While they can't promise you a hologram of a (probably) dead rapper this far in advance, this year's attendees haven't had enough time to clean the dust from their orifices, and it'll be months before we even get a sense of who will be performing, the people behind Coachella have announced the dates for next year's two weekends of indie rock excitement (April 12-14; and 19-21), leading to a rush on who can book a room at the Motel 6 in Palm Springs first.

The presale kicks off on Friday, with the general sale coming sometime next year.

Author Gary Paul Nabhan will be in Tucson this Friday to talk about his book Desert Terroir. If you've ever considered getting your mind blown by a storyteller who easily weaves ethnobotany, food, culture, history and humor into one tight fabric, you might want to attend.

Nabhan will speak at 7 p.m., Friday, May 18 at Antigone Books. From a description on the Antigone website:

"Terroir" is a term used to describe how characteristics of the land affect the flavors of the foods produced from it — the "taste of the place." Why does food taste better when you know where it comes from? Because history — ecological, cultural, even personal — flavors every bite we eat. Whether it's the volatile chemical compounds that a plant absorbs from the soil or the stories and memories of places that are evoked by taste, layers of flavor await those willing to delve into the roots of real food. In this landmark book, Gary Paul Nabhan takes us on a personal trip into the southwestern borderlands to discover the terroir that makes this desert so delicious.

Although the internet does enough to make me feel like I hate every single person on the planet at times, without it I would have never read the Christian Science Monitor's story in 2010 about Don Ritchie, an Australian man who moved near a famous suicide spot for the view and in the process ended up saving over 500 lives. Ritchie, who was awarded the Medal for the Order of Australia in 2006 for his service, died at his home yesterday at the age of 85.

Over the decades, Ritchie says, many of the faces of the people he's saved have blurred. But some he still remembers clearly, such as the woman he spotted from his bedroom window early one morning, sitting right on the cliff's edge.

"I quickly got dressed and went over," he recalls. "She had already put her handbag and shoes outside the fence, which is pretty common. They very often leave something behind – sometimes it's a note, but generally a piece of clothing.

"I said to her: 'Why don't you come over and have a cup of tea?' She came with me, and Moya made her breakfast. When she got home, she rang to say she was feeling much better. Two or three months later, she walked up the garden path with a magnum of French champagne."

On Thursday, May 10, our illustrious anti-Mexican-American-studies state Attorney General Tom Horne filed a nine-page intervention complaint and 12-page motion to intervene with U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury, saying that the Unitary Status Plan being developed by the court-appointed special master had better not violate state law.

The Attorney General, on behalf of the State of Arizona (“State”), moves for permission to intervene in this action on a limited basis as a matter of right to ensure that the Special Master’s proposed curricular revisions for in-depth ethnic studies courses in the Unitary Status Plan (“USP”) do not violate state law. The Court is requested to permit the State to intervene under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2), because any implementation of ethnic studies courses by the Tucson Unified School District No. 1 (“TUSD”) pursuant to the USP in violation of state law would unconstitutionally usurp the State’s right to administer its laws. In the alternative, the Court is requested to grant permissive intervention pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b)(1)(B), because the State has a common question of law or fact regarding the proposed ethnic studies courses that may be proposed in the new USP.

One MAS supporter mentioned Horne's amazing timing of his filing—Mexican Mother's Day. These Mexican Mother's Day filings have one goal: to give Horne leverage when it comes to ethnic studies in the Unitary Status Plan.

Horne's filings to Bury:

complaint_in_intervention.pdf

AZ_motion_to_intervene.pdf

The audio on the above clip is faint, but Jesse Kelly has been using an anecdote about the power of oil to power the economy:

I think energy's the way forward in this nation. We talk about gas prices, jobs, and all these other things. Two million oil jobs alone are sitting out there. And a lot of you, I'm not in the oil field, that doesn't benefit me directly, but you know there are McDonald's in this country that are paying $25 an hour to work at McDonald's? They're around the oil fields.

While I can't dispute that there's money in oil, if you're heading out to oil country to get a fry cook job at $52,800 a year, don't bother. The most likely source of Kelly's wrong information are a stream of news reports about the oil boom in Williston, North Dakota, which is certainly undergoing a rapid influx of cash, leading to stories with lines like this:

The McDonald's in Williston is one of the busiest in the country, and it needs to pay $15 an hour just to attract employees.

$15? $25? That's a mistake that could be made, sure. However, all anyone has to do is head to the McDonald's hiring website, which conveniently informs potential applicants what they might make as a new hire...and all the positions at the Williston McDonald's start at $9.00. Not bad as it goes, I suppose, but a far, far cry from $25/hour. Maybe you can find an actual, verifiable listing for an oil-rich McDonald's that pays that much. I spent an hour looking and the fine people of McDonald's chose not to return my email or phone call, for what it's worth.

Then again, what difference does it make? Kelly has already established he has a loose relationship with reality regarding oil. The story sounds way better the way Kelly tells it, plus life is probably better at the top of the magical beanstalk.

On Arizona Illustrated's Political Roundtable this week: Democratic strategist Rodd McLeod, Republican strategist Sam Stone and former state lawmaker Peter Hershberber talk about the race between Republican Jesse Kelly and Democrat Ron Barber to complete Gabrielle Giffords term, as well the end of the legislative session and the latest in the U.S. Senate race.

The Humane Society has sent out an SOS for Faye, a dog that needs to find a home this week. Adoptions are free this weekend, so you'll get all the stuff listed below and all you'll have to pay for is registration. The only catch, Faye would like to be your only pet, so if you're looking for your first pet, this could be the perfect situation.

“All of this… for ME!?” Thanks to Brad Toland, Faye will go home with a basket containing: 2 nights boarding and a bath at Central Pet; a free 2-hour, in-home training session from Animal Behavior and Training Consultant Sharon Rappeport; an $80 gift certificate to the HSSA to cover her adoption fee plus some goodies from PAWSH; a Ben’s Bell celebrating kindness to animals; an “Adopt” collar and leash set; a Roscoe cookbook with recipes for you and Faye; toys, treats and more!

Come meet Faye! She's currently living at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, 3450 N. Kelvin Blvd. The Humane Society is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The phone number is 327-6088.

According to a post today on the Three Sonorans' blog, the effort to recall Tucson Unified School District governing board member Michael "Rosa Clark" Hicks, has been suspended to focus on the Department of Justice investigations into alleged civil rights abuses by the TUSD administration and governing board.

From the blog post:

When Citizens for Educational Excellence was formed, the main priority was to work towards quality in education at various levels, which includes local school boards, community college boards, and country supervisors of schools; these are all elected positions that are determined by the citizens.

All that is required in the Tucson Unified School District level is to win 2 out of the 3 seats open this year to regain our majority on the board and to end this recent onslaught of anti-Latino and anti-Union votes.

A recall of the 4th board member, Michael Hicks, was also started in March 2012 and explored as another way to bring change to Tucson’s largest school board. Since that time many pivotal changes have occurred to bring about more permanent change in a more efficient manner.

Last week it was made public that both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights would begin a thorough investigation into TUSD’s treatment of Latinos. At multiple public forums this past week the community came out strong and united and in force and the federal government was there taking lots of notes and listening.

It is clear that huge changes are coming to our district in a way that is more important than just political with elections, but deep changes dealing with basic issues of fair treatment, racism, segregation, and the future of education in Tucson, Arizona, and the United States.

The earliest time the recall election would have occurred would have been March of 2013, but with the DOJ and OCR permanent change is available more immediately, and change is imminent, especially with the Tashima ruling on the constitutionality of HB2281 expected any day now.

In order to comply fully with the federal investigations into Tucson Unified School District, including filing further complaints to documents the district’s treatment of Latinos, Citizens for Educational Excellence will be officially ending the Recall of Michael Hicks and encourages all its members, and all parents and students in the district to comply fully with federal investigators.

Posted today on Sal Baldenegro Jr.'s Facebook page on his LD2 House of Representatives campaign:

Dear friends, I have decided to end my campaign for LD2 House of Representatives. I am leaving in order to focus, 100%, on Wenona's historic congressional run in Arizona CD1. The people of Arizona have a very real chance to make history, and to bring to our state the type of strong representation that we so badly need, at the federal level! It's about time! A HUGE thank you goes out to all of my volunteers, who helped me collect twice the amount of signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot, and enough $5 contributions to be eligible for Clean Election funding. I hope that you will consider helping Wenona's campaign! Thank you and onward we go!

Baldenegro's wife, Wenona Benally Baldenegro, is in the middle of a challenging campaign. While most progressives should easily get behind her candidacy, lack of name recognition and other political challenges, are not making this an easy run for Benally Baldenegro. In December 2011 we wrote about how her and her husband's family were working together to get the word out about what could be a historic win — putting the first Native American woman in U.S. Congress.

She faces Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat with more name recognition, but not much of a progressive record - cue crickets when SB 1070 was signed into law and folks wondered if she and other state Democrats would speak out. Whoever wins will face former state Senator Jonathan Paton.

Another way to bring bullies down:

When a 14-year-old girl in Georgia discovered a phony—and degrading—Facebook page created in her name, she went to her school, the police, and even Facebook itself without much luck. The page stayed up, and its creators went unpunished. As a result, Alex Boston is now suing two classmates for libel, reports AP, which thinks the suit could trigger similar ones around the country.

Alex and her parents are pushing for Georgia to strengthen its cyberbullying laws, and the lawsuit seeks a jury trial to generate attention, along with unspecified damages. The offending page came down about the time the lawsuit got filed last week. "At first blush, you wouldn't think it's a big deal," says her attorney. "Once you actually see the stuff that's on there, it's shocking." (Among other things, it claimed she spoke a made-up language called "Retardish" and was set up to look like Alex had posted a racist video.)