A Republican lawmaker in New York wants to prohibit food stamp recipients from using the federal aid to buy steak or lobster at the grocery store. Because apparently people living in poverty shouldn't be allowed to eat either of said items?

How dare they.

The bill introduced in the New York Legislature by state Sen. Patty Ritchie refers to steak and lobster as "luxury food items," according to The Washington Post. And it would also prohibit people from buying things like soda, candy and cake. 

The proposal falls in line with a decades-old conservative fear that people use government assistance to purchase high-end foods. A strikingly similar proposal popped up last year in Missouri last year and another was signed into law by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) in April.

WaPo writes that the New York Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program already restricts buying liquor, cigarettes, pet food and hot or prepare foods—understandable. But with this proposal it seems more about chipping at people's dignity. "Only rich people can buy a cake for their child's birthday!" 

On Saturday, March 5, Fit Fest Tucson will take over the Reid Park Zoo for a night of good ol' fashioned community involvement. The fest will not only raise money for important Zoo endeavors, but also general fitness awareness in the Old Pueblo. 
Licensed and certified fitness instructors from across Arizona will teach a laundry list of exercise classes, ranging from more popularized fitness regimens such as P90X, yoga and Zumba, to newer ones like PiYo and Turbo Kick. Fit Fest offers attendees a range of low and high impact workouts so everyone can participate—meaning, don't be discouraged to attend if you can't run in and out of Sabino Canyon in an hour.

All ticket-sale proceeds will fund the Zoo's construction of a new Animal Health Center that's been in the works since May 2014. The new center will be around 7,500 square feet and update the Zoo's current resources to reflect current veterinary technologies and standards. New technological additions include a surgical suite, intensive care unit and diagnostic laboratory, to name a few. 

Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for children ages 2 to 14 pre-sale, and $25 at the door. Find more info and grab your tickets here. 

In its second year, Tucson’s Borderland Fuzz Fiesta will present some of the top names in stoner and psych rock.

Organized by Wayne and Joseph Rudell of Fuzz Evil, the two-night Borderland Fuzz Fiesta brings 16 bands (four from Arizona bands and 12 from out of state) to 191 Toole this weekend, with doors opening at 6 p.m. on Friday and 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The Borderland Fuzz Fiesta is a companion festival of sorts to the Southwest Terror Fest, slated for its fifth go ‘round in October.

“This picks up where the Southwest Terror Fest leaves off with more of the stoner rock and psych rock,” says Wayne Rudell. “The whole goal is to pick up the caliber of fests in Tucson and make both of them better.”

Like the Southwest Terror Fest, the Borderland Fuzz Fiesta aims to bring in bands that don’t play Arizona often. Headlining this year are Dead Meadow on Friday and Elder on Saturday.

“Dead Meadow, when it comes to psych music, is one of the top bands out there doing what they do,” Rudell says. “I’ve seen them once at Solar Culture years ago and fell in love with them. Last year, I tried to get them, and the timing wasn’t right so they were the first band I went after for this year.”

Garnacha, Tempranillo and Rioja—these are just some of the many distinct varieties of wine that come from Spain. You don't have to be a wine snob to appreciate the differences in terroir and grape varietals coming from the country, and now you can celebrate the diversity of Spain's wineries at a special food-paired tasting event at Ermanos Craft Beer & Wine Bar (220 N. Fourth Ave.). 

Presented in collaboration between Ermanos' wine steward Anya Linda and the bar's new chef Matt Kraiss, the coursed sampling event will feature four wines paired with tapas. Here's what you can expect:

1. Néboa Albariño 2013 Rias Baixas
Paired with: Ceviche - Mahi Mahi, mint and pineapple

2. Bodegas Lan Crianza Rioja 2011 Rioja
Paired with: Patatas Bravas - Papas fritas, roasted tomato aioli and a spicy bravas sauce

3. Descendientes de J Palacios Petalos 2013 Bierzo
Paired with: Porkbelly Pintxo - Crispy porkbelly, tomato bacon jam, slow roasted garlic and fresh dill

4. Gomez Cruzado Rioja Blanca 2013Rioja
Paired with: Whipped goat cheese, apricot mostarda and house roasted nuts

You can try it all at Ermanos on Tuesday, Feb. 23 starting at 5 p.m. Tickets, which include all of the courses listed, are $25 per person. Reservations are not required for the event. For more information on this and other Ermanos events, visit the bar's website. 

Finally.

I grew up in Death Valley and don’t do well with cold. Seeing 2016 on my calendar means that I’d been on the road for 18 months now, shifting between hemispheres every six months and staying in perpetual winter. 18 months of cold nights and stuffy clothes. But not now. The warm and humid air that stuck to me after I exited the airplane in Kenya was a long awaited hug.

After a quick wait in the immigration line, I made my way out of the airport and was quickly met by Eric and Vivian. Eric is the founder and leader of Mathare Foundation, the organization where I would be working for the next month. Vivian was an assistant who coaches the soccer team and counsels children in writing. We grabbed a cab that was too small for the three of us plus my backpack, so I went with my bag on my lap and Vivian offered to take Hobbes on hers. These were good people.

We were headed to Mathare Slum, a slum of 500,000 people with a 30 percent HIV infection rate and no free education past 8th grade. I would work at Mathare Foundation, a non-profit that offered children free classes in soccer, performing arts, and photography. The pragmatic hopes are that the photography program can be self sustaining and offer the children real work, while the soccer and performing arts programs were meant to assist children in getting scholarships to continue their studies. The immediate results are that the kids can display and take pride in their accomplishments, have positive role models outside of the home, and have productive work to do in the time when they are most vulnerable to drugs and crime.

Josue Saldivar says the love he has for his father is what keeps him strong through these tough emotional and financial times. 

His dad, Saul, passed away on Valentine's Day after a months-long battle with cancer. Ever since Saul was admitted into a hospital in Albuquerque—where Josue's mom and younger sisters still live—Josue became the primary economic support for the family. 

This warm, 25-year-old Dreamer is an active member of immigration rights advocacy groups like Mariposas Sin Fronteras (Butterflies Without Frontiers), BorderLinks and Scholarships A-Z, an organization that helps undocumented students pay for college. He also works tutoring students living in the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The Saldivar's are originally from Agua Prieta, Sonora—a small town that borders Douglas, Arizona. They came to Tucson when Josue was 8. Josue and one of his sisters are DACA recipients—a program issued by President Barack Obama four years ago to grant young immigrants a work permit and relief from deportation. His mom is undocumented and the youngest sibling is a U.S. citizen.

“My dad sacrificed so much for me and my sisters,” Josue says. “He worked every week day, weekend, and I’d always see him come home with a smile on his face because he knew the reasons he was doing it.”

I taught To Kill a Mockingbird many times, and every time I reread it, I choked up. It's a wonderful, evocative piece of literature. As for the movie, forget about it. I lost it over and over as I watched; it's almost unbearably poignant during the last half hour. I would probably have a similar emotional meltdown with the book or the movie today, but that good, warm, self-satisfied feeling I used to experience at the end would be gone. Looking at Mockingbird from the perspective I have today, especially after reading Harper's first novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was just published recently, I find the book to be both paternalistic and misleading. If I were still teaching, more than likely, Mockingbird would not be part of my curriculum.

What a wonderful guy Atticus Finch is in Mockingbird! He's a lawyer who takes the case of a poor black man and defends him against a false rape charge. The loss in court makes his struggle to right the wrongs of society all the more noble. He's hated by the town's white racists and beloved by the black community, and by Scout, his very young daughter who idolizes her father and narrates the book through a child's innocent eyes. To me, the book always read like a parable for our time, about how good white people should act and how, in spite of all the losses, we must continue to fight until racism is no longer the written and unwritten law of the land.

But the book is not a parable of our time. It's a tale out of the 1930s. At the time, Atticus could defend the black community of Maycomb County and not worry that they might attend Scout and Jem's school or move in next door. His nobility was built on the well established arm's distance between Maycomb's black and white communities. I wouldn't have been able to say that for certain a few years ago, but Harper Lee told us it's true in the novel she wrote before she began Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman took place in the 1950s when it was written, during the beginnings of the modern civil rights struggles. In that book a grown up Scout, who, like Harper Lee herself, had moved to New York and returned to her home town for a visit, is horrified to find that her beloved father has joined with the KKK, and he was one of many among the town's civic leaders. Atticus despises the NAACP and its lawyers for coming into southern communities and stirring up trouble. He doesn't want black children going to white children's schools. He wants things to stay as they were back in the 1930s when he could defend members of the black community and rest assured they would still "know their place." His depression-era style of tolerance and acceptance had little to do with the genuine social change which was being demanded by civil rights leaders in the 1950s.

If you want to learn more the health impacts of climate change, head on down to Centennial Hall to see tonight's installment in the UA College of Science spring lecture series, Earth Transformed. Tonight's speaker is Kacey Ernst, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, who will discussing "Climate Change and Human Health: Impacts and Pathways to Resilience." The free talk is at 7 p.m.

The Weekly has a Q&A with Ernst here. And if you can't make it down there, you can see both Ernst and UA College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz talking about the lecture series on Zona Politics in the above video.

Today is the deadline to make sure that you’re registered as a Democrat or a Republican in order to vote in next month’s presidential primary election. Unlike other primaries in Arizona, independents can't just pick a side when they request a ballot.

You can register online here or find a location to do it in person here.

And by the way: Even though the primary election day is March 22, early voting starts later this week.

You’d hardly guess that the voting is about to start if you had to gauge by the effort the candidates are making in Arizona. You can scarcely see any signs of local campaigning—no ads on TV, no mailers, yard signs few and far between.

That’s because the candidates have been so busy elsewhere that Arizona has hardly rated a lick of attention yet. And since Arizona votes a week after Super Tuesday, campaigns are putting their resources into those contests.

But that may be changing in the weeks to come, especially since Arizona is one the first winner-take-all states, the field is coming into focus on the GOP side and Hillary is looking to slow down Bernie’s growing momentum.

First, the GOP candidates: Jeb! has finally surrendered to the inevitable and shut down his campaign after a miserable fourth-place showing in South Carolina, where he barely registered with 8 percent of the vote.

That’s especially good news for Marco Rubio. Marco still has to contend with John Kasich, but the Ohio governor shouldn’t prove to be a major roadblock in consolidating establishment support, provided the Rubot doesn’t suffer another malfunction. Of course, there’s no guarantee that he won’t as his operating system remains a bit wonky after Chris Christie shorted it out in New Hampshire, in a moment that would have made Capt. James T. Kirk beam with pride. 

But as many have pointed out, Rubio has yet to actually win a state and former reality TV star Donald Trump continues to dominate in both nationwide and state-by-state polling. The Donald undoubtedly has a ceiling on his support, but we’ll just where that is now that it’s come down to a essentially a three-man race between him, Rubio and Ted Cruz.

This week will mark the one-year anniversary of the occupation of Oak Flat by members of the Apache Stronghold and allies in the political battle to protect the sacred Native American land.

A reminder from the Tucson Weekly article "Repeal the Deal:"

In the fall of 2014, Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake (along with U.S. Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Congressman Paul Gosar) teamed up in subterfuge to underhandedly attach a land swap measure, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act, to a must-pass National Defense Authorization Act bill in which 2,400 acres of Apache holy land in and around Oak Flat Campground near Superior was covertly exchanged for 5,300 acres already owned by Resolution Copper.

On Friday, McCain spoke at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and the Thunderbird School of Global Management about politics, national security and media issues. 

Since McCain didn't mention a single word on Oak Flat, a group of community members and students took it upon themselves to remind him of the ongoing issue. The protest was also against Kirkpatrick, Flake and Gosar.