It’s been 28 years since Pee-wee has had his own movie (1988’s Big Top Pee-wee), and the world’s happiest man child has not lost a step.

Paul Reubens still effortlessly slides into his alter ego Pee-wee, even as he gets deep into his sixties. That’s right, Pee Wee Herman is almost 64 years old. That’s almost as old as Paul McCartney. He’s as nimble, as joyous, and as fun as he was when he made his big screen headliner debut in Tim Burton’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure 31 years ago.

The new film, produced by Judd Apatow and directed by John Lee, doesn’t quite have the visual exuberance to match Pee-wee’s bravado, but the story (written by Reubens and Paul Rust) breezes right along.

Could first impressions be worse?

There they were, the four of them talking so loudly to each other that they were almost yelling. Their Cajun accents were so strong that they would have better fit in a cartoon. Their voices drowned out the conversations in the seats next to them. Two of them had the lower lip and gum decay that only a lifetime of chewing tobacco can inflict on someone, and they all wore amazingly greasy hair. Despite the frigid December weather, they boarded the plane in sleeveless shirts and ripped jeans. Did I mention that they were loud?

My mind was set.

I fortunately sat far enough away that their voices faded out after 30 minutes and I slept deeply. I was awakened to an intercom announcement: “We are now making our final descent into Istanbul, please turn off all electronics and return your seat to the upright position.”

“Idunmind if they speak Turkush here, suhlonguz everone understanz English too!” cackled my Cajun friend. It had to have been a joke. Nobody who willingly leaves their own country really thinks like that. But nobody else was laughing. Not even the others in his group.

The Republic ran a story, picked up by the Star, about a study saying Phoenix is the worst city in the country at retaining its college grads. It turns out the study forgot one minor major detail. Phoenix is the home of the University of Phoenix which has students all over the country. Naturally, lots of them don't end up living in the Phoenix area since they never set foot in the city while they attended college. Take them out of the equation, and Phoenix moves up considerably. It's a terrific example of why results of studies, in education and elsewhere, can't be taken at face value. "Buyer Beware" is always the best policy.

The original study concluded that only 36.3 percent of college grads stayed in the Phoenix area, last in the nation and less half the top rate for large metro areas of 77.7 percent. It's even worse when the study only looks at grads of four year colleges: 18 percent retention for Phoenix, eight points below the nearest city and one quarter the retention rate at the top of the scale.

Here's the problem with the Phoenix numbers.

MAG [Maricopa Association of Governments] claims Brookings used data pulled from LinkedIn profiles to determine where students of Arizona and other institutions were living today. That included all of the online students from University of Phoenix and Grand Canyon University — more than 200,000 students in 2014 alone — into the category of Arizona residents while students.
 
[Anubhav Bagley, MAG’s data guru] said only 8,400 University of Phoenix students of its 187,000 enrollment are Arizonans. Over the past 15 years, University of Arizona and Arizona State University between them graduated over 284,000 students.

The authors of the original study went back and revised the Phoenix data to 56 percent retention for all colleges and 41 percent for four year colleges, moving Phoenix out of the bottom ten metro areas. But they didn't change their original report, they just stuck an "UPDATE" about some "good suggestions" they received at the bottom. It's not referenced in the original, so unless you read the report to the end, you'd never know they revised the numbers. 

In response to this post, Rothwell and I received a number of good suggestions about how to deepen and refine our analysis in the future. Several pointed out that Phoenix is home to the University of Phoenix, with its large online student body, many of whom don’t live in the Phoenix metro. When Rothwell redid the numbers taking this into account, Phoenix's retention rates improved to 56 percent for two- and four-year institutions and 41 percent for four-year institutions.

The Republic ran another article noting the error in the original study. I haven't seen a similar correction in the Star.

March 20th, 2016 from Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel on Vimeo.

On this week's episode of Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel: Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-CD3) talks about Trump's wall, why he supports Bernie Sanders and whether we can save Tucson's postal-processing center, along with some other topics. Then J.P. Holyoke, the chair of the initiative campaign to legalize marijuana, talks about why the time has come to let adults smoke weed without fear of arrest. And then we introduce you to Todd Clodfelter, a Republican who wants to represent Tucsonans in the state legislature next year.

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 satellite. Or you can hear it tomorrow afternoon on KXCI, 91.3 FM. Or just watch it online above.

Here's a transcript of the show:

Hello, everyone. I'm Tucson Weekly senior writer Jim Nintzel, and we're here to talk Zona Politics. Today, we welcome Congressman Raul Grijalva to the set. Congressman Grijalva is seeking his 8th term in Congress this year. Congressman Grijalva, welcome to Zona Politics.

(Grijalva) Thanks a lot, Jim.

(Nintzel) Let's get started with Donald Trump. What is going on with his plan to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it? Do your think this is something that's likely to happen.

(Grijalva) It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. It has been good saber-rattling for Donald in terms of making that his issue and making taking a harder position, not by much, but a harder position on immigration reform. But this whole, "We're going to build it. Mexico's going to pay for it." They're not going to pay for it. It's kind of a tough, macho position to be taking. But, you know, that obviously requires cooperation of another country. That's not going to happen, and the whole issue of him continuing to want to waive laws and other things in order to do that, it's going to have serious constitutional challenges as he goes forward. I just don't see it happening. I think it's just bluster. It has no basis in anything real as a policy.

(Nintzel) You know, it seems as though Trump's campaign is not very policy oriented. It seems a lot more bluster, as you put it. Are you surprised that he's gone as far in the primary process as he has?

Presidential candidate hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders visited a crowd of nearly 7,000 supporters at the Tucson Convention Center on Friday, March 18. U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva introduced Sanders and was preceded by speeches from Pima County Working Young Democrats president Morgan Abraham and Jesus Magaña. 

Your options for this weekend: go to a presidential rally (or two!), get to know your garden and/or listen to some tunes. 

And when that's all over (or you remind yourself that some weekends are meant to be spent at home), grab a movie and some popcorn and make what our stock photo website calls a "smiling monster of popcorn." 

My goal for the weekend: Finally finish watching the 2015 hits I've been meaning to watch. Spotlight and The Danish Girl, here I come. 

Here's your Casa Video Top 10:

1. Creed

SXSW is for the young, or at least the young at heart: Loud music, late nights, lots of free alcohol, and so many kids running around, trying to hit the jackpot now that they learned how to make a guitar talk.

But last night featured sets by two living legends: Loretta Lynn opened the BBC Music showcase at Stubb's BBQ and Dion played a crowded room at the grand old Driskill Hotel.

Loretta showed that at age 83, the coal-miner's daughter can still sign those hits she's produced over six decades in the music biz.

And Dion, at 76, still has plenty of skill with the six-string and a delighted gleam in his eye when he's onstage. He played a mix of old stuff and new stuff, including—of course—"The Wanderer." 

May we all keep rocking as our own years pile up.

It sure looks like Arizona is Trump country.

Sen. Ted Cruz certainly has better organization and more endorsements among state lawmakers—but none of that appears to matter in 2016. Trump has very little in the way of traditional campaign infrastructure—although he does have endorsements from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former governor Jan Brewer—and while there’s not a lot of polling data, what little we’ve seen suggests Trump is headed to an easy victory next week.

On the Democratic side, the few polls we've seen shows Hillary Clinton is likely to beat Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, although Bernie is hardly giving up the state. He and his wife Jane have been making appearances all week long (including one unfortunate photo op with Jane with Arpaio at the notorious tent city; Bernie denounced Arpaio yesterday, saying he ambushed his wife.)

Sometimes I see comments on my posts or I hear education talk from friends and others that let me know, lots of people are confused about the difference between district schools, charter schools and private schools. So here's a basic—very basic—description of the three types of schools. There's lots more to say, lots of subtle and not-so-subtle similarities and differences, but these are the basics.

School districts and all the schools inside them are publicly funded. They get a mixture of state, federal and local funds distributed on a per student basis. The students attend for free.

Charter schools are also publicly funded. They also get a mix of government funds—not an identical mix but also allotted on a per student basis—and their students also attend for free, no tuition required. Sometimes charters have students pay fees for some supplies or activities (so do school districts, though generally not as often), and some of them beg, cajole and guilt parents into contributing to the school. But if a child gets in, he or she walks through the front door the first day without having to pay for the privilege. And—this is important—charter schools can't be religious schools.

Private schools are privately funded and privately run educational institutions, and they charge tuition. They can be directly affiliated with any religious denomination. In fact, more than 70 percent of private schools in Arizona and nationwide have a religious affiliation.

How luck we are to be alive right now: Feminist superheros Emma Watson and Lin-Manuel Miranda got together to celebrate Women's History Month. 

While I can't seem to embed a video of any of the actual conversations (Damn you, Facebook, and your confusing video rules!), you should hop over to Watson's Facebook page and watch the four part conversation. It's great—they talk about gun violence, storytelling and paternity, sort historical figures into Hogwarts houses and, of course, discuss feminism and gender equality.

In Part 4 (and the short clip above) Miranda gets Watson to beatbox while he freestyles about feminism. Delightful.