Campus rape is a difficult issue, for all kinds of reasons—victims sometimes have spotty memories as a result of alcohol consumption or because they were drugged against their will; there may not witnesses; sometimes it boils down to a he-said/she-said situation; and pursuing charges can be even more traumatizing for a victim. That shouldn't be read as an excuse to ignore claims of rape, but as an acknowledgment of the difficulty of proving it in a court of law. (And it's not a new issue; more than a decade ago, contributor Vicki Hart took an in-depth look at the issue for the Weekly.) Rolling Stone's recent disgraceful reporting on the topic didn't help matters any, either.

Filmmaker Kirby Dick has dug into the topic with The Hunting Ground, which opens tonight at the Loft Cinema. Dick will be there both tonight and tomorrow to introduce the film at the 7 p.m. screenings. Here's the Loft's description:

Guacamole is important to me. So important, it seems, that when someone saw the Best Guacamole section on their Best of Tucson® ballot, he put my name down*. 

But, I'm not going to make guacamole for you, dear Tucson Weekly/The Range reader. That would be weird. Know what else is weird? That there doesn't seem to be a frontrunner in this Best of Tucson® category. I mean, I get it. We're lucky to have a lot of guacamole options. So many options! But where is it best? Where do you take your sad, midwestern relatives to show Tucson off? We need to know.

So, go vote! If you feel strongly, take all of your friends to your guacamole holy place, buy them a few bowls and convince them to second your vote.

Just in case my many, many links to the survey didn't clue you in: commenting on this post doesn't count as a vote, you have to fill out (at least!) 30 sections on our ballot to officially have a say. You can, however, make a case for your favorite guacaloving institution below and help shape impressionable minds.

* I'd like to thank my Nana for teaching me how to cook and my boyfriend for voting for me when he didn't know what else to put. I shall celebrate this honor in the traditional manner: by eating 12 avocados by myself in under 3 minutes.

Hello there, Fair people. The Pima County Fair is wrapping up on Sunday night. So, if you want to make it to the top of that ferris wheel you had better hurry up. We've still got a few tickets to give away. Enter our drawing and let us know how many tickets you're interested in. We'll be giving them out today and tomorrow. Also, keep in mind that the tickets are hanging out at our office near the Foothills Mall. So, if you win you'll have to pick the tickets up from us—we're only open on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Good luck!

Also, keep an eye out for our staff if you're going to the fair on Friday night. We'll probably be by the food.

A march in Phoenix to mark the anniversary of the anti-immigrant law SB 1070 will also be a celebration for the release of Nicoll  Hernández-Polanco, a Guatemalan transgender woman who was given asylum in the U.S. yesterday. She had been apprehended at all-male detention facility for the past six months.

Nicoll's case is one of many the Transgender Law Center has helped put at the forefront of the demand to stop detaining LGBTQ immigrants—several groups have asked the federal government to classify transgender asylum seekers like Nicoll as a "vulnerable group," meaning very likely to endure abuse in detention, as was Nicoll's case. 

While in the Florence immigration detention center, Nicoll was sexually assaulted by a detainee, physically and emotionally abused by guards and, during the first few weeks there, forced to shower with men.

From a Transgender Law Center statement:

The transgender and queer migrant community of Arizona and the nation celebrates Nicoll Hernandez-Polanco’s release. This victory was won by tireless hours of work from community members and Nicoll’s legal team. The #FreeNicoll campaign involved Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Arcoíris Liberation Team, Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, Transgender Law Center, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and many others. Nicoll is ecstatic to be free and excited for the support she received.

Today Nicoll is free and her community marches for an ICE Free Arizona on the anniversary of the infamous anti-immigrant law SB1070 demanding that ICE and DHS immediately halt all detention and deportation of LGBTQ immigrants. Unfortunately, Nicoll’s experience is all too typical. While trans women make up only 1 out of every 500 people detained by ICE, they are a shocking 1 out of every 5 substantiated cases of sexual assault in detention. ICE has demonstrated over and over that they are incapable of detaining LGBTQ immigrants with even minimal levels of dignity and safety. As Nicoll states “LGBTQ people deserve respect and do not belong in ICE detention.”

Other organizers of today's march are Tucson's Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, the Phoenix-based Arcoíris Liberation Team and AZ QUIP. 

The rally begins at 3 p.m. near the horse statue at the state Capitol. 

If there's an architect who defines Tucson style, it's Josias Joesler. The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation is sponsoring a home tour of some of his spectacular homes in the Catalina Foothills and elsewhere from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. this Saturday, April 25. Cost is $40 and the proceeds benefit the fine work of the Historic Preservation Foundation, which fights to keep more of Tucson's heritage from being bulldozed. More info on how to get your tickets and the tour can be found here.

Public Access TV can be glorious, or it can be horrible, or it can be somewhere in-between, but it's always the efforts of your neighbors creating their own vision on a low budget and big dreams. A retrospective of one of the better efforts to create a show, 20 Years of Madness, will be showing this weekend at downtown's Screening Room as part of the Arizona International Film Festival. And it will benefit Access Tucson, our own public access station that has been on the ropes as city officials have steadily cut its funding and threatened to sell its downtown headquarters in recent years.

Here's the film's description. There's a warning that you'll see nudity and hear bad words:

20 Years of Madness is a feature-length documentary following Jerry White Jr., founder of the Public Access TV Show 30 MINUTES OF MADNESS, as he leaves Los Angeles and returns to Metro Detroit to make a new episode on its 20-year anniversary. Jerry reconnects with the friends he grew up with as they discover whether the magic of their show was a fleeting youthful experiment or a creative community they will share for the rest of their lives.

The film shows at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 18. More details on it and the rest of the Arizona International Film Festival here.

We've got two pairs of VIP wristbands for Monday night's pig roast at CLUB XS, hosted by medical marijuana dispensary Desert Bloom. Now, the wristbands offer Medicated VIP access, but only if you've got an MMJ card. You can enter if you don't have a card, but you'll only get non-medicated VIP access.

I'm sure you've heard all about the event, but just in case:

A Pig Roast Celebration

The big 420 in the Old Pueblo is medical marijuana dispensary Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, 5851 E. Speedway Blvd., with its first annual 4/20 Pig Roast brought to you by Brush Fire BBQ from noon to 2 a.m. There will be a medicated area for all medical marijuana patient card holder, and besides the pig there will be other food trucks and a full bar.

Anyone interested in starting the application process for MMJ are welcome, there will be certification help available for all new patients and renewals. Live music and entertainments and speakers will be there, and some cannabis swag.

Others involves in the roast include AZ4NORML, Firebrand World Class Infusions, Ultra Health Green Valley, Tumblewoods Health Center, Holi Smokes, Weed Depot and yep, us, the Tucson Weekly. Keep in mind the area for medicating is only open to ticket-holders with valid MMJ cards. Tickets are $24 for Super Medicated VIP, $17.10 for Medicated VIP, $14.20 for non-medicated VIP and $7.10 for non-medicated regular Joe.

Desert Bloom's Aari Ruden told us that MMJ users are often still stigmatized and the goal of the pig roat is to change that. Plus "have a peaceful event with lots of cannabis there. For people to socialize with other like-minded people openly."

For more info on the roast, go to its Facebook event page or visit dbloomtucson.com.

Enter below or over on Wufoo. We'll be drawing names at 3:30 this afternoon and I'll be in touch shortly after that.

Seriously so many.

The Pima County Fair opens today and we're giving away tickets in pairs and in fours. We'll be drawing names a little bit randomly—a couple of times a day until the fair is over. If you win but are no longer interested in attending, let us know and we'll give those tickets to someone else!

You have the pick the passes up at our office, located near the Foothills Mall. They're good any day.  

So, for a ferris wheelin', brisket baked potato eatin', Pima County day of fun, you can enter by filling out the form below or, if the embed code isn't workin' for you, over on Wufoo.

Also, have you looked at the entertainment schedule? Because Baby Bash will be performing this Sunday. Did you know he was still a thing? Because, man, I haven't thought about Baby Bash since MAYBE 2004? I have, however, watched the Suga Suga music video four times since I saw his name on the flier half an hour ago.


There ain't nothing you can say to a playa/Cause doowop, she fly like the planes in the air/That’s right she’s full grown setting the wrong tone/I'm digging the energy and I'm loving the o-zone

Three years ago, Eva Sierra didn't know what a poetry slam looked or sounded like. 

During a school field trip to Tucson, the Douglas teen got to check out a gathering by the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam. She was hooked. The spoken word and all therapeutic emotions that derive from having a room full of attentive ears listening to your thoughts penetrated her soul and never left. She's been non-stop slamming since October 2012.

Sierra's slam at last year's championship (you can check out more TYPS on their YouTube):


Sierra became such a regular presence with the group—even though she resides about three hours away—they even invited her to become a member of the staff. 

You may not have heard much about Oak Flat, and that's no surprise. After all, this patch of natural beauty sprawls across federal forest land, out in a rural corner of Arizona. It's way off the radar for most major newspapers, and far from the hum of metropolitan life.

But Oak Flat hits close to home for the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the Yavapai-Apache Nation. Both consider the spot, in the high desert outside the former mining town of Superior, to be holy ground. They have conducted sacred ceremonies there since forever.

And since early February, a group called Apache Stronghold has also staged a gritty, ongoing occupation at the site.

As it happens, the Apaches aren't the only ones who care about Oak Flat. Multi-national mining companies likewise harbor deep affection for this place, since it's perched atop a huge copper deposit. Arizona Sen. John McCain cares, too. For years, legislation that would trade away Oak Flat to the mining companies felt flat from lack of support. So in 2014, McCain finally slipped it into an unrelated military spending bill. Subsequently, Oak Flat now belongs to the Resolution Copper Co., which is jointly owned by international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.