Sure, no sexism is okay. But if we're going to give anything a pass, it may as well be something that we've decided is absolutely ridiculous at this point, right?

But Retronaut's selection of absurdly sexist advertisements is, well, absurdly hilarious. Take this ad for Tipalet cigarettes, for instance:

• retronaut.co
• Oh, the layers of subtext.

Really, it's an amazing look at the evolution of society through the lens of advertising media. If you've got some time (and we both know that you do,) give it a look.

Fair warning: There are a number of references to douches and douching, so try not to laugh too loudly at them if you're at work and have the mentality of a teenage boy.

[Retronaut]

Republican state lawmakers and their pals on the religious right aren’t content with getting Gov. Jan Brewer to sign a new law that declares that women are pregnant weeks before conception.

Now they’ve passed a bill aimed at making sure that low-income women in Arizona can’t choose Planned Parenthood for any of their health-care needs.

HB 2800, which is headed for Brewer’s desk after passing the Senate on an 18-8 vote today, would ban the use of federal funds that pass through the state—such as Medicaid funding for low-income Arizonans—from going to organizations that provide abortion services.

That would mean that Planned Parenthood would no longer be able to be paid if its doctors provide low-cost cancer screenings, pap smears, STD treatment, contraceptive options and other health-care services to low-income women who are on the state’s AHCCCS program.

“We are an AHCCCS provider,” Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Michelle Steinberg says. “What this bill attempts to do is keep Planned Parenthood from seeing those patients. The impact will be felt hardest by women who choose Planned Parenthood for their care. They will not be able to choose their health-care provider.”

Cynde Cerf, the director of communications for Planned Parenthood, told The Range last week that the organization believes that the federal government would have a problem with the state deciding to limit women’s access to federally funded health-care providers based on the services that they provide. If that’s the case, the feds could threaten to block Arizona from receiving any Medicaid dollars.

If you'd like to contact the governor to urge her to veto the bill, you can call her toll-free at 1-800-253-0883.

Here’s a press release from Planned Parenthood:

"Enter the heart of an American family living in the shadows of a state that has criminalized their existence. Walk in the shoes of a public official who has won enormous political gains by incarcerating “illegals” as he stares down criminal charges of his own."

If you missed seeing the documentary Two Americans by Dan De Vivo and Valeria Fernández, during the Arizona International Film Festival, you can see it tonight, 6 p.m. at the UA Integrated Learning Center Auditorium #140. If you need a better excuse to go, burritos will be served from 5:15 to 6 p.m.

Besides the documentary, the program includes a presentation from a student panel discussing their research on the attacks against the discipline of Mexican American Studies at the Tucson Unified School District and the UA. A new issue of the student-produced publication, El Coraje, by UA-MAS 350 students, is also part of the presentation, as well as a student panel on student research on immigration and the documentary.

For more information on Two Americans, go to www.twoamericans.com.

Slideshow

Bon Iver, TCC Arena, April 23rd, 2012

Click to View 10 slides

Grammy winner, Kanye West pal and subject of Twitter confusion, Bon Iver, performed at the TCC Arena last night as part of Tucson's annual overflow of Coachella acts.

• Photo by Kellie L. Folkerts, Shutterstock.

A question I don't have the answer to: if more immigrants, both legal and illegal, are actually returning to Mexico than are coming into the United States, why exactly are we continually in a state of panic over the border?

A new study says that for the first time since the Great Depression, there may be fewer Mexican immigrants coming into the United States than there are moving from the United States back to Mexico. According to the Pew Research Center, the net migration between the U.S. and Mexico over the last five years was essentially zero, and the downward trend suggests that flow of both legal and illegal immigrants may have actually reversed back toward Mexico.

There are many possible reasons to explain the decline, but the most obvious one would seem to be the struggling U.S. economy, which has cost millions of available jobs, particularly in construction and in the South, where recent immigrants generally thrive. There have also been big increases in enforcement, deportations, and border security, although the report also says that arrests of illegal immigrants trying to cross the border has actually plummeted by nearly 75%. Whether that's because fewer people want to come here or they just don't think it's worth the risk is hard to pin down, but the number of folks willing to take the chance is definitely declining.

Given the continued hysteria over illegal immigrants and how demographic shifts might change the country in the future, many Americans might be shocked to learn that the shift is actually heading in the other direction.

If The Guardian says that rappers are endorsing moscato and it's apparently perfect for our forthcoming hellfire of a summer, I guess that's all I'm drinking now. My desire to keep up with rap beverage trends hasn't always turned out well (I still have a case of St. Ides in my garage, for example), but it's too late to turn back now.

In the past couple of years, a more down to earth drink has cropped up in songs by Kanye West, Drake and Lil' Kim. Moscato, a slightly sweet, fizzy, low alcohol and inexpensive white wine with origins in Piedmont, Italy, has become the hip-hop community's new favourite drink. According to a report on decanter.com, sales have risen by 70% in the US in a year. And supermarket buyers are anticipating something similar here.

It's not hard to see the appeal of moscato to rappers or indeed anyone else. At its best, moscato is pure, aromatic and unforced, sweet without being icky, and light (generally around 5.5%), all qualities that also make it perfect for a summer's afternoon.

• lev radin / Shutterstock.com

BlackBook's website has a profile of Alison Brie, who seems to be everywhere these days, and the article is fine, but the first paragraph is almost like the intro to one of my nightmares, minus zombies serving the drinks.

“You are immortal,” whispers the barista to Alison Brie as she hands her a steaming mug of antioxidant-rich tea. At Café Gratitude, a vegan restaurant on Melrose, drinks are named after affirmations. It’s an exceedingly Los Angeles conceit—even regulars like Brie admit it’s a bit silly—and while her immortality is still uncertain, Brie is at least having a very good year. The doe-eyed, petite actress already stars in two critically adored television shows, Mad Men and Community, and she's about to hit the big screen, summitting the Mt. Olympus of comedy typography: a Judd Apatow production. This one is called The Five-Year Engagement. It stars Jason Segel and Emily Blunt as a long-suffering engaged couple—like The Breakup in reverse—and features Brie as Blunt’s younger sister, Suzie. As Brie heads to our table to ingest her own immortality, I lean in to the barista and say, “I am gorgeous.” “You are gorgeous,” she answers and hands me green lemonade infused with kale.

It would appear that a New York woman was fired from her job at a car dealership largely because she was only re-hired for her kidney. Just a reminder that your work situation could always be worse. Happy Tuesday!

Journalist (and former Tucson Weekly intern) Kellie Mejdrich recently learned how easy it is for the average Arizonan to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in one hour, regardless of whether or not they've even picked up a gun.

The one hour course I took, taught by Bob Denis of CCW AZ School, LLC., advertises on the website “1hr Law Gets Permit!”

There’s a disclaimer, that the one-hour stint is “for the person with experience with firearms, who does not have time to seat through several hours of additional firearms training” [sic], as well as a statement in class that the one-hour class is not designed for those new to guns.

But Denis never asked me whether I had shot a gun before, or evaluated my proficiency once I sat down for class.

Now, most responses (focus on the comments section there) to Mejdrich's article say that she misrepresented her experience to game the system, that she is a liar, a perjurer, that she doesn't respect the law and that she should be held personally accountable for what she did (on top of the usual internet slander, of course).

But one could make the case that her gaming of the system exposes loopholes that could be exploited by more dangerous folk than a 22-year-old woman with no gun-ownership experience.

Of course, that case would be ignored by legislators, such as Rep. Jack Harper, R-Surprise.

When I showed him my CCW permit and presented him with my experience, he replied, "well, you know, it’s still a background check. That’s important. Obviously you took a one-hour course, that is some kind of training,” he said.

But after pressing Harper on whether he thinks the law should be changed back to the training requirements he boasted the CCW involved, he defaulted to the Second Amendment.

“You’ve been influenced by academia,” Harper said. “The constitution is absolute.”

[Arizona-Sonora News Service]

I'm bringing a couple pans of my newest creation, the "chard-sagna," to the Solar Potluck and Exhibition at Catalina State Park this weekend. I'm sure the experienced solar chefs at the event will be underwhelmed with this paltry contribution, but it's the best I've got so it'll have to do.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the event, which will surely be celebrated with much enthusiasm and plenty of information on new developments in all things solar. You can read more about the event over here.

About that "chard-sagna." It's basically a lasagna, but I use different colors of chard from my garden instead of lasagna noodles. I'm still tweaking the recipe, but it's a good way to use up an abundant amount of chard before the plants bolt during these first days of the Tucson summer.