Ballet fans, get excited. The people over at Ballet Tucson have decided they love you and have given us a ton of tickets to give away. 

We're going to be giving these tickets out slowly, as the shows approach. But, the first giveaway we're dong is pretty special: It's for the a pair of tickets to the Opening Night Gala. 

Opening Night Gala
Friday, November 13
Gala Reception – 6:30 pm
Performance – 8:00 pm
Temple of Music and Art
Jekyll and Hyde
Masquerade
Carmina Burana

Opening Night Gala includes:
Pre-performance wine & buffet reception
Silent auction
Live musical entertainment
Post-performance champagne toast and dessert reception with company artists

Jekyll and Hyde (World Premiere)
Choreography: Chieko Imada, Mary Beth Cabana
Fresh and fanciful “steampunk” rendition of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson dark Victorian novel.

Masquerade
Choreography: Chieko Imada, Mary Beth Cabana
Colorful and upbeat episodes at a lively masquerade ball.

Carmina Burana (Premiere)
Choreography: Daniel Precup
A thrilling and dynamic interpretation of Carl Orff’s “scenic cantata”.
Tickets on sale September 8
$100 per person
Order by Phone (Brown Paper Tickets):
800-838-3006

All proceeds benefit Ballet Tucson.

For those of you who aren't lucky enough to win, you can pick tickets up here. Or, if you can stand missing out on the fancy of the Gala and are more interested in the ballet itself, check back next week for tickets to the Fall Concert next week.

Education funding proposals are making news, if not progress. Doug Ducey is touting his plan to take $325 million a year from the state land trust. He held a telephone town hall in Peoria (One of his grandiose statements was trashed in an AZ Republic fact check). And his office put out a video which could stand a bit more substance, not to mention higher production values. His dark money friends have more cash, so I'm guessing they've got something more professional in the works.

Senate President Andy Biggs and House Speaker David Gowan have a plan of their own, as do the Democrats and Diane Douglas. Douglas is trying to get the word out on her funding and other proposals with her "We Heard You" tour, a follow-up to her "We Are Listening" tour (She's scheduled to hit Tucson Nov. 19). In a "strange bedfellows" twist, Douglas said she wants to find ways to collaborate with people she's clashed with, by which she means Doug Ducey and the State Board of Ed. Meanwhile, she says she talked with the Arizona Education Association when she was putting together her proposals and apparently received a more positive reception. AEA President Andrew Morrill had some good things to say about her approach.

Andrew Morrill, president of the association, said the report covers some topics like student poverty he feels have been widely swept under the rug.

"Here’s an elected leader of education, and one I know has been in the press for a variety of reasons, but who says we better have a conversation about students not only about how they learn but how they live," Morrill said of Douglas.

There's a headline for you. Tea Party Meets Teachers Union. Handshakes Follow. It's not a marriage made in heaven—there are lots of areas of disagreement—but Douglas and the AEA have found some common ground, grounded in trying to do what's best for Arizona's children.

Look, I enjoy wine, but I will say learning about beer, spirits and cocktails came first for me. With every glass, I learn more and more, but I still have a long way to go. Honestly, wine is intimidating and always has been for me. It felt like wine geeks were a stuffier sort that look down on canned beer drinkin' folk like myself, but the tide is turning.

One of my new favorite efforts in town to make wine more accessible is at R Bar. Beverage director Rory O'Rear just put out a new menu, which offers a full listing of liquor, beer and even some new cocktails. However, it's on the wine menu that I really got excited.

Separated by red, white, rose/amber and sparkling, the modest selection serves up about four varieties in each category. Next to the names, origins and prices, you'll find brief tasting notes. Underneath each category is a chart that further describes the varieties, using dotted, dashed and solid lines to correspond with the wines. The chart visually explains what to expect from each wine, be it earthy, exotic, sweet, funky, fruity, boozy, herby or vegetal.  

From there, making a decision based on your own personal flavor preferences is a lot easier.

On the list right now, I'd recommend both the Cascina Degli Ulivi Barbera/Dolcetto 2013 and Foradori Teroldego 2011 (each are $11 per glass), but you know what? You don't have to take my word for it. Just check out the chart and see what piques your interest. R Bar (350 E. Congress St., #110) is open Saturday through Thursday from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. and Friday 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Zhang Yimou is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. He’s probably best known for directing the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, but his films—“Hero,” “House of the Flying Daggers” and “Raise the Red Lantern,” among many others—are essential viewing. His latest effort, which re-teams him with longtime muse, Gong Li, is some heavy duty melodrama in the best sense of the word. “Coming Home” takes place during the Cultural Revolution in China, with Gong playing the wife of a controversial professor who was jailed by the government. Years later, when he’s released, his wife doesn’t remember him as her husband and from time to time even thinks he may be an official she slept with to stave off her husband’s execution. Heavy stuff, but this is Zhang Yimou, who is more than capable of turning the story into a stunning discovery.

The marijuana industry is beginning to show more respect for women. By that, the publication Marijuana Business Daily means less wet T-shirt contests at medical marijuana dispensaries, as well as fewer ads of half-naked women with bongs, and more, way more, top executive positions in the weed economy. 

A recent survey by the magazine says that women now make a "sizable and growing" portion of high ranks in the industry, including 63 percent of high-level positions at testing labs; 48 percent of executive spots in processing and infused product manufacturing, where women make up 48 percent of "key decision-making" positions like being the owner, CEO and/or president.

"While years ago it was rare to see women in executive roles on the retail side of the industry, they now fill 38 percent of those positions at dispensaries and recreational stores."

All-in-all, women hold 36 percent of leadership positions in the entire industry, which is noticeably higher than the 22 percent lead positions in U.S. companies in general, according to 2014 figures from the Pew Research Center, the Marijuana Business Daily article by Becky Olson says. 

Other sectors, such as wholesale and investment, have fewer women in exec positions, but those numbers are still higher than the average for all U.S. businesses, Olson writes. 

The AZ Republic ran two education-related fact checks Tuesday, one on a statement by Gov. Doug Ducey and another on a statement by Arizona Education Association president Andrew Morrill. Ducey's statement was rated No stars: Unsupported. Morrill's statement was rated four stars: True.

I have to admit, Ducey's statement is more misleading than wrong. The Republic gave him no stars because it's based on guesswork, not data. He said during a telephone town hall,

“Arizona will be among the leading states in the nation in new dollars in this slow-growing economy that we’re adding to K-12 education.”

Ducey was referring, of course, to the bump in education funding if his $325 million plan is approved. The problem is, no one knows how much other states will add next year or the years following, so he's just speculating. But the Republic adds at the end of the fact check, "Arizona’s proposed funding increase would likely be at or near the top." Ducey is not so much lying as turning a possibility into a fact.

The bigger problem is, adding $325 million is no reason to proclaim "We're number one!" on anything related to education funding. Even if we add the funding Ducey proposes, we'll still be at or near the bottom of the barrel in per student funding. Actually, his $325 million isn't even new money. It's almost exactly what the courts say the legislature owes the schools by law. Sorry, Doug, if you and the other dead beat dads and moms at the legislature are planning to cough up what you owe for our children's education—and that's without going back and making up for stiffing our children over the past few years—that's nothing to brag about.

For Ducey to make it sound like we're beating other states in education funding makes as much sense as, say, bragging that he wants to get the money moving sooner, not later, when his plan has to make it through the legislature, then be passed by the voters. Best case scenario, if all that happens, the payments will begin in 2017.

HOLD EVERYTHING! STOP THE PRESSES! I just got an email from Daniel Scarpinato, Ducey's communications guy, that says, among other things,

"[Ducey] wants to get this money moving sooner, not later."

Unbelievable. Gotta love these guys. Or, not.

The Tucson Weekly profiled singer-songwriter Carlos Arzate in September for the official release of Got Me Wrong, his debut album with The Kind Souls. 

Arzate and his bandmates blend folk, soul, country, blues, rock and gospel into a sound he’s termed “Sonoran soul.” The album is produced by Ryan Alfred, who also serves as bandleader for The Kind Souls.

Now, in anticipation of the Arzate’s release show on Saturday at Flycatcher, the Weekly asked Arzate to discuss the album, song by song.

Tim Steller wrote a good column Saturday, Underpaid and disrespected, Arizona's teachers flee. Arizona teachers are leaving the profession altogether, he wrote, or leaving the state for greener—as in higher-salaried—states. It's worth a read, in part because of Steller's support for Ed Supe Diane Douglas' education funding proposal which is the only one among those currently being floated that targets the teacher shortage directly, to the tune of $400 million.

But the story doesn't end with Arizona. Things are tough all over, not only in the current shortage of teachers in the classroom but also in the waning number of prospective teachers in the national pipeline. According to a piece in Politico's Morning Education email briefing:

Many states are struggling with teacher shortages. Teacher pay is dismal. Fewer students are enrolling in teacher preparation programs, drawn to better-paying jobs as the U.S. continues to climb out of the recession. During the 2008-09 school year, more than 719,000 students nationwide were enrolled in teacher prep programs. By 2012-13, that number fell to about 500,000.

A recent Daily Star article said the enrollment in the UA College of Education follows the trend, with an enrollment drop from 1,135 in 2009 to 900 in 2013.

I'm sure Politico is right to say that the improving economy is part of the reason people are choosing other professions over teaching, but that's far from the whole story. The savaging of teachers, which has been promoted by conservatives since the Reagan years and has become a regular drumbeat in the media, is driving people out of the profession. Teachers are thinking, "I work my ass off to educate your children while being paid a ridiculously low salary and having to cope with too many students and too few books and supplies, and all I hear is what a lousy job I'm doing." The disrespect is literally adding insult to injury. And then there's the increased pressure to teach to the test rather than to the whole child.

Would I go into teaching if I were a college student today, or would I stay there after my first few years in the classroom? The profession would certainly be less appealing to me than when I began in 1969 — with a $7,200 yearly salary, by the way, so I certainly wasn't in it for the money.

Case in point. You know those idealistic young people who join Teach for America, generally from the top ranks of college graduates, to spend a few years in classrooms, often in low income areas? Their numbers are down by nearly 25% from two years ago. One reason may be that graduates are having an easier time finding jobs because of the economic rebound, but I doubt that tops the list. TfA numbers were high when the economy was booming. I'm guessing two other factors are deterring top graduates from spending a few years in the classroom before they join their chosen professions. First, who would want to go into that "lousy profession" and work in "failing schools" where they'll get nothing but grief for their efforts? That would put a serious crimp in those feelings of altruism that might have drawn young people to the program. Second, lots of people go into TfA at least in part to burnish their resumes. A few years in the program used to give them a leg up over other applicants for high paying jobs. These days, I'm guessing when you tell a job interviewer that you spent a few years as a teacher, it has less cachet than it did back in the a-little-better old days when teaching was still considered a somewhat noble profession. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s accent playing Philippe Petit, the high wire artist who walked between the Twin Towers back in 1974, sounds a lot like Sacha Baron Cohen’s over-the-top French accent in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. It grates at first, but director Robert Zemeckis overcomes this obstacle to ultimately make a movie containing some of the best visual effects you will see in a film this year. Yes, the movie drags a bit in the first half as we see Petit miming on the streets of Paris and learning how to walk a wire under the tutelage of an old, wise circus guy (Ben Kingsley). The movie soars to a new level when Petit reaches New York and, with his crew, schemes and succeeds in rigging a wire between the world’s tallest buildings at the time, and performing a high-wire act for over forty minutes as cops awaited him atop both buildings. The movie supposedly has given people vertigo attacks, and this is not surprising. If you see it in 3D IMAX, you get a very heightened sense of being on the wire with Petit, and it’s a dizzying effect for sure. There’s a story framing device that has the young Petit narrating the story from atop the Statue of Liberty’s torch, with the towers in the background, and it’s the old, rusty version of the statue. A nice touch. Overall, the film is very much worth seeing, especially its final act. The attention to detail involving the Twin Towers is astounding.

Hi friends! I'm Bruce and I'm looking for my forever home! I love playing in the yard at HSSA and know how to sit for treats! Fetch and tug of war are my two favorite games. Come stop by the Main Campus and check me out, I'm here with a bunch of other cuties too so you'll be sure to find your perfect furry friend with HSSA!

Love,

Bruce—813502