[Satire Alert!] Rep. John Kavanagh has proposed shortening Arizona’s education requirements to completion of the sixth grade.

“Someone who’s going to work behind the counter at McDonalds doesn’t need any more than a sixth grade competency in reading and math,” he said. “It’s time to dramatically look at our entire philosophy of K-12 education.”

Kavanagh suggested students who earn his new Certificate of Sixth Grade Competency need one addition to their education before they leave school. “They all should be required to take a three week course in basic English elocution. We need to be able to understand them when they ask, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ or ‘Would you like to supersize that?’" He added, "If they can train people at India’s call centers to speak like Americans, certainly we can train our students to say a few key phrases so customers can understand them.”

When asked whether it makes sense to encourage people to have a high school education so they can be informed citizens and voters, Kavanagh replied, “Are you kidding? We shouldn’t let those idiots vote! I’m working on a ‘No Diploma, No Ballot’ bill that adds a high school diploma to voter ID requirements.”

OK, Kavanagh never said any of that, but I put a Satire Alert! up front because, as ridiculous as my faux-news story sounds, it’s well within the range of unreasonable discourse we’ve come to expect from conservatives.

What Kavanagh actually said was Arizona is sending too many students to our state universities. These are his words — and I’m not making this up.

“If somebody’s going to end up in a sales position or someone’s going to be a real estate agent, why are we investing all this money in a research university degree?” he said. “What’s the purpose of it?”

An announcement from Congressman Ron Barber (who, BTW, will be my guest this evening on AZ Illustrated Politics, airing at 6:30 p.m. on PBS 6:

U.S. Rep. Ron Barber today announced that the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security will be in Arizona next week, accepting Barber’s invitation to his southeastern Arizona district.

Barber, a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and ranking member of the Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee, will host Jeh Johnson next week, just a month after Johnson took office as head of DHS.

“The issues facing the people I represent who live and work on the border can only be understood by talking to them and seeing firsthand the concerns they have regarding border security,” Barber said. “That’s why I invited Secretary Johnson to visit Southern Arizona and I am pleased that he has accepted my invitation. I will continue my work with the secretary and my Republican and Democratic colleagues in the House to secure the border and make sure our agents have the resources and support they need to get the job done.”

Today’s NY Times has a story, Arizona Hopes New Charter Schools Can Lift Poor Phoenix Area. I haven’t read about this in Arizona media or seen some kind of press release. I don't expect to learn what's going on in Arizona education in the Times.

The story begins by saying Arizona’s charter school movement has been aimed at middle class families and is now looking to serve low income students “starting, in effect, an experiment in urban education.”

Bad beginning.

Charters have been experimenting in urban education for years, with questionable results. True, the conservative “education reform” folks love to trumpet the successes of BASIS charters, ignoring the fact that most of their success can be attributed to their selective student body. (After laying the BASIS groundwork, they'll add in stories about a few other charters whose students would do well pretty much anywhere they went to school to add heft to the “charters are better than ‘government schools’” mythology.) The charter PR machine tends to ignore the urban and suburban schools that trade mainly in low income students, because those places generally end up with low scores on high stakes tests, just like the "failing government schools” they love to criticize. In fact, according to a recent national study, Arizona’s charter school students score significantly lower than similar students in school district schools, a fact pointed out later in the NY Times article.

The plan is “to open 25 high-performing schools over five years within the 220 square miles of the Phoenix Union High School District.” It’s the brain child of the Arizona Charter School Association, a private charter school promotion organization heavily funded by pro-privatization money. “We believe we know what works,” says ACSA president Eileen Sigmund, ignoring the fact that, so far, Arizona charter schools could take a few pointers from district schools on how to get their test scores up.

The secret is out: Everyone stares.

Maybe not everyone. Some are more obvious than others. I have been guilty for staring at the sun too long. Maybe that's why I'm so tanned.

Someone created a large crotch cam, rode the subway in spread eagle position, so he or she can bait women to stare directly at the recording camera. This was done to prove that women stare just as much as men do. I don't think this proves anything, and I'm sure there's a point to be made here. But I'll leave that up to you in the comments section.

There is little information about who or where this was made. You can thank the folks at reddit for finding this one.

Everyone's guilty of checking their Facebook feed or responding to a text that could wait until you're done operating a two ton for wheel death mobile. Sometimes we forget how life threatening it is to check your phone while you drive, and that's why Michael James Woody Jr. is our "Don't be that driver" of the day.

Michael James Woody Jr., 23, of Fort Myers, was cited for careless driving and texting while driving after crashing and rolling his car on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. At the time, he was being followed by an FMPD officer due to his erratic driving, according to a crash report from the department.

(via: News-Press)

You remember our community collectively talking about mental illness after the mass shooting on Jan. 8, 2011. You remember discussions on the need for more resources, better care and better recognition. At Our Place Clubhouse, a downtown space, part of what we said we wanted to do as a community has been happening there since the 1980s. People, your friends, family and neighbors are recovering and healing from mental illness by volunteering and regaining confidence to gain a vision for where they want to be the rest of their lives.

Last year I wrote a cover story on a writing group at Our Place led by board member Sheila Wilensky, a Tucson writer, editor and teacher. The eventual goal of the group was to put together a chapbook of the members' writing, with a focus on reflections on mental illness. Tonight you have an opportunity to celebrate the labor of these writers and the work of Our Place Clubhouse at an open house, from 5 to 7 p.m. at 66 E. Pennington St. The night, catered by Cafe 54, is a celebration and a chance to purchase the chapbook , A Certain Slant of Light: Emerging from the Shadows of Mental Illness, published by the organization. The books costs $12.95 and all proceeds benefit Our Place.

Need more reasons to go? KXCI's Amanda Shauger did a wonderful interview with Wilensky and some of the writers. You can give a listen here.

Go, buy the book, support the work of Our Place Clubhouse and celebrate what many writers know is true—writing is healing. Here's a group that offers us proof and also makes feel blessed to call these writers fellow Tucsonans. Keep in mind, as everyone in Tucson struggled to understand what took place after the Jan. 8 shooting, writers in Wilensky's group lamented on misconceptions of those with mental illness and how to challenge those perceptions.

Wilensky's explains more in her press release for the event:

Misconceptions about mental illness abound. A few weeks after the Jan. 8, 2011, Tucson shooting, an Our Place Clubhouse member asked, “What is it with people? Why do they think that anyone with a mental illness may pull out a gun anytime and indiscriminately start shooting?”

The question stuck with local writer, editor, and educator Sheila Wilensky. She is a board member of Coyote Task Force, which includes Cafe 54 and Our Place Clubhouse. The Clubhouse, says Wilensky, “is a safe place, a caring community of people in recovery from mental illness.”

In September 2012, Wilensky started the Thursday Writing Group at the Clubhouse with the intention of confronting those misconceptions and producing a chapbook to help educate the public about those misconceptions.

“A Certain Slant of Light: Emerging from the Shadows of Mental Illness” is the result of that collaboration. Five chapters from “Any Morning, or A ‘Normal Day,’” to “Take Heart, The Times They Are a-Changin’,” highlight the voices of individuals living with mental illness, and are accompanied by Wilensky’s commentary.

• Photo by C. Elliott
• Mopey Brit legend Morrissey returned to Tucson to play for his adoring fans on May 23rd, 2012.

It's been three years since we seen a new album from Morrissey, but that's about to change in 2014. The Telegraph reported that the former Smiths lead singer signed a two-album record deal with Capitol Records. Morrisey will start recording his unnamed album in France on Feb. 1.

It will be produced by Joe Chiccarelli (the White Stripes, Beck, the Strokes), and recorded with his touring band, Boz Boorer (guitar), Jesse Tobias (guitar), Solomon Walker (bass), Matthew Walker (drums), and Gustavo Manzur (keyboards).

When I was in Portland last month (I realize that any sentence that starts that way is generally a tedious look at how life is supposedly better there, but bear with me), I ended up eating at three or four places that had started out as food trucks, but had opened up physical locations as they built up a following.

Tucson's food truck culture is obviously still a bit behind that of our bearded cousin to the northwest, but another truck (well, a trailer, but let's not get picky) is launching a permanent spot, with Seis Curbside Kitchen following the path of Eat-a-Burger and Serial Grillers.

According to owners Erika and Jake Muñoz, Seis has signed a deal to move into a space at Mercado San Agustin, hopefully by March. The menu will feature the same takeaway takes on regional Mexican cuisine, but adding breakfast options and "some fun additions."

We'll keep you updated on when the Mercado location is ready to open.