The magazine, The Nation, has been around for 150 years, created, according to its website, "by anti-slavery abolitionists four months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln." The magazine is doing a victory lap with birthday celebrations around the country, and it's landing in Tucson during the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books, March 14 and 15. Tucson is the second of 15 cities where the celebration is touching down.

Here's the schedule of talks and events.

• Katha Pollitt, “Reclaiming Abortion Rights” March 14, 11:30 am
• John Nichols, Katha Pollitt, Lee Fang, and Congressman Raul Grijalva, “The Nation: 150 Years of Ideas” March 14, 4 pm (Live on CSPAN)
• John Nichols, Lee Fang, Mark Leibovich, and Mickey Edwards discuss “The Future of Politics” March 15, 1 pm
• Noam Chomsky in conversation with John Nichols, March 15, 4 pm 
• Exclusive, one-night, March 15 regional premier of Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple’s documentary, Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation followed by talk-back with John Nichols and others.

The magazine will have a booth at the book festival, and will also be putting on an investigative reporting workshop and a poetry workshop.

OK, so Louis C.K. is a comedian, not an educator. But his mother was a math teacher (Fun facts: his parents met at Harvard. His mother has a background in software engineering, his father is an economist, and he grew up in Mexico City from age one to seven. His first language was Spanish). And he's a very perceptive social commentator. He's also got two young daughters. So, sprinkle a few grains of salt on his comments if you wish, but his statements on testing are worth a listen (especially if, like me, you tend to agree with them).

His concern about high stakes testing went public when he wrote a string of tweets, including:

My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) April 28, 2014

Sorry. I sit with my kids as they so their HW they devour knowledge. When it’s hard they step up. Their teachers are great
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) April 28, 2014

But it’s changed in recent years. It’s all about these tests. It feels like a dark time. And nothing is going in anymore.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) April 28, 2014

It’s this massive stressball that hangs over the whole school. The kids teachers trying to adapt to these badly written notions.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) April 28, 2014

He's gotten a fair amount of media coverage for this statements. On Letterman, he said, tongue slightly in cheek:

Well, the way I understand it, if a school’s kids don’t test well, they burn the school down. It’s pretty high-pressure.

Educator Diane Ravitch chimed in about Louis C.K.'s comments, at length, ending with a neutral statement about Common Core itself but a damning indictment of our current obsession with high stakes testing.

The Common Core has some good ideas in it; I doubt that it will do harm, although I believe that subjecting little children to 6-8 hours of testing to see if they can read and do math is harmful, physically and mentally, to them. Long ago, educators were able to find out in tests lasting 50 minutes how well a student could read or do math. Why is it now an ordeal that lasts as long as some professional examinations? For heaven’s sake, we are talking about little children, not candidates for college or a profession!

Louis C.K. isn't the first and won't be the last to chime in on the testing issue, and he's certainly not the most knowledgable commentator on the subject, but he's among the highest profile. After all, how many people get to bring up the subject to an audience of the size or the diversity of Letterman's?

Tucson, we have some visitors. BBC Pop Up is traveling around the US, introducing the world at large to different cultures and they've landed in the Old Pueblo. I want to love it.

I mean, sure, in their first video they referred to Tucson as the "Wild West," shot half the footage at the OK Corral and had cowboys introduce the state. That's not great. But I like that they also used their intro video to touch on border issues, and they did give some non-costumed Tucsonans a minute in the spotlight.  

The team is camping out at the Arizona Daily Star's newsroom, and you can follow their adventures all over the Internet.

Tucson Local Media is proud to announce that Mari Herreras has been named managing editor of the Tucson Weekly.

Herreras has been with the Weekly since 2007. In her seven years at the paper, the Tucson native has gotten to the heart of Tucson with compelling features and investigative pieces on everything from various controversies at the Tucson Unified School District to issues facing Tucson’s less-advantaged residents.

"When I returned to my hometown to work for our alternative newsweekly it was a dream come true," Herreras said. "This next step allows me to continue to do what I love most: Tucson in all its beautiful, ugly and weird. I'm excited to bring my voice and vision to the Weekly and excited to hear from our most important voice—our readers."

Tucson Local Media Publisher Ryan Kedzierski said, “Mari is the obvious choice for the position. She loves Tucson, is passionate about the direction the Tucson Weekly is going and will do her best to make sure it returns to being a strong, edgy publication our readers and the community can be proud of.”

Besides Herreras being promoted, Tucson Local Media is also excited to announce the addition of staff writer Heather Hoch, who started work on Nov. 24.

Hoch comes to the Tucson Local Media staff with two years of writing experience. Hoch was a writer for the Phoenix New Times.

I'm gonna blame this on the schools. Whenever things happen with kids, no matter what it is, people like to say it's the schools' fault, so I might as well follow suit. I guess I've got to give a share of the blame to all the sex and violence in the media too — you name it, TV, movies, music (especially rap!), video games. They're so far over the top these days, it's gotta be affecting the kids! Oh, and don't forget parenting. You can't let the parents off the hook for their kids' behavior either.

For example, we've got to blame schools, media and parents for the rate of violence among youth these days. According to a recent op ed in the Star,

. . . arrests for serious violent offenses by juveniles have dropped about 60 percent from 1994 to 2011. Juvenile arrests have receded faster in the past 10 years than adult arrests. Property crime by youth also has sunk to its lowest point in 30 years.

Wait, what? You mean kids today are less violent than they were 20 years ago? That's not the impression I get from the media, or from adults complaining about "Kids nowadays!"

OK, but things have got to be worse in other areas, like bullying, teen pregnancy, drinking. Right?

. . . peer victimization, harassment and bullying — despite their ubiquity — have been abating in almost all of the surveys. Suicide, too, is less common.

[snip]

Not only is the rate of teenage pregnancy down to record lows in the United States, but the percentage of ninth-graders who say they have had sexual intercourse has declined from 54 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 2013.

[snip]

The number of teenagers who have been drunk in the past year is at a record low and the drop for eighth-graders is particularly remarkable.

What the hell is going on? How can I complain about how awful and depraved today's kids are if the stats make them look so good? Haven't our schools turned into jungles? Hasn't the increase in depictions of sex and violence in the media turned kids into raging ids? Aren't parents being too permissive, or too overprotective, or too . . . something or other?

If things were going the other way, if the stats were trending for the worse, people would be quick enough to blame the usual suspects. So I guess, given the direction things are going, we've got to say, "Congratulations social, cultural and educational institutions. Way to go! Whatever you're doing, keep it up!"

After 18 years at the desk at KVOA, Tom McNamara will be leaving the station at the end of his contract in mid-December to pursue real estate investing.

News 4 Tucson is sad to announce that our longtime anchor Tom McNamara will be leaving when his current contract expires.

"Investing in real estate has been a passion of mine for several years now," said McNamara. "KVOA and I have been discussing my desire for change for many months. I appreciate how patient & supportive they have been through this process."

No word on whether McNamara is also leaving his recently-added gig at KUAT's Arizona Illustrated. If you're super interested, he's apparently going to discuss his future on Tuesday's 10 p.m. broadcast.

Sadly, McNamara isn't leaving to return to acting, although since his only credited appearance was as a Baseball Fury in 1979's The Warriors, he probably was wise to leave on a high note.

For me, I think the best writing is when you find yourself in the middle of an article fascinated about a subject you wouldn't otherwise find interesting. Adam Sternbergh's cover story for New York magazine on the evolution of emoji falls into that category:

IT’S EASY TO DISMISS EMOJI. They are, at first glance, ridiculous. They are a small invasive cartoon army of faces and vehicles and flags and food and symbols trying to topple the millennia-long reign of words. Emoji are intended to illustrate, or in some cases replace altogether, the words we send each other digitally, whether in a text message, email, or tweet. Taken together, emoji look like the electronic equivalent of those puffy stickers tweens used to ornament their Trapper Keepers.

OK, so that occasional and extremely lo-fi series taking place at a bar near you continues with Tucson musician Amochip Dabney, founder of the Amosphere, a tight and talented group of musicians who perform blues, New Orleans, reggae, rock and many of Amo's own. He's fun to talk with, but you better figure out a time to catch his band. They have a loyal following for a reason—and please don't be afraid to dance. People, when did that become a thing?

A great place to see Amosphere is at the Boondocks, which is where we met up with Amo and his partner, Jill Davis-Nunes, for some Bloody Marys and beers. They have a show at the Boondocks coming up Nov. 21. If you can't make that, get to Maker House on Nov. 14, Whiskey Tango on Nov. 15 or the eastside Sakura on Nov. 28.

And to keep in touch with his shows and music, visit his band's Facebook page or Amo's website, amochip.me.

KFMA announced the replacements for their morning show slot formerly filled by Fook and Mishell, who moved on to Salt Lake City in July. The new "Rock 102 Mornings" show will be hosted by former Phoenix radio personality Shmonty, who was laid off from KDKB up north in September when the station switched from rock to alternative, and Carolina, who was working evenings on KFMA. The new show debuts Monday, Nov. 10.

The press release:

Arizona Lotus Corporation Operations Manager Larry Mac announced today the new morning show will be 'Rock 102 Mornings with Shmonty & Carolina', weekdays 5:30a-10:00a.

Shmonty's radio career prior to joining Arizona Lotus included WCCC in Hartford CT, Radio 2GB in Sydney Australia, and Cumulus Radio group in New York and most recently Mornings on KDKB in Phoenix.

Carolina got her start in North Carolina where she graduated from Connecticut School of Broadcasting in North Carolina in 2010 and held an internship with the Ace and TJ show on WNKS KISS FM School in 2010. Carolina joined KFMA in 2011 on weekends.

Mac commented on the new Morning Show duo. “I am very excited to bring two funny and talented people to the Rock 102 airwaves in the morning. Tucson now has great way to laugh and rock out while getting ready for work, school and their day”.

'Rock 102 Mornings with Shmonty & Carolina' will be live November 10th 2014.

As part of Discovery Channel's "TestTube" shows hosted on YouTube, a guy named Jason Tongen travels around the world learning about the people and places behind the scenes in various cities for a show called "What I Learned". Nice work if you can get it, right?

One of the new episodes centers around Arizona, and while they spent time in Phoenix from reasons I don't understand, but hey, they made it down here and hung out with Ed Keeylocko, Slobby Robby, Isaiah Toothtaker and (of course) God. Solid trip all in all.