Man of Legend
Back in the olden days, when I was just a cub reporter with a few bylines to my name in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, I picked up the phone to talk to “Big Jim” Griffith about his book Southern Arizona Folk Arts. I’d been working for a few years up at the DeGrazia Gallery in…
XOXO: Mark Your Calenders
Thursday, Jan. 13 From the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Green Buddha’s signature “No Coast” reggae sound is an olio of funky reggae, rock and soul, dub and ska, with a ladleful of piquant Creole flavor. Green Buddha play tracks from Small Town (2018), their debut album. At Chicago Bar. With an opening set by…
A Handful of People Will Hit it Big with Arizona’s “Social Equity” Dispensary Licenses
ADHS accepted applications the first two weeks of December 2021 and, at the end of the day, more than 1,500 were submitted. clock is ticking down to the time when the Arizona Department of Health Services is going to drop its balls into the hopper and choose who gets to reap what is likely to be tens…
Tom Is Done Listening to the Excuses of the Anti-Vax Crowd
If I read one more whiny op-ed piece about how we should try to understand the people who are keeping the pandemic going by not getting vaccinated, I’m going to scream. It’s been a year since the vaccines became available, a year that could have been one of America’s finest hours, one in which a…
Spread Ahead: Health Workers Plead with Community as COVID Cases Skyrocket
Due to the fast-spreading Omicron variant, Arizona saw more than 45,000 new COVID cases reported between Friday, Jan. 7, and Sunday, Jan. 9. Here in Pima County, there were 6,003 new cases over the same time period, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Dr. Joe Gerald, the University of Arizona Zuckerman College of…
Adios, Big Jim: Saying Goodbye to the Man Who Stirred Tucson’s Melting Pot
James “Big Jim” Griffith died just before Christmas, on Dec. 18, at the age of 86. He’s best known in Tucson as the founder of Tucson Meet Yourself, the annual melting pot that bring together Tucson’s rich cultures, but he was much more: An encyclopedia of folk tales, a celebrated author, a tour guide who…
City Week
Editor’s Note: While we are delighted to see Tucsonans once again gathering for fun events, we are also aware that variants are in widespread circulation. Please consider getting vaccinated against COVID if you haven’t yet and wearing a mask during indoor events. Death of a Salesman. Whether you’re a theater aficionado or not, you’ve probably…
Gulf Tastes: Parish Owner Brings a Little Southern Comfort to Downtown with The Delta
The seed was likely planted when Travis Peters was a punk-rocking teenager, wearing an Operation Ivy band T-shirt and shredding around the streets of downtown Tucson on his skateboard. He was a regular fixture on the downtown punk and boarding scene long before he captured the nation’s attention as a multiple award-winning chef and Food…
Tucson Jazz Festival Returns With a Renewed Focus on Collaboration
After narrowly making it into the early days of 2020, and being cancelled last year, the Tucson Jazz Festival is scheduled across multiple venues from Friday, Jan. 14, to Sunday, Jan. 23. The festival returns with an expanded variety of styles, both indoor and outdoor shows, and a special jam day that gets to the…
Police: Kyrsten Sinema Intentionally Went into a Bathroom To Dodge Activists Filming Her at ASU
On the morning of Oct. 3, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema gave her students in an advanced fundraising class at Arizona State University a break. She stepped out of the classroom to go move her car to another location near the downtown Phoenix campus, but instead found a group of four activists waiting to talk to her. …
Fifth-Generation Pinal County Farmer Struggles To Grow Crops with Less Water
CASA GRANDE – It’s harvest season for Caywood Farms east of Casa Grande. The tractor is gassed up, the swather blades are sharp and Nancy Caywood is ready to farm. Only one thing is missing. “This all should be alfalfa,” Caywood said, standing in a dry field. “Every bit of this land should be in…
The Daily Agenda: Is Open the Best We Can Hope For?
Ducey is still the governor, and still not in charge of the border … Start your own police force … Anyway, let’s go! Gov. Doug Ducey declared yesterday that “Arizona schools are open and they will remain open.” But as schools welcome children back following a winter break where many gathered and traveled, they’re finding…
Arizona Cannabis Sales Top $1.2 Billion in First 11 Months of 2021
Arizona cannabis sales continued on an upward trajectory in 2021, with the Arizona Department of Revenue reporting more than $1.23 billion in combined cannabis sales through the first 11 months of the year. In November, adult-use recreational cannabis sales hit a new peak and crossed $60 million for the first time. Medical sales have fluctuated…
Banner Health Faces Staffing Crunch, Temporarily Shutters Some Urgent Care Clinics
COVID hospitalizations are on an upward climb thanks to the Omicron variant and healthcare workers are contracting the virus, leading to staffing crunches at Banner Health. As a result of the staffing crunch, some Banner urgent care locations are closed, causing longer wait times at other urgent care facilities, according to Dr. Marjorie Bessel, Banner…
Democrats Diss Ducey for Ignoring School Funding Needs, COVID-19 Challenges
Democrats and public school advocates said Gov. Doug Ducey had two glaring holes in his final State of the State speech on Monday: funding for public schools and COVID-19. “If we truly want Arizona to be unstoppable, our priority should be increasing education attainment,” said Education Forward Arizona spokeswoman Shannon Sowby, referencing Ducey’s slogan for…
In Final State of the State Speech, Ducey Touts Plans for Border Security, Water and Taxes
Gov. Doug Ducey vowed to use state resources to increase border security, spend a billion dollars to treat and transport water from the Sea of Cortez, expand school choice and continue lowering taxes as he laid out a wide-ranging agenda for his last year in office. In his eighth and final State of the State…
The Daily Agenda: Ducey Delivers a Speech
The state of the state is still strong … Don’t pull a David Gowan on us … And Jan Brewer meets a former nemesis Nothing exemplifies the Ducey administration like the governor screaming “WE WILL CUT TAXES!” And scream Gov. Doug Ducey did at yesterday’s eighth and final State of the State speech, which Team…
Arizona Legislature does away with COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, even as omicron surges
With near-record COVID-19 caseloads and hospitalizations driven by the highly infectious omicron variant sweeping Arizona, the state legislature will convene today, Jan. 10, with almost no restrictions in place aimed at limiting spread of the virus at the Capitol. Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate will require masks. Plastic shields that had been…
The Daily Agenda: Today’s the Big Day
Governors never say (sine) die … We won’t have Cyber Ninjas to kick around anymore … And the beginning of the Age of Holiday Enlightenment. We’re heading down to the Capitol today to tempt fate with unmasked, anti-vax lawmakers who were recently freed from their individual Plexiglas partitions and basically any other precautions against the…
Dr. Joe Gerald: COVID Cases More Than Doubled To Start the New Year
In his latest weekly report , Dr. Joe Gerald, the UA epidemiologist who has been tracking Arizona’s COVID outbreak since its earliest days, confirms Omicron is bringing skyrocketing COVID case numbers. A total of 53,207 Arizonans tested positive for COVID in the week ending Jan. 2, which was more than twice as many as the…
Gabby Giffords: “11 Years Ago Today, a Normal Saturday Morning in Tucson Turned our Lives Upside Down”
11 years ago today, a normal Saturday morning in Tucson turned our lives upside down. I was shot in the head. Six of my constituents were killed and 12 more were injured. My life and my community would never be the same. We were devastated, but we were not broken. The Tucson community came together.…
Zoppé Family Circus Returns To Tucson
Zoppé: An Italian Family Circus returns to Tucson for its 11th year at the Mercado District, bringing new acts to perform under the Big Top tent. Circus director Giovanni Zoppé said returning to the Big Top “feels like we’re home again, back where we are supposed to be.” When COVID first swept the nation, the…
