PAULDEN — Sawdust flies as Tarl Norman lowers his chainsaw into the moist wood of a scrub tree growing along the Verde River. It topples into a growing pile of water-hungry tamarisks that Norman and the Lake Mead Exotic Plant Management Team are paid to remove here.

Another team member bends over to spray the oozing stumps with a red herbicide that will slowly starve what’s left of the invasive trees.

A mature tamarisk, also known as saltcedar, can consume 200-300 gallons of water a day and produce up to 250 million tiny seeds annually that are spread easily by the wind. So each removal in this corner of the Prescott National Forest is consequential.

“It’s a good feeling to know you’ve improving a watershed and helping species grow and thrive,” said Norman, who leads this team that specializes in removing tamarisks on federal land. “There’s not a whole heck of a lot of water in Arizona, so our priority has to be protecting that water.”

Arizona’s first settlers planted this African and Eurasian ornamental tree along canals to prevent erosion, but in short order tamarisks began taking over the banks of streams and rivers with dense stands that crowded out native plants such as willows, cottonwoods and mesquites.

The effort here is one of a number around the state to gain the upper hand on tamarisks and their thirst for water. In addition, a law recently signed by Gov. Jan Brewer establishes a Watershed Improvement Program aimed at supporting programs to remove non-native plants and replace them with native species.

The law allows the Arizona Department of Water Resources to put grants from the Arizona Water Protection Fund toward such efforts.

The Lake Mead National Recreational Area began its partnership with the Prescott National Forest in 2003, effectively sharing the exotic plant management team that Norman leads. From 2007-2010, the team was contracted as part of an exotic plant removal project headed by EcoResults!, a Flagstaff-based nonprofit. In the years since, Norman said the team has received funding from the Prescott National Forest for removal projects along a 12-mile stretch of the Verde River.

Norman said that while remote, this project is easier than most because the tamarisk was only recently introduced to the ecosystem. This trip will probably be his team’s last along this section of the river.

The hope is that native plants will reestablish themselves with the tamarisks nearly gone.

“Although nature needs to heal herself, we can lend a helping hand and remove some tamarisk,” Norman said. “You may have to face rattlesnakes, long hikes and more wet river crossings than you’d like, but that all fades away when you really realize the impact you’re having on Arizona’s water future.”

"My dad has been collecting penises for a long time," says Sigurour “Siggi” Hjartarson's son. Hjartarson is the owner and curator of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, located a half-hour from the Arctic Circle.

Welcome to The Final Member, a new documentary about a museum of dicks.

Hjartarson's museum is dedicated to the preservation of mammalian genitalia. From the impressive length of a sperm whale's member (nearly six feet) to a measly hamster's piece (2mm), Hjartarson's got them all, except one. There's one lone empty jar, eagerly awaiting a human penis.

The Final Member chronicles not only the likable Hjartarson's various eccentricities (he's really into his museum; he wears bow-ties fashioned out of whale-dick bone, and he takes long walks on the Icelandic countrywide with a bull's penis for a walking stick), but it also showcases two men competing to get their appendages in the museum first.

First up is Pall Arason, a 95-year-old Iceland native, adventurer and a self-proclaimed womanizer. He wants his manhood preserved, but there are concerns about elderly shrinkage. In Iceland, there's something about "legal length," and the explanation is one of the film's most side-splitting scenes. Poor Arason is involved in the doc's most harrowing sequence, when attempts to encase his penis in a plaster cast go horribly awry.

The world renowned Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is gearing up for the summer season. The Museum is recruiting young professionals and families a.k.a. "Desert Lab Rats" to join its crew in developing innovative summer programs. There will be two originative workshops from 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, at the Museum, 2021 N. Kinney Road. Here’s your chance to bring attention to various local endangered species and help protect this beautiful desert we are fortunate enough to call home.

Go here to apply for the morning and here for the afternoon workshop.

The gnomes behind the Self-Driving Google Project released a video updating the Google car's new tricks. In Mountain View, Calif., Google cars drive better than you.

We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t—and it never gets tired or distracted.

¡Ay, caramba! FXX recently acquired exclusive rights to broadcast Simpsons reruns, and will stream all 552 episodes on their app FXNow. The FX subsidiary will show 12-hour marathons starting Aug. 21 through Labor Day. FXX won a bidding war for the Simpsons rights and will have to pay $1 million dollars per episode, according to RollingStone.

This marathon will lead up to the Simpsons' 26th season on Fox:

Even after 25 years, the producers of The Simpsons have managed to find ways to keep things interesting on the show. For one thing, they intend to kill off a major character. "We are doing this story for the same reason we do all others — we think it has a good emotional through-line," executive producer Al Jean said in October. "The story will be produced this year, though it may air in Season 26."

I wonder who they're going to kill of this time.

Today's edition of Ed Shorts is pot luck, an assortment of stories which caught my eye but I haven't had time to post about. The stories link to articles where you can learn more.

• The Weekly tells Tucson's Opt Out story. In case you missed it, Mari Herreras wrote about a few TUSD parents who have struggled to have their children opt out of the AIMS test, a story I covered on The Range (here and here) but the rest of the local media has chosen to ignore (so far as I know, anyway). The parents in Mari's article happen to be from TUSD, but the district's decision is based on a state-wide edict which affects all Arizona students, and similar stories are playing out in most states. For me, the most disturbing part of the story is that some schools put elementary school children in the uncomfortable position of refusing to take the test rather than accepting their parents' requests.

• The Gates/Murdoch Big Education Data scheme goes belly up. The "ed reform" crowd thought it was a great idea. Gather school data on students into one gigantic database overseen by Rupert Murdoch's education company and housed on Amazon computers. They called it inBloom, and Bill Gates spent $100 million to get it started. At least nine states signed up, then withdrew one by one when people on the right and the left expressed their outrage. New York was the last holdout. When it withdrew, inBloom closed its doors. (Expect to see "Son of inBloom" coming to an "ed reform" corporation near you. There's too much money in data and the "ed tech" sector for this to go away.)

• Raul Grijalva voices his objections to "the culture of testing." In an interview in Salon, Rep. Grijalva talks about our over-emphasis on high stakes testing, his objections to school privatization and his disagreements with the Obama administration on some aspects of education policy.

In theory, a balcony seat is much to be prized at the Rialto Theatre, and is priced accordingly. On Wednesday, April 23, Beck showed seat-holders the limitations of that benefit, as dozens of balcony denizens responded to the star's magnetism by flooding the already packed floor. 

The plus side of balcony seats, it turns out, is that when you stand up and dance, you're more visible. Beck and his irrepressibly entertaining bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen (also of NIN) called out the upstairs dancers for a round of applause. The response from the floor was among about a hundred deafening cheers of the evening.

Beck's own signature quirky dance moves had me longing for a gif series of them to watch at home. Fragments of what could be killer '90s hip-hop stylings are sort of a visual equivalent of guitar fills. They emerged in the latter part of the show, following the obligatory, but not at all perfunctorily performed, songs from his new album, Morning Phase. The selections were decidedly pre-coffee, although they reflected all the complexity and innovation we expect of Beck's music. He made a point of mentioning that the Rialto show was only the second live performance for many of them.

Fireworks started with the video and light show shortly after Beck donned his hat, a sort of mangled fedora alleged in The Village Voice to have been stolen from the set of the TV mini-series Witness. That's when he began digging into his back catalog with his well-seasoned band, who not only recorded Morning Phase with him, but also toured his world-dominating 1996 blockbuster, Odelay.

The encore included a crowd singalong of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Don't hate.

Tucson's own Salvador Duran opened solo. He was wildly applauded throughout his set and the crowd demanded an encore, likely an extremely rare event among crowds waiting for Beck as a headliner. 

Tucson Weekly's nationally recognized rock photographer par excellence C. Elliott was on the scene.

Tucson's only Australian restaurant will close its doors tonight.

The names of the new restaurant owners haven't been disclosed yet. But they intend on reopening the space in the fall, according to the former Aussie Cantina owners Glenn Murphy and Sally Shamrell-Murphy.

"The new pub owners are very active in the community," Glenn said. "They are friends of mine, and I have known them for a very long time."

The Australian eatery opened in the fall of 2013, and was recently reviewed by our Chow reviewer Jacqueline Kuder.

"It was an honor to bring the subtlety and flavors of Australia," Sally said. Glenn says the Sixth Avenue and UA construction made it difficult for the business. "There was a big concrete block in front of us. It makes it tougher when you're specifically a destination location," Glenn said.

Here's the official word from the Facebook page:

BIG NEWS! We can finally announce, Aussie Cantina has SOLD! We are happy the new owners are very good mates! They LOVE what we did to this space & they will definitely be open by the UA Football season! But this will be our final day as Aussie Cantina. To our faithful, long-term staff & our devoted regulars... thanks for your company! It was fun sharing Kangaroo, Sausage Rolls, Meat Pies, Lamb Chops, pints of Fosters & Aussie Sunsets with all of you! As they say in Oz ... CHEERS BIG EARS!

Fluxx, Tucson's LGBT community performance space, will close its doors at the end of June 2014, according to an email announcement from Executive Director and co-founder Dante Celeiro.

Celeiro wrote that the space will honor all commitments through the end of June. There will be a fundraiser party announced soon to help pay remaining bills, but in the statement Celeiro made it clear that if enough is raised that perhaps the doors could remain open.

That would be nice, considering Fluxx hasn't just become an important space for the LGBT community offering a heavily discounted and safe venue for important projects and groups, when no other LGBT organization could. It will be missed.

To donate, go here.

From Celeiro:

Its been almost 4 years since we opened the first and only LGBTQ community performance arts space in the Southwest. A safe space where you can be yourself no matter your identity ... Growing up there were no safe spaces such as Fluxx, a place where I could dress, perform, dance, create, speak my needs, my wants, my feelings or just be me... I wasn't the only one who felt this way and as I grew older I knew I wanted something different, something more but unsure how it would happen. Boys R Us happened....

Until our closure we will honor all of our commitments through June. So if you haven't been to Fluxx in awhile or have never attended a class or event - now is your time to see what could have been... A fundraiser closure party will be announced soon. Those funds will help in paying our final bills.

A "Thank You" goes a long way ... unless you are a bill collector

A thank you goes a long way for me, but the bill collectors have no care in the world of who you are or what you do...the bills must get paid.

It cost $4000 - $5000 a month (depending on the time of year) to keep the doors of Fluxx open and functioning. The summer is upon us and most local Tucsonans know this time of year can be very slow and bills tend to increase during this time. Our reserves are gone and without consistent monthly donations and use of the space were unable to keep up.

This last year has been very challenging on many levels, the loss of life, the loss of love and the loss of freedom...an old Yoruba Proverb states:


"In order to live, you must Die!"


I get it so I embrace it... my spirit is free...

We have always kept our event cost low so the space would be accessible to all, most of our classes have been donation based and even our rental fees do not compare to other venues; and you always get your monies worth at Fluxx. It's about quality not quantity.