WASHINGTON – More than three years after her 9-year-old daughter was shot and killed, Roxanna Green’s heart breaks all over again when she sees another shooting on the news.

“When we laid her to rest, my heart broke,” Green said of her daughter, Christina-Taylor, one of six people killed in the Tucson shooting that wounded then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011. “My heart is still broken.”

Green joined other relatives of victims from other mass shootings – some grieving for years, some for less than a month – at a news conference Tuesday where they called on Congress to take action and put an end to gun violence.

They stood tearfully, holding pictures of loved ones who were lost to gun violence – in Tucson, at Virginia Tech, at Aurora, at Newtown, at the University of California Santa Barbara and in other attacks.

Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher Michaels-Martinez was killed last month at UC Santa Barbara, cited Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed in the 1999 Columbine shooting.

“My son Chris has been dead for 26 days, and there is a hole in my heart that nothing can fill,” Martinez said. “Daniel Mauser has been dead 15 years and what has been done?”

It was Martinez who demanded “not one more,” after his son’s death. That rallying cry was taken up by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, who kicked off a postcard campaign demanding action from elected officials on gun violence.

They said that more than 600,000 people have signed up to send a “Not One More” postcard to their congressman, their governor and each of their senators- more than at least 2.4 million postcards in all.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is one of those targeted in the campaign, with the two groups pledging to deliver the postcards to his Phoenix office Friday.

Ed Supe John Huppenthal's anonymous commenting and sock puppetry made Tucson's 10 o'clock news Thursday night on KGUN 9, as you can see after the jump. Blog for Arizona's Bob Lord and I were included in the story, but our words took a back seat to Huppenthal's. How could the two of us compete with Hupp writing, "Obama is rewarding the lazy pigs with food stamps" or calling TUSD's Mexican American Studies a "'We hate whitey' curriculum"?

I got a chance to "perform" Hupp's comment on a 2012 Blog for Arizona post of mine where he wrote, "You guys are frequently scum, but this article makes you a special form of scum: evil scum." (My post wasn't about Huppenthal, by the way. It was about the national charter school chain, Imagine Schools. I have no idea why that got Hupp so upset. He went equally ballistic over another post of mine about Imagine schools, writing, "You have to be kidding me. how stupid and perverted are you?" There may be a story here, but I haven't figured out what it is yet.)

Republican gubernatorial candidates Scott Smith and Christine Jones have released new campaign ads this week.

Smith's ad highlights his work in the private sector and as mayor of Mesa, along with his promise to improve the state's economy if he becomes governor.

Jones' ad includes her promise to secure the border, her opposition to Common Core learning standards, and her vow to lead as an "unapologetic conservative."

Well, this is a cool (albeit sticky) mess: A man wearing a suit of Mentos is dropped into a big vat of diet soda to give people a "little taste of what's happening on EpicMealEmpire (starts July 26 on FYI)," according to Harley Morenstein. Guess you'll have to watch the show to find if he survived.

Golden Age of Radio Theater (GART) presents new shows on the third Saturday of the month through Sept. 20. Shows start a 3 p.m., at Hungry Fox Restaurant, 4637 E. Broadway Blvd. Tickets are $12 at the door (cash and credit cards only). For advance tickets, call 576-7658 or email [email protected]. $10. The shows presented on Saturday, June 21, are: 

The Bickersons: John’s Operation. Aired Nov 20, 1945. What better time to have a semblance of a conversation than at 2 a.m. in the morning? Blanche holds back no surprises bringing John to fits of pique.

A Short, Short Story: Good Salesman. Aired Jan 29, 1940. What you can expect from a pen pal who gets lost in an abnormal situation?

Fibber McGee and Molly: Fibber and Doc Dine Out. Aired Feb 19, 1946. Fibber always takes any situation to the next level. Who can turn a regular meal into an epic episode?  

Sir Paul McCartney hasn't forgotten about Tucson, you guys. In honor of Throwback Thursday, the legendary Beatles member tweeted a photo of himself cutting into his Birthday cake backstage at the Tucson Convention Center. McCartney says this picture was taken on June 18, 1976 during the "Wings Over America" tour.

Taken on June 18th in Tucson during the 'Wings over America' tour #ThrowbackThursday #TBT pic.twitter.com/u86Z2nwgOL

— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 19, 2014

OK, remember the Tucson Unified School District governing board election is kinda around the corner (Nov. 4, 2014), but the most important detail remains that there are 10 potential candidates and if any of them are taking this business of getting into this racket they best be getting signatures for their petitions—filing period for those signatures opens July 7 and closes Aug. 6 at 5 p.m.

Evidently there's a forum for "Democratic Party" candidates for TUSD, as well as Sunnyside governing boards brought to you by Friends of Legislative District 3. The forum is Monday, June 23, 6 p.m. in the children's meeting room at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave., downtown.

And no, organizers warn that this isn't a debate—so you won't see some needed debate action between Sunnyside's Eva Dong and Daniel Hernandez. Hopefully that will come later:

We will be hosting a forum for Democratic Party candidates for the TUSD and SUSD governing boards. The forum isn't a debate, but rather an opportunity for them to introduce themselves and to solicit volunteers before the August 6 petition deadline. ...

Alright everybody, it’s MASHED POTATO TIME! That’s right folks, prepare to do the Mashed Potato, The Twist, The Roach and The Bug tonight when the Loft Cinema presents John Waters’ Hairspray, his 1988 ode to 1950s Baltimore. This was the film that took Waters out of the gutter and into the warm, fuzzy embrace of the mainstream, and it was also Divine’s last film. She plays the mother of Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), a Rubenesque teen with dancing feet. Tracy yearns to strut her stuff on the Corny Collins Show, a Baltimore version of American Bandstand. Does she have what it takes? Find out tonight at 7 p.m. Tickets are regular admission.

If dancing isn't your thing, maybe face-huggers, androids spewing out milky substances and the psychosexual designs of recently deceased Swiss artist H.R. Giger is more your speed. I can only be talking about one movie, and that’s the 1979 horror/sci-fi classic Alien. Director Ridley Scott tried to catch the magic once again with 2012’s dismal prequel Prometheus, but that moronic misstep has nothing on this grade-A slice of celluloid. Alien is part of the Loft’s Late Night Cult Classics series, and it plays Friday, June 20 and Saturday, June 21. Both shows are at 10 p.m., and tickets are $6 for general admission, $5 for Loft members.

Starting late last year, the Loft created a new series called Loft Staff Selects. Each month, a Loft staff member gets to program one of their favorite films for one night. This month, Executive Director Peggy Johnson chose the 1965 film A Thousand Clowns. It stars the inimitable Jason Robards as Madison Ave. dropout Murray Burns. He’s the guardian of his nephew, 12-year-old Nick. Nick’s about to be taken away from his custody, but a social welfare worker (Barbara Harris) starts falling in love with the mordant Murray. Think of it as a non-hippie precursor to Harold & Maude. The film starts at 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 22. Tickets are $6 for general admission and $5 for Loft members.

According to Pima County Library, the Valencia branch at 202 W. Valencia Road is the new home for all repository information, technical reports and reference materials about the industrial solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) and the 1, 4 dioxane issue from the Tucson International Airport Superfund site. The materials were previously at the El Pueblo branch library.

To increase awareness about clean water, the Valencia branch is hosting special storytimes and an information table staffed by a Pima County Public Health nurse from the Pima County Department of Health. These programs are free and open to everyone:

Family Storytime — Tuesday, June 24, 6 pm

Preschool Storytime — Wednesday, June 25, 10:30 am

Clean Water Information Table — Wednesday, June 25, 3-5 pm

From the Pima County Library press release:

From 1950 to 1980, it was discovered that soil and groundwater in a ten square mile area on the south side of Tucson had been contaminated with chemicals like the industrial solvent tricholorethylene (TCE) and 1, 4 dioxane that caused serious health problems for residents and workers exposed to the water. In response, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added the Tucson International Airport Superfund Site to its cleanup list in 1983. The Unified Community Advisory Board (UCAB) was formed in 1995 by members of the affected community to learn about the cleanup process and advise agencies responsible for the cleanup.



In partnership with the EPA and the UCAB, the Valencia Library, 202 W. Valencia Rd., is the new location for the repository of information, technical reports, and reference materials about the TCE and the 1, 4 dioxane issue. To increase awareness about clean water, the Valencia Library is hosting special Storytimes and an information table staffed by a Public Health Nurse from the Pima County Department of Health. These programs are free and open to the public.



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The El Pueblo Library housed the information for several years, but the larger Valencia Library facility will allow more people to access information. Sarah Cafasso, a Community Involvement Coordinator for the EPA, explained: “By providing the public with greater access to these records, it is our hope that they will be better equipped to comment constructively on site activities and to understand the issues relating to the selection of the response action at the site.”http://posting.tucsonweekly.com/foundation/images/buttons/formatting/quote.gif



Community members are welcome to attend UCAB’s quarterly meetings to receive updates about cleanup operations and to provide feedback. The next meeting is Wednesday, July 16, 5:45 pm, El Pueblo Senior Center, 101 W. Irvington Rd. For more information, contact Sarah Cafasso at (415) 972-3076 or [email protected] or UCAB Community Co-Chair Yolanda Herrera at [email protected].

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I honestly had forgotten that Big Brother was still a show, but hey, the 16th season kicks off on Wednesday, June 25 and Tucsonan Christine Brecht, a 23-year-old Starbucks shift supervisor who enjoys Settlers of Catan, will be one of the contestants trying to win the $500,000 prize in exchange for competing in various stunts and games and having her life broadcast 24 hours a day.

Brecht seems like a great choice for the show, since she told a CBS interviewer that she's watched every episode of the series, subscribed to the online feeds and has in-depth strategies about how to survive the show through alliances. Also, she hates moths and would buy a car with her winnings.

Best of luck, Christine (although she's current under "sequester" and can't see this anyhow)! We'll keep an eye on her progress on the show.

Below the cut, two interviews with Brecht about the show and her plan to win.