State lawmaker Michele Reagan, the Republican candidate who is facing Democrat Terry Goddard in the race for Arizona secretary of state, had a disastrous appearance on Brahm Resnik's Sunday Square Off a few days ago. You can watch the entire exchange after the jump, but her inability to answer Phoenix TV news reporter Brahm Resnik's questions about dark money, her support from state lawmaker Catherine Miranda and her support for a "birther bill" that would have required presidential candidates to show their birth certificates or some other form of proof that they were born in the United States is painful to watch.

Born out of a love of vinyl, Fort Lowell Records began releasing 7-inch singles by Tucson bands five years ago. Label boss James Tritten and his wife Tracy Shedd left Tucson after seven years last fall, but didn't leave our music scene behind, with two 12-inch records from Tucson's La Cerca and Naïm Amor part of Fort Lowell's 2015.

In between those releases come two more, both officially out today.

Tucson fans of the Fort Lowell roster - Young Mothers, ...music video?, Tracy Shedd, Dead Western Plains, Howe Gelb, Andrew Collberg, Saint Maybe, Fairweather Friend and the Luz de Vida compilation - will find plenty to like in Tritten's choices of the Good Graces and moyamoya.

The Good Graces' "Close to the Sun" is Fort Lowell's 12th release, an indie-pop record for fans of Liz Phair, Juliana Hatfield and Rilo Kiley. The Atlanta-based band recorded in Chapel Hill, N.C., near the new Fort Lowell HQ of Raleigh.

From Jacksonville, Florida comes moyamoya, a complex instrumental band like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai.

Both 12-inch vinyl records are available for sale from the Fort Lowell homepage or Bandcamp.

And stay tuned Nov. 25 for Fort Lowell's 14th release, Naïm Amor's "Hear The Walls."

• Gungor

Considering I got my start writing about religious rock, it hurts my soul a bit that I don't get to write that much about Christian rock on the Range, so get your angry commenting/emailing fingers warmed up! It's time to talk about Gungor!

But wait a minute before you start your screed, you might actually like Gungor, which is basically Michael Gungor, plus generally his wife Lisa and then a bunch of other people in different combinations. Yes, he plays something that's like worship music, influenced by Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire, but Michael Gungor also burned basically every bridge there is with mainstream Christian circles earlier this year by questioning the idea of Biblical literalism (that the Bible isn't a book of allegory and imagery, but that the world was created in six actual 24-hour-days, Jonah was eaten by an actual whale, etc.) This made the Evangelical world explode, including Creationist-with-weird-beard Ken Ham, who condemned Gungor on his website and invited him to come to the Creation Museum to talk things out (I assume Michael declined because nearly anything else would be a better use of his time).

Anyhow, the point is that Michael Gungor is the best sort of artist talking about faith—the kind willing to upset people in the process of trying to figure out what's true and what matters and while the crowd at his group's recentish (sold out!) January show at Congress basically waited for the most simplistic worship song ("Beautiful Things") to get psyched for what was an interesting set of songs up to that point. Yes, unless you're a Christian of some sort, you might not be up for this show, but listen to some of his music under the name The Liturgists, try out some of Gungor's 2014 album "I Am Mountain," see what you think. At very least, the band should be appreciated for trying to challenge a status quo that doesn't care for much diversity of opinion. Tickets for the all-ages show on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. are $18 in advance, $20 at the door. More info at facebook.com/191toole.

On a campaign flier, Diane Douglas lists "Pro-Life" as one of the five reasons she's qualified to be our next Superintendent of Public Instruction. "Conservative Republican" also makes the list. The general rap on Douglas' run for superintendent is that she's a one issue candidate: Kill Common Core! But she hopes to do more than get rid of the new standards. She wants to make Arizona's schools a playground for the Tea Party. As superintendent, she would be more ideologue than educator.

Douglas is against Common Core Standards, true, but it's not really the standards which cause her the most distress. It's the "Common" part of "Common Core" she truly despises. As a devotee of the 10th Amendment, loved by states righters from segregationists to today's right wing, she wants education to be controlled by the states, without federal government involvement.

Douglas' pre-primary website was aimed squarely at her most ardent supporters, people who shared her Tea Party leanings. Since then, she's replaced it with a vanilla version better suited to the general election. On the original web pages, she wrote, "Common Core is to education what ObamaCare is to healthcare" and called it "Obama’s invasion of our children’s education." Her promise was that as superintendent, she would "Use every power of the office and all my energies to ensure the AZ Dept & our State Board of Education protect and defend our 10th Amendment right to direct and control the education of our children."

According to Douglas, from the first President Bush, to Clinton, to the second Bush, to Obama, the goal has been the same:

Our schools are under the control of the same Washington bureaucrats who have marginalized academic content — stressing culture over content, social engineering over student achievement and conspiring to rewrite the story of American pre-eminence in the world.

To Douglas the Bushes, father and son, were lefty internationalists just like their Democratic successors.

In that context, Douglas' dislike of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program, which is used either as an alternative to or in tandem with Advanced Placement courses in schools across the country, should be no surprise. When she was a Peoria School Board member, she opposed renewing the district's IB program.

Douglas said, "I am vehemently opposed to this program. We're relinquishing our control to an international organization."

[snip]

"IB's goal is to promote world government," Douglas said, adding that it is changing children's values to think globally, telling them what to think, not how to think.

"In my opinion, the IB program has no place in American education," she said.

Douglas' view of what should be taught in our schools is limited to what the far right considers "patriotic" and "moral." Under her leadership, schools would become a battleground where curriculum, textbooks and teachers would be scrutinized to make sure they taught about the world according to the Tea Party.

Thankfully, there are seemingly an infinite number of places to get pizza these days in Tucson, so other than seeing Mr. Papa John hanging out with Peyton Manning on TV now and then, I don't have to think so much about that particular national pizza chain. However, with the announcement of their new limited availability speciality pizza, I have to wonder: does the Bible mention the Fritos Chili Pizza specifically as a sign of the apocalypse or are we suppose to just infer that John the Apostle couldn't possibly make sense of the visions he had of this culinary monstrosity?

From the Papa John's press release:

Whether looking for a dinner option on Halloween or the perfect tailgating meal, the limited time product is available through November 23. The pizza will feature Papa John's signature-crust, real beef, hearty chili sauce, Roma tomatoes and onions, all topped with premium cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and baked to golden brown perfection. In keeping with the tradition of a time-tested recipe, the pizza is completed with a generous portion of original Fritos corn chips for a crunchy finish.

"At Papa John's, we love offering our customers exciting pizzas that add some flavor to each season," said Bob Kraut, Papa John's chief marketing officer. "It seemed like a no-brainer to collaborate with our beverage partner PepsiCo to bring its popular Fritos corn chips snack to our pizza and combine these traditional tailgating fall favorites - chili, cheese and added crunch - with Papa John's signature fresh-dough crust."

[...]

"Papa is amazed it took 30 years to put it all on a pizza. We finally did, and we're excited that the pizza will be available for our busiest day of the year, Halloween," said Kraut.

Over the weekend, this video took over the internets showing some good Samaritans tackling a homophobic ass who started to attack a person at an airport gate. The video shows the whole mess taking place, and then the guy getting tackled to the ground. But wait, who is that in the anti-bigotry pile-up?

Today, the Wonkette dutifully pointed out what no one seemed to notice that the guy in the brown suit is actor Paul Rudd and then dutifully added some truth to whole drama.

Unfortunately, my dear Wonkette and others who got on the celebrity hero train were absolutely wrong. An addendum to the bigotry-fighting saga via Gawker:

Today, the internet has ascribed an inspiring bit of heroism to Paul Rudd, after video surfaced this weekend of a man who almost, kind of looks like Paul Rudd helping to prevent an alleged hate crime at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (as shown in the video above). Alas, @TheRealPaulRudd was actually thousands of miles away, likely doing nothing, while real American heroes got their hands dirty.

One thing's for certain in this video of a political sign thief—those are not Michael Hicks' legs. I just don't think his legs are that nice, right? Wear shorts at the next meeting, Mike, so we can figure this out.

The video is of what is evidently the latest in campaign season political sign thief capers. Every season right, it's always someone. Tucson Unified School District governing board president, Adelita Grijalva, running for reelection, put out this video today asking if anyone knows the identity of this thief. She wants to prosecute.

On her Facebook page, the candidate claims $7,000 worth of her campaign signs have been stolen.

Got info, contact the candidate via her campaign page here.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, the political action committee run by Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly, is back in the Congressional District 2 race between Congressman Ron Barber and Republican challenger Martha McSally.

The 30-second ad, entitled "Values," looks at McSally's previous statements during her close 2012 race against Barber, when she said she would "propose no legislation" to address the rising costs of college tuition, opposed closing the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows people to buy gun from non-licensed sellers without a background check, and floated the idea of raising the retirement for Social Security.

In her 2014 campaign, McSally has backtracked on the education position, though she has yet to float any kind of policy proposal to deal with rising college costs. (A roundtable discussion on solutions to the rising cost of college education closed to the press, so it's impossible to know what was said in the meeting.) Team McSally has not responded to the Weekly's efforts to get clarification on her position on Social Security, although she has said she wants to protect it without expressing specific policy position. And while she has said she wants to close the so-called "stalker gap," McSally hasn't said whether she still stands by her 2012 opposition to background checks on private sales at gun shows.

• Cisco Cat was a friend of mine The Cisco Cat was a friend of mine; He drink milk, while I just drank my wine

Yes, good people at the Humane Society have sent us another photo of an adorable adoptable cat that you won't look at without saying something like, "Awww," or "Cuuuuute." His name is Cisco, #793202, a seven-year-old domestic long hair male.

As the Humane Society’s feline greeter, Cisco will always introduce himself with a slow blink and a gracious headbump. This handsome gentleman loves being close to people and will snuggle to his heart’s content. Once you meet Cisco, it’s easy to see why he has absolutely everyone at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona smitten. He’s outgoing, unshakably calm and so endearing. Cisco is declawed, accustomed to living with other animals and happy to spend his evenings curled up by your side. If you could give this warm, wonderful boy a loving forever home, please get to know sweet Cisco today!

***As part of the Humane Society’s Petacular Pumpkin Patch promotion, Cisco has a $31 adoption fee through October!

While the movie-going situation here in Tucson does seem to get a bit better all the time, we're still a little slow to get some movies, so while the big city folks have been raving about Dear White People for a few weeks, we've had to be patient. Thankfully, we only have to wait until Nov. 7, since the satire of race-relations in modern America opens at the Loft that week (along with The Tale of Princess Kaguya, the Daniel Radcliffe horror film Horns and the documentary Last Days in Vietnam).

New York magazine's review threw around some high praise:

All that said, the writer-director is also not afraid to polemicize and let his characters stand on soapboxes, even address the camera. It works because — like Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing and even Jean-Luc Godard back in the 1960s — he knows to playfully challenge his characters’ stridency. At one point, in a scene you can also view in the film’s teaser trailer, Samantha and other kids from the Black Student Union confront a movie-theater employee over the offensive stereotyping in Tyler Perry movies. “Can we have a movie with, you know, characters in them instead of stereotypes wrapped in Christian dogma?” Samantha asks. “Uh, most people are here to see Fang 9,” the nervous employee replies, helpfully adding, with a shrug, “It’s got 2 Chainz in it.” Sometimes, a little undercutting helps to prove your broader point.

Okay, I’ve thrown a lot of big names around — Spike Lee, Godard, Kubrick — but I’m genuinely wowed by Simien’s ability to juggle big ideas while not losing sight of his characters, by his gorgeously assured filmmaking, by the little pirouettes of dead-on observation that dance between the film’s broader strokes. Dear White People and its director are the real deal. This is one of the best feature-filmmaking debuts of recent years.

As a bonus, the Dear White People YouTube channel is turning out some hilarious short videos to promote the film: