Witness Heroes and Villains's Cynthia Gerriets' ovaries grow three sizes in this, the A-Babies vs. X-Babies edition of Talking Comics!

Congressman Ron Barber and GOP challenger Martha McSally met in their only televised showdown last night as Arizona Public Media brought you a forum from the UA Student Union. The candidate discussed the future of Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, tax policy, education issues and more.

Seriously, the work day is just about over. Why not relax with the soothing sounds of the world's first alternative music marching band?

This is the Pride of Arizona rehearsing "Some Nights" and "We Are Young" from the indie band fun., as part of their second show this season; the first, of course, was their second go-round at Radiohead, which we wrote about here.

Last week, it was revealed that Maricopa County officials sent out incorrect information to Spanish-speaking voters, naming Nov. 8 as the day of the general election, instead of the correct date, which is Nov. 6.

Well, it turns out that printing the wrong date on the Spanish-language documents accompanying Maricopa County voter ID's wasn't an isolated incident.

From the Huffington Post:

The latest — a bookmark distributed by the elections department — was passed along to HuffPost on Tuesday by minority advocacy group Campaign for Community Change. (View the bookmark below.) It says, "Register today! Exercise your right to V-O-T-E!" and goes on to list important dates. Yvonne Reed, spokesperson for the Maricopa County Department of Elections, told HuffPost that some of the Spanish-language notices were incorrect because the department used the election date from last year, but that they are no longer being distributed.

The county had to apologize last week for a similar mistake on documents attached to updated voter registration cards. Those papers also listed the general Election Day as Nov. 8 in the Spanish version, even though the English-language version has the correct date.

Reed told ABC News last week that the incorrect documents went out to relatively few people and the mistake was quickly fixed.

"It's an honest mistake," she told ABC News. "Between the time the voter [who caught the mistake] came in to our front counter to get her card and we were notified of the error, the mistake had been corrected."

Reed pointed out Tuesday that the election date is listed correctly in Spanish on the department's website and in material from the candidates, and said officials will do what they can to fix the confusion.

...

"That's three strikes for Purcell, and she knows it," Rudy Lopez, national political director for the Campaign for Community Change, said in a statement Tuesday. "No reasonable person can believe that these are all honest mistakes. Purcell has made it hard not to suspect an obvious attempt at the County Recorder's office to suppress Latino voters."

I'm not sure if I would suspect intentional wrong-doing in this case — considering the quality of folks in power up yonder, I'd just as soon cite Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

So, yet again, the New York Times has decided that Arizona is set to become one of our nation's electoral battleground states, with helpful commentary from Arizona State University's Bruce Merrill, David Berman and Joseph Garcia of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

Interestingly, the article provides a voter analysis of the state, county-by-county, making note of demographics such as ethnic and religious makeup. But the meat of the article comes from its bottom line (helpfully notated with a "Bottom Line" sub-headline), which we've excerpted in part here:

Of course, Mr. Romney is a 98 percent favorite in Arizona, according to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast. But the days when Republicans can count on carrying the Grand Canyon State may be numbered.

More and more voters are registering as independents. The number of unaffiliated voters has surpassed the number of registered Democrats and is soon expected to overtake the number of Republicans, Mr. Berman said. The ideological middle of Arizona’s electorate may also gain more sway if voters pass Proposition 121, an initiative on the November ballot that would replace the current party primaries with one primary open to all voters. In the open primary system, the top two finishers advance to the general election regardless of party.

But the most powerful potential factor pushing Arizona to the political center remains the state’s Latino population and the prospect that Latino turnout rates will rise. Even with depressed turnout, Hispanics doubled as a share of the electorate to 16 percent in the 2008 presidential election from 8 percent in 1992.

As in Texas, it’s long been predicted that this is the year Arizona Latinos will really go to the polls.

“Everyone’s been waiting for Latinos to flex their political muscle,” Mr. Garcia said.

Mr. Merrill added, “I’ve been here 40 years, and it hasn’t happened so far.”

For the rest, including an assessment of the Flake/Carmona race, check out the Times' FiveThirtyEight blog here.

Tonight marks the final forum between the candidates running for Arizona's Congressional District 2, current Democratic CD 8 representative Ron Barber and Republican challenger Martha McSally.

The two will be squaring off at the University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Center Grand Ballroom, where they'll be asked questions by a panel of journalists, including the Weekly's very own Jim Nintzel. The discussion is set to be moderated by Christopher Conover. Arizona Public Media is sponsoring the event in partnership with the Associated Students of The University of Arizona and the Arizona Students’ Association

Though the event is set to begin at 6 p.m., doors open at 5 p.m., and all attendees must be in their seats by 5:45 p.m. The debate is free and open to the public. If you can't make it in person, don't worry — it will be broadcast live by Arizona Public Media, via the web; on KUAZ 89.1 FM and 1550 AM; and on KUAT Channel 6.

For coverage of the last debate, please see this piece from the Sierra Vista Herald that we ran last week.

Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini has come to a conclusion: Polls are for suckers — like journalists.

He's reflecting on the news that U.S. Senate candidate Richard Carmona's campaign has an internal poll showing Carmona ahead of his opponent, Jeff Flake. Flake's campaign, of course, has a similar poll showing Flake in the lead.

Is this news?

No.

But those of us in the news business pretend that it is.

We can't help ourselves.

And politicians know it. And use it. Because of that, polls no longer are used to reflect the inclinations of voters but to CHANGE the inclinations of voters.

Voters hear that someone is ahead and tend to drift over to his side. Like jumping on the bandwagon when the local sports team starts winning.

Polls no longer just reflect; they alter. The political parties count on it. Otherwise, there would be no polling businesses that work primarily with Republicans and polling businesses that work primarily with Democrats.

Montini's right, to an extent: We in the media feel obligated to share polls, whether or not they're actually that newsworthy, because we think the public deserves to know what's happening. The thing is, as has been addressed here before, those polls might not actually show what's really going on.

If you love our local coffee shops (and you damn well should, considering the both the quantity and quality of cafés in this town) then you need to check out Tucson Coffee Crawl. Adam wrote a bit about it last week, but now their website is finally completed and includes a list of upcoming events.

A handful of cafés, including Cartel Coffee Lab, Sparkroot, eXo Roast Co., and Caffe Luce are set to participate, while local roasters Yellow Brick Coffee and Adventure Coffee Roasting are setting up shop in 47 Scott and Brewd downtown.

For the list of events and workshops, check out their site here.

While it was unfortunate that the fundraiser and screening of the documentary Precious Knowledge was cancelled Thursday, the biggest casualty was a former Mexican-American studies student who planned to raise money selling concessions during the show.

Crystal Terriquez also happens to be a student featured in the documentary about the MAS classes, program, teachers and students. The last time we talked to the Tucson Magnet High School graduate was in Nov. 2010, several months before the documentary first screened at the Fox Tucson Theater. In the interview, Terriquez talked about her arrest that happened that spring at the state building in downtown Tucson when then-Superintendent Tom Horne was visiting.

From that interview:

As a sophomore, Crystal says she suffered through school, particularly a world-history class.

"We were this little group of Mexican kids in the back corner that (the teacher) didn't pay attention to," says Terriquez, who now attends Pima Community College and wants to become a court interpreter.

One day, Terriquez says, that teacher told them about "'some classes for you Mexicans that will help you out.' A lot of people have asked me, 'Did you take that as a racist comment?' At first, I thought (it) was, but after I took those classes, I wished she was still teaching there so I could go thank her."

Even though that teacher's perspective of the classes was wrong—the classes aren't just for Mexican students—Terriquez says the classes were transforming. She entered a very quiet student who just went to school because she had to, and left as someone who wants to learn more.

As threats to the ethnic-studies classes began to grow, Terriquez says, she felt compelled to speak out at protests in Tucson and in Phoenix. Last spring, she and 12 others were arrested for trespassing at the state building in downtown Tucson during a protest.

"The TV news said we were being radical students protesting, and that we wanted to be arrested," Terriquez says. "It wasn't about that. To me, it was about my little sisters. I want those classes to be there for them."

Terriquez says she's been told by their attorney, Richard Martinez—the same civil rights attorney representing 11 Tucson educators who are suing Horne over the constitutionality of HB 2281 (see "Education vs. Fear," Nov. 11)—that a final decision on charges isn't expected until December.

Terriquez's mother, Selene, says she's certain her daughter wouldn't be a college sophomore had she not been introduced to the ethnic-studies classes—and that the classes helped at home, too. "She actually helped us a lot in our family. We were going through a lot of problems."

Terriquez planned to be at the documentary screening on Thursday selling concessions because she lost her job due to that arrest which has yet to be expunged from her record as expected. UA Chicano Studies assistant professor Roberto Rodriguez recently wrote a Truth Out piece on her case. Here's a snipet on

She actually wasn't the only one arrested that day. There were 15 total who were led away. She was one of them. So was I. But truly, it was a student protest. The year before, at the end of June, as a community, we ran from Tucson to Phoenix in 115° heat to protest the same efforts to eliminate Ethnic Studies. During that run, Crystal and her sister were my running partners. They were both overcome with heat stroke. Others were also overcome by heat stroke, whereas one of the runners had a series of epileptic seizures. It was a serious run.

But back to the protest. When students learned that then state schools' superintendent, Tom Horne (the person that engineered HB 2281) was coming to Tucson for a meeting with district officials that morning, some 1,000 high school and middle school students walked out of their classes and surrounded the district headquarters. Rather than face the students, Horne instead went to the state building and held a press conference. Several hundred students then marched over to the state building, and proceeded to occupy the building and successfully shut it down. Some 50 students went upstairs, held a sit-in and eventually were arrested. (I joined them because I saw law enforcement officers roughing up the students). Of the 15 who were taken into custody, charges were dropped on 10 of the arrestees. Five of us were found guilty and were given community service and probation. This included Crystal.

Two years later (last week), Crystal was fired precisely because of that arrest. We had all been told that if we did not get arrested again, after completing the community service and the probation, that the charges would most likely be expunged. That has not happened.

The five of us are currently looking for an attorney willing to file a petition to expunge those records. If all goes right, that will be taken care of soon. But at the moment, Crystal has lost her job. When I say personal, I feel the same way as many in our community do; she has sacrificed of herself many times, and thus our community owes her.

In Arizona, and specifically Tucson, we are seemingly in perpetual crises. Money has to be raised for lawsuits to defend Mexican American Studies and to defend one of the teachers and the former director of MAS, Jose Gonzalez and Sean Arce, respectively from what appears to be a blatantly frivolous lawsuit. But we also have to raise money for SB 1070 related issues. And just as importantly, money for Dream Students who are going through the deferred action procedure.

In Arizona we are tapped out. But so is the rest of the nation. We understand that. The only difference is that Tucson finds itself in a unique position. As we know, SB 1070 is an attack on the body — on the brown color of our skin. HB 2281 attacks both our mind and our spirit. Tucson in effect is where the right wing has decided that our [Indigenous] culture and history is illegitimate and now illegal. But we don't accept that; that's why the youth fight back.

There are many more casualties here in Arizona. Many of them are women. Who can forget May 3, 2011, when 7 women — young students, community members and elders — were arrested for reading at the militarized school board meeting. This was on the heels of the April 26, 2011, student takeover of the school board the previous week, led by the student group UNIDOS, the majority young women. There's been lots written about what has happened here. And yet much of the story is still unwritten. I don't think I've ever read anything that Crystal has written. Actually, she did collaborate with Amoxtli X — The X Codex — about In Lak Ech-Panche Be and Hunab Ku (will attach at the end here) — maiz-based concepts that are taught in Mexican American Studies (MAS)

Some of the students are indeed now writing. Some do great video work. Previously, they had been documenting their history with their footprints, writing their story with their actions; a truly heroic story. Not all of it is romantic, though. Some involves external conflict. Some of it involves internal conflict. This is similar to the 1951 Empire Zinc mine strike (as depicted in the 1954 classic Salt of the Earth). And this is what's important to remember; this is not a movie. We are living this reality... in real time. And it's not all a pretty picture. In the near future, some of those other conflicts will come to the surface.

For now, I feel compelled to support Crystal, who has stepped forward, not once nor twice but many times. Many of the young women like Crystal almost cannot be recognized without their megaphones. Make no mistake, the battle in Tucson has been led from the outset primarily by students, and the strongest of the leaders have been young women.

So this here is a nationwide appeal. Crystal does not deserve to be in this position. We will find an attorney to expunge the records, but in the meantime, she needs to pay her bills. A PayPal account has been created with the expressed purpose of supporting her. Through legal action hopefully she will get her job back or maybe even a better one. But in the meantime, she has a mortgage to pay, many bills and no income.

The weekend was no vacation for the candidates of Arizona's First Congressional District.

On the heels of a Washington Post announcement that the race shifted from “Leans Dem” to “Toss Up,” the Rothenberg Political Report changed their ranking from “Leans Democrat” to “Toss-up/ Tilt Democrat.”

Friday saw new information about Paton’s supposed payday loan industry connections and a couple big media buys.

The Arizona Republic called out Paton for accepting money from payday industry supporters throughout his campaign.

“The Republican, a former state senator, has collected at least $28,500 this year from people and organizations connected to the payday-lending and auto-title-loan industries, campaign-finance records show.”

The 60 Plus Association Inc., a PAC that champions less taxes and senior issues, paid out $169,000 for an ad that compares Ann Kirkpatrick to CD 9 candidate Krysten Sinema, who is running against Republican Vernon Parker. The ad says both women were “wrong on healthcare” and “too extreme for Arizona.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee pitched in almost $300,000 in media buys and released “Quotes,” a 30 second ad-spot that pulls heated snippets from “independent news source” commentary on Kirkpatrick’s attacks on Jonathan Paton.

The majority of quotes were pulled the Tucson Weekly, specifically a blog post that addressed an ad accusing Jonathan Paton of wasting $200 million as a part of the Rio Nuevo Board.

The others were from the Oct. 11 edition of the paper and quoted from the endorsements and “The Skinny” column. Every quote addressed the same basic accusation that Paton had squandered money as a part of Rio Nuevo, no other campaign advertisements were addressed.

Kirkpatrick’s campaign responded Monday with a news release detailing “Paton’s 9 Lies.”
Among the lies is the oft-used point that Kirkpatrick voted to cut Medicare by more than $700 billion via her positive vote on the Affordable Care Act, which has been proven false on a national, level by Politifact and FactCheck.org.

The release also seeks to dispel the persistent accusation that Kirkpatrick “walked away” from a town hall meeting in Holbrook, a point that has been capitalized on in speeches and ads for the last two years.

Paton brought up her supposed walk out on Sunday during a TV interview with John Hook on Fox’s Newsmaker Sunday.

“She knows this district opposed ObamaCare that’s why that was a tough town hall for her in Holbrook and she walked out of that town hall because she couldn’t answer those questions, “ Paton said.

Hook invited Kirkpatrick to speak for 15 minutes on the program in person, via Skype and phone call, but she declined.

"Ann is out on the campaign trail in rural Arizona, so she does interviews whenever the schedule permits- we have several scheduled for this week," said Kirkpatrick Spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson. "Someone should remind Paton that he's the guy who dodged the NAU-AARP debate in Flagstaff a couple weeks ago - a debate that would've been televised had he bothered to show up. We had lively debates in Pima County and Pinal County, but Paton is avoiding Coconino County."