Chicago writer Will Gosner pens a remembrance to the late Charles Bowden:

“Nature” is a word that Bowden actively disparages, but his books are filled with dirt, plants, woods, rivers, and oceans, and Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing teems with animals. And while he couches his move west in all the seductive mythos of going to an untamed land, the animals that make the greatest impression on him are the ones he can see from his back porch, the city creatures. He admires a pair of cardinals nesting in his yard, noting approvingly that they belong to a species flourishing and expanding its range in the human-ravaged world. He recounts how his dog came to the defense of a familiar desert tortoise when a neighbor’s pet dog attacked the poor animal. But the creature that commands Bowden’s most sustained attention is the snake. In particular he gets to know a western diamondback rattlesnake that rests on his porch during the daytime. He calls her Beulah.

The many hours Bowden spends in contemplation of and in companionship with Beulah are productive ones in his philosophical quest. He wonders about humans’ fear and hatred of these reptiles and notes that the human experience of snakes is informed largely by being bitten by them: “for thousands of years, human contact with rattlesnakes in the wild has gone like this: we collide with rattlesnakes or we have no contact with them at all. It is as if we based our entire knowledge of automobiles on head-on collisions.” From this narrow range of experience, we’ve concluded that snakes are avatars of violence, some evil incarnate. Bowden recognizes the utility of this conclusion: it creates a “strange comfort zone” in which we feel justified in our hatred of snakes and therefore righteous when we slaughter them with impunity.

This view is one small rationalization of many that together form the “culture of death” that Bowden badly wants to understand and transcend. Between the peaceful hours with Beulah and a thorough investigation into the scientific literature and field studies on snakes, he finds a more honest perspective. He learns that they spend most of their time in stillness, capable of going months between meals. That they avoid confrontation at almost all costs. Like many nature writers, Bowden finds nobility and undeniable authenticity in such animals and tries to mimic the snake’s simultaneous repose and raptness. He writes about how he “would slip into snaketime for hours, doing nothing as the snake beside me did nothing. It was not simply losing track of hours or days. It was diving deep into the moment and yet at the same time finding each moment immense and full.” Bowden isn’t a sentimental writer and doesn’t pretend to understand what it means to be a snake, nor does he accept that any scientific observation can bridge the human-reptilian gap. Snakehood is, in the end, an alien culture.

And yet Bowden can’t abide such a bloodless, resigned conclusion either. Snakes might teach stillness and patience beyond comprehension, but they are not neutral observers. They kill, procreate, and survive with an intoxicating vitality. Bowden writes, “Snakes are alert to what is out there. The smell of this world, the play of light, the sound of a faint footfall, the sky, and the sun. And certainly the moon given the hours they keep. But it is impossible to think of neurosis in a snake. They live in a great amphitheater of sensations, we live in a stale closet of concerns.” Here and elsewhere in Bowden’s work, animals serve as a barometer against which humans can measure themselves. Their heightened sensory abilities, lives spent in unbounded time, and freedom from worry and guilt throw humans’ fundamental alienation from the world into higher relief.

Every wooden bench at Southside Presbyterian Church filled up today as supporters of Rosa Robles Loreto, who's been living in sanctuary there for more than six months, launched a new tactic to pressure federal immigration officials to close her case so that she can go home to her two children and husband without fearing deportation.

Her two boys, Gerardo Jr., 11, and José Emiliano, 8, sat next to her as Southside's the Rev. Alison Harrington, Pima County Supervisor Ramón Valadez, Sunnyside Unified School District Board Members Daniel Hernandez and Eva Carrillo Dong, and attorney Margo Cowan stepped up to the podium one by one declaring their unconditional support for Rosa as she continues this battle with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

"When I saw all of these people, I felt happy because I know they are standing with my mom," says Gerardo Jr., who a few months ago went to Congress (accompanied of course) to advocate for his mom. "They are not here because they have to but because they want to. I want to thank them."

The "We Stand With Rosa" campaign asks that supporters place signs outside their homes, businesses and places of worship, as well as to take photos of themselves carrying the sign, and then post them on social media sites (on Twitter, you can tag @WeStandWithRosa and use #LetRosaStay, and on Facebook the page, www.facebook.com/RosaRoblesLoreto), all with the hopes to create a stronger push on DHS, ICE and even President Obama to grant Rosa a stay in the U.S.

No one ever thought she would have to stay at Southside for as long as she has. When I spoke to her a few weeks ago, she said she even requested 10 days off at the homes she worked at, thinking that is how long she needed to wait until her case closed. We are reaching the end of February, and in the beginning of the month Cowan received an email from Jon Gurule, ICE Detention and Removal Operations deputy field office director in Arizona, saying he is not closing Robles Loreto's case. So, the pressure is now taking another route, closer to the White House, and in a handout we got at the gathering today, people are asked to write letters to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding for DHS to stop Rosa's deportation. 

In November, when Obama announced his immigration actions (which have now been temporarily blocked), he directed DHS to focus on removing undocumented immigrants who are felons, not on separating families.

ICE has said that her removal is not a priority, meaning no one would burst into her home and take her away. But, as she told me not too long ago, her case is now so public that she would be afraid to leave sanctuary before her case is closed.

Being away from home feels heavier now that she's reached the more than six months mark. Also, she notices that her children are suffering, and that pain is reflecting at how they've been doing at school.

Gerardo says they miss their mom taking them to baseball practice. 

"It is sad because sometimes I forget that my mom is not there, I think that she is in her room and I yell, "Mom!" and then I realize she is not there," he says. He wants his mom to be there so that he can talk to her about how his day at school went.

Harrington called for officials to take a moment today, Ash Wednesday, to reflect about what they are doing and "to repent."

"We want to reaffirm to those who are in office, to president Obama, to Secretary Jeh Johnson, and all of those in power, that we are not going anywhere, our faith is stronger than anything that you might throw at us," she said. "Today is a day of reflection and repentance. As a pastor, I want to invite those who are in power...to think about the family values they hold so dear, and whether those family values line up with deporting mothers and fathers, tearing families apart."

Hernandez, who helped save former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords' life in the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting, wanted to remind Obama of his visit to Tucson after the tragedy. That day, Obama said the phrase, "Together we thrive," which have been three constant words as the city heals from that event. 

"How can we thrive if we don't have our entire community together? If Rosa has to be in here each and every day," he said. "Members of Congress, enough is enough. You have had decades to work on this issue, and we need to act because our families can't wait."

Rosa's boys were supposed to turn in their applications to the extended DACA program today. But that, unfortunately, has been put on hold because of a judge's temporary injunction to block Obama's immigration actions, as a lawsuit brought forward by 26 states to kill these actions plays out.

Bubbles, Ricky and Julian have left the trailer park and are coming to Tucson to present their comedic variety show "Still Drunk, High and Unemployed."

The actors from the cult Canadian TV show Mike Smith (Bubbles), John Paul Tremblay (Julian) and Robb Wells (Ricky) will be performing at the Fox Theatre on Friday, Feb, 20 starting at 8 p.m.

Although they're probably most well known for their highly binge-able TV show, the trio also released three Trailer Park Boys movies, including last year's "Trailer Park Boys: Don’t Legalize It."

There are still some tickets available, which range in price from $35 to $55, but you should know they are running out fast. If you don't want to miss out on seeing the "Trailer Park Boys" live, you should definitely grab a seat soon via Fox Theatre's website.

And now, to prepare for the show, here's a supercut of some great Bubbles moments:

Chances are you've been at a Howe Gelb show and thought "Man, I wish that guy would make me a cocktail." Well, prepare to have all of your prayers answered on Thursday, Feb. 19 when Gelb and a handful of other local musicians go behind the stick to serve up drinks to benefit Downtown Radio.

The forthcoming community radio station, which will broadcast on 99.1 FM, is looking to feature local music completely commercial free, so they're looking for some cash to get going. That's why musicians including Howe Gelb, Brian Lopez, Gabriel Sullivan, Pete Ronstadt, Bruce Halper, Alex Flores, Thoger Lund, and Winston Watson have signed on to help serve up some drinks to help Downtown Radio out.

From 4 until 6 p.m. at Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails, attendees can hang out with the celebrity bartenders while ordering drinks and learning more about Tucson's newest radio station. Guests will also get a free Downtown Radio sticker for showing up.

Alright game geeks—and I know there's a lot of you, I used to work at a local game shop—have I got some news for you.

ICv2 says:

In June, Mayfair will release Catan, Traveler Edition, a new geomorphic edition that folds to fit in a lockable, trapezoidal box with a carrying handle. The game board includes collapsing trays for peg storage, and features double-sided tiles (which means that there are only hundreds of board permutations, instead of thousands). 

MSRP will be $45—so, really not much lower than the original game. But, still, I don't see how making Catan more portable can be a bad thing. 

ICv2 goes on to discus the theory behind the Catan expansions and upcoming improvements to their website, if you're into that kind of thing.

Tru Love CDN Trailer from Tru Love The Film on Vimeo.

It's time for the 22nd annual Lesbian Looks Film Series kicks off tomorrow night at the Loft! The first film in the series  this year is "Tru Love," which has won a ton of awards and looks pretty good to me.

From the Loft:

Tru Love (Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald, 2013, Canada)
Loft Cinema
Thursday Feb 19, 7 p.m. 

A touching story of mourning and cross-generational desire set in Canada’s frigid winter. Toronto’s gray, snow-capped skyscrapers form a fitting backdrop for Tru and Alice, who kindle a close connection in their search for relief from desolate periods they have each been weathering in solitude. Alice’s mature elegance shines through to Tru, a 30-something commitment-phobe who has fled from romantic entanglements ever since running away from homophobic parents as a teenager. Alice has accumulated her own share of burdens over the course of her life; she became a widow just months earlier, and finds in Tru—played by co-director and co-writer Shauna McDonald—a partner for exploring romantic desires she repressed throughout her long marriage.

Winner of 14 International Film Festival Awards, and named one of 2013’s Top Ten Films by Huffington Post, UK.

“Delightful. A sparkling gem of a film.” Curve Magazine

The series will continue March 24 with "Out in the Night," April 2 with "The Home Stretch" and April 9 with "Of Girls and Horses."

We might hear of a final settlement later today in the class-action suit against Arizona state-run prisons' poor health care. The suit was put together on behalf of more than 34,000 inmates .

A hearing is scheduled for this afternoon, where a federal judge will decide whether or not to approve the terms of a settlement. These terms were put together together last October by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Prison Law Office and the state Department of Corrections.

That agreement came a few days before a full-on trial was set to begin.

If approved, the settlement would require the corrections department to meet more than 100 health care performance measures, including monitoring prisoners with diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions, caring for pregnant prisoners, as well as providing dental care, according to the ACLU of Arizona.

Also, prisoners with serious mental illness would get a minimum of 19 hours per week outside their cell, rather than the previous six hours a week. Mental health treatment and other programs would be a requirement, too.

"ADC must also restrict guards’ use of pepper spray on these prisoners, using it only as a last resort when necessary to prevent serious injury or escape," a press release from the ACLU of Arizona said. 

There would be ongoing monitoring and oversight by the prisoners' lawyer to make sure the state is following through with the settlement terms. 

The lawsuit was filed back in 2012, but it wasn't until last summer that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the inmates could proceed with it. 

Among the many inflammatory statements in the press release Ed Supe Diane Douglas shot off after the Board of Education employees she tried to fire were reinstated by Ducey, was this line:

"Clearly [Ducey] has established a shadow faction of charter school operators . . ."

Sounds very conspiratorial, which fits with Douglas' Tea Party mindset. But here's the question. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton's assertion during the 90s: Is there a Vast Charter School Conspiracy in Arizona and around the country? Well, if hundreds of millions of private dollars spent creating astroturf groups pushing charter schools, more millions spent on election campaigns to buy candidates' loyalty and still more millions spent directly on financial support of charter schools to give them a financial edge over "government schools" amount to a conspiracy, the answer is yes. And if the troika who formed Ducey's education transition team is any indication — all very pro-charter, none of them a strong advocate for the school districts which educate 80 percent of our children — Ducey is deep in the bowels of the conspiracy.

Some charter schools are perfectly legit and are spending every dollar of their resources to educate their students the best way they know how, and doing a good job of it. But other people running charters are making a killing off the tax dollars they receive from the state to run their schools, and the moneyed and politically influential people who cheerlead for charter schools are aiding and abetting these profiteers by trying to hush up stories about the money machine and making sure the regulatory system is as weak and ineffectual as possible.

Here's one example which came to my attention through a long conversation thread I participated in on a Facebook post: Primavera Online High School (not to be confused with Primavera Foundation of Tucson. There's no connection between the two). Primavera Online High is one of those virtual schools without buildings, where students work on computers out of their homes. The student-teacher ratio is 40 to 50 students per teacher. Should online schools with half as many teachers as most other schools and no school buildings get more-or-less the same amount per student from the state as other charter schools or district schools? Well, they do, and that leaves them with a lot of money left over to play around with.

The solar industry in the state has more than 600 new jobs (a 7.2 percent growth), raking Arizona third in the nation in number of solar gigs, according to a report by the nonprofit The Solar Foundation.

More than 9,000 Arizonans worked in the solar biz last year. 

"The findings highlight the enormous job potential in Arizona for a clean energy transition from (Tucson Electric Power's) out-of-state San Juan Generating Station coal-fired power plant," a press release from the Sierra Club says.

About two weeks ago, I reported that a coalition of state environmental, community and business groups, including the Sierra Club, sent out an announcement urging TEP to get its hands off the New Mexico-based coal-fired power plant San Juan Generating Station. The groups said they would like for TEP to focus on local, clean energy solutions like rooftop solar.

“With enormous clean energy potential, the growth in solar jobs in Arizona demonstrates the vast opportunities we have to transition from coal to clean energy here in Arizona,” said a statement from Katharine Kent, president of The Solar Store in Tucson. “Rather than continuing to dump money into an expensive, out-of-state coal-fired power plant, TEP should move forward with a clean energy transition from its out-of-state coal plant that embraces rooftop solar here at home and creates even more jobs here in Arizona.”

From the Sierra Club release:

Support for continued burning of coal at the San Juan Generating Station has fallen as admissions by the company have revealed serious financial risks for the future of the plant. Earlier this month, the home city of the plant, Farmington, New Mexico, announced it would not acquire an increased stake in the plant due to reliability concerns and the huge costs that would be passed on to the community. Other New Mexico stakeholders have also pulled away from an agreement that would continue PNM’s use of coal at the plant, citing the overall uncertainty about San Juan’s operations. TEP owns half of one unit of the plant, which presents huge financial risks to local Tucson ratepayers if the utility continues its investment in the expensive, outdated coal-fired power plant.

“Our community faces enormous threats if TEP leads us down a path of continued reliance on coal at the San Juan Generating Station,” said Dan Millis, Tucson organizer for Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter, in a statement. “By increasing the amount of power we get from clean energy like solar, we will create good jobs for workers here at home, protect families and small businesses from expensive coal rate hikes, and secure a stronger future for our communities.”

The top two states are California where nearly 55,000 people work in the industry, and Massachusetts, with 9,400 solar jobs.

Check out the study here: a cool interactive map. 

As we all know by now, a federal judge temporarily blocked Obama's November immigration actions—one is an extension of who qualifies for DACA (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was supposed to start receiving applications tomorrow), and the other is deportation relief and work permits for parents of U.S. citizen and legal resident children, known as DAPA—while a coalition of 26 states (including Arizona) proceed with a lawsuit to kill both actions.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issued a statement and he isn't happy about that decision:

I strongly disagree with Judge Hanen’s decision to temporarily enjoin implementation of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The Department of Justice will appeal that temporary injunction; in the meantime, we recognize we must comply with it.

Accordingly, the Department of Homeland Security will not begin accepting requests for the expansion of DACA tomorrow, February 18, as originally planned. Until further notice, we will also suspend the plan to accept requests for DAPA.

The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts and even other courts have said that our actions are well within our legal authority. Our actions will also benefit the economy and promote law enforcement. We fully expect to ultimately prevail in the courts, and we will be prepared to implement DAPA and expanded DACA once we do.

It is important to emphasize what the District Court’s order does not affect.

The Court’s order does not affect the existing DACA. Individuals may continue to come forward and request initial grant of DACA or renewal of DACA pursuant to the guidelines established in 2012.

Nor does the Court’s order affect this Department’s ability to set and implement enforcement priorities. The priorities established in my November 20, 2014 memorandum entitled “Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants” remain in full force and effect. Pursuant to those enforcement priorities, we continue to prioritize public safety, national security, and border security. I am pleased that an increasing percentage of removals each year are of those convicted of crimes. I am also pleased that, due in large part to our investments in and prioritization of border security, apprehensions at the southern border – a large indicator of total attempts to cross the border illegally — are now at the lowest levels in years.