap the week on Arizona Illustrated’s Friday Roundtable after the jump.
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona on Haiti, H1N1 and Health-Care Reform
Richard Carmona, who has been surgeon general, a trauma surgeon and a local crimefighter, stops by Arizona Illustrated’s Friday Roundtable to talk about Haiti, health-care reform and his new role as a spokesperson for the U.S. Census. He’s skeptical about Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal to drop more than 300,000 people from the AHCCCS rolls.
Recent UA Journalism School Graduate Published in ‘The New York Times’
At the beginning of the year, The New York Times hosted their Student Journalism Insitute at the University of Arizona School of Journalism. Of 23 students selected to participate from all over the country, seven were students — current, recent grads and graduate level — at the School of Journalism. One of those is Stephen…
It’s On: Hayworth Vs. McCain
Former congressman J.D. Hayworth has quit his radio show and may be ready to challenge Sen. John McCain in this year’s GOP primary. Hayworth teases: It has been a joy to spend weekday afternoons on KFYI. Now, another chapter begins. The call to public service remains, and again it may very well lead to pursuit…
New Developments in Marana and Saguaro Ranch Saga
All along Stephen Phinny’s neighbors, who are in the midst of suing the Saguaro Ranch developer and the town of Marana over an easement Phinny denies exists and Marana officials formally abandoned, (don’t forget about the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by two of the four neighbors involved in litigation), always knew there was something…
Why Paton Decided to Run?
What pushed state Sen. Jonathan Paton into deciding to run against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? Here’s an interesting tidbit from Marc Ambinder’s political blog over at the Atlantic’s Web site: It’s starting to get late in the 2010 election cycle for recruiting, but the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) says Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts has…
Previewing the 2010 Elections
Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer and I appeared on KJZZ’s Here and Now earlier today to discuss the upcoming political season. Listen to the show after the jump. Your browser does not have Flash installed. Please click here to use another player. Your browser does not have Flash installed. Please click here to use another…
Chef Miciah Beard Wins Iron Chef Tucson 2010
Chef Miciah Beard – of Bob’s Steak and Chop House at Omni Tucson National Resort – beat Chef Ramiro Scavo of Zona 78 and Harvest Restaurant to take home the title of Iron Chef Tucson 2010. The competition took place on Sunday, January 17, at Desert Diamond Casino. Beard said the competition’s secret ingredient was…
Tucson Sentinel Launches
Tucson Citizen alumnus Dylan Smith has launched the Tucson Sentinel, which aims to be a non-profit, online journalism venture.
The Travel Channel Returns to El Güero Canelo
The Travel Channel is returning to Tucson next week, this time for a show focusing solely on Sonoran hot dogs. Martha Menocal, an administrative specialist with El Güero Canelo’s corporate office, said this morning that the Travel Channel is sending a film crew to El Güero Canelo’s original location at 5201 S. 12th Ave. on…
Re-Set Your TiVO: AZ Illustrated on at 5:30 Tonight
Fans of Arizona Illustrated’s Friday Roundtable will want to tune in at 5:30 tonight instead of 6:30 p.m. on Channel 6. The newshour will follow at 6 p.m. so the station can air a Haiti relief telethon at 7 p.m. That means McLaughlin Group viewers will get me instead of Monica Crowley.
Macho B Update: AZ Game & Fish Responds to Inspector General Report
The Arizona Game and Fish Department has responded to the Inspector General report related to Macho B, the last known living jaguar in the United States: Late this afternoon, the Arizona Game and Fish Department received from the media a redacted copy of the U.S. Department of Interior Inspector General (IG) report about events related…
Supreme Court Corporatocracy Ruling on AZ
The Associated Press notes that today’s Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on campaign funding will have a big effect on Arizona races: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday apparently means companies and labor unions can spend to influence Arizona elections for public offices, a state official said. Arizona law now prohibits business and corporate spending…
U.S. Inspector General Macho B Inquiry: Criminal Misconduct in the Trapping of Last Known Jaguar in U.S.?
The Center for Biological Diversity has forwarded an Inspector General report investigating the capture and death of Macho B, the last known living jaguar in the United States. A key takeaway: We found that the AZGFD was aware of Macho B’s presence in the vicinity of its mountain lion and black bear study in late…
Coronado Tenants May Be Able To Stay
Dave Devine, who has been following the sale of Fourth Avenue’s Coronado Hotel by the Downtown Tucson Partnership, says he just spoke Albert Elias of the city’s Urban Planning and Design Department. Elias tells Devine that Coronado is now in escrow with a buyer that he did not disclose. But Elias did say the new…
Grijalva V. U.S. Supreme Court
Congressman Raul Grijalva has responded to today’s split decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to lift limits on corporate political spending: In today’s case of Citizens United V. FEC, the Supreme Court went far beyond precedent, far beyond the original intent of the Constitution, and far beyond anything the Founders meant when they protected freedom…
Leaving Home
Opera singers have been trilling out arias, while a director ponders correct placement on the rehearsal stage. Seamstresses have been stitching away at their machines, turning out 19th-century garments for the upcoming Arizona Opera production of La Bohème. Puccini’s tale of starving artists in Paris opens in Phoenix on Friday, Jan. 29, and in Tucson…
Noshing Around
Much Love for Lee Lee Getting stared down by live catfish was just one of the highlights on our inaugural trip to the new Lee Lee Oriental Supermart at 1990 W. Orange Grove Road. Fresh-fish tanks aside, the store transforms grocery shopping into an international experience—items from Jamaica, Bangladesh, Korea and many other countries line…
Eels: End Times (Vagrant)
End Times, Eels’ self-described “divorce” album—released a mere seven months after Hombre Lobo—overcomes its thorny conceit to succeed as a modest triumph. Sure, the premise of an introspective, morose Eels album feels redundant given the band’s exhaustive oeuvre of sad-sack ballads and mopey rockers. Yet Eels, which is primarily the outlet of singer/songwriter E (Mark…
Bovine Blues
There was a time when cow-punching defined Southern Arizona. Acre after acre of cattle country spilled across the range, some of it beautiful, some of it grazed to the nubs. Today, the cattle ranching industry is largely in decline, a victim of shifting markets and ongoing drought. But there’s one rancher who seems set for…
Sweet and Simple
In the era of Google as a standard research tool, naming your band Girls and your album Album seems almost like a protest against the specificity required by metacrawlers: You can’t type “Girls” into Google, hit “I’m feeling lucky,” and expect to get to the San Francisco-based band. But in actuality, the name is not…
Cheap Bastard
Tightwad, cheapskate, miser, penny pincher—call it what you will. I’ve always been partial to skinflint, one of the truly great words for the sort of fool who ain’t likely to be parted from his money any time soon. All of which are terms (and then some) that could safely be applied to this Villarreal guy.…
Bottom Up
Having already experienced several of life’s hard knocks, 28-year-old Victoria Summers has a suggestion for some of today’s teenagers. “They should pull their heads out of their butts and stay in school,” she passionately declares. Tucson native Summers remembers that as a youth she didn’t follow that advice. Thus, she is now one of the…
Ruined Beauty
An explanation of how he settled on the band name Pretty Bird. Smash. (the sentence-disrupting periods are part of it) typically involves Brian Field pounding his fist on a table. The name—and its attendant physicality—captures the balance that Field and Matt Anderson set out to establish between beauty and noise, setting up delicate sounds just…
Top Ten in Books
Mostly Books best-sellers for the week
The Skinny
GIFFORDS VS. PATON: 2010 SHOWDOWN The marquee race of 2010 got rolling last weekend when state Sen. Jonathan Paton announced he was going to run for Congress against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords. Sure, Paton needs to win a GOP primary against three fellow Republicans—Jesse Kelly, Brian Miller and Andy Goss—but he’ll have establishment support, beaucoup bucks,…
Soundbites
EX-X Two punk legends whose careers can be counted in decades are hitting our fair burg this week. At a time when there were very few women in punk rock, Exene Cervenka was one of the most original. As co-frontperson of X, still regarded as one of the best, and most groundbreaking, L.A. punk bands,…
Media Watch
KVOA unfazed by Leno, O’Brien, NBC mess; Brode makes move to Portland; KIIM garners radio station nominations
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Readers: Siempre, the wisest words that appear in this column come from ustedes, y the following two cartas prove this maxim. The first one addresses my Dec. 31 column, in which a working-class gabacho insisted his people apapachan a Mexicans mucho: Half-Mexican here. I was fortunate enough to catch your column while I was…
Weekly Wide Web
I love your ¡Ask A Mexican! column, but I hate reading. Is there some sort of other way to enjoy it without looking at words and stuff? You’re in luck. This week, we’re featuring the return of the YouTube broadcasts of ¡Ask A Mexican! columnist Gustavo Arellano. After going on strike in August 2008 for…
Jokers and Fools
It’s interesting to compare The Clean House and Fool for Love, now being performed at Live Theater Workshop and Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, respectively. Each deals with the agonies of love and loss. Each looks at the stories that we tell ourselves and each other. The effect of each play, however, is wildly different. The…
Police Dispatch
IS THAT SPILLED BEER, OR … ? NORTH LA CHOLLA BOULEVARD DEC. 22, 10:47 A.M. A woman with an urgent need to “go” used a convenience-store beer cooler as a bathroom, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report stated. Deputies responded to a northwest-side Circle K, where the manager said he had been alerted to a…
Dancing About Cactus
Moses Pendleton, renowned MOMIX founder and choreographer, lives and works in a bucolic corner of northwest Connecticut. “We’re in the woods,” he says by phone. “There’s snow on the ground. I can see the sun setting as we speak.” When the dancers come up from New York for a week of rehearsal, they all get…
Danehy
It’s an election year, meaning that we’ll again be bombarded with ballot initiatives big and small, some profoundly destructive, others just petty and mean, but almost all adding their weight to the mass of nonsense that threatens to crush the foundation of the American legislative process. What many consider to be direct democracy is, instead,…
A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was truly a renaissance man for the 20th century, bridging the worlds of popular and classical music, honing a reputation as a composer, conductor, educator and musical ambassador. The Tucson-based Chamber Music PLUS will pay tribute to Bernstein’s multifaceted life as an artist with a unique new music-theater piece, To Lenny, With Love,…
Serraglio
I managed to permanently disable my cell phone on the way to Colorado to visit my partner’s parents over the holidays. No incident report was completed on this matter, but I can testify that the actual dismemberment was unintentional, even though the predominant forcing mechanism in the destructive sequence was Inappropriate Frustration Management (IFM), a…
City Week
My Eyes Were Fresh: The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann; 2010 Dillinger Days; ZUZI! Dance Jam Fundraiser: Dance for the Dancers; Legally Blonde The Musical
Guest Opinion
Every day at Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse we ask people to be courageous. They make difficult choices when they leave abusive situations. They leave everything they have behind and trust that their decision to leave is worth the incredible risks they are taking. Why do they do this? Because it is a matter of life and death. These…
Live
White Denim, Brazos at Club Congress, Saturday, Jan. 16
We’re Everywhere!
Some brief yet informative tidbits this week: • For those of you who only read the dead-tree version of this here newspaper: Have you seen what we’ve been doing lately on The Range, our daily dispatch, at TucsonWeekly.com? We’ve been doing a recap of the stuff we’ve been placing on The Range in our Weekly…
Nine Questions
Nikki Rosing
Single Vision
I’ll always remember Tom Ford as the man who shaved a Gucci symbol into a model’s pubic hair. That was back when he worked in the fashion world, but these days Ford has higher aspirations than crotch fonts. Having left haute couture to fend for itself, he’s switched to filmmaking, bringing along a striking visual…
Top Ten in Music
Zia Records top sales for the week
Bible Bump
The Book of Eli is a frustrating film. It’s so darn pretty, and it has a great actor at its core, but it just doesn’t add up to much other than silliness by the time end credits roll. The movie goes from being an interesting and stylish post-apocalyptic samurai movie to one of the stranger…
T Q&A
Adele Barker
Now Showing at Home
Big Fan; Magnolia (Blu-ray); The Hurt Locker
Mailbag
I Like My Socialized Military! I would like to write a complementary footnote to Mari Herreras’ fine analysis of Jane Orient and her movement (“Tea Party Medicine,” Jan. 7). I had two flirtations with death while in the Army in World War II. In both cases, I was carried in a government-owned ambulance to a…
Top Ten in Movies
Casa Video’s top rentals for the week
The Green Lady Killers: Just Fine (Green Lady)
For decades we’ve accepted aggressive rock ‘n’ roll chicks who plainly state what they want. From Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde to Le Tigre and Sleater-Kinney—might as well include Shakira and Beyoncé—they’ve become role models for assertiveness. But the Green Lady Killers won’t be satisfied with independence and sexual fulfillment; they want to kick your…
Mexican Amusements
According to La Botana’s Web site, a botana is either an appetizer or an amusement, a joke of sorts. The second meaning is apparent as you read the menu: The C’s in “taco” and “caramelos” are all K’s. The combos are named “Juan,” “Tu” and “Tri” ($7.95 each; add shrimp or grilled fish for $1.50).…
Spoon: Transference (Merge)
Spoon’s latest is a “mood album.” What I mean is, its cumulative effect has power and beauty, but on a song-by-song basis, it’s not nearly as accessible as 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Instead, Transference is full of post-punk swagger and deconstructed disco beats that, listened to as a whole experience, is beguiling. From…
Where Was She During Prop 102?
I guess this is what happens when you call your wife a cunt in public. Cindy McCain lends her support against California’s Prop 8. But where was her voice against Arizona’s Prop 102? She’s from Arizona, right? John McCain issues a statement that he: “respects the views of members of his family but remains opposed…
Clean Elections: No More Matching Funds?
Federal Judge Roslyn Silver has ruled that matching funds will not be available for Clean Elections candidates in Arizona, although she’s given Clean Elections supporters 10 days to appeal to the Ninth Circuit. This is very bad news for Gov. Jan Brewer and state Treasurer Dean Martin, who both planned to use Clean Elections for…
No Avatar for You!
Do you think Bob Grimm had anything to do with this: China censors Avatar.?
Coachella Lineup Announced
The Coachella lineup was finally announced yesterday with some interesting choices, like Them Crooked Vultures, MGMT, and then not so interesting, like Jack White’s The Dead Weather. Then you can get your time machine on this year with Pavement, DEVO, Gary Numan, Grace Jones and Sky and the Family Stone. Oh yea, and Echo and…
McCain Spreads Bogus Story About Underwear Bomber
Sen. John McCain tries to rewrite history on the underwear bomber who succeeded in only setting fire to his own sack and then gets snippy with someone who points out that he’s wrong. Talking Points Memo notes: The one-way ticket meme lives! Quizzing an administration official at the Homeland Security Committee Flight 253 hearing today,…
Haiti Benefit at Congress Jan. 31
James Jordan and Chuck Kaufman returned from a delegation trip to Haiti only five days before the earthquake. The Tucsonans are national co-coordinators of the Alliance for Global Justice. The purpose of their trip was to investigate the human rights situation in Haiti, as well as to learn more about development programs, schools, and conditions…
