Noble Hops Gastropub just put out a new menu. If you like fare that starts at dressed-up pub fare and ends somewhere near fine dining, head over here.

Or you could head over here and check out the new menu at Sir Veza's Taco Garage. It also has a new happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m., and areverse happy hour that starts at 9 p.m., with TONS of drink specials and half-off appetizers galore.

Eat well my friends.

Admittedly, this isn't as strange as the same nation's Burger King ad, and the theme is similar to the brand's ads in the US, but Mickey Rourke is involved in this Russian Snickers commercial, so that's at least a little weird.

Café A La C'Art, the popular restaurant at the Tucson Museum of Art, has added about 50 additional seats and will soon have dinner hours and a bar.

Codi Perry, who manages the front of the restaurant, says the restaurant recently took over four additional rooms. He said the liquor license has also been approved, and that libations could be available as early as spring.

This is good news for fans of the restaurant, who often line up outside at lunchtime. Perry said he typically sees about 150 seatings for lunch, and that the additional room should cut down on the wait times.

Currently, Café a La C'Art starts serving breakfast at 7 a.m.; lunch hours begin at 11 a.m. Perry says dinner service should start in late spring, but weekend hours could begin as early as January.

There’s more on the restaurant over here.

I really like Ke$ha, but it would be easy to assume that the frequently Autotuned pop princess shouldn't be allowed near the Bob Dylan catalog. Still, her take on "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is really quite good. Seriously, you should give it a listen.

If you'd like to hear the Amnesty International collection of Dylan covers the Ke$ha track comes from, you can stream selections from the album on the organization's Facebook page in exchange for a "like". Be forewarned, the Miley Cyrus track is not nearly the pleasant surprise this song happened to be.

Not permanently, but for this episode of Talking Comics with Heroes & Villains, Cynthia breaks down the gender barrier in local video-based comic book reviews. Also, they discuss Defenders #1 and the "lamer Marvel heroes".

The current issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas is on Latino student movements and includes an article on part of the fight for Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District. The piece was written by UA assistant professor Nolan Cabrera from the Center for the Study of Higher Education (an ethnic studies graduate from Stanford University), fourth-year UA undergraduate student Elisa Meza (member of UNIDOS), and UA assistant professor Roberto Rodriguez in the Mexican American Studies Department (member of the Mexican American Studies Community Advisory Board).

The North American Congress on Latin America's bi-monthly magazine has been published since 1967, covering "Latin America and its relationship with the United States."

The full story is available online here, but requires a $3 donation. The article is worth it, plus NACLA has a solid editor and covers a variety of important topics on Latin America — topics often overlooked in mainstream press. Ladies, gents and everyone in between, it's worth supporting:

May 3 was a surreal day at the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). That afternoon, the entire neighborhood surrounding the district’s headquarters was blocked off by Tucson police officers. K-9 units were on the prowl for bombs, snipers were stationed on the building’s roof, a bomb squad patrolled the front of the building, and a helicopter hovered above. Dozens of officers lined the streets, and there were police vehicles as far as the eye could see. Near the entrance stood a makeshift altar set up by local clergy. By 4:30 p.m., two hours before the start of the school board meeting, several hundred people gathered outside, in the 90-degree desert heat. The building was locked down. Why this high level of “security” usually associated with militarized societies?

One week earlier, nine students had chained themselves to chairs at the April 26 TUSD board meeting in an act of civil disobedience in protest of the banning of Mexican American Studies. On December 30, 2010, Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne declared the school district’s Mexican American Studies program out of compliance with A.R.S. § 15-112 (introduced as HB 2281)—a law enacted in May 2010 that effectively banned the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona’s K—12 schools and primarily targeted TUSD Mexican American Studies.1 Rather than wait for Horne to destroy the highly successful Mexican American Studies program, the TUSD School Board began dismantling it internally by removing Mexican American Studies classes from core curricula and demoting them to elective status.

KVOA is reporting that a helicopter has crashed on Raytheon's property near the Tucson airport, near Hughes Access and Hermans Rd. No word of injuries or property damage yet, but crews are on the scene.

Update from KVOA:

The pilot of a Robinson R-22 helicopter reported engine failure and went down about 1.5 miles south of Tucson International Airport around 9:40 a.m., FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

There were 2 people on board the chopper, [Ed. note: This proved to be incorrect] Gregor said.

Not much else to this story today, except this update from KVOA:

News 4 Tucson has confirmed the pilot of the helicopter, registered to Double Eagle Aviation flight school, received non-life threatening injuries after crashing on Raytheon property at about 9:30 a.m. today.

The pilot was airlifted to UMC for treatment at the trauma center.

The FAA says the chopper was being operated by Raytheon at the time of the crash.

This morning, I spent my weekly spot on the Fook morning show on KFMA discussing somewhat unique Christmas music again, so if you'd like to hear more than a snippet of my selections. Here they are, starting with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings above, performing "Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects".

The other three are below the cut:

KGUN Channel 9 announced to its staff today that Dave Silver is leaving as the station's sports director.

Silver, who has worked with KGUN for 28 years, has accepted a position with the UA Foundation. Silver's final day on the air is slated to be Dec. 23.

If you haven't already decided to go to one or more nights of The Great Cover Up this weekend, I'm sorry that you make bad decisions that negatively affect your happiness and hope that one day you will realize the error of your ways.

Otherwise, if you are smart and good looking (like all Great Cover Up attendees are), the schedule of which bands are being covered when — for your planning needs — is below the cut.