Some housekeeping matters this week …
• Our online ballots for both Best of Tucson™ and Tucson
Area Music Awards (aka TAMMIES) voting were down for about two days
(much of Sunday, May 3, and Monday, May 4). The techies tell me that
the hard drive on their server died a sudden and painful death.
However, thanks to the fact that the server had good backups on it, no
data appears to have been lost. We apologize for the inconvenience. Get
thee to TucsonWeekly.com and
TAMMIES.com to vote!
• After a four-week hiatus, the comic “Troubletown” has
returned to the Tucson Weekly. We had to cut some costs around
here, and it was one of the, um, costs that was cut. However,
“Troubletown” has some fans at The Rialto Theatre. Long story short,
the Rialto has agreed to sponsor “Troubletown” and “Life in Hell”
(which we also planned to cut, although it never left the paper after
we were able to negotiate a temporary cheaper rate for the strip) for
the rest of the year. Thanks to the good folks at the Rialto; we’re
happy to have “Troubletown” back. You can find it and the rest of the
comics on Pages 57 and 58.
• Finally, I’d like to thank our five interns for all the hard
work they put in this semester. They’re all wrapping up their duties
here this week or next week. Hank, Leila, Lissette, Austin and Sam have
all been great to have around, and they’ll be missed.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
Dear Editor,
Have you read the tealeaves lately? The planet is reeling from lack of attention. I’s on the verge of coma. We need a weekly column about the vision of a Sustainable future here in the Sonoran desert. Have you looked up and around lately? The pressure must pick up now on the politicians or they go. We need immediate solutions put to the state, surrounding counties and Tucson and its surrounding towns. They must move forward with plans or we will demand their resignation.
The public at large is ignorant as hell about the lack of public and private movement toward a solution to carbon emissions by our own Tucson Electric and Arizona as a whole but they aren’t stupid. They’re choking, eating Frankenstein foods over-loaded with pesticides and artificial fertilizers.
Up in Gila Bend, the world’s largest Concentrating Solar Thermal plant is being built by the Spanish for APS – 280 megawatts. Why is that? It’s a disgrace for a thinking and conscious desert people to be so unconnected from an on-going emergency alert as our clear skies change from deep blue to pale and our air fills with dirty CO2 emissions. What are we doing about raising awareness of the current environmental crisis?
Tucson Weekly needs an Environmental Crisis writer with a visceral feel for the devastation going on and out of control on a world-wide basis. People are scared and they aren’t sure why. The information is not getting out with the pathetic newspapers here and local radio dropping the ball, even usually responsible KXCI. KXCI and Tucson Weekly need to partner together to get the fire needed under the officials to make ’em sweat over their safe careers if they don’t deliver.
Back to the CST in Gila Bend. It’s Arizona’s first. Do you know, sir, that this energy producing concept is the Jewel of the Soutwest, the answer to supplanting coal, oil, gas and nuclear worldwide and its prototype is here. Hear must be put on the ubiquitous progenitors of the very poisons that are killing us each and every day. Let’s get this this information out to the public. The Concentrating Solar Thermal plants produce over 1 gigawatt of energy per unit – enough energy to light 500,000 homes with each plant and for decades or even centuries using mainly, only steel, glass and labor to build and people to staff it as its runs on the sun.
I’ll write it. You pay it and together we will put The Tucson Weekly on the map as the mover and shaker problem solver and lightning rod for Solar and Sustainable answers to anxious citizens.
Best regards from Bob’s Camp, AZ, 520-212-4453, SolarBob@ BSOLR.com
A very tired Sustainability Expert Lecturer and Writer. Check out SolarBob’s Weekly Blog at http://www.BSOLR.com ………IT IS SMOKIN’…….
Bob, I encourage you to look through the Weekly archives, where you’ll find lots of sustainability coverage, and to keep looking at the Weekly, as we continue to have lots of sustainability coverage. Thanks for reading!