Democrat Ted Downing, who served two terms in the Arizona House of Representatives in District 28, wants to run for the state Senate seat now held by Sen. Paula Aboud.

Downing, who lost a Senate race in the midtown district to Aboud in 2006, says his main goal in running is to pressure fellow candidates into supporting a plan for a ballot proposition that would cut the Arizona Legislature down to one chamber and create non-partisan legislative races.

"I'm running to do away with the House and Senate and cut the legislature in half," says Downing, who says he's not even sure if Aboud will seek reelection.

"If she ever decides to run, I'll talk about her record," Downing says. "But I'm not going to get sidetracked."

Downing is confident he'll beat Aboud if she tries to hang onto her seat.

"Oh, I'll win," says Downing, who adds that he hopes that Aboud will support his proposition. "If Paula signs it, that's wonderful."

UPDATE! We've heard from Aboud, who assures us she'll be seeking reelection. She plans to file later this week, but says she's made it clear for months now that she was running this year.

"J'tois Leather Dress" is among the pieces that will be available for purchase during "Pop Up Shop" on Saturday, Feb. 20 at Zoe Boutique, 735 N. Fourth Ave. "Pop Up Shop" will be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with live models and a cocktail party from 5 to 10 p.m.

• Aleksa Brown
• Preen owners Emilie Marchand and Erin Bradley have a new home on Fourth Avenue.

A few weeks back, Lexi Brown told us the plight of the ladies who run Preen, a Congress Street boutique that was facing eviction to make room for Mr. An's new downtown bar and restaurant.

Here's good news from Preen co-owner Emilie Marchand. Mark your calendar for a big party on Friday, Feb. 26:

I'd like to let you know some details about Preen—a boutique featuring vintage goods, alterations, and original designs—and our upcoming move.

We will be closing our doors at the current location on Congress Street on Feb. 18. This means that our last door open here is on Feb. 17. After a few days of moving and setting up, we will re-open at 210 N. 4th Avenue. For those of you who aren't familiar with the space, it was most recently Conrad Wilde Gallery and is nestled between The Shanty and The Book Stop. We are thrilled about this new shop! With twice the square footage we will be able to have increased inventory, a much larger sewing studio and more emphasis on local music and vintage records (as well as a baby grand piano!!). Our hours will be changing to Tuesday through Saturday from 10am until 6pm and Sunday 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

To celebrate, we will host an opening reception on Friday, February 26, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Along with refreshments, this party will feature the music of Bajo Turbato (a new project by Chris Black and Gabriel Sullivan), tunes spun by DJ Singularity, and mingling models provide by Black Cherry Burlesque who will parade to the Rialto for "Powhaus Productions Presents POP" at the end of the evening.

My friends at Arizona Public Media have put together a Web site to follow the state's economic meltdown.

You'll find a list of budget bills and some great background, including a recent one-hour Arizona Illustrated special that looked at Arizona's bleak financial picture, with UA economists Marshall Vest and Gerald Swanson. It's a great discussion that digs into how we got here and how we can get out. Hint: The answer is not more tax cuts.

Watch the show after the jump.



• KRISSY SAUTER
• Incense coils hang ready at the Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong with HÃng BÄo, red lucky envelopes, carrying offerings or prayers for bygone ancestors.

Krissy Sauter, from Claremont, Calif., is a graduate of the University of Arizona School of Journalism. Ever since graduation, Sauter has spent a majority of her time teaching and traveling to far exotic places like New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Belize, Uruguay, and Argentina. Along the way, Sauter returned and refined her photographic eye that she spent four years developing while in school in Tucson.

The California native recently made a trip to Hong Kong just in time for all the preparations and decorations to go up for China's big day on Feb. 14, when the Year of the Tiger begins.

Sauter is now back in California, working on her photojournalism career. To see more of Sauter's work, visit her blog here.

• KRISSY SAUTER
• Visitors and patrons to the Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong light candles and burn incense to honor their ancestors.

In TQ&A this week, I interviewed Han Nguyen and Ceil Melton, about a great punk they pulled on an Austin, Texas church that doesn't care much for anyone under the LGBT banner. For the past few years, the lesbian ministers have been on a spiritual journey looking for a church that reflected Melton’s evangelical roots, but was accepting.

The journey took them from being rejected by an Austin Pentecostal church to the megachurch the couple punked when they posed as straight missionaries. The women, together for 16 years, documented the experience on film in Faith of the Abomination. It premieres at the Loft on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 7:30 p.m. Read an extended version of interview after the jump.

What do you want to bet that Joey Burns somehow gets all 117 musicians who are performing that day to join him on stage at some point?

Get your tickets now. Details here.

The weekly briefing from the Capitol by Rep. Steve Farley:

Howdy, Friends O'Farley…

Let's cut to the chase.

As I'm sure you know, Governor Brewer's sales tax referral passed out of the Legislature last week. I voted no, for the reasons I detailed last week.

One of those reasons is that I think the Governor's tax will likely lose. In an ideal world, it ought to lose for many reasons from the way it hurts middle-class families more than the rich, to over-dependence on retail sales taxes in Arizona, to the huge and expensive corporate bailout bill Republican legislators are poised to enact, to the fact that it doesn't solve even a tiny bit of the problem, to the Governor proposing massive cuts to education, human services, and public safety even if it does pass.

However, it is extremely clear to those of you who regularly read the Farley Report that we Arizonans do not live in an ideal world.

In this world, there are people on the far right who lay in wait for the sales tax to fail on May 18 so that they may claim a popular mandate to slash and burn most government services, especially education, human services and public safety. And

• Allyson Bennett
• Ringtail

"Ringtail," by Allyson Bennett, is among the works on display in Mysterious Strangers, continuing through the end of February at Epic Café , 745 N. Fourth Ave. The café is open from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week.

Worried that the Large Hadron Collider may open up a black hole here on earth and swallow the planet? You can get the straight story tonight at tonight's Science Café. Details here:

Flandrau: The UA Science Center is holding its next “Science Café” at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant in downtown Tucson on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 6:00 p.m. A science café is a casual forum for people to meet and discuss a particular science topic with a UA scientist in the relaxed atmosphere of a local restaurant.

Michael A. Shupe, a University of Arizona professor of physics, will give a short talk entitled, “Simply Smashing: The Large Hadron Collider Ramps Up.” Shupe, a member of the UA’s Large Hadron Collider team, is part of the LHC’s worldwide scientific effort to answer fundamental questions of the universe.

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest scientific experiment, will zip beams of sub-atomic particles around a 17-mile underground tunnel beneath the border of France and Switzerland. The machine, shut down for the winter, is scheduled to resume operations in March.