Not only has rapper Mac Lethal racked up over a million views with his pancake-themed take on Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now" in one day, he's also managed to launch one of the funniest novelty Tumblr sites ever with Texts From Bennett, a wildly profane recap of (apparently real) text messages Mr. Lethal receives from his 17 year old cousin. There's talk online that the texts are faked, but I'll probably forget about the whole thing before it's exposed as a fraud, so what difference does it make?:

[Gawker]

In part two of the series no one asked for (part one: Wings), I suggest five songs from an act that will be featured at the three day (and one afternoon) music event The Great Cover Up, happening December 15-17 and benefiting the Tucson Artists and Musicians Healthcare Alliance. This week, because I'm apparently working my way through the groups in reverse alphabetical order, here are five songs by Wilco.

For some reason, Tucson has two radio stations playing mostly the same R&B and hip-hop tracks, two playing a slightly more youthful take on adult contemporary, two classic rock stations, and a couple conservative talk stations on FM now. However, what Tucson does not have is a retro hip-hop station and while I'm ignoring whether there's actually an audience for such a thing, this city would be a better place to live if it did.

I've been using the TuneIn iPhone app, which suggests radio stations from around the world based on most listened to tracks on your iPhone, and thanks to the fact that I never seem to take off my personal Outkast greatest hits playlist off iTunes, the app suggested I check out Yo! 107.1 Classic Jams, a locally owned radio station in Montgomery, Alabama.

While there are a few clunkers in their playlist — no one needs to hear "Ice Ice Baby" ever again, I assume — the station is the most reliably great radio station I've heard in ages.

Here's a selection of what they played yesterday:

H-Town, people! This city could use a more reliable way to listen to "Knockin' Da Boots", right? Who's with me?

Tucson City Clerk Roger Randolph has informed Republican Jennifer Rawson, who lost the race for the Ward 2 City Council seat to Democrat Paul Cunningham last month, that she has to repay the city matching funds she received for her campaign.

Randolph says that Rawson needs to give back $32,800.11 in campaign dollars she received from the city through its public-campaign program and pay a $15,048 fine because she mishandled the collection of campaign contributions via credit card.

Randolph wouldn’t speak about the case, but referred The Range to a letter that he and City Attorney Mike Rankin sent to Rawson on Nov. 18.

The letter explains that state law requires all campaign contributions to be go directly into a bank account and the Rawson campaign violated the law by “commingling of the (Rawson) committee’s funds with those of Todd Clodelter, an individual who owns and does business as Ace Graphics.”

The website 24/7 Wall St. has taken a bunch of fancy economic information and ranked the fifty states to determine the best and worst run. Guess what? Arizona's near the bottom! Way to go, Arizona legislators!

47. Arizona
> State debt per capita: $1,882 (9th lowest)
> Pct. without health insurance: 16.9% (16th highest)
> Pct. below poverty line: 16.3% (tied for 13th highest)
> Unemployment: 9.1% (18th highest)

Arizona’s housing market was one of the worst hit in the country during the housing crisis. Home values have dropped 28.6% since 2006, the fourth worst rate in the country. In October 2011, one in every 259 housing units were foreclosed upon, which was the third worst rate that month in the U.S. Arizona also has one of the lowest credit scores in the country after its downgrade to AA- in 2009.

California's dead last, but they have Disneyland, Kogi food trucks, and beaches, so they probably can coast on that for awhile. While it's probably nice to have an infrastructure that isn't crumbling around you, it's not like anyone's going to move to Wyoming because it ranked at the top of the list. It's still Wyoming, and it's not like there's anything they can do about that.

For a variety of reasons, medical marijuana leads to a 9 percent drop in traffic deaths in states where it's legal, according to a new study by economists at the University of Colorado and Montana State University. The study takes a look at statistics from the 16 states with MMJ and hints that traffic deaths decline because:

1. A lot of folks would rather smoke than drink, and marijuana use among adults (but not kids) increases with MMJ passage. This means there are more adults smoking and fewer drinking and driving.

2. Marijuana's effect of driving ability is not as catastrophic as alcohol's. For this, the authors compared driving course studies of both drugs. No contest. In fact, experienced pot smokers had significantly less functional impairment than noobs.

3. MMJ use usually happens in the home. People drive around a lot (drunk) to get alcohol.

The study warns that other things could contribute to the correlation between traffic death and MMJ, but it's clear that in many ways MMJ is good for Arizona. You can read the study here.

Probably the best account of what took place yesterday at protests against American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) at the group's meeting in Scottsdale came from Censored News on police pepper spraying a Tohono O'odham delegation and the hospitalization of Tohono O'odham veteran David Ortega:

Tohono O'odham Veteran David Ortega remained hospitalized Wednesday night after being pepper sprayed at the protest of the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, in Scottsdale. Doctors are undertaking tests to see if Ortega had a heart attack or stroke after police repeatedly fired pepper spray on an O'odham delegation and other peaceful protesters.

"It was like a cloud of pepper spray," Ortega said Wednesday night recovering in a Scottsdale hospital. "I was carrying the Veterans for Peace flag when another person was hit directly in the face with pepper spray. I rushed to the front to help him, like I always do as a Peacemaker."

Ortega said the pepper spray was fired at them several times. Ortega began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains and was hospitalized, where he remained Wednesday night. Ortega has been serving as a Peacemaker at Occupy Tucson in recent weeks. He is known nationally as a Peacemaker at Indigenous rights events. He is the
third veteran to be hospitalized after police brutality in recent weeks.
...

Indigenous Peoples, including O'odham and Navajos resisting relocation at Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation, are now gathered in Scottsdale will continue their protest and resistance of the corporate influence of ALEC. They announced plans for Thursday.

The Phoenix New Times confirms cops brought out the pepper spray, but also provides the excuse police provided:

"Unfortunately a few Anarchist have joined the occupied movement and crowds tried to push their way through the police line on to the resort property," Phoenix Sergeant Trent Crump says. "OC spray was deployed twice on aggressive groups, which was effective in stopping their actions."

You can read the New Times post here.

Gingerbread houses always seem sort of magical, but I'm not sure why. The only memory I have of them is eating stale gingerbread house roof and dessicated frosting weeks after the tree had been stuffed back into storage for another year. Yet, whenever I see one I feel a slight tingling of holiday spirit, which feels a little like coming down with the flu.

This is not the proper way to appreciate a gingerbread house. The mere sight of one should cause us to don Christmas sweaters and sing carols while tossing tinsel in the air, and Marcos Bakery can help with all that.

The bakery at 3308 E. Grant Road is currently taking reservations for their annual gingerbread-house-making workshops on Saturday, Dec. 10 and 17. The workshops are $40 each, which includes supplies. Call 292-8567 for reservations.

The Arizona Republic uses the nuclear option to clean up online reader comments. Senior vice president of news and audience development Randy Lovely explains that commenters will no longer be able to hide in the shadows of anonymity:

My views shifted gradually as I held out hope that the community at large would rise to the responsibility of shaping a productive exchange. At first, I defended the range of remarks, then I began to grow concerned about the tenor, and I finally became disgusted.

The final straw came for me earlier this year. In the aftermath of the tragic shooting near Tucson, comments such as these were all too pervasive:

WeElectedIdiots2: "I guess a politician with half a brain is better than the rest of the idiots that get elected."

AZJavaRooster: "She should be up for Canonization soon! oh, God! she was heard to say, 'Well if I had half a mind ...' "

ksteele26: "This guy Loughner is a true patriot. Giffords has the blood of millions of the murdered unborn on her hands."

At no point did I ever consider completely eliminating the community's ability and right to speak out, but I knew we needed to work toward a solution that would bring greater accountability and responsibility — to your words.

During the past few months, the azcentral staff has been exploring options and experimenting with different technology that will continue to allow an exchange of opinions, but with a goal of reducing meaningless, mean-spirited rhetoric.

Beginning today, azcentral users wishing to comment on any of our blog posts will need to do so through the use of a personal Facebook account. Ultimately, in the next couple of months, the same technology will be in place for all articles on the site.

I'm in full support and hope that the Arizona Daily Star considers doing the same thing to banish the trolls from the sewer its online commentary section has become. Does anyone think for a second that most of those comments would still be made if someone had to sign their name to them?

Read the daily newspaper and you'll see stories written by an AP reporter from someplace else. Listen to the radio and you are sometimes listening to a DJ in another city. With outsourcing increasingly popular, it's good news when something is done here. Check out Arizona Public Media's Ready TV. Programming is done locally. Here's more info from the press release:

Launching December 1, 2011, Arizona Public Media presents Ready TV, a new 24-hour lifestyle channel programmed locally and specifically for the Southern Arizona audience. Ready TV will be geared towards men and women who want to explore, be enlightened and expand their horizons. Ready TV includes the best of “how-to” programming customized to meet the needs of viewers in Southern Arizona. The channel features entertainment like Austin City Limits and the Artist’s Den for music lovers along with ‘saw dust’ shows such as This Old House and Woodwright’s Shop with Roy Underhill for the DIY crowd. For cooking fans, Julia Child will be Ready TV’s featured chef along with the many masters she has inspired through the years. For adventure seekers, Ready TV will air plenty of exciting travel and nature shows that Southern Arizonans love.

The programming genres include:

Eat - Includes cooking shows with the grand dame of cooking, Julia Child, America’s Test Kitchen, Sarah’s Weeknight Meals and more.

Build — features handyman favorites such as, This Old House and for the green thumbs, Victory Garden. Crafters can tune in to It’s Sew Easy, Scrapbook Memories and Beads, Baubles and Jewels.

Travel- features travel and nature programs such as Rick Steve’s Europe, The Desert Speaks, Wild Photo Adventures and Art Wolfe’s Travel to the Edge, just to name a few.

Ready TV can be found 24-hours a day on broadcast TV at KUAT 6-3, Comcast cable 201 and Cox cable 82.

For a complete Ready TV program schedules go to readytv.org.
More information about AZPM, including program schedules and Video-on-Demand offerings, can be found online at www.azpm.org.