Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That 45 rpm rip at 33 rpm. by WEED NIRVANA

After the traffic success of my post mentioning the Hall & Oates hotline (sorry, I mean Call & Oates), The Range will probably eventually just turn into a Daryl and John-themed news aggregation site. Gotta give the people what they want.

Until then, enjoy this slllllloooooooowwww version of a H&O classic.

I still miss Nate Ruess' previous band, The Format, so the announcement of new music from Fun. is generally a little bittersweet, but it is a positive for society that young people today hear as much dramatic power-pop that recalls both the Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson. Promoting their forthcoming album, Some Nights, which includes the above song, "Carry On", Fun. is scheduled to play the Rialto Theatre on March 23rd.

It's not too difficult to see why former CD8 candidate Jonathan Paton would duck out of the crowded quadruple election process to replace Gabrielle Giffords, instead focusing his attention on the future CD1, which includes Marana, Oro Valley, Saddlebrook, and a bunch of eastern and northern Arizona, even though he still owns a home in that district. While he will likely have competition for the Republican nomination, Paton's already looking ahead to the general election, setting his sights on Ann Kirkpatrick, who lost the district to Paul Gosar in 2010.

His letter announcing his candidacy, below:

Though battle rap, a showcase of brags, boasts and brutal insults, has existed as long as rap itself has, it exploded into public consciousness with the 2002 film “8 Mile,” and has drifted in and out ever since.

But the development of rap battle leagues such as Grind Time in the US and Canada’s King of the Dot has given rise to a number of growing promotions across the United States, such as local upstart Voicebox Battles.

Voicebox, co-owned by local MC Greg Sacks, promoter/musician Chuck Clark, as well as Mike Dailey and Tim Wamboldt, has been growing quickly both in local popularity and national stature. Its first show last April drew about 60 people; its latest, held January 13 at Divine Tattoo, brought in over 200 hip-hop heads.

“The crowd is so amazing now; it’s a lot harder (for MCs) to get over on them. They’ve gotten a lot wiser,” Sacks said. “Unless you’re in New York, Toronto or California, you’re not going to find a better hip-hop crowd.”

The promotion’s YouTube presence is a large part of its growing popularity. Since the channel opened last July, it’s collected more than 126,000 views with one recent video amassing 800 views in less than 48 hours—a staggering number for a league that’s less than a year old.

“We hit 100,000 views right after Christmas, which is when everything started to come together,” Clark said. Now, Voicebox is expanding its operations further; In March they’ll be holding an event in Tempe, pitting Tucson’s rappers against Phoenix’s; they also have plans to expand further into Southern Arizona and as far out as Missouri.

“I never though I’d be doing business with the guys I was watching on Youtube,” Sacks said. “All of a sudden, they’re like ‘yeah, we’ll come battle for you,’” with some MCs even willing to pay their own way to come out.

But at the end of the day, it’s all about entertainment. Voicebox takes much of its inspiration from pro wrestling, from the title belt its champion holds, to specialty match-ups such as male versus female or its signature Triple Threat, which has three MCs facing off against one another.

The lyrics can get harsh — you don’t want to watch the above sample of Sacks against Clark at work, unless your employers don’t have problems with men yelling about bodily fluids and scat. But that’s par for the course at Voicebox.

“We’re upfront and honest with our MCs,” Sacks said. “We’ve taken it on ourselves to cancel a battle because of too much conflict the last thing we want to see on the news is ‘Violence breaks out at local rap battle.’ Tucson would shut that down quick.”

To put it as simply as Clark: “Don’t battle if you don’t want mean shit said about you.”

For more information, check out Voicebox Battles online on Facebook.

Tucson Unified School District president Mark Stegeman's letter to constituents finally got forwarded to me. The letter was e-mailed to "constituents" over the weekend along with a copy of the Hicks resolution that the board approved 4-1 to dismantle Mexican American Studies. By the time I read Stegeman's letter today I had already read a blog post by Blog for Arizona's David Safier that you can also read here.

Safier, one of Tucson's best and most knowledgeable blogger's covering local and state education issues, has steadily written about TUSD's Mexican American Studies. In Safier's post, besides continuing to question Stegemen and the district's denial or semantics debate that book-banning is taking place, he points out another issue in Stegeman's letter that is worth noting where the board president wrote, "I am not aware of any other school district in Arizona which has approved these books for use in instruction. If anyone knows of such approvals, then I would be interested to hear about them."

Safier links to a Three Sonoran's blog post in which it's handily pointed out that indeed the district did approve three of the books the district recently banned: Critical Race Theory, Occupied America and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Here's a copy of the document the Three Sonorans refers to from a June 12, 2007 TUSD governing board meeting.

Here's Stegeman's letter, followed by the Hicks resolution:

January 22, 2012

Dear friends and correspondents,

Because of the recent media attention on TUSD’s “book ban,” it seems useful to clarify that situation. TUSD also issued a press release on this subject several days ago, which is posted on the district website.

Every district in the state approves curriculum according to a process guided by statute and local policy, and approving the books to be used is part of that process. Through such processes a typical district might approve several hundred books for use in instruction. This leaves millions of books not approved for instruction; it would be silly to say that all of those books are “banned.”

When the TUSD board voted (4-1) to end the Mexican-American Studies (MAS) curriculum, ending use of the books had to be part of that package. Staff says that the seven titles removed from classrooms and placed into storage are still available in school libraries, and I expect many of the books in storage to be distributed to libraries where they are not already available.

Because MAS did not actually have a board-approved curriculum, it was not immediately obvious which books to remove, but the staff took guidance from the evidence presented during the hearing on TUSD’s appeal of Huppenthal’s finding against the district. Because one motivation for the board’s vote to end the MAS classes was to forestall the substantial financial penalty which the ADE threatened to impose, it made sense to remove the books which helped to provide the basis for that finding.

From MSNBC, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz reads Gabrielle Giffords' resignation letter as Rep. Jeff Flake holds her hand, and then Giffords delivers her letter to Speaker Boehner.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords resignation letter to Congress, Governor

[HT: Producer Matthew]

Oh, Mitch Daniels, you didn't quite do enough research, did you?

The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created more of them than all of those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.

Of course, this weekend the New York Times ran a story entirely about how Apple ships a third of its jobs overseas. Beyond that, there are around 700,000 who work for Apple's contractors:

[A]n additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

So, yes, Steve Jobs created jobs, Mitch Daniels, but quite a few of them pay 35 cents an hour, are rewarded with a cup of tea and a biscuit, and happen to be located in China.

As an aficionado of animated GIFs, this is probably my favorite ever.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' decision to step down from Congress this week has set up a great deal of buzz and speculation in political circles.

We're sure the final line-up is far from set, but we hear that both state Sen. Frank Antenori and Jesse Kelly, the 2010 GOP nominee who lost to Giffords, are oiling up their campaign machines.

John Ellinwood, a spokesman for Kelly, tells The Range that Kelly is "strongly leaning" toward getting into the race and has filed some paperwork with the FEC.

Meanwhile, we hear that Antenori is planning on announcing his plans to run this Friday.

Antenori and Kelly appeal to the same party base, which could open up an opportunity for a candidate that could appeal to a different wing of the GOP.