• Photograph by Robert Alcaraz

The Confucius Institute at the University of Arizona collaborated with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the Canyon Ranch Center to host the closing events for the Second Annual Chinese Cultural Festival in Tucson.

Held at Gene C. Reid Park on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013, the festivities included performances from several groups tied to the Chinese Cultural Center and the Confucius Institute. Singers, musicians, martial artists and taiji masters took to the stage for the celebration. Different organizations, including the UA College of Public Health and Tucson Medical Center, held booths to promote health and wellness.

The event concluded 11 days of celebration, which included a Moon Festival concert and several lectures that promoted Chinese culture and arts.

• Photograph by Robert Alcaraz

On last night's AZ Illustrated Politics: Former Tucson City Councilwoman Carol West, Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries and Pima County Democratic Party chairman Don Jorgensen discussed Sen. John McCain's criticism of Sen. Ted Cruz; weighed the chances that the government would shut down over the funding of the Affordable Care Act; introduced viewers to Ed Martin, who wants to challenge Congressman Ron Barber next year; looked at the future of downtown's Ronstadt Transit Center; talked about whether Buena High School was correct in removing a book with a racy passage; and shared thoughts on Arizona's Common Core standards for schools.

There's a lot going on this weekend:

• Fantasy Comics

All Back Issues, TPB's, HC's, Action Figures,T-Shirts, Pop Vinyls, Posters, Character Banks, and Statues will all be on sale! Exact prices to be revealed the day of the sale, but will vary from 10% to 90%!

• The Loft Cinema

After the screening of The Big Lebowski, which wraps up our month-long Big Coen Brothers Retrospective, join us on the Mooney Backlot Bar & Lounge for a Big Coen Brothers Backlot Party! Mix and mingle with your fellow Coen Brothers fans. Tip back a cool drink while trying out your best Nicholas Cage or Jeff Bridges impression. Compete in our Coen Brothers trivia and costume contests (come dressed as your favorite Coen character … it just might be time to scrape that Dude bathrobe off the bathroom floor!) and win Loft passes or a special Big Lebowski Kit (complete with Lebowski mug, rug mousepad, book and more). “Careful man, there’s a beverage here!”

DIY Day: Do It Yourself! this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the the Joel D. Valdez Main Public Library. Learn how to make a mask, perform standup, hypnosis, bike repair, operating fire extinguisher and so much more.

• Pima County Library

Do It Yourself! Learn bike repair, couponing, origami and everything in between. Join community members for a day of DIY workshops.

• Stephen Seigel
• The Replacements at Denver Riot Fest

1. I'm not a fan of huge outdoor music festivals. I've been spoiled by shows in clubs and theaters, so the idea of milling about with tens of thousands of people in a place vulnerable to the elements, standing on my tiptoes to get a brief glimpse of the bands, isn't my idea of a good time.

2. The Replacements are my all-time favorite band.

So when it was announced that the two primary (living) members of The Replacements — singer-guitarist Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson — would be reuniting to play their first shows together in 22 years, it was kind of a no-brainer for me to get in on the action.

Despite reports that the band had turned down more lucrative offers to play bigger festivals (i.e., Coachella and the like), The Mats decided to go with the smaller, more grassroots Riot Fest. A traveling carnival of a music festival (rides! wrestling! fire performers!), Riot Fest made three stops — Toronto, Chicago, and Denver — with varying lineups in each city. I managed to make it to the Chicago and Denver dates over the last two weekends, and I couldn't be happier I did.

The Replacements delivered, period. They were as ferocious a live act as they'd ever been, and perhaps just as importantly, they were clearly having a great time, goofing on each other (e.g., Westerberg's crack about Tommy Stinson playing in Van Halen — he's actually a current member of Guns N' Roses) and wearing matching Western shirts, skirts, and cowboy hats at the Denver date. Expectations for these shows was high and, save for one cranky, off-base music critic, no one seemed at all disappointed. The Replacements are still the best damn band on the planet.

Oh, yeah. A ton of other bands played, too. I caught great sets by Guided by Voices, Superchunk, Blondie, Flag, Best Coast, The Dismemberment Plan ... far too many to name here.

I also got my first taste of what's it's like to be in the photo pit at a big show. (I could get very used to it.) So, after the jump, here are some photos I took at the Denver stop — with additional Replacements photos courtesy of ©J. Dennis Thomas, who you can find at jdt-photo.com.

Beggars can't be choosers in this state.

Today Forbes placed Arizona first in their top ten states for job growth. Arizona beat Texas even with an unemployment rate of 8.0. This is promising considering this week's layoffs in the financial district.

But the economic picture has brightened considerably in Arizona, as the housing market stabilized and unemployment hit a post-recession low of 7.8% in May. As part of Forbes’ annual Best States for Business, we look at 35 factors to determine the best and worst states, including projected employment. Arizona is expected to have the fastest job growth at 3% annually over the next five years, according to Moody’s Analytics. The job gains are projected to boost household incomes 3.6% annually through 2017, which ranks second best in the U.S. after Illinois. The added jobs also go hand-in-hand with the state’s economic growth, which Moody’s forecasts to expand at a U.S.-best 4.6% annually.

I think the immediate job growth will come from nursing. All the baby boomers are going to need care givers because their kids won't do it.

The big winners over the past year in Arizona were the construction and leisure/hospitality industries, which both added more than 10,000 jobs. Other fast-growing sectors include business services, financial activities and education and health services.

If sci-fi murder mystery comedies set in the future are your thing, you'd do well to check out Heavy Nova playing at the Crossroads Cinema on Saturday night. The best part? It's written, directed by and starring Tucsonans!

I appreciate the Dark Star meets Outland vibe, and the humor looks to be slightly off-centerish. Co-writer and director Peter Leon is quoted as saying "Heavy Nova is a social commentary wrapped inside enough dick jokes to satisfy any 15-year-old boy." So, there you go.

Check out the NSFW trailer:

The show starts at 9:00 p.m. and tickets are $7. A Q&A with cast and crew follows the film. RSVP on Facebook here.

Popular Science, the long-running magazine and gateway to hard-science discussion, recently made a drastic change to their website: The editors are cutting out the discussion.

This week, PopSci.com decided to close the comments for their publication, save for selected stories "that lend themselves to vigorous and intelligent discussion," say the site's powers that be.

Now, why on Earth would they choose to do that? Well, partially because of this March op-ed from the New York Times, containing information from a survey noting that the content of comments on a story can change how a reader perceives the story they just read:

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

PopSci found the study to be fairly accurate, noting the discussions found beneath articles on climate change and abortion studies to be cesspools of spam, climate change deniers and slut-shamers. Keep in mind, this is a website focusing on things that can actually be tested and proven. Using science.

From Suzanne LaBarre, the online content director for PopSci.com:

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

Word came down earlier this week that the Arizona Interscholastic Association was looking to host the Division II and III state title games at Arizona Stadium on Nov. 29-30. This, after apparently JUST REALIZING Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe wasn't going to be available because of some little thing called the Duel in the Desert.

So, instead of the vast majority of the Tucson area's prep football teams battling for a chance to make a long bus ride and play in front of mostly their opponents' fans, the chance is now there to get to win a championship right here in town.

And Tucson's best shot for a champion (at least at the Division II level) might be getting a preview of who they'd face in that title game tonight.

Salpointe Catholic (4-0), which has absolutely demolished its opponents by a combined score of 190-21, hosts Tempe Marcos de Niza (4-0) at 7 p.m. in a game that should have a sizable crowd full of both fans and college scouts.

Marcos de Niza, considered among the best Division II clubs in Phoenix, is averaging more than 53 points per game — but also allowing 42.5 per game. The Padres beat Sierra Vista Buena 78-57 in an up-tempo basketball game two weeks ago.

• Salpointe Catholic Facebook page
• Salpointe players celebrate following a win earlier this month over California school Crespi

Holy cow, this report on the drug "krokodil" has to be one the creepiest things I've every seen. I thought Russians had hit rock bottom when they were making vodka out of industrial disinfectant, but making poor man's heroin out of codeine, iodine, red phosphorus and paint thinner? And of course it would start turning up in Phoenix, right? I hope someone is going to tell me this is a hoax.

During my three-plus years living in a master-planned community I've received my fair share of threats letters from the homeowner's association regarding the inevitable weeds that pop up in the yard thanks to all-or-nothing rainfall we get around these parts during the summer.

(There was also that note a year ago about having an "illegal" plant in my front yard, despite having made no alterations to the shrubbery since moving in, but that's a different story.)

For the most part, though, when my yard starts to look a little sketchy, I tend to it. Or, rather, pay my kids Nike sweat lodge-like wages to do the tending for me.

If only all homeowners (or renters, as is the case with me and most of my neighbors) operated in the same way. Instead, the Tucson area could be known just as much for some ugly-ass front yards as for its Sonoran hot dogs or perpetual road construction.

Which is probably why a reality show emailed me and many of my Weekly colleagues today to announce an Arizona-wide casting call for "the ugliest front yards in America." Good to see Arizona is still considered part of 'Merica, at least by reality TV standards.

The show is called "Desperate Landscapes," which makes me think Eva Longoria is going to gaze longingly as her yard boy mows the lawn, while unbeknownst to her a neighbor is blowing her brains out and another is sleeping with the mailman. But according to the show's Web site, a contractor named Jason Cameron and a team of no doubt fabulously (and unrealistically) pretty workers spend two days turning a nightmare into something worth yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!" about.

Got a crappy lawn? Or know of one in your neighborhood, go ahead an apply to be on the show.