Friday, April 22, 2016
In case you missed it, local basement bar Tough Luck Club—which is secreted below Reilly Craft Pizza and Drink—has recently earned a spot in Playboy Magazine's online "Bars We Love" section.
“We’re thrilled that our bar program just keeps getting better and better,” said co-owner Tyler Fenton in a press release. “We’re excited about Playboy recognizing the hard work of our team!”Though the Tough Luck Club is known around town for its unique cocktails, it is a lot more than just a bar to the employees and regulars.
“We want to be a place for anybody,” co-bar manager Stephen Ott told Playboy. “If you want to have a carefully made $14 cocktail or have a conversation about the spirits behind the bar, we will be happy to do that for you. Or if you want to come in and take some shots and drink beer with your buddies, that’s cool too. We’re a venue for both of those things. We like it that way.”Reilly Pizza is open for lunch and dinner, and the Tough Luck Club is open from 5 p.m. to 12 p.m. on weeknights and Friday/ Saturday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Tags: playboy magazine , bars , playboy , bar , booze , tough luck club , pizza , cocktails
While I assume you're spending the weekend drinking locally brewed beer and eating fried food at the fair, I always think it's a good idea to reserve a few hours for snuggling up on the couch with a good movie.
Make like a meerkat and grab some popcorn while you're deciding what to watch this weekend. Here's your list of the most-rented movies from Casa Video last week.
1. Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens
Tags: local business , casa video , video rental stores , lets watch all these movies , Image , Video
Thursday, April 21, 2016
It's the end of the line, folks. This Sunday, April 24 is the last day of this year's Pima County Fair. We've got free tickets to the event, but here's the deal: You have to pick them up from our office on the Northwest Side of town by 5 p.m. on Friday.
If you're looking forward to some fun at the fair, enter below! We'll be calling winners throughout the day on Friday.
Let's talk giving: What's your favorite Tucson cause to support? Arizona Gives Day just passed, which means your favorite nonprofits should still be on your brain. Show them a little love in the Best Place to Donate Your Time/Money category in Best of Tucson.
Honestly, this is one of my favorite categories to watch as Best of Tucson votes roll in. Our community has so many incredible people working to make our chunk of the world a little better.
Fill out a ballot for your vote to count, but feel free to leave an endorsement in the comments if you want to make sure your fellow readers know about your favorite Tucson do-gooders.
Best of Tucson basics:
- You don't have to fill out every question, but you've got to fill out at least 30. It shouldn't be hard—there are 191. That's plenty to choose from.
- You have to vote for local places. We're celebrating Tucson and Tucson's best. Case closed.
- Having trouble logging in? It's probably because you voted in a previous year with the same in email, and typed your name a little differently this time around. Email me for help: [email protected]
Vote!
Tags: best of tucson , tucson non profit , tucson charities , volunteer , donate
Want some baseball tickets? The Diamondbacks are playing the Pirates at Chase Field on Friday and you could be there.
Only enter if you're up for a spur-of-the-moment baseball adventure: We'll get in touch with the winner at noon on Friday. They'll have until 5 p.m. (when we lock the office doors and head off to a weekend free from the newsroom) to pick up tickets and head on their merry way to Phoenix. The game starts at 6:40 p.m., so you're going to want to move fast.
ALSO, be by your phone midday Friday. Since there's only a five hour window for the winner to claim their tickets, we want to know for sure that they're coming. If you win, and you don't pick up the phone or get back to me within an hour, I'll move on to a new winner.
Good luck, baseball superfans. We'll be in touch.
It's been a busy month for Pima Animal Care Center, and not just becase Spring always means new stray cats and dogs: In the last three weeks, the shelter has taken in nearly 100 animals from instances of hoarding cases and one puppy mill.
PACC is getting crowded. As a result, the shelter is dropping pet adoption fees to $20 for any pet older than 6 months. That fee covers the spay or neuter surgery, vaccinations and microchipping and licensing.
The lower rates continue through the end of April.
Tags: adopt don't shop , arizona animals , horders , animal abuse , adandoned animals , puppy mill , pima animal care center
Local craft beer is a pretty great thing, but 200 craft beers is really something else and you’ll find just that at the first Baja Beer Festival. The completely locally organized event will feature more than 50 breweries, showing off their creative brews alongside food vendors and live music.
Here's the local beer makers that are participating in the inaugural event:
Tags: baja , beer , festival , tucson , brewing , arizona , event , firefighters , local , rillito , race track
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
So, BASIS schools do a great job of educating students and University High does a damn good job, right? Well, not so fast. I'm sure they all give their students a good education, but that's not what this ranking measures. It measures how many students at those schools took AP exams and how well they scored. The stronger the student body is academically and the more AP exams they're required to take, the better the rankings.
A casual reading of the Star article on the subject makes it sound like a number of variables go into creating a school's score: performance on the state test, performance of minority and low-income students, and graduation rates, all of which are combined with student participation in and performance on either AP (Advanced Placement) or IB (International Baccalaureate) tests.
But that's not exactly true. That's like saying a boxing match is decided by the boxer's weight and how he did on a drug test along with his performance in the ring. Sure, the boxer needs to make weight and pass a drug test to make it into the ring, but once he's there, it's all about the mano a mano matchup with his opponent. In the same way, the schools have to pass the state test, minority/low income performance and graduation criteria, but once they do, it's all about a test-to-test comparison of the students on the AP or IB tests. You can read about the methodology here.
Tags: BASIS Scottsdale , BASIS Tucson North , BASIS Oro Valley , U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools list
Traditionally, gerrymandering means that Democrats are rigging the system so that they win the elections. But when you look at the maps, it's pretty hard to say that the Democrats did that. At the Arizona Legislature, Republicans hold 18 of 30 Senate seats and 36 of 60 House seats. And on the federal level, Republicans have five of nine congressional districts. (The congressional districts break down like this: Four are solidly Republican, two are solidly Democratic and three are competitive.)
But the GOP certainly succeeding in pushing their narrative, at least among conservative Arizonans who have complained that the process was corrupt (as opposed to having state lawmakers draw their own districts). But they've had less luck in the court system. So far, they've lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court: Last year, the high court said that Arizona voters had the right to hand over the power to draw the lines to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. And today, the justices unanimously rejected arguments that the IRC had gerrymandered the legislative districts because in some cases, the population counts were not exactly equal across the board.
Howie Fischer, the hardest-working man in Arizona show business, has a report here. If you're interesting in digging into the weeds, SCOTUSBlog has analysis here; Election Law Blog has analysis here.
