Tucson Weekly: Cheap Thrills (May 21

Cheap Thrills WINDY CITY: Tucson's favorite blowhards, a.k.a. the Arizona Symphonic Winds, strut their melodic stuff with A Night of Jazz, featuring top-notch Tucson clarinetist John Denman, and direction by Laszlo Veres. Best of all, this concert will be held outdoors under Arizona's lovely spring skies.
The free concert gets underway at 6 p.m. Saturday, May 23, in Udall Park, 7200 E. Tanque Verde Road. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. For information, call 577-2410.
DESERT DIGEST: Ever wonder why a rattler rattles, or coyotes howl in the night? Get enlightened about these and other questions with The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Book of Answers, by Tucson naturalist and author David Lazaroff. He'll be on hand to discuss his new book, and give a free hiking presentation, from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 23, in Barnes & Noble, 7325 N. La Cholla Blvd. in the Foothills Mall. For details, call 742-6402.
HOMICIDE U: For some 50 years, the School of the Americas has quietly been training Latin American thugs in the most effective techniques of rape, torture and murder--in other words, the best ways to terrorize their own people.
During that time, the school has been conclusively linked to such outrageous crimes as the mass murder of Jesuit priests and nuns in El Salvador in the '80s, during that country's long, dark, U.S.-financed civil war.
Conceived as an anti-communist military bastion during the Cold War, and originally sited in Panama, the school has for ensuing decades been located at Fort Benning, Georgia. And for nearly as long, protesters have been beaten and jailed for opposing the school's existence.
Last November, a pair of Tucsonans were snagged in the judicial net while protesting the SOA, and Rev. Ken Kennon and Randy Serraglio are currently cooling their heels in the federal pen for six months. Kennon is jailed in Texas, and Serraglio in Safford, Arizona.
There has been some movement in Congress towards ending the SOA's infamous reign, says local activist Mark Holdaway. "But the school's supporters say it helps promote democracy. They say that out of about 60,000 graduates, only 30 or so have been fingered for these crimes."
But those are only the abuses that have been proven, while countless others remain obscure. Meanwhile, the efforts of Kennon, Serraglio and others are critical if the school is to be closed, Holdaway says. "It has been connected to thousands of murders," he says. "Even documents obtained from the school show that they were teaching such things as torture. So these protesters are simply acting as people of peace."
At 7 p.m. Saturday, May 23, The Ginger Band, consisting of Holdaway, Richard Egen and Eleanor Dart, will play a mix of classic folk and gospel music at a benefit fundraiser for Kennon and Serraglio. Concert will be at the Friends Meeting House, 931 N. Fifth Ave. A $5 donation is suggested. For information, call 745-5685.

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