Chef Ramiro Scavo - the former executive chef for the management group that runs Harvest Restaurant, the Grill at Hacienda del Sol and both Zona 78 locations - is opening a restaurant by the UA that will specialize in "urban farm food."

Pasco Kitchen and Lounge will serve "traditional comfort food and drinks, approached with modern techniques and with an emphasis on fresh, locally sourced ingredients" when it opens next month, according to a press release put out today.

Pasco Kitchen and Lounge will be located at 820 E. University Blvd. We'll let you know when we learn more.

We look back on 2010 during the very last Friday Roundtable on KUAT-TV's Arizona Illustrated.

For the last 15 years or so, I’ve had the privilege and honor to appear on the show to interview guests and talk about the week in review.

I’d like to say thanks to the crew and staff at Arizona Illustrated for all the hard work over the years and express my gratitude to the folks out there who watched the show. I’m looking forward to seeing what Michael Chihak, the former Tucson Citizen publisher, does with his new political show, Arizona Week, when it debuts in January. I may even pop up on there from time to time.

And I'd like to give a very big thanks to Bill Buckmaster, who did a first-rate job building Arizona Illustrated up over his 23-year career at KUAT. Bill knows this town, he knows the newsmakers, he knows the issues—and he always plays it fair and down the line. I’m lucky to have had the chance to work with him over the years and I wish him success with his new radio venture, Buckmaster, which will be launching at 9 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 3 on KJLL, 1330 AM. The show repeats in the evening from 7 to 8 p.m.; you can find out more details about the program at buckmastershow.com.

I’ll be joining Buckmaster and other members from the Roundtable on the Friday edition of the radio show, so be sure to tune in.

Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll was our last guest on the Friday Roundtable. After hearing his answer, I'm still not sure why he thinks it's a good idea to spend more money building the new sewer plant by having a private company finance it instead of having it done with public bonds.

• Joe Sweeney, Dean of the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School

The Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School is an unorthodox legal institution created and run by Joe Sweeney, the perennial congressional candidate who regularly campaigns against illegal immigration. (For more on Sweeney's law school and political background, you can click here.)

Sweeney says he was delighted to have Olson as a guest at the school.

"We wanted him last year and he had to put it off, so we got it this year," Sweeney says.

Olson joins what Sweeney calls the "elite group of the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School," whose honorary graduates include Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Paul Newman and John Kromko.

Sweeney says finding students for the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School can be challenging.

"These kids are all hooked on the cyberspace," Sweeney says. "I tell them, 'Look, you've got to have an outline. You can't just go to the phone book and look at the Yellow Pages. You've got to have some depth.'"

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post examines Sen. John McCain's furious and unsuccessful efforts to thwart the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

McCain's statement on the floor was roughly one part argument, four parts tantrum. "So here we are about six weeks after an election that repudiated the agenda of the other side," he said, and those who would repeal don't-ask-don't-tell "are acting in direct repudiation of the message of the American people." (Actually, polls show support for repeal.)

He bemoaned "this bizarro world that the majority leader has been carrying us in," and taunted: "Maybe it will require another election." The Arizonan suggested those who vote to repeal would have blood on their hands. "Don't think that it won't be at great cost," he said, punctuating his words by bouncing on his toes and chopping with his left hand. It will "probably," he said, "harm the battle effectiveness which is so vital to the survival of our young men and women in the military."

McCain famously said in 2006 that he would support repeal once military leaders recommended it. Instead, he led the opposition to repeal. McCainologists in the Capitol speculate that on this and other issues he's driven less by policy consideration than by personal animosity. A decade ago, his antipathy toward President George W. Bush led him to seek common cause with Democrats to thwart a Republican president. Now his antipathy toward President Obama has made him a leading Republican hardliner.

Read the whole appalling account here.

From Fox News yesterday, Father Morris (who I think is supposed to be offering a hip perspective on Catholicism on the network, but usually ends up babbling on like an insane person) likes a recent study when it says it's good to pray, doesn't like it quite so much when it suggests that talking to any distant unseen person would work just as well.

Tonight, bright lights and floats from groups all over Tucson will be dazzling everyone along Stone Avenue.

The annual Downtown Parade of Lights is in its 16th year now, and begins again tonight at 6:30. The event is fun, family-friendly and free. Bring your kids and join in on the holiday spirit.

For a full map of the parade route, visit the Downtown Tucson Partnership website, or call 837-6504 for more information.

It appears that plans to have a Triple-A baseball team play at Hi Corbett Field have hit a snag. The city of Tucson announced earlier this afternoon that "contractual commitments" prevented them from renting Hi Corbett out to the Tucson Padres. We understand that "contractual commitments" have to do with Jay Zucker's Golden League Baseball team, the Tucson Toros, who won't be playing at all next year.

Instead, it looks like Triple-A team will be playing at Tucson Electric Park after all. Y'know, unless we manage to screw that up, too. Details to follow.

"We three kings of Bacon are / Bearing gifts we roasted afar."

Source here.

When you write about music (or maybe anything, I suppose), there's a desire to try to step outside of the maelstrom of popular opinion. After all, if people are already interested in and buying the best music out there, what purpose do critics have?

A few places asked for my top pick or picks of the year, and I did some waffling, trying to convince myself that I enjoyed the National's album High Violet or the Black Keys' disc a bit more than I did, but in the end, you have to try to be honest and pick the work that meant the most and pushed the conversation forward. For me, that was Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and not surprisingly (since it received their only perfect score of the year), Pitchfork picked it as their number one as well:

Bearing witness to Kanye West's very public 2010 has featured many joys, none greater than watching everyone unspool his myriad updates, achievements, and indiscretions into piles of meaning. His persona went to cataclysmic places this year— there were times when he deserved his own cable news ticker. But, somehow, West managed to transcend the preposterous talk show appearances, the too-good-to-be-true Twitter account, the live breakdowns, the Horus chain, the free-MP3 stunt(ing), the press blitz, the breakups, the make-ups, the dick pics, the furniture pornography, the Rosewood movement, the NO NEGATIVE BLOG VIEWING, the living paintings, the short film, and the rest of the lot. Through all that noise, we obsessed first and most deeply over the eye of the storm: the album.

Did the Tucson Weekly's music writers agree? Look for their lists in the next two issues of the Weekly, on stands the 23rd and 30th.