Maybe my fondness and love for Maya Angelou was because the poet's words always came into my life at the right moment. Her words and life story have always inspired me, my life and the life of other women I know. Everything that came out of her mouth seemed like a lesson we better listen to or understand or take to heart—like her ruminations on love in the video above. I'll always think of her inauguration poem for Bill Clinton, my love for it then and how I look back at it now as the last time I put hope in politics and politicians.

At 86 it may not be unexpected, and her health as reported this morning, had been deteriorating, but still it's a loss and it hurts.

From NPR this morning:

"She really believed that life was a banquet," says Patrik Henry Bass, an editor at Essence Magazine. When he read Angelou's memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, he saw parallels in his own life in a small town in North Carolina. He says everyone in the African-American community looked up to her; she was a celebrity but she was one of them. He remembers seeing her on television and hearing her speak.

"When we think of her, we often think about her books, of course, and her poems," he says. "But in the African-American community, certainly, we heard so much of her work recited, so I think about her voice. You would hear that voice, and that voice would capture a humanity, and that voice would calm you in so many ways through some of the most significant challenges."

Film director John Singleton grew up in a very different part of the country. But he remembers the effect Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" had on him as a kid. It begins:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

"I come from South Central Los Angeles," he says. It's "a place where we learn to puff up our chests to make ourselves bigger than we are because we have so many forces knocking us down — including some of our own. And so that poem ... it pumps me up, you know. ... It makes me feel better about myself, or at least made me feel better about myself when I was young."

Singleton used Angelou's poems in his 1993 film Poetic Justice. Angelou also had a small part in the movie. Singleton says he thinks of Angelou as a griot — a traditional African storyteller.

"We all have that one or two people in our families that just can spin a yarn, that has a whole lot to say, and holds a lot of wisdom from walking through the world and experiencing different things," he says. "And that's the way I see Dr. Maya Angelou. She was a contemporary of Martin Luther King, a contemporary of Malcolm X and Oprah Winfrey. She transcends so many different generations of African-American culture that have affected all of us."

Here's a line you rarely see, from a New York Times article, Unlikely Allies Uniting to Fight School Changes: "Conservative lawmakers also sponsored a bill, co-written by the teachers union . . ." Things are getting weird in Education Land.

The article should be required reading for journalists who write about education. Any reporters who have fashioned simplistic political dichotomies around the Common Core — you see a lot of this in Arizona reporting — that the far right hates it but moderate Republicans and Democrats love it, end of story, need to look deeper.

Here's the rest of the paragraph I quoted from earlier.

During the most recent legislative session in Tennessee, conservative Republicans, including Mr. Womick, joined the teachers union in supporting a bill to delay the administration of a standardized test aligned to the Common Core. Conservative lawmakers also sponsored a bill, co-written by the teachers union, that overturned a State Board of Education policy tying decisions about teacher licenses to student test scores.

The more common linkage between the far right and progressive educators is one where the right despises the Common Core standards themselves while progressives dislike the high stakes tests more than the standards, but sometimes it gets more complicated than that, like in Tennessee. And in Oklahoma,

[T]eachers unions gave strong support to a bill, sponsored by Republicans, that would overturn a law requiring third graders to be held back simply on the basis of the results of one standardized test.

It's 104 degrees outside and your air conditioner is broken. What do you do? Luckily, the innovative folks at HouseholdHacker have devised an AC that will save you some money and give the kids something to do this summer vacation. This $8 AC is so crafty it would make Macgyver jealous.

All you're going to need is a Styrofoam cooler, ice*, one or two dryer vents and a desk fan.


Don't be afraid to send us some pictures if you decide to craft one of your own.

Cats posse many talents that involving knocking object off surfaces. Alan Palesko has 34 videos of his cat Joe doing nothing. But this latest video of Joe playing a mean game of Jenga takes the cake.

Accidents happen all the time, and sometimes we aren't that lucky. Fortunately, Judy Fox is one of the lucky bicycle accident victims. But she didn't escape death without a few battle scars.

Fox, 22, was t-boned on her bicycle at approximately 2 p.m., Thursday, May 22, near East 17th Street and South Fifth Avenue. The 22-year-old was transported to the University Medical Center. Fox suffered a broken upper jaw, a large chunk of her knee was removed and she lost three teeth.

Thankfully, the young barista was insured and a majority of the medical bills will be taken care of. “I signed up for that Obama-Care-shit, and it covered most of my hospital stay,” Fox articulately put it. She is currently wearing a leg cast that connects to her hip, so, Fox will not be able to go back to work at Sparkroot for some time.

The Wisconsin native is concerned with her orthodontic surgery, so that's when her friends stepped in.

Fox’s friend AnnaThea Park started a crowdfunding initiative through Indiegogo to help Fox.

Please give what you can- a few dollars or several dollars or maybe a few more. She will need all she can get, and honestly probably a lot more than the $6,000 that i set as our goal. Judy is a beacon of awesome from our community, and although she prefers warmer pastures, she loves and appreciates everyone back home (and elsewhere) for thinking of her and for sending your support.

Let's put that silly grin back on her face.

"I have been insanely lucky support wise," Fox said. "They have been curating me weird food." Fox can't eat solid foods because of her broken maxilla.  "I don't know what I would do out without them," Fox said.

To avoid any complications with the ongoing insurance claim, Fox wanted to make it very clear that she isn't admitting fault or blaming the other party. 

Click here to support the cause.

It's not a KFMA Day Festival if there isn't a controversy before the headliner hits the stage. My news feed was full of friends and family snapping selfies and grumbling about weather conditions on Saturday, May 24, at the outdoor music Fest in the Kino Stadium. The enthusiastic tone took an abrupt turn when Rome Ramirez, Sublime's lead singer, started tweeting from the event.

Rome accused Linkin Park of calling the cops on the band for smoking marijuana, so the authorities confiscated their drug paraphernalia. There's a rumor that the band was "allergic to pot." Stranger things have happened?

So, naturally Rome took his pent-up aggression to Twitter:

Linkin Park called the cops on us and said that they were allergic to pot. cops came and took all our weed while we on stage. Bitch shit

— Rome (@RomeMusica) May 25, 2014

I've had the occasional bobcat visit my backyard before, but never a leisurely 20 minute stay, complete with the cat watching me as I took multiple photos from a safe vantage point behind a window.

I first sighted her (I think it was a her) as a quick vertical blur in my peripheral vision, followed by a flurry of feathers. She had leaped seven feet to snag a dove sitting at the top of a concrete wall. She carried the bird to an alcove and had a quick lunch, followed by a leisurely siesta on the backyard bricks. Then it was back to the hunt, poised on the top of the wall, watching the bird action until she dropped down on the other side to continue her journey. (Continue for more pics.)

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) is a treasure for those of us who see "educational studies" touted in the media, often by reporters who don't know enough to evaluate the quality of the research. NEPC scholars take a careful look at those reports and point out what are often sloppy research practices, sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional. They also publish valuable research of their own.

Every year the NEPC gives out Bunkum Awards for the shoddiest education research of the year. David Berliner, who is a Regents' Professor Emeritus and former dean of the College of Education at Arizona State University (a few of the NEPC folks have ASU connections) presents this year's awards. ALEC, Students First, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Brookings Institute all get their comeuppance.

(Suggestion: Sign up for the NEPC Publication Alerts if you want to learn the latest on both the best and worst education research out there.)

On this week's penultimate episode of AZ Illustrated Politics: Andrea Kelly sat down with former California congressman Frank Riggs to talk about why he's joining the crowded field of Republicans seeking the governor's seat. Then Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Lea Marquez Peterson and Arizona Education Network President Ann-Eve Pedersen sat down with me to talk about City Manager Richard Miranda's retirement; the council's ongoing agonizing over changes to bus fares and routes; why a Pima County judge slapped the city of Tucson with a big fine for failing to turn over memos and emails related to the collapsed deal to sell El Rio Golf Course to Grand Canyon University; the ousting of two incumbents in this week's Sunnyside School District recall; and more.

Here's another example of why you shouldn't mess with Neko Case. The official Playboy Dot Com Twitter page mentioned Case to  Tim Grierson's album review. The tweet referred Case "is breaking the mold of what women in the music industry should be."

Thanks to Carly G Marie, here's a screen grab of their conversation:


Unfortunately, the review wasn't any better: 

For women, it’s more bankable to be alluring—whether that comes in the form of the confident straight shooter (Beyoncé), the girlie pinup (Katy Perry) or the coquettish ingenue (Taylor Swift)—or to reject outright such conventions and be a hell-hath-no-fury flamethrower (Fiona Apple).

(Help from HuffPo Women)