Fred - #735019 — 28 Years Old — Moluccan Cockatoo — Male

This is Fred, a boisterous bird with personality galore. Surrendered when he started attacking the young children in the family, Fred is now in need of an avian-experienced owner prepared to commit to a lifetime of patience, love and care. Although he’s a little standoffish at first, Fred bonds closely with people who take the time to earn his trust. Offer him a gentle head rub and Fred will waltz over to you with his head down, his beak softly clacking and his gorgeous pink feathers all fluffed up. Whoever ends up with this guy will have a real sweetheart, but they may also have to invest in a lot of earplugs! A typical cockatoo, Fred requires plenty of daily attention and enrichment. But he’s is gaga for toys, cardboard boxes, popcorn and vegetables. If you are interested in sharing your life with this intelligent, animated and special companion and are aware of the serious responsibility, please visit Fred today at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.

Come meet Fred 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.

If that video hasn't convinced you to check out Tab Benoit tonight at the Rialto Theatre, there's very little hope for you as a blues fan. Benoit, whose song "Shelter Me" is the theme for the Discovery Channel show "Sons of Guns", is more than just a great bluesman — he's also the founder of "The Voice of the Wetlands," an advocacy group raising awareness to protect the Louisiana wetlands. Fun times.

The all-ages show begins tonight at 7 p.m., and costs $19. If you're interested in hearing a bit more from Benoit, check out the concert preview page from our live music calendar.

From the Washington Post, via Tax Foundation.

By now you've surely seen the video of Mitt Romney claiming that 47 percent of the nation are more concerned about government handouts than taking control of their own lives. (If not, we've got you covered here.)

Well, there's a fun fact there that Romney overlooked: He's more likely to have supporters from that 47 percent of the country than Obama is.

From the Washington Post's Wonkblog:

Three of the states with the lowest number of non-filers are solidly conservative: Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming. Two, New Hampshire and Virginia, are swing states. All the rest are solidly Democratic, including half of New England. All told, Obama gets 50 electoral votes from the “maker” states to Romney’s 9 — 17 are tossups — while Romney gets 96 electoral votes from the “taker” states to Obama’s 5, with 29 as tossups.

For more, take a look at Wonkblog.

I've been corresponding with a Canadian writer and producer who tells me that a show called Taco Wars is coming to Tucson to film an episode. The show will pit three taco shops against each other to pick what the judges think is the best taco in Tucson. Sounds like it could be a pretty cool show. From an e-mail received this week:

... the show is called (not surprisingly) Taco Wars and this episode will focus on Tucson. The premise is that three taco joints will battle it out for the title of best taco on Tucson. I'm not sure when the show will air, We're currently in early pre-production, but I suspect that it will be late 2012 early 2013.

I've already given my suggestions as to who could be possible contendors - not an easy task given the enormity of possibilities. But I was wondering which taco joints Tucson Weekly readers think should be included. Feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments section below.

North Fattoria Italiana, the new incarnation of NoRTH at La Encantada at 2995 E. Skyline Road, opens tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 19. And while it will be located in the same building and have almost the same name, officials with Fox Restaurant Concepts, who own and operate the place, say the new eatery is a "complete departure" from what was previously happening there.

The interior design is said to be modeled around the idea of a rustic farmhouse and the food will sort of follow suit. All in all, it sounds like the restaurant is shooting for something a little more casual while keeping the quality of the food very high. Antipasti, pizzas, a meat-slicing station and lots of other rather impressive sounding eats are on deck.

For more on the restaurant, head over here.

Mother Jones has the story behind a collection of video shorts of Mitt Romney talking to donors at a private fundraiser.

From Mother Jones:

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Jim Messina, Obama for America campaign manager, issues a statement:

The Summer 2012 Olympics ended more than a month ago. But, recently I read an article about one of the survivors of the attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich on CNN. His name is Shaul Ladany, and he expressed great disappointment at the fact that the IOC president Jacques Rogge refused to include a minute of silence in honor of the Israeli team members who were killed in '72, at this year's opening ceremony. After all, it had been 40 years since the killings.

After I read the article, I got an urge to go to Casa Video and rent One Day in September, the 1999 Academy Award winner for best documentary. The film narrates eveything that went down before, during and after members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by a Palestinian terrorist group. It's definitely shocking and sad to see how the story unfolds.

It shows real footage from the time and interviews with survivors, family members of those who were killed, and an exclusive interview with Jamal Al Gashey, who is, allegedly, the sole survivor of the Palestinian terrorist group. His face is blurred out, of course. To this day he is believed to be in hiding somewhere in North Africa. It is ridiculous that this guy still roams the streets.

This was a sad pick but definitely worth the trip to Casa, and I highly recommend it.

The New York Times popped in this weekend to give a national focus on the Tucson Unified School District's attempts to rebuild and refocus the resources that were scattered about when it dropped the Mexican-American studies program last year.

From the New York Times:

Meanwhile, at the district’s central offices, Maria Figueroa was busy sifting through résumés and rearranging her calendar to squeeze in one more interview. As the director of a new program intended to help the district’s perennially struggling Hispanic students, by far the majority of the enrollment, Ms. Figueroa enjoys a rare distinction: she has jobs to fill and money to hire.

She also has a big task — mending the fences broken by the dismantling of the Mexican-American studies department last school year after an acrimonious debate over the politics of its curriculum and the type of activism it had promoted. A 2010 law banning lessons that fostered racial resentment and solidarity among members of a single ethnic group, drafted as legislators worked to frame the state’s controversial immigration bill, eventually killed the program. Facing persistent financial problems, the school district buckled under the threat of millions of dollars in fines.

Instead of classes about historical realities and the everyday experiences of Mexican-Americans, once a hallmark of the department, Ms. Figueroa’s program will offer tutoring to Hispanic students who are teetering on the edge of failure. In place of discussions about race and identity, it will recruit mentors from among Hispanic business leaders and college graduates to talk to students.

The overarching goal is as basic as it is fundamental. “We’re going to teach the kids that they need to stay in school, that school is important,” Ms. Figueroa said.

When looking at the story, one can't help but feel that TUSD has put itself (and Figueroa) into an unenviable position of trying to repair something that wasn't broken until they took a hammer to it, if only because of this passage:

About 800 students were enrolled in the Mexican-American studies department at last count, district officials said. They outperformed their peers on Arizona’s state standardized tests in reading (by 45 percentage points), writing (by 59 percentage points) and math (by 33 percentage points). If it is improving achievement the district was looking for, its proponents have argued, the department should have been expanded.

For the rest of the story, head to the New York Times.

As a nerdy man-child (read: blogger) my heart breaks at the thought that I could have spent part of my childhood being encouraged to use computers by the creators of both Kermit the Frog and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Jim Henson's Red Book," a project by The Jim Henson Company Archives that curates and selects entries from Henson's daily log, has the details on the meetings of two of popular culture's finest minds.

When Jim Henson had dinner with Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, they must have had much to discuss. The idea of working together on a project was intriguing and in 1985, Adams got involved with some Henson projects. Their shared interest in technology brought the two men together, particularly as Jim explored the possibilities for computer animation (for the Labyrinth opening and Starboppers) and various computing tools.

. . .

Adams had been working with the Henson team that year on the Muppet Institute of Technology project. Collaborating with Digital Productions (the computer animation people), Chris Cerf, Jon Stone, Joe Bailey, Mark Salzman and Douglas Adams, Jim’s goal was to raise awareness about the potential for personal computer use and dispel fears about their complexity. In a one-hour television special, the familiar Muppets would (according to the pitch material), “spark the public’s interest in computing,” in an entertaining fashion, highlighting all sorts of hardware and software being used in special effects, digital animation, and robotics. Viewers would get a tour of the fictional institute — a series of computer-generated rooms manipulated by the dean, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and stumble on various characters taking advantage of computers’ capabilities. Fozzie, for example, would be hard at work in the “Department of Artificial Stupidity,” proving that computers are only as funny as the bears that program them. Hinting at what would come in The Jim Henson Hour, viewers, “…might even see Jim Henson himself using an input device called a ‘Waldo’ to manipulate a digitally-controlled puppet.”

For more, including concept art of the proposed Muppet Institute of Technology project, head to "Jim Henson's Red Book."

Just as the black-eye from refusing to allow gays to participate in the Boy Scouts of America started to fade, the BSA takes another punch to their image: the Los Angeles Times has uncovered that the majority of sexual abuse cases over a 20 year period went unreported, while nearly 100 were actively suppressed by the organization.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The details are contained in the organization's confidential "perversion files," a blacklist of alleged molesters, that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. Scouts' lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view.

As The Times reported in August, the blacklist often didn't work: Men expelled for alleged abuses slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again. Now, a more extensive review has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps.

In the majority of cases, the Scouts learned of alleged abuse after it had been reported to authorities. But in more than 500 instances, the Scouts learned about it from boys, parents, staff members or anonymous tips.
There is no indication the Scouts took the matter to law enforcement.

...

In 1976, five Boy Scouts wrote detailed complaints accusing a Pennsylvania scoutmaster of two rapes and other sex crimes, according to his file. He abruptly resigned in writing, saying he had to travel more for work.

"Good luck to you in your new position," a top troop representative wrote back. He said he was accepting the resignation "with extreme regret."

For more, check out the story at the Los Angeles Times.