Tucson Modernism Week kicks off today at the Tucson Convention Center with walking tours during the day and a cocktail party from 7 to 10 p.m. 

This weekend, you can find vintage trailers at the TCC, the Firebird III at MOCA Tucson and a whole bunch more fun.  Here's a complete schedule of tours, talks, exhibits and all the rest.

Demion Clinco of the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation talks about Modernism Week in this week's TW.

Members of the UA's Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace want to bring back some attention to when Tucson Unified School District and other educational entities banned Middle East Studies from several schools.

In 1983, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, Tucson Unified School District, and UA administrators "collaborated to discredit the Near Eastern Center (now renamed the Center for Middle Eastern Studies). The vicious campaign of censorship and intimidation climaxed in 1983 with the banning of Middle East outreach materials including resource books, literature, maps and films," the groups say.

The exhibit, which debuted Sept. 28 during Banned Books Week, features photographs and archival materials from that time. The groups sponsoring it hope to help fight censorship at schools and elsewhere.

Here's the background (from the article "The Middle East Studies Ban" by Gabriel Schivone for Tucson Weekly):

In 1983, (U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva) sat on the Tucson Unified School District board, which in effect sanctioned the termination of a Middle East-studies outreach program (and the banning of its books), designed for district teachers by the University of Arizona's Near Eastern Center, due to allegations of "anti-Israel, pro-Arab" bias.

In a report to the district, the TUSD compliance officer, Sylvia Campoy, recommended the program's elimination and book-banning. In remarks published by the Arizona Daily Star on Sept. 16, 1983, Campoy justified the move by saying that "the Israeli government apparently was not contacted for materials." Since the Near Eastern Center failed to consult a foreign government, the program therefore promoted a "significant bias ... of a decisively anti-Israel and pro-Arab character," in the words of Campoy's report.

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, which led the local campaign against the program, was supported nationally by the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee. The federation pointed to a so-called conspiracy of "Arabists" allegedly in control of U.S.-based oil companies Mobil and Exxon, accused of influencing Middle East centers on university campuses across the country.

"I call it the buying of America," said TUSD board member Eva Bacal at the Oct. 18, 1983, board meeting.

The program materials that TUSD barred from district classrooms included a series of books, bibliographies, pamphlets, resource guides and teacher handbooks covering Middle East history and cultures, as well as maps, videos and a novel entitled My Enemy, My Brother.

One area of materials that critics found among the most objectionable were maps of the Middle East used in TUSD classrooms, and in a history course for TUSD teachers. "Israel was notably absent" on one map, wrote Carol Karsch in a 1985 report submitted to a U.S. Congressional committee on behalf of the Jewish Federation. A TUSD parent told the school board in October 1983 that in class, her son "was shown a map that eliminated the presence of Israel in the Middle East."

You can find the exhibit at the UA's Student Union Gallery "Shadow Box," on the third floor of the Grand Ballroom, 1303 E. University Blvd. It is free, but you are welcomed to give some donations. For more info, check out the event's Facebook. 

Come learn about the mass incarceration of immigrants at the YWCA tomorrow night.

This is the third event the YWCA is hosting as part of their ongoing talks on the country's sentencing and prison system, and their effects on the community. Tucson-based immigration attorney Margo Cowan, Coalición de Derechos Humanos' Isabel Garcia and Caroline Isaacs, program director of the American Friends Service Committee, will focus on Operation Streamline, and its connection to private prisons' bed quota and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

A reminder of what Operation Streamline is:

Operation Streamline began in Del Rio, Texas back in 2005,  It made its way to Tucson three years later, and now operates in a total of seven border cities. After migrants are apprehended by the Border Patrol, oftentimes while crossing the Sonoran Desert, some are put in temporary detention facilities and others forced to sign paperwork in English, which many of them do not understand, and by doing so they agree to immediate deportation back to Mexico and other native countries. 

But every day, at least 70 migrants who are apprehended are then prosecuted in federal court. They get less than 20 minutes to talk to a public defender. They are shackled and given no option but to plead guilty to illegal entry, which leads to a sentence of up to six months in prison. They are then deported, except now with a felony conviction in their record. 

"The session will offer a context of why the Latino population is booming in prison right now, and how much state money is being allocated to Operation Streamline," says Liane Hernandez of the YWCA. 

Members of the group Mi Familia Vota will also participate. After the talk, they will help people register to vote for the upcoming elections.

The discussion is on Wednesday, Sept. 23 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The folks who bring you such T.V.-based exclamatory oddities as Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and Superjail! are touring the country this fall and Tucson's on the list of stops. Adult Swim is hosting a drive-in movie event at the Mercado San Agustin, and you're going to want to secure your spot soon.

The Adult Swim Drive-In isn't simply just screening re-runs of Children's Hospital (though that would be pretty cool, too), but, rather, showing off some unaired pilots and specials. Food trucks, trivia and prizes are all on the night's line-up as well, with vouchers for a free food truck meal handed out while supplies last. The AS crew recommends bringing your own blankets, pillows, chairs, slankets and blillows ... whatever that means.

All of that takes place on Saturday, Oct. 17 completely free. All you have to do is RSVP online via the Adult Swim website and you're good to go. It is an 18 and over event and is subject to capacity. 

Until then, let's all take a moment on this lovely Friday to remember Adult Swim at its finest:

Until recently, The Feminist Wire—a pro-feminism, social justice publishing company—has exclusively shared content (from poetry and novels to political articles) online. Now, they're partnering up with the University of Arizona Press for a new book series that'll showcase critiques on anti-feminist representations in U.S. popular culture, media and politics. 

The UA Department of Gender and  Women's Studies plans to incorporate the book series into the classroom. The department is actually collaborating with the School of Journalism in developing an online master's program in social justice publishing, where students will learn about acquiring, editing, producing and marketing books, a press release from UA Press says.

"Activism. Policy work. Writing. The work that I do has always been about connecting to academic and nonacademic audiences," says Monica Casper, professor in the Department of Gender and  Women's Studies and managing editor of The Feminist Wire, in a press release. "This partnership is just a logical extension of that. We are reaching across the university/public life divide."

There is going to be a celebration for the launch of this new project on Friday,  Sept. 11 at noon at the UA Libraries Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd. Casper, co-founder of The Feminist Wire Tamura Lomax and Darnell Moore, senior editor at Mic will be among the speakers. 

Tucson's Museum of Contemporary Art is putting on a fall fundraiser unlike any before. Thanks in part to the presence of the Mobile Pools, this unique event will be a poolside celebration of the arts in its many forms—after all, the beauty of contemporary art is its all encompassing nature.

The Salon / Synchro / Sangria certainly has a clever alliterative name down, but the museum fundraiser aims to deliver on all that name promises and more. The "Salon" portion comes in the form of a discussion with MOCA curator Jocko Weyland who will discuss the history of the Mobile Pools, which he helped conceptualize, and his new book Danny's Lot. The book is part photo essay and part narrative, looking at the early days of those dumpster pools and what they mean to adaptive reuse and contemporary art. 

As for the "Synchro," UCSB Theater & Dance doctoral candidate Yasmine Jahanmir will be performing at the event, and the "Sangria" comes courtesy of Penca's Bryan Eichhorst. With three different sangrias on the Penca menu regularly featuring tasty ingredients like Amontillado sherry, pennyroyal-infused pisco and a mirepoix shrub, you can be sure the sangria game will be strong at the MOCA. 

Hors d'oeuvre from Hotel Congress, Hamilton Distillers' Whiskey del Bac and Barrio Brewing's Barrio Blonde will also be served at the party, with additions from other event sponsors like Salon Salon and Atelier de LaFleur. The swanky shindig will allow attendees to mingle, sangria in hand, in their best "poolside chic." 

The Salon / Synchro / Sangria takes place at MOCA, located at 265 S. Church Ave., on Friday, September 11 from 6 until 9 p.m. Tickets for the fundraiser are $100 and you can find yours, along with more information, on the museum's website.

For 18 months, the immigrants' rights advocacy group Corazón de Tucson worked on a project that involved providing immigrants and their families with arts therapy. Some really nice pieces resulted from that venture, and now organization is ready to showcase them in an upcoming exhibit.

Throughout the project, called Resolution Through Arts Engagement in the Era of SB1070, two local artists—Cristina Cardenas and Wesley Fawcett Creigh—collaborated with clinical therapist—Faviola Agustin—to develop a trauma therapy program, where migrants were given a space to vent about their experiences coming to the U.S. and the reasons for immigrating.

“The expressive arts not only inspire hope but also allow emotional pain and acute trauma to begin to heal and be released. The migrant families and members of Corazon allowed us access into their intimate journeys and personal lenses using artistic work. Each individual piece is unique and carefully created but collectively their commitment to resistance, healing, and hope supersedes any political or colonial structure,” says Faviola Agustin, who advised the lead artists in effective methods of arts therapy, in a press release. 

And so the exhibit Mis Historias/My Stories was born.

"For me the art classes made me feel like I had wings, it allowed me to travel. My experience in the workshops permitted me to feel emotions I do not feel in other activities; it freed me, gave me peace, it relaxed me and it taught me that even if I don’t have a lot of artistic ability I can still create," says Francisca Lopez, one of the therapy workshop participants. 

The opening reception for Mis Historias/My Stories is happening on Saturday, Sept. 19 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Tiny Town Gallery, 174 E. Toole Ave.

The Downtown Clifton (485 S. Stone Ave.) is melding the worlds of yee-haw and aloha to celebrate to summer rains. The small boutique hotel's Cowboy Monsoon Luau might seems a little muddled in concept, but you know what? Who cares? Grab your cowboy boots, slap on a grass skirt and do the hula or a line dance or something. I don't know. 

The event will feature a dip in the MOCA mobile pools for Localist and MOCA members, live music by Hey, Bucko! on the cowboy side of things, Hawaiian fare from Mama's Hawaiian BBQ on the luau side of things and "Sam's Secret Rum Punch" for thirsty attendees. Best of all, should you drink too much of that special rum punch, you can extend the luau into the night by getting lei'd in one of the Downtown Clifton's rooms. 

The Cowboy Monsoon Luau at the Downtown Clifton kicks off at 6 p.m. and runs until 9 p.m. on Saturday, August 29. Tickets are available online in advance for $10 or at the door for $15. $100 gets you and a friend into the luau and a room for the night, along with the regular Clifton perks like breakfast at 5 Points. The event is hosted by Local First Arizona's Localist Program, which you can learn more about by visiting the Local First website.

Remember when playing a video game with someone meant being in the same room as them? This Saturday, the people who used to run Arcade-in-a-Box are putting on the 1st Annual Offline Multiplayer Game Festival (also known as OMGFest). The event, which will feature games such as Windjammers and NBA Jam On Fire Edition, will benefit the Community Foodbank.  

The core idea here is to get people together to play some amazing offline multiplayer games. Offline multiplayer games are games you play all sitting together in the same room. Crazy, right!? I’m sure you remember the days growing up sitting around a tiny TV playing split screen Golden Eye, Mario Kart or Halo with your buddies. That is exactly what this event is for. We want to show off new games, as well as some classics, that bring you back to a time when gaming meant laughing yourself sick in a room full of your best friends!

Our goal is to make this a fun, casual, and family event. That is why all of the proceeds from this event will be going towards the Tucson Community Food Bank. Playing great games with great people for a great cause.

That’s not all, many of the games on display will also have a tournament with great prizes. There is no additional cost to enter these tournaments. A schedule has been posted on the website to show the start times for each tournament. We have over 70 prizes to give away, so the top 6 in each tournament will win something.

There's a minimum $10 door fee, though participants are encouraged to donate more, as all proceeds will go to the Tucson Community Food Bank. 

There is going to be a community forum this evening to discuss Sen. John McCain's border security bill, SB 750, and what it means to the Southern Arizona borderlands.

The so-called Arizona Borderland Protection and Preservation Act—which was first introduced in March, then backed off after being approved by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and is now making a comeback with critics—would "cut unnecessary red tape and enable Border Patrol agents to have access to all federally managed land in Southwest Arizona, so they can perform their jobs effectively, keep our communities safe, and secure the border once and for all," waiving laws on all federal public land and all tribal land within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.(Read more, here.)

In short, if the Border Patrol feels it's necessary to build surveillance towers in the middle of Saguaro National Park, if the bill sees the light of day, they can do so without any permission or input.

Here's a statement by McCain and U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon (who sponsors a sister bill in the U.S. House) from earlier in year:

“For decades, drug cartels and human smugglers have exploited U.S. land management laws by crossing our borders illegally and harming Arizona’s national parks and protected areas. Amazingly, the laws put in place to protect these lands also prevent Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs. Currently, it is impossible for our Border Patrol agents to effectively secure the border when current land management laws prevent them from routinely patrolling large swaths of federal land. Our common-sense legislation would cut unnecessary red tape and enable Border Patrol agents to have access to all federally managed land in Southwest Arizona so they can perform their jobs effectively, keep our communities safe, and secure the border once and for all.”

The forum tonight is happening at the Alliance for Global Justice, 225 E. 26th St., at 7:30 p.m., where panelists that include U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Dan Millis of the Sierra Club, and Cyndi Tuell of Oak Flat, will talk to us about what advocacy groups are referring to as the "latest assault on undocumented workers, climate refugees and the Sonoran Desert."