Cronkite News Service catches up with Tucsonan Stephen Kimble, the inventor of a Spider-Man web shooter who lost his case for ongoing royalties when the Supreme Court ruled against him yesterday:

The Supreme Court ruled against the Tucson inventor of a Spider-Man web shooter toy Monday, saying Marvel Entertainment no longer has to pay him royalties on its sale of the toy.

Stephen Kimble had argued that a 1964 court ruling that banned royalty payments after a patent expired was outdated and anti-competitive, and needed to be overturned.

But the court, in a 6-3 decision, said it was bound by precedent, even if that “means sticking to some wrong decisions.” The opinion by Justice Elena Kagan said Congress is the proper venue for Kimble’s complaint.

Kimble said Monday he was disappointed with the ruling.

“It’s as if nobody is really defending this law, but they’re saying, ‘Go to Congress to change it, don’t come to us,'” he said in a phone interview. “It’s disappointing.”

A few weeks ago, the Weekly reported that nerds were taking over the world. Further evidence: Slate notes that Justice Elena Kagan loaded up her opinion with Spider-Man references:

Fast food joints have a place in our culinary history, if we like it or not. Some would say it started as far back as 1921 when White Castle opened its doors in Wichita, Kansas. Others say McDonalds, the Mac Daddy of fast food, was the originator in 1948.

Whatever its true origins, perception and quality of cheap burgers, fries and shakes delivered through a convenient window, have declined. The crusade against GMO foods and low quality ingredients is being fought alongside the growth of the vegetarian, whole foods evolution.

Too much sugar. Not enough quality meat. Too many calories. Too many underpaid employees.

McDonalds has felt the greasy weight of these complaints, closing 350 of their struggling restaurants in mostly the United States, Japan and China this year.

The call to make healthy eating more normative is one many of us can stand behind, but sometimes it’s only feasible in concept. 

Whether its good or bad, the system in which many Americans eats is based on convenience, late hours and low costs. If families, especially low to middle income ones, are going to be convinced to make the switch to vegetarian or partially vegetarian diets, they have to have an option comparable in price and ease.

In comes a slowly, quietly growing idea of making vegetarian food as easy as pulling up to Burger King’s drive through window late at night. Outside Arizona, vegetarian fast food is gearing up to be supersized.

This post is about an article that appeared in Monday's Star: "Republicans can't stick to no-new-tax pledge" (I can't find the Star online link, so here's the original article on Bloomberg Politics). But first, a digression to something I remember from a Reagan campaign stop in California when he was first running for president. What happened, or what I remember happening since I'll never find a reference to it anywhere (but it's indelibly etched in my memory), is this.

Reagan was talking about changing the federal funding that goes to states into a block grant rather than earmarking the money for specific purposes. He didn't want to mention that he planned to cut the total amount going to the states, but a reporter asked him the question, which went something like, "Your plan would give less money to the states. How do you expect them to pay for all those programs?" His answer was a classic of Reagan-style, earnest flimflammery. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "They can raise taxes." The reporter who asked the question looked stunned, dumbfounded. He didn't ask a follow-up because, what could he possibly ask?

Reagan, of course, went on to raise taxes when he was president. So did George Herbert Walker "Read-my-lips-no-new-taxes" Bush. And Governor Ducey is acting like Reagan when he was on the campaign trail, expecting cities and counties to raise taxes to make up for the shortfalls in the current state budget. Republicans are situationally anti-tax. When push comes to shove, when there's a hole that absolutely has to be filled, they know someone has to fill it.

Which brings us to the article in Monday's Star.

Republican leaders who control U.S. states are confronting the consequences of no-new-tax pledges as they face shortfalls and try to preserve education and infrastructure.

Nevada, Kansas and Alabama have enacted or are debating increases in taxes on sales, tobacco, corporate income and other items, and six others have passed higher fuel levies despite a small-government dogma. In Louisiana, Republican lawmakers and Gov. Bobby Jindal are engaged in a near-theological debate about what constitutes a tax increase as they seek to close a $1.6 billion budget gap.

Some members of Congress are worried about the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement-led detention centers. 

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, and a group of more than 30 other colleagues, are asking Department of Homeland Security Secretary's Jeh Johnson to consider releasing LGBT detainees, and instead to use parole or other alternatives to detention to ensure these individuals are safe. (Read the letter they sent DHS here.)

A six-month investigation by Fusion, a collaborative TV station between ABC and Univision, found that some 75 transgender people are detained by ICE at any given day, with about 90 percent of them being transgender women. They also pointed to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office that shows one of 500 detainees is transgender, and they make up one of five victims of sexual assault in detention, with one in three transgender detainees facing sexual abuse within 12 months of custody, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Also, recent surveys of jails and prisons by the latter found that non-heterosexual detainees experience sexual assault at up to 10 times the rate of heterosexual men, a press release from Grijalva's office says. 

In March, I wrote about the case of Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, a transgender woman from Guatemala who was detained at an all-male facility in Florence. She alleges being physically and emotionally abused by guards. During the first months in detention, she says she was forced to shower with the other inmates, and was eventually sexually assaulted by another detainee. Throughout, she says guards and detainees called her slurs like "the woman with balls," "fucking gay" and "it," and was placed in solitary confinement for her "protection." She was released from detention in April, after winning her asylum case. 

Now, she is one of the many faces used in a national campaign to force the federal government to place LGBT immigrants in a vulnerable group of people who should not be detained. Organizations like the Los Angeles-based Família: Trans Queer Liberation Movement and the Transgender Law Center want the Obama administration to extend relief to LGBT individuals. Obama's 2014 executive actions offer no refuge to LGBT people and neither do recent ICE memos. 

NASA's Earth Observatory tracks the ebbs and flows of Colorado River and Lake Powell in a series of images that show how dramatic the drought has been on the Southwest. Watch the water recede here.

From NASA:

Changes in the northeastern reaches of Lake Powell are documented in this series of natural-color images taken by the Landsat series of satellites between 1999 and 2015. The Colorado River flows in from the east around Mille Crag Bend and is swallowed by the lake. At the west end of Narrow Canyon, the Dirty Devil River joins the lake from the north. (At normal water levels, both rivers are essentially part of the reservoir.) Sunlight brightens plateaus and southeast-facing slopes, casting shadows on the northern and western faces of the rugged landscape. (Due to the angle of sunlight, this image may cause an optical illusion known as relief inversion.)

At the beginning of the series in 1999, water levels in Lake Powell were relatively high, and the water was a clear, dark blue. The sediment-filled Colorado River appeared green-brown. In the early years of this image series, water levels began to drop. The declines were first apparent in the side canyons feeding the reservoir which thinned and then shortened. By 2002, the lake level had dropped far enough that the exposed canyon walls created a pale outline around the lake.

Dry conditions and falling water levels were unmistakable in the image from April 13, 2003. Lake Powell’s side branches had all retreated compared to the previous year’s extents. Water levels in Narrow Canyon had dropped enough to show canyon floor features not visible in earlier images. In the image acquired on May 1, 2004, the reservoir’s northwestern branch is isolated from the main reservoir; the shallow water upstream could not crest raised areas in the lakebed.

Lake Powell’s water levels plummeted in early 2005, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation. The northwestern side branch of Lake Powell remained cut off from the rest of the reservoir. In the main body of Lake Powell, water pooled along its eastern edge, while large expanses of dry canyon floor were visible in the west.

Okay folks, I am now allowed to say "yes, that's me that you see" and I will be on the premiere episode of "Forged in Fire" airing Monday at 10/9 central on the history channel!! So watch it please and continue watching cause as I understand it, some amazing stuff happens in the other episodes also 😎 #FIF #foodie #forgedinfire #forgedweaponsforthegods #buhi #blade #badass #batpig #bushido #blacksmith #bladesmith #blacksmithing #blacksmithing #bladesmithing #brotherhoodoftheblade #knifeporn #knifemaker #knivesofig #knifeaddict #kitchenknives #usnfollow #usnstigram #useyourshit

A photo posted by Rich Greenwood (@pokabu_forge) on Jun 18, 2015 at 1:54pm PDT

Tucsonan Rich Greenwood, pool guy by day and bladesmith by night, appeared on the first episode of the History Channel's new show 'Forged in Fire' last night.

The History Channel's description of the series:

Forged in Fire: Japanese Katana (44 min) TV-PG L, V
In this explosive new series, four bladesmiths will compete for $10,000 and the title of Forged in Fire champion. Their work will be put to the test, and those that fail will be sent home. In the final round, the two remaining bladesmiths must forge one of the most iconic weapons from history; the Japanese Katana.

At the beginning of the show, the bladesmiths are presented with a bar of high carbon steel. They're given 10 minutes to design a knife and three hours to produce a blade. When that is announced, Greenwood looks over his shoulder at the clock.

"Normally it takes me three days to make a knife," Greenwood says to the camera. "I don't know how I'm gonna pull it off."  

But he did. Each round, the bladesmiths work to complete a blade which is judged on how well it fit expectations, appearance and overall blade quality (you know, chopping, slicing, stabbing...)  

Greenwood made it through the first two rounds of the competition fairly easily before heading into the finals. For the last round, the final two were sent back to their home forges to make a Japanese Katana in five days—a disadvantage, Greenwood said in the episode, since his at-home operation is much smaller than that of the other  competitor. He does everything by hand.

A few days into the process, Greenwood's blade cracked and the forging process had to begin again. A set back, certainly, but to quote one of the judges, "with a beard like that, all things are possible."

In the end, the Tucsonan did not take home the prize. You should watch the whole episode anyway, though, because the tests they do on the katanas are pretty cool.

Catch the whole episode online (if you log in with your cable provider) or on the history channel when they rerun it.

Keep up with Greenwood and Pokabu Forge on Facebook, Instagram or on his website. 

The recent collapse of the country's housing market placed black homeowners at a "severe" economic disadvantage, and furthered fueled the major racial wealth gap in the U.S., according to a study released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The study—ran for the ACLU by the Social Science Research Council—looked into data on black and white homeowners between 1999 and 2011, exploring the changes in wealth and home equity for such families over that period of time, and predicted how those changes might affect their children and grandchildren, an ACLU press release says.

"Not only were black homeowners devastated by the housing market collapse, they are now being left behind. It is very much a tale of two recoveries," says a statement by Rachel Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program.

Here are some of the key findings:

In the recovery, race matters. All households lost wealth at the height of the housing bust and recession, from 2007-2009. But, beginning in 2009, median white household wealth stopped falling as median black household wealth continued to drop. The typical black household lost an additional 13 percent of its wealth between 2009 and 2011.

Harms will compound and continue into the next generation. By 2031, a typical black household's wealth is forecast to be nearly 40 percent lower than it would have been without the Great Recession. As a result, the overall wealth disparity between white and black homeowners, which had been forecast to drop to 4.0 by 2031, will instead grow to 4.5.

Home equity disparities will continue for children and grandchildren. In the absence of the Great Recession, by 2050, the home equity disparity would have been nearly erased for the adult children and grandchildren of survey participants. Given the unequal impacts of the recession, however, white descendants are projected to have 1.6 times the home equity of black descendants.

What contributes to the growing differences are: black families had a larger portion of their wealth in home equity before the Great Recession, so the drop in housing prices hit them harder; They were also more likely to receive "predatory" loans than "creditworthy" white Americans, ACLU says.

You might know Steff Koeppen as the piano-playing songstress fronting one of Tucson's more popular acts, Steff & The Articles, but Koeppen is working on something completely different now. With a new solo EP to be released, she's given listeners a sneak peak of what to expect from her new musical endeavors. 

While her band tends to go for a more jazzy, crooning and sometimes stripped-down orchestral take on sultry, her solo single "Celebrate," which was released on Tuesday, June 23, moves from moody beats to a bright chorus and, eventually, a brief electro breakdown. The lyrics beckon listeners to sing, dance, loosen up, live it up and, of course, celebrate. If you're looking for a summer pop jam off the mainstream consciousness, this might be it. 

You can check out Koeppen's new single "Celebrate" on Soundcloud now and we'll keep you updated on the details of her upcoming EP release.

On Saturday, June 27, Splash is hitting La Encantada to present a night full of fashion designers, community art projects and a grip of food and drink samples for attendees. This year, the Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance will be featuring 20 local restaurants that will offer up tastes of many different cuisines, some offering colorful cocktail pairings. There will also be eight different brewers serving up drinks to keep attendees interested while browsing the many different pieces of art on auction at the event.

Here are some of the dishes you can look forward to:

The change.org signature gathering effort to eventually file a recall petition against Gov. Doug Ducey is still making its rounds.

This symbolic petition, along with two Facebook pages (dun, dun, dun) emerged in March, around the same time Ducey signed a shitty state budget into law that, among other terrible decisions, cut roughly $99 million from universities, and deprived Pima and Maricopa community colleges from any funding, while pouring in close to $40 million for new prisons, and giving corporations and the state's wealthiest residents tax breaks.

The petition has more than 15,000 signatures, none of which count—at the moment

This is how a recall works in the state, as I wrote about for fun in March:

First, an application for a recall petition must be filed with the Secretary of State's Office. It has to meet certain requirements for it to be valid. For instance, legitimate concerns—right now it would be Ducey's budget plans—over actions by that elected official.

Once a petition is approved, it has to gather a certain number of signatures. For Arizona, that is 25 percent of the votes cast in the last election. In November, more than 1.5 million people voted, so the petition needs roughly 400,000 signatures. The petition has to be in circulation for 120 days, and is then turned over to election officials for verification. If all signatures are valid, a recall election is given the green light.

Starting July 5, there's a 120-day period to present about 376,000 signatures. The individual behind the whole thing says an email will be sent to all who have signed already, so that they can sign the official petition when it comes out.

"WE NEED TO FUEL THIS FIRE!" the petition says. "We cannot forget that Ducey has left our children in the dust. Our voices need to be heard!"

Will it happen? Doubtful, but it's the thought that counts.