Monday, February 22, 2016
Hi I'm Nora!
I am 7 years old and such a sweet girl!
When you adopt a senior pet you can expect lower adoption fees and less mess than if you were to bring a puppy home! I'm even crate trained!
If you're looking to adopt a sweet and smart girl please come to 3450 N. Kelvin Blvd. to meet me!
Love,
Nora (819304)
Tags: tucson adoptions , tucson pets , adopt don't shop , tucson dogs , humane society of southern arizona
Tags: Death with Dignity , assisted suicide , Jerry Brown , Darcey Olsen , Right to Try , FDA , Goldwater Institute
For the campaign is dark and full of terrors. Pure genius.
Tags: winter is trumping , donald trump , game of thrones , presidential election 2016 , Video
Saturday, February 20, 2016
On the weekend of Feb. 12-14, the Gem and Jam Festival took over the Slaughterhouse grounds at 1102 W. Grant Rd. and presented hundreds of concert-goers with a diverse array of musical performers, live artists and vendors for the 10th year in a row in conjunction with the world famous Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. The festival offered three stages from the outdoor Quartz stage adorned with several LED panels and the Jade Stage to the smaller, indoor Onyx Stage all featuring musical acts of different genres throughout the day.
Tags: Gem and Jam , music festival , polish ambassador , Slaughterhouse , music , artists , hippies , tucson , gem and mineral show , concert , live music , 10th annual , 2016 , rebecca noble , EDM , hip hop , alternative rock , rock , live art , live painting , hula hoops , juggling , cyr wheel , Slideshow
Friday, February 19, 2016
February 21st, 2016 from Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel on Vimeo.
On this week's episode of Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel: Former state lawmaker Jonathan Paton and Democratic strategist Rodd McLeod size up Sen. John McCain's opposition to allowing President Barack Obama to appoint a new Supreme Court justice; break down the latest in Southern Arizona's congressional races; a few bills at the Arizona Legislature; and the retirement of Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll.Tune into the show at 8 a.m. Sunday on the CW Tucson, Channel 8 on Cox and Comcast and Channel 58 on DirecTV, Dish and broadcast. Or listen to it at 5 p.m. Sunday on KXCI community radio, 91.3 FM.
Here's a rush transcript of the show:
(Nintzel) Hello, everyone. I'm Tucson Weekly senior writer Jim Nintzel, and we're here to talk Zona Politics. Joining me on the set today, former state lawmaker Jonathan Paton who is now a Republican strategist and lobbyist at the Arizona Legislature. And Democratic strategist Rodd McLeod, who has worked on the campaigns of Gabby Giffords and Ron Barber, among many others. Thank you both for being here.
(McLeod) Thank you.
(Paton) Good to be here.
(Nintzel) Let's talk about reaction to Justice Scalia's passing last week. John McCain now has joined those who said he would object to any Obama pick. Jonathan, right move for McCain?
(Paton) Well, I think I happen to agree with him, but I think that the real issue is going to be, I think the Democrats right now are going to be making the argument that the president, he obviously has the right to make this appointment, but at the same time the United States Senate has the right to confer and consent to whoever they think is the best person. And I think that this is probably the most important decision that would ever be made in this presidential year, and I really don't think that any of his nominees are going to make it through that process.
(Nintzel) Rodd, your thoughts?
(McLeod) Well, I just think that Republicans feel so strongly that a president in his last year of his term shouldn't nominate a justice they should amend the constitution so that, you know, in the final year of their presidency, the president stops doing that job and maybe plays a lot of golf, goes to the beach. Or is it just a naked power grab?
(Paton) He can nominate anyone he wants. The senate has to confirm them.
(McLeod) He sure can but that's not what they're saying. They're not saying, "We're going to look at who he nominates and if we disagree we're not going to support him."
(Paton) So what's the difference?
Dressed as a '40s-wartime Bob Hope, MC Lynn "Win" Roberts will host the evening's festivities, which include live music from Big Band Express, a local jazz group; vaudeville entertainment from Cirque Roots, a "grassroots artist collective" specializing in all things circus. Expect appearances from a slew of special guests, auctions for original band art/memorabilia and raffles. The Rialto also promises attendees delicious culinary libations from local eateries including Elliot's, Hub, Proper, Cup Café, Maynard's and more.
Tags: rialto , the rialto theatre , downtown tucson , Stage Canteen: A Swingin' 1940s USO Party , fundraising , the rialto theatre foundation , music
Here's a new study about school choice in Louisiana. A few years back, the state instituted a lottery to decide which students get vouchers to attend private schools. That's a golden opportunity for an educational researcher ever there was one. You have a significant number of students who receive vouchers to attend private schools, and you have the same number in a nearly perfect control group: students whose parents wanted them to get the vouchers for their children but lost out in a random lottery. Here's what happened, according to a study by three economists.
In 2014 12,000 students from low-income families applied for more than 6,000 vouchers to attend 126 private schools. . . . The three economists found that those who received vouchers and moved to private schools had worse test scores in maths, reading, science and social studies than those who missed out.The study is far from conclusive. It only covers a one year period, and all kinds of other factors could have contributed to the voucher students' lower test scores. But this is only one of a string of similar studies which have been conducted in recent years.
Washington, D.C., has a significant voucher program, courtesy of the Republican-majority Congress which makes the rules for the city. Conservatives have studied the academic impact of vouchers in D.C. and haven't been able to point to a significant difference in achievement between voucher and non-voucher students. One analysis of the data was so desperate to find something positive to say about the vouchers that it praised the fact that parents of voucher students felt their children were safer at the private schools than in the public schools they left. The students, by the way, saw no difference.
The results were similar in an in-depth study of the effect of vouchers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where vouchers have been in force for over twenty years. Try as they might, a group of conservative researchers couldn't find a significant difference between the achievement of voucher students and similar students in public schools. They went over the data a second time and discovered that the high school graduation rate was higher among the voucher students, which they used as evidence that vouchers work. That's not nothing, but it doesn't say the private school students got a better education. It only says that something about the private schools made students stick it out to the end.
Tags: School choice , Vouchers , Private schools , Charter schools , Louisiana , Milwaukee
We miss having Scott telling us not only what's going on, but what's coming off over our backyard fence.
But it didn't talk long for Scott to land on his feet: He's now managing the reelection campaign of Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall.
LaWall, who first won the post in 1996, is facing a challenge in this year's Democratic primary from Joel Feinman, who left his job at the Pima County Public Defender's Office to focus on his campaign.
Feinman, who raised just over $100,000 before the end of 2015, has outdone LaWall, who has raised just $63,000 for her race as of Dec. 31. She had about $56,000 in the bank, compared to Feinman's $71,000.
"Karokhail had to battle the prejudices of Afghan society to get where she is today, namely that women should not hold public office," said reporters Sylvain Lepetit and Miyuki Droz Aramaki in an article for France 24. "Every day, the lawmaker risks her life to help her fellow citizens and promote women’s rights."
Karokhail will be speaking about her experiences breaking into the Afghani political process, the challenges she has faced, and her successes fighting corruption and misogyny. The event is tonight (sorry, newsletter readers!) Friday, Feb. 19 at 7:35p.m.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
To learn more about Karokhail, click here.
Tags: Afghanistan , middle east , islam , muslim , feminism , women's rights , corruption , lecture , parliament , politics , election
I was thinking about The Book of Mormon, which had bowled me over the night before in Tucson, when I looked into the sky in La Jolla, Calif., and damned if I didn’t see a glowing golden statue that looked a whole lot like the angel Moroni.
It couldn’t be, I thought, freaking out a little bit as I walked a few more blocks and saw that Moroni, every Mormon kid’s favorite angel, was standing on top of a dramatic, white, impossibly clean building as is his wont. As I walked over the freeway on my way from the Hyatt Regency to the CVS, I couldn’t quit staring at the gleaming twin spires that dominated the sky.
Surely that can’t be a Mormon temple, I thought. I’m tripping cause of that damn musical. That fairy tale edifice on the hill, illuminated to within an inch of its life, is probably just a civic center with delusions of grandeur.
Still, I had to ask the lady unlocking her car in the Whole Foods parking lot.
“Excuse me, but do you know what that building is?” I asked.
“That’s the Mormon temple,” she said. “They like to put them next to freeways.”
“I knew that was Moroni,” I said. “It’s funny ’cause I saw The Book of Mormon last night in Tucson.”
“Oh, how was it?”
“Fantastic,” I said. “So sweet, so funny and so generous in spirit. One of the best things I’ve ever seen.”
Walking back to the hotel, I thought back to when I was about 12 years old and a whole bunch of us Safford kids piled into vans for a trip to the temple in Mesa. Once inside, we changed into exquisite white outfits before getting baptized (over and over again) in a huge golden tub for a bunch of dead people.
But that’s a whole different story. I hurried up to my room to write something about The Book of Mormon, a most benevolent Broadway musical. Take it from me, a good Mormon boy gone bad, it’s a marvelous work and a wonder.
And, if you don't have tickets to one of the performances of the sold out, five-day run at UA Centennial Hall, you're just going to have to believe me.
Tags: book of mormon , tucson , theatre , moroni , temple
