Cover Story
Tucson Salvage
“All hands on deck!” soars like a battle cry. Prompts all sweaty homeless residents to hustle through the Bravo Base entrance to a waiting mini-van in the parking area.
Arizona Earns an F. Merit Pay Fails. DeVos-Backed Company Caught Lying.
This is a “Three posts for the price of one” special. Read them all, mix and match, your call. Here’s the short version of the three topics. • The Network For Public Education released an education privatization report card, the more school privatization, the lower the grade. Arizona earned an F, along with 16 other…
Laughing Stock: Best of Baby Fish Mouth
If Saturday Night Live is your jam, the Best of Sketch Show at TIM Comedy Theatre at 9 p.m., Saturday, June 23 should be well worth your $5. You’ll see the TIM sketch team’s favorites of the 28 sketches they’ve staged since their first show in January. Whimsically named Baby Fish Mouth (an obscure When Harry…
Pima County Safety and Justice Challenge to Screen Documentaries on Mental Health and Incarceration
Explore the challenges of life after incarceration for those with mental illness with The Pima County Safety and Justice Challenge this Thursday. The program will present a day of discussions and documentaries at The Loft Cinema that spotlight this subject. Featured films include Public Broadcasting’s The Released, a 54-minute documentary following a paranoid schizophrenic living…
Gov Race: Ken Bennett Talks Education, Gun Safety and Balancing the Budget
At yesterday’s Pima County Republican Club gathering, Ken Bennett told the crowd that when he saw Gov. Doug Ducey “cave” to the mounting pressure from K-12 educators and announce the “20×2020” plan, he knew he had to run for governor. That was on April 12, so his team collected the 6,223 signatures required plus almost…
Claytoon of the Day: This is MAGA
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The Loft Hosts Free screening of ‘The House I Live In’
As part of the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s Art for Justice Film Series, the Loft Cinema will screen “The House I Live In,” a documentary offering a look into the lives of those impacted by the war on drugs in America. The 2012 film pieces together glimpses into the worlds of a dealer, a…
Sally Hemings, 1773-2018: Hemingses’ Lives Matter
A major error in the historical narrative of this country’s founders has been partly corrected at Monticello in Virginia. The newly opened space at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s palatial mountaintop plantation, is presented as the living quarters of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who bore the founding father’s children. The life of Sally Hemings, a slave…
District 3 Democratic Candidates Focus on Housing, Education and Equal Representation
Andrés Cano was seven years old when environmental activists fought for his grandmother. She was poisoned by beryllium inhalation from a manufacturing plant in South Tucson during the early 1990s. Betty Villegas was just out of high school when she and her friends drove people without transportation to the local polling place to cast their…
New Ballot Initiative Promises Cheaper Electricity Bills and Cleaner Air
How does $5 off your monthly electricity bill sound? Most would say good, but relatively insignificant. How about $4 billion in savings statewide and half your electricity comes from renewable energy sources? That’s a future the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona ballot initiative is promising all residents and businesses by 2040. With a growing…
Claytoon of the Day: The Chump Foundation
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The Loft to host free screening of ‘Edward II’
Immerse yourself in Elizabethan drama with The Loft Cinema’s free screening of Edward II, a twist on the Christopher Marlowe play “The Troublesome Reign of Edward II.” The 1991 film, newly digitally restored, is regarded as a New Queer Cinema classic. It follows the story of King Edward II (played by Steven Waddington), who rejects…
T.H.R.E.A.T. Watch: Border Edition
On November 15, 2016, I wrote my first post after the presidential election. The headline was Trump Human Rights Erosion And Termination Watch (THREAT Watch). I was afraid of what this nation would become under a Trump administration. At the same time I hoped my fears would prove to be unfounded. I wanted to find, a…
#RedforEd Initiative Would Hike Taxes on Rich to Pay for Schools
Marea Jenness, a Tucson High School biology teacher, keeps a megaphone in the trunk of her Mercury Mariner. With the Red for Ed movement becoming a staple these days, she stays ready in the event of more protests. Jenness is one of thousands of Southern Arizonans who support a citizen-led ballot initiative that increases tax…
Exo Roast Co. Ditches Plastic for Paper
Think about your average restaurant experience. You sit down at a table, order beverages, and each beverage gets its own plastic straw. Then you order food, maybe something messy like wings or pizza, and the server hands you a tall stack of disposable paper napkins. You eat until you’re full, then you take a couple…
Cinema Clips: Hereditary
A family gets their proverbial ass viciously, horrifically kicked in Hereditary, writer-director Ari Aster’s more-than-impressive feature debut. This is a horror movie that will bruise your brain, make your blood run cold and stay in your system well after you’ve left the theater. Toni Collette plays a woman dealing with the recent death of her…
Fjord Needs a Family
“Do you think I could be a part of your family?” -Fjord (854603) Bring your family, including dogs, to meet Fjord at HSSA Main Campus at 635 W. Roger Rd. For more information give an adoptions counselor a call at 520-327-6088, ext. 173.
Claytoon of the Day: Yappy Jesus
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Go Grab A Drink With The World Cup
No matter the time of day, it’s always a good time to have a cold one (or two). Even if you’re not a big soccer fan, you can’t deny that hanging out with a bunch of people having fun (while drinking) is always a good time. Illegal Pete’s Tucson knows this simple fact and has…
Please Adopt a Pet From PACC Because There Are a Bazillion
Pima Animal Care Center is having a overcrowding problem. They have taken close to 180 animals in two days and the shelter is looking for help in the community to adopt or foster animals. As of Thursday, June 14 the shelter had close to 350 dogs and over 250 cats. “The situation at PACC is…
World Cup 2018: Rooting for the Underdogs
With the US national team not playing in the World Cup, you are probably wondering which team you should root for, well I have an option for you. Iceland-The Underdog The Vikings are ready to make history, playing in the World Cup for the first time, a country of a population of 348,580 (Tucson, by…
In Which I Find Myself Agreeing With (1) John Huppenthal and (2) The Charles Koch Institute
[Gulp!] OK, here goes. I rarely find people I disagree with more fundamentally than John Huppenthal and the Koch Brothers. But sometimes the universe allows for rare moments of alignment. I’m putting these odd moments of agreement with Huppenthal and the Brothers Koch into one post even though they concern very different issues to amplify the…
Claytoon of the Day: Free Kool-Aid
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A Bitter Cup of News: Revolutionary Grounds Is Grinding to a Halt
Revolutionary Grounds Coffee and Books, the small storefront on Fourth Avenue near the corner of Fifth Street, is closing its doors for good on Sunday, June 17. But a revival may be on the horizon. Usually invisible to the average tourist, the store’s red brick walls housed a vibrant local community for the past decade.…
Claytoon of the Day: Fun with Dictators
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Pima Community College to Cut Football, Two Other Sports in 2019
Pima Community College Chancellor Lee Lambert laid out the future for the Tucson campus’s scaled-back athletic program from a lectern tucked inside a glass-enclosed lecture hall. Lambert, who less than a day prior had formally announced the elimination of the school’s football team, along with one of the two tennis and golf programs, said such…
The Weekly List: 24 Things To Do In Tucson This Week
Your Weekly guide to keeping busy in the Old Pueblo. Magic Michael Carbonaro at the Diamond Center. You might know this guy best from his hidden camera prank TV show, The Carbonaro Effect, which combines comedy with the kind of magic tricks that have you saying, “But wait, seriously, how did he do that? I…
A Brewing Problem
The Trump administration’s new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are damaging a local industry near and dear to Tucson: breweries.
Big Bud on Campus
If you were concerned about whether you and your medical card would be welcome at one of Arizona’s three state universities next school year, worry no more.
The Sandwich Man Can
Austin Counts runs the 4th Avenue Deli with a wide grin and rockabilly energy.
Editor’s Note
We here at the Tucson Weekly are a bit worried about Keith Bee Jr., the 21-year-old candidate for the Justice of the Peace post now held by his father.
Stealth Campaign
A local Justice of the Peace race for a county judgeship pits a defense lawyer of 16 years against the 21-year-old son of the judge who currently holds the position.
Police Dispatch
A rental-property owner remained stoic after receiving an obscenity-laden, blatantly threatening note from a renter’s son.
Police Dispatch
A man caught with what appeared to be heroin tried to dismiss the substance as nothing of importance.
Dances of the Moment
Hundreds of refugees have turned up in Nogales, Sonora, in the last few weeks, seeking asylum in the United States.
Summer Hit
Hearts Beat Loud is a musically infused cinematic gem that will stand as one of the summer’s under-the-radar greats.
Reel Indie
This week’s indie offerings.
Lush Introspection
Nearly two-and-a-half decades and 11 albums into their career, Chicago’s The Sea and Cake have carved out a cozy cultish corner of the indie rock world.
XOXO…
This week in music.
Know Your Product
If you’ve been around the Tucson underground scene long enough, you’ve probably heard about Logan Greene.
