See if this paragraph from a recent article sounds familiar.

[Arizona] Utilities argue that rules allowing private solar customers to sell excess power back to the grid at the retail price — a practice known as net metering — can be unfair to homeowners who do not want or cannot afford their own solar installations.

It sounds like a statement straight from the Arizona Corporation Commission's argument to lower the amount of money rooftop solar owners get when they sell power to utilities, but it isn't. I added [Arizona] to a paragraph from an article in the Sunday New York Times: Rooftop Solar Dims Under Pressure From Utility Lobbyists. The article mentions Arizona, but it's about the nationwide push to make rooftop solar less attractive so utilities can continue to make money without competition from individual home owners. (Deep down, you knew our Corporation Commissioners aren't bright enough to come up with this on their own, right?)

How's the lobbying going? Apparently, quite well.

Their effort has met with considerable success, dimming the prospects for renewable energy across the United States.

Prodded in part by the utilities’ campaign, nearly every state in the country is engaged in a review of its solar energy policies. Since 2013, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Maine and Indiana have decided to phase out net metering, crippling programs that spurred explosive growth in the rooftop solar market. (Nevada recently reversed its decision.)

The importance of a free press, now more than ever, is immeasurable. Who’ll carry the torch next?

Why, it’s ... the Tiny Town Times, a newly launched quarterly community newspaper, offering a blend of “fiction, poetry, opinion, comics, illustrations, artist features, science and nature writing”... plus a really cool piece of foldout art.

TTT publisher Jeik Ficker got into printing young; when he needed t-shirts and stickers for his band. Ficker is also the proprietor of Tanline Printing the press where TTT is made by hand.

Tiny Town Times proudly celebrated the release of their handsome debut issue with a mad bash at Saint Charles Tavern this past Saturday night. Emceed by the effervescent Frank Powers (Comics Editors at TTT and host of "After Hours" on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM), in his best made-for-radio voice with good-natured banter between bands. The shindig featured performances by The Rifle and Phoenix’s inimitable Treasure Mammal with locals Good Times Great Oldies kicking things off.

Good Times Great Oldies

There were bemused expressions at set’s start.

At the foot of the stage, one musician hammered on percussion instruments, creating an exotic Middle Eastern-tinged rhythm. He was joined by a drummer and guitarist—whose low, grungy tone took things in a different direction. Settling into a rhythm-heavy experimental jam, it was at first uncertain if the fourth person who jumped on stage mid-song was part of the band or not. He began manipulating effects boxes and creating wild oscillations, and unleashed hellish noise into a mic with otherworldly vocalizations. The band didn’t succeed in imparting a sense of musical organization or that they even bothered to rehearse much. But, tossing the rulebook aside embodied the spirit of the evening; and that’s what made GTGO’s performance pretty glorious.

Before leaving the stage the guitarist quipped, “The next band is going to be nothing like this ... ummm. They are really good.”

The Rifle

Performing material predominately off of their new, debut full-length album, Anabasis.  The vibe was decidedly ’70s.

It's been awhile since my last T.H.R.E.A.T. (Trump Human Rights Erosion And Termination) Watch post. That's because things haven't deteriorated as rapidly as I feared in the areas that worry me most: the suppression of free speech, including suppression of the press, and the targeting of minority groups and immigrants. All kinds of other things have gone to hell, but the press has risen to the challenge and spoken truth to power instead of cowering behind weak condemnations and false equivalencies, and the courts have blunted Trump's assault on immigrants. Things could be much worse.

But we have to be wary of the "frogs in a pot of water" scenario where we don't notice a gradual increase in heat until we find ourselves up to our necks in boiling water. Over the past few weeks, I've felt a gradual, worrisome temperature increase, and it's not from the Tucson heat wave.

The media has not only been standing its ground against the assaults from Trump, it's been going the extra mile, doing what the press is supposed to do. It's been a watchdog, scrutinizing the daily outrages of the Trump administration and putting extra staff on investigative duty, trying to ferret out possible/probable wrongdoings by the Trump campaign and the possible/probable coverups of the wrongdoing now that he's president. Recently, however, Trump has stepped up his attacks on the media, which worries me because I've seen how quickly members of the press can go from brave to bullied when they're hit by a flood of negative pressure. Trump reached back to the haemophobic [fear of blood] attack he used against Megyn Kelly, this time targeting Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski with a despicable tweet. Days later Trump retweeted a video of him putting a body slam on CNN. In a July 3 tweet, he predicted that the press will praise him at some point, tellingly using the verb "forced":

At some point the Fake News will be forced to discuss our great jobs numbers, strong economy, success with ISIS, the border & so much else!

"Forced." Trump would love to have the power to force the press to bend to his will. He hasn't figured out how to do it, but he's trying harder with each passing day. Whether he thinks the walls are closing in on him with the latest revelations in the Russia probe or he's just pissed, he's growing increasingly aggressive toward the press. Members of the media are standing their ground, but that can change.

Trump's ban on people traveling to the U.S. from six predominantly Muslim countries has finally begun, though in a limited form. The courts have said he can only keep people out who don't have a "bona fide relationship" with someone in the U.S., so his administration is using the most restrictive and punitive definition of "bona fide relationship" it can, excluding, among others, grandparents, aunts and uncles. People from the six banned countries tend to have strong extended family ties which go well beyond the nuclear family. The Trump administration's limits on what is considered a bona fide relationship are culturally insensitive and insulting, which, I imagine, is the point. And a future Supreme Court ruling favorable to a complete travel ban for those six countries is always a possibility, given the conservative makeup of the court.

Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants in this country are feeling an escalation of the pressure being put on them and their families. Detentions, arrests and deportations are becoming increasingly frequent and arbitrary, even for people who have been here for years and haven't done anything to make them likely targets for deportation. Picking your child up from school, driving in a car and going to the courthouse all put undocumented people at increasing risk. Even picking up a child from a detention center can lead to arrest. And at any time, a knock on the door can be the signal that a family member will be taken into custody, tearing a family apart. It's not simply the number of people being picked up. It's the randomness of the events. One purpose of terrorism is to make people feel unsafe. "At any moment, without warning, I could be next." Random roundups of undocumented immigrants, and stopping of people who look to the immigration police like they could "illegals," are designed to strike terror in the hearts of communities where undocumented immigrants live.

Things could be worse, but things definitely aren't good. The damage Trump has wrought on the nation has been slowed by the courts, the media and his low approval ratings. But no question, it's getting hotter out here.

Silence filled the room as Angie Barkley sung and played her ukulele. Nina Mary performed three original poems—And Mary is a regular so the crowd was respectful and quieted down to listen to her newest pieces. A band performed three light-hearted love songs followed by poetry from Kiana Hamilton. And each had a generous eight minutes to show their skills. If the artist went over time there was no cutting them off, they finished their performance. More, this coffee house was packed full of poets and musicians.

This was the scene at the last Cartel Coffee Lab open mic, which they host on the last Wednesday of each month. It's one of those events that doubles as a social, so only the showstoppers could silence the room. Think of it as an open mic for performers who are to crowds and can handle performing a busy room. The Cartel invited all ages and all types of acts including comedy, music, and poetry.

Performers and artists knew each other from attending these open-mic shows regularly. It was all friendly and talkative. And though the crowd was rowdy at times, they gave each act a healthy round of applause. It can be intimidating to perform at an open mic—there's little to hide behind, sometimes not even experience. Bring a pal perhaps, a way to blend into the subtle madness of an open mic.

Director Joon-ho Bong, purveyor of spectacularly wacky cinematic things (The Host, Snowpiercer) delivers, perhaps, his wackiest yet with this tale about a future world where meat is scarce so huge pigs are biogenetically engineered for slaughter.

The title character is a prized, giant animal raised in the mountains by Mija (Seo Hyun), a young girl who thinks Okja is her pet. She’s oblivious to the fact that Okja’s days are numbered, so when an envoy for a large corporation (Jake Gyllenhaal going nuts) shows up and takes Okja away, Mija flies into action and the bizarre adventure begins.

Paul Dano, one of the kings of movie weirdness, chips in as the leader of an animal rescue corps that includes Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) and Lily Collins. Following up her collaboration with Bong on Snowpiercer is Tilda Swinton, once again playing twins (as she did in Hail, Caesar!), two evil sisters running the corporation that produced Okja.

The movie mixes absurd laughs with mayhem, and the cast is universally great. Like films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Babe before it, this movie looks to shine a light on the cruel treatment of animals and perhaps get you to pass on the bacon the next time you are at Denny’s (Streaming on Netflix).

Like a mirage of water on asphalt so appeared Fawn Bones, Daycones and Casey Golden, whose music collectively lifted the listlessness after yet another oppressive day of desert heat, last night (Thursday) on the patio at Bar Passé.


Fawn Bones
Fawn Bones was first up under the twinkling string lights on the rustic outdoor stage. The solo singer-songwriter/guitarist melded traditional blues and folk with experimental sounds, and performed a mix of original tunes sung in feathery voice, instrumental pieces, and a cover by cult singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston. Notes: The young woman first discovered a spiritual connection through music at 15 years of age when learning to play guitar. “It feels like I am channeling something ... standing somewhere else outside of my body when I am playing.” And that's pretty much what it was like watching her.


Daycones
Armed solely with an acoustic guitar, Milwaukee native Ryan Cones, performing solo under the moniker Daycones, strode up next. Finding it hard to describe his sound, when asked, “Is it folk?” the somewhat cool and distant Cones replied “Sometimes ... it’s more of a recording project,” before trailing off. Daycones' sparse psych-tinged garage rock, on songs like “Imagination”—off his 2016 album New Landscapes—had a powerful, disquieting effect. Last night's stripped-down set of tunes felt more optimistic. A moment of levity came when someone from the audience blurted out, “Wait, dude, I want to play drums with you, man...” Cones amicably invited the dude to join him on stage. “Jeff Lownsbury, everybody,” of the Jeff Lownsbury Sextet. Not quite finding the right groove, Lownsbury made an aborted attempt to accompany the talented young singer-songwriter. Those in attendance audience, perched on wooden chairs, seemed thrilled nonetheless.


Casey Golden
Casey Golden—backed by the hardest working musicians in town, guitarist Connor Gallaher, bassist Grant Beyschau, and trapsman Adan Martinez-Kee—played last.

Golden describes his music as postmodern revival, indie-folk. But there's more there than that. It’s his uncanny voice, one that's both whimsical and otherworldly, like a strange child with a faraway smile and fey manner. In “Minor Leagues,” off of his self-titled album Casey Golden (Muscle Beach, 2017), his inflection and vocal timbre captured melancholia perfectly.

Because of the band, the night closed down dramatically in the otherwise low-key backyard smoking area at Bar Passé. Lush three-part harmonies soared atop Gallaher maniacal Telecaster riffing, and Beyschau and Martinez-Kee held down the backbeat with aplomb. In other words, smoking.

First, Tempe's Draa silenced the room. The poppy openers didn't put people to sleep, instead put them into a dream. People closed eyes and swayed, only slipping back into reality between songs to applaud. The next two acts were minimal two-piece synth outifits. Sun City, Arizona's Body of Light was up next, and the center of the dancefloor fully erupted. It was heavy—if you'd covered your ears it'd could've been a hardcore metal show. It's a group super loyal to 80s-styled synthpop, with no shortage of 'verbed-out vocals and heavy bass—heady vibrations made your heart skip a beat. The tunage brought out eccentrics going apeshit in front of the stage.
New York Black Marble Brooklyn headlined and folks drunkenly perched on the edge of the stage, heads bonging to the duo's warm sonic chill. In fact, Black Marble conjured up that most difficult of live-show juxtapositions, the kind mostly seen at Dead shows of yore: people jamming hard to soft synth. No wonder they signed to Ghostly International.

Consider visiting a restaurant that is as warm, familiar and familial as a friend’s kitchen. Imagine the walls, lined with family photos, and the smell of cumin, coriander and chilies lingering over good company.

Since 1993, Tucson’s India Oven (2727 N. Campbell Ave.) has proudly served up a taste of Indian home cooking. Harmesh and Raksha Bhatti, the proprietors of this longtime Tucson-staple, find their second home inconspicuously nestled in a Campbell mini mall. The restaurateurs, as much as the restaurant itself, attract patrons from across the valley to experience the welcoming warmth of India Oven.

For 24 years, the Bhattis, as dedicated proprietors to their business, arrive some hours before the restaurant’s opening, and stay hours after close. On one such day two weeks ago, the Bhattis returned from a full day of work to find their home ransacked and burgled.

“We had been working here all day,” Raksha said. “We no go home until very late, sometime like 10:30 p.m., and to see our home like that…very sad. They took everything.”

It would seem the burglars left no stone unturned. Tears well in Raksha’s eyes, as she explains the totality of the burglar’s damage. Generations of jewelry, all gone; the delicate gold bands that linked Raksha to the communal memory of her parents, as well to the memories of her wedding day and granddaughter’s birth, all lost. A 65-inch, flat screen television Raksha bought for Harmesh on Thanksgiving: gone. Computers housing files and photos, as well as cameras used to document the many journeys of the Bhatti family: gone.

In addition to the many family heirlooms and memories lost to the burglary, the Bhatti’s home was also destroyed.

“They smashed up the whole couch and throw our clothes across house,” Raksha said. “They smashed up everything: all my paperwork… everything. It is very scary.”

Though Tucson police responded to the scene, no leads have been determined. Additionally, the Bhatti’s home was uninsured during the time of the accident.

“Our people do not think about it that way,” Raksha said. “I have little idea how to take insurance, I never thought we’d need it. We work 24 year in this place. We think America is good… We never think something like this could happen in our community.”

The Bhattis now set out to rebuild their home. Though the police have yet to catch the culprits of this crime, Raksha remains hopeful that good will prevail.

“At least I have this business,” Raksha said. “We will build again. It is no easy for me, but we will build again with community help.”


Editor's Note: This story has been updated.

For-profit colleges have been ripping off the federal government and defrauding students for years. The systematic fleecing of the Feds and the students was reported as far back as 2009, but the government was slow to take action. In 2015 due to pressure from the Obama administration, the Corinthian College chain and ITT Tech Institute closed their doors and other colleges like the University of Phoenix saw their enrollments plummet when they were outed for illegal practices.

Last October, the Obama administration created a program known as borrower defense whose purpose was to compensate students burdened with loans from schools offering minimal education. It was scheduled to start July 1. A Hillary Clinton administration would almost certainly have followed through, but Betsy DeVos, Trump's Secretary of Education, has put on the brakes. The reason for the delay, she claims, is a suit filed by an association of for-profit colleges, but that appears to be a ruse. The Trump administration started looking for a way to delay the program before the lawsuit was filed.

Eighteen states filed a lawsuit against the Education Department for the delay.

“Since day one, Secretary DeVos has sided with for-profit school executives against students and families drowning in unaffordable student loans,” said Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, who led the multistate coalition. “Her decision to cancel vital protections for students and taxpayers is a betrayal of her office’s responsibility and a violation of federal law.”

The latest Transformers movie, Transformers: The Last Knight, gets the dubious distinction of being the worst in the series. That is some sort of major accomplishment. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to look at this collective pile of movie manure and decipher which of the five is the worst. It’s like going to a frat house the first week of a semester at Dickhead University and trying to pick out the dumbest, drunkest douche in the place. All of the qualifiers are terribly, criminally lame.

I’m giving the award of franchise worst because it’s just so clear how every participant in this enterprise, from director Michael Bay right on down to the production assistant who smeared glycerin on Mark Wahlberg’s pecs, is jaded, tired and played out. Nobody really wants to be in this thing.

The stink of “Who gives a shit … just pay me!” hits your nostrils with Wahlberg’s first line delivery. The best part of this movie is when Anthony Hopkins inexplicably goes to Stonehenge to witness a robot battle then gets blown up, leading to the silliest death scene ever. Yep, I just issued a spoiler.

Anthony Hopkins, who should be ashamed of himself for participating in this thing, dies hilariously in this movie. I hope this spoiler pisses you off so much that you don’t go to the movie. Be mad at me for the next 10 years, but I know I did you a favor.