Graphic novelist Craig Thompson talks about hippie Jesus, the Quran, mean evangelicals, and family strife in this great Mother Jones interview, I recommend even if you think comic books and graphic novels just aren't your "thing."

Thompson's new book, Habibi is 672 pages and out this week. It sounds fantastic:

"... a richly rendered love story set in a fictional Middle-East that's simultaneously modern and medieval. The author weaves the adventures of his slave-child protagonists with tales from the Bible and the Koran, numerology, and themes of imperial debauchery and environmental degradation. "I wanted to do a book that was bigger than myself, either something sort of fantastical and epic like Lord of the Rings or something with political relevance, like Joe Sacco's documentary work," says Thompson, who is now 36 and living in Portland, Oregon. "So I think those two modes met somewhere in the middle: a social-political fairy tale."

Why have we been wasting our time trying to enact social and economic change via the legislative process? Really, we all could have saved ourselves a lot of time taking our troubles to the real boss, the King Solomon of our time, Bill O'Reilly:

Fifteen years into the role, O’Reilly’s success—his primetime cable competitors don’t come close to his ratings—has brought wealth and, as he is happy to assert, the power of influence. “I have more power than anybody other than the president, in the sense that I can get things changed, quickly,” he says. “I don’t have to go through the legislative process; I don’t have to do any of that. I can just bring it to the people, and say, look, this has gotta be dealt with.”

Here's the debut of our new Political Roundtable on Arizona Public Media. Republican strategist Jonathan Paton, Democratic strategist Rodd McLeod, reporter Andrea Kelly and I talk about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' recovery, the mayor and council races, redistricting, the Arizona presidential primary and a whole bunch more.

I spent the morning at the Arizona Public Media studio on the UA campus, where we taped our first Political Roundtable with AZPM reporter Andrea Kelly, Republican strategist Jonathan Paton and Democratic strategist Rodd McLeod. We talked about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' recovery, the battle over Arizona's new political boundaries, the races for mayor and City Council, the Arizona presidential primary and a whole bunch more.

Tune in tonight at 6:30 on Channel 6. The program repeats at 12:30 a.m., and will be available online at the Arizona Public Media's site.

Compare and contrast:

"Cafe Italiano Closing" (Sept. 6) vs. "Farewell Tucson cafe and your lovely gelato" (today)

"Chuck George Takes Leave of Absence Following Odd On-Air Segment" (Sept. 9) vs. "Channel 13 forecaster is on leave" (today)

To be fair, the Star has us beat on photo galleries of New York City's Fashion Week, so there's that.

The rumors are true: I’ll be hosting a new Political Roundtable on Arizona Illustrated starting next Friday, Sept. 16.

I’m thrilled to be back on Friday nights at KUAT. I love talking politics and jumped at the chance to be part of a Friday Roundtable when Peter Michaels of Arizona Public Media told me they wanted to try something new. I’ve missed being part of the old Friday Roundtable, which has a long and distinguished legacy that I’ll do my best to live up to.

We’re mixing up the format a bit. Along with reporters from Arizona Public Media, we’re bringing in political strategists from the left and the right to tussle over the events of the week. In our debut next week, we’ll have former state lawmaker and congressional candidate Jonathan Paton, who is working as a political consultant, along with Rodd McLeod, a veteran of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ campaigns. We’ll be joined by Arizona Public Media political reporter Andrea Kelly.

The goal is to look back on the week in local, state and national politics and how those politics affect Arizona. We’ve got plenty to talk about—just look at the last week. We had a city manager fired. A mayor’s race is just getting underway. A redistricting commission has been dragged into court by the Arizona attorney general. On the horizon, we’ve got the Arizona presidential primary in Arizona, an upcoming legislative session, and then the 2012 election.

I’m looking forward to talking about it. Hope you tune in.

The official AZPM press release after the jump:

Meteorologist Chuck George is taking his second leave of absence from KOLD Channel 13 within the last 18 months, station general manager Debbie Bush announced today.

George struggled during a weather report on Tuesday's 10 p.m. broadcast. He spoke in a slow-motion, slurred manner, and rambled a bit about a hurricane developing in the Atlantic Ocean.

He's not been seen on the air since.

Later in the newscast, anchors Heather Rowe and Dan Marries covered for him during the weather segment, and he was not onscreen during the news wrap, which usually includes some time devoted to weather.

Tuesday’s incident marked at least the third time that George has noticeably struggled with a weather report since returning from that five-week hiatus in March and April of 2010. In April of this year, George appeared wobbly during a weather segment; another time, he phoned in the segment.

Erin Jordan has filled in for George during the remainder of this week, leaving KOLD’s morning news program without a weather presence since fellow meteorologist Aaron Pickering was on vacation.

Am I seeing double, or is the Arizona Daily Star now publishing the exact same stories two days apart? For instance, this story about a new Italian restaurant ran Thursday, Sept. 1, and this story about the same Italian restaurant ran Saturday, Sept. 3.

I know cutbacks have made things difficult at the Star, and I honestly feel terrible for those people right now. But printing the same story two day apart - even if it is just online, which I'm not sure of because like thousands of others I dropped my subscription years ago - is not going to win the newspaper any new fans.

(As a side note, if people want lots of non-recycled food news, they can just check in here from time to time anyway.)

Legendary local radio talk-show host John C. Scott is returning to the radio waves next week.

Scott, a former state lawmaker who has been doing talk radio in Tucson since 1989, will be re-launching the John C. Scott Show on KVOI, 1030 AM, next Tuesday, Sept. 6.

The show will air from 4 to 5 p.m., although Scott hopes to expand to a second hour in the near future.

“I’m really happy,” Scott says. “I miss doing the show, I really do. It’s all I’ve really done for the last 22 years. We did some good things and I think we can do them again.”

Scott will continue his format of interviewing politicians, community leaders and other scoundrels.

Scott’s most recent gig, hosting the John C. Scott Show on KJLL, came to an end in June after a dispute with new management.

No big surprise (I called it, remember?), but Arizona ended up as Gawker's Worst State, for all the reasons you might have guessed.

What's most offensive is that the cheap shots aren't really all that well-written:

Arizona is a hissing snakepit of angry old white people (they are angry because they are literally being cooked to death) yelling at the immigrants and other Others whom they fear and loathe, and it is probably going to explode someday soon into a bright ball of orange fire and we will know that either the end times have come for us all or thank god we are finally rid of Arizona.

That's one sentence. One terribly constructed, not particularly clever sentence. I expect better, Gawker. I really do.