As evidence of the fact that being a desert dweller can fry one's brains to the point of near insanity, I present to you the following:

After four days of humidity (And rain! Remember that stuff?) in Little Rock—something I just can't deal with, after living in the bone-dry climes of Reno, Las Vegas and Tucson—I was freakin' elated to be back in Tucson's unmoist weather, even though it's supposed to be 107 or so today.

So, to sum up—I was looking forward to 107-degree weather.

To ape a bit from that old "brain-on-drugs" commecial: This is my brain on Tucson's heat. Any questions?

Generators are online software trifles that do fun things. F'instance, via this Max Cannon auto-strip generator, you too can share in the magic of Max's benign misanthropy.

Or, if Cannon's a bit too advanced, you can always revel in some in the feline indulgencies of that sybaritic kitty Garfield.

Every year, the Chicago Tribune lists their opinion of the 50 best magazines. As I view the list, admittedly I am not on the cusp of glossy reading and have never heard of some of these (Blender, VegNews, Conceive). But the article a good read and makes me want to relax with a stack. 

The link to view goes to South Florida.com, not the Tribune because there you have to register and answer a million questions about yourself and your first born. I know why they make readers jump thru these marketing hoops but I still find it tiresome. 

To pique your interest, the first 5 are: The Economist, Dwell, Wired, The New Yorker and ESPN the Magazine. 

I see great possibilities for this gadget during the blistering Arizona summer.

The Weekly offices ought to get in on this trend.

There's something weird about a convention of a bunch of people from alternative newsweeklies making national news. I guess it helps to have the former president—and husband of the potential next president—show up.

Bill Clinton's speech was by far the highlight of the now-concluded Association of Alternative Newsweeklies annual convention. His speech started around 1:15 p.m. local time. It was well past 3 p.m. when he finally concluded the Q&A, and stayed for a while to chat, have his picture taken, shake hands and sign autographs. (I shook his hand and exchanged a word or two. It was, to use the vernacular of kids these days, "cool"). The remainder of the convention was thrown into chaos by the length of Clinton's appearance (and for some reason, the hotel didn't serve lunch until well after he was finished, meaning many of us didn't eat), but we didn't mind.

While the above linked-to AP dispatch hits some of the high points, two things stood out from the amazingly charismatic speech and Q&A:

1. At one point, during the Q&A, the subject of immigration—a subject Tucson knows all too well (and yet knows stunningly little about, in some ways)—and George W. Bush's feelings on immigration came up. While cynics (myself included) express the belief that Bush is more moderate on the topic than he is on most other topics because he's trying to protect the cheap labor pool for big business, Clinton had a different take. He said that immigration is the one issue Texas Republicans are less conservative on, because they get it. He also said that he feels Bush "believes in what he says, most of the time." While I am not sure I agree wholeheartedly on Bush's motivations, Clinton would know better than I would, and his perspective is fascinating.

2. The AP story touched on this, too, but I have to mention it: When Clinton bemoaned the fact that the media these days tends to turn public figures and issues into two-dimensional cartoons, I could not have agreed more. He chided the media for depicting his wife as a "left-wing nut," when she's not; for painting Democratic positions on the Iraq war with too broad of a brush; for making Sen. John McCain out to be a moderate when he's actually quite conservative on many issues (something Arizonans have been reminded of by his support of the heinous Center for Arizona Policy anti-partnership ballot measure); and for mocking Al Gore and Hillary Clinton for being wonks. ("We need wonks. We need to know what the heck we're gonna do," he said to laughter.) He implored us to go beyond the two-dimensional cartoon, because these depictions obscure and hurt the ability to debate.

It was an amazing speech. I am impressed that he came and spoke to us (and we didn't have to pay his huge speaker fee) and took the time to answer our questions and talk with us. Given the government's propensity these days to try to keep as much information from the media as possible, it was a reminder of the good old days—a mere six years ago.

Or so says Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, who has co-sponsored a bill to display the 10 commandments in the House and Senate. Here he is on Colbert talking about it. Unsuprisingly for a man with such a limited grasp of grammar, Westmoreland is unable to name the 10 commandments. But still, he's sure they is not a bad thing!

Seriously, if you were a lawmaker, and you were asking that a sign be posted in a public building, don't you think you should have some idea what that sign said? If there really are only 10 commandments in the set, how hard is it to remember them? And if you can't remember 10 simple laws, should you really be elected to the post of lawmaker? Luckily for us, Rep. Westmoreland is not much of a lawmaker ... in fact, this is the very first bill he's ever sponsored. So cute! He's like a newborn babe taking his first steps! And Colbert is there to help him fall on his face.

Last week, Jim Kolbe voted in favor of mega corporations instead of people. (So what else is new?)  Kolbe along with majority of the House of Representatives (both Republicans and Democrats) voted for a telecommunications law that would give big Internet operators like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast more control over what we can view online. (Big Brother strikes again.) I guess it must be all those telecommunication lobbyists' influence. After all, the vote flies in the face of the thousands of signatures by such diverse groups such as the ACLU, Gun Owners of America, the Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org, all on the same side of the fence in favor of Net Neutrality.

The Senate is voting soon, but you got to wonder whose pocket they’re in.

The prolific Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews has something to say. For now, most people seem pretty oblivious about it. If Miller’s article lights a fire under your tush, get on the phone and start calling members of the Arizona Senate and urge them to vote in favor of Net Neutrality.

Senator John McCain: 202-224-2235

Senator Jon Kyl: 202-224-4521

Just how much power do AT&T, Verizon and Comcast need, anyway?

I believe Wesley Clark when he says he isn't sure whether he's going to run for president again. However (rampant speculation alert!) I am pretty damn sure he wants to run again, and is paving the way just in case he decides to give it another shot.

The former NATO allied commander spoke to us this morning, taking 70 minutes out of a scheduled 45-minute slot to compliment us (the assembled alternative press), to implore us to do more and to explain why he is, in his words, worried about this great nation of ours.

He started off by explaining how America needs the press, especially in a time when we have a presidency that's issuing releases and expecting them to masquerade as "real" news. However, he chided the media for not doing enough homework to give proper context to the news of the day.

After discussing his blog and detailing a little of his Arkansas background, Clark abruptly changed topics with: "I am worried about our country."

He then laid out (CUE THE STUMP SPEECH) a litany of problems facing these United States: the low graduation rate; more than half of the graduate students here being from outside of the country; the high number of uninsured people; the current industry-friendly, people-unfriendly business environment; the immigration dilemma; the distribution (or lack thereof) of wealth; and the fact that the country is "struggling in a war we didn't have to fight." He boldly predicted a troop reduction, probably shortly after Labor Day, when elections are just around the corner. Finally, he bemoaned the lack of a "big idea" to unite our efforts in the post-Cold War era.

It was an impressive speech by an impressive man. I am sure we'll be hearing more from Wesley Clark in the future.

Tomorrow, we hear from Susan McDougal and a man you may have heard of—William Jefferson Clinton. More on that tomorrow or Sunday.

Greetings, all. For some reason, while I am running around being a convention dork, all the other Weekly bloggers are napping or pillaging or doing things that actually pay—but not doing very much blogging.

To quote Kyle (or is it Stan?) from South Park: You bastards!

In any case, later tonight (early tomorrow morning?), I'll blog about today's convention goings-on (assuming I don't drink too much, as is tradition, at the parties tonight). It's been an interesting day, led by Wesley Clark's speech.

In the meantime, it turns out other blog nerds are doing the blog thing from AAN. While they won't have the Tucson-centric angle as I (hopefully) do, they're worth checking out. Here's a handy little list compiled by the crack staff at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

But for now, I am off to a museum party, where there are supposed to be lots of Picasso paintings (in Arkansas—who knew?). And, of course, there will also be ample amounts of newspaper kvetching and drinking.

So, day one of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention has wrapped up, and even though it was a great day in many respects, I am a bit bummed.

We enjoyed a reception at the beautiful William J. Clinton Presidential Library. The library gives short shrift to our former president's problems, but it effectively depicts how much good he brought to this country. How anybody can objectively look at all the positive things that happened on his watch and not believe he was an excellent president is beyond me. And the thought of who currently holds the presidency—and the job he's doing—led to the aforementioned bummer.

This came on the heels of a fantastic—yet also depressing, in some ways—conference session. The main speaker at the session was Ted Conover, an fantastic literary nonfiction writer. Much of the discussion focused on the recent journalism/memoir scandals (i.e., James Frey, J.T. LeRoy, etc.) that have befallen the nonfiction biz as of late. We, as a bunch of editors, were trying to figure out how to make sure everything that goes into our newspapers is as fact-checked and accurate as possible. At one point, someone said something to the effect of: "You know, at some point, we've all probably published something in our newspapers that was made up, and never even realized it." And he's right. You can only fact-check so much.

But someone said something else later that cheered me up a bit. It was a statement that's echoed similar things I've mentioned before: The fact that these scandals are being exposed shows that, in many ways, journalism is better than it ever has been before. Due to the knowledge at all our fingertips on the Internet, and due to the sheer number of unfettered media sources out there, these kinds of frauds are being shown for what they are. I don't know if these deceits would have been exposed 10 years ago. I doubt they would have.

And that revelation/reminder made the day just a bit brighter.