How badly did Ed Supe John Huppenthal screw up when he made a robocall urging parents to yank their kids out of public schools and put them in private schools "for free" (meaning, on the taxpayers' dime)? Badly enough he issued a public apology at the State Board of Ed meeting and sent a letter of apology to Arizona Superintendents. Well, kind of an apology.

"I have profound regrets over the articulation of my message and the false perceptions it generated about the nature of my commitment to public education."

One segment in this month's Tucson Cable Access show, "Education: The Rest Of The Story," which I host with Ann-Eve Pedersen, is my take on Hupp's qualifications to be the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

There are media topics I'm generally ahead of the curve on (promising indie bands from Australia, trivia games for the iPhone, a few others), but I guess I'm a little out of the loop on the podcast beat. I listen to podcasts on my way home sometimes, but I don't really seek out new stuff on that front. So, this might be old news to everyone else, but the TLDR podcast from WNYC is kind of spectacular.

A sub-project of On the Media, a weekly show that can be heard here on 89.1 FM Sundays at 3 p.m., TLDR's tagline "The Internet, Shorter" (and their name, online shorthand for "Too Long, Didn't Read") sums up the tone of their podcast...one story per episode on some aspect of online culture.

The most recent show (from March 10) featured friend-of-Tucson-Weekly Dave Maass from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and his quest to learn more about Sgt. Star, a bot on the Army's recruitment page designed to answer questions from potential soldiers. It's short (less than 12 minutes), informative (the hosts talk to the people who designed the bot and someone who has written extensively about the perils of modern war) and interesting on a specific level (why have a bot answer questions?) and on a larger scope of what military recruitment is like in 2014.

Driving back from Toltec yesterday (DON'T ASK), I ended up listening to six episodes in a row - one on the internet phenomenon of The Slender Man, one on Swatch's failed attempt to create a new system of time, a great story about what happens when you win the HGTV Dream Home, a story of a game I'm totally playing next year where people try to avoid finding out who won the Super Bowl - turning me into a dedicated listener over the course of an hour or so.

There are billions of podcasts out there, so, for me, it was great to find one that doesn't take up too much time and leaves me feeling like I'm a bit smarter by the end.

Got a better one I should be following? Feel free to chime in.

The Austin Chronicle has reported that Austin Police Department have officially charged Rashad Charjuan Owens with two counts of capital murder. The 22-year-old suspect may have been driving a stolen Toyota sedan when he fled a DUI checkpoint and intentionally drove through a crowd killing two people and injuring 23 South by Southwest attendees at 12:03 a.m. early Thursday. Charjuan has had a prior criminal past including pleading guilty to a DUI charge in 2011, according to Austin Statesmen.

Owens was arrested by the Killeen school district Police Department in September 2010; he pleaded guilty to criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor, according to a search of public records. He appears to have no criminal history in Travis County, according to court records.

Ironically, Charjuan was a rapper that goes by K.A.B254. He might have been trying to get some exposure as an artist and things didn't go as planned. Here's some of his music he produced:

Yeah, I know. "You're on The Range now." "Be true to your blog." Yadda yadda. Blog for Arizona is where I began blogging six years and 3,000 posts ago. Back then, it was basically founder Mike Bryan and me. Now it's so deep with writers — twelve contributors — when I left, it was like someone scooped a cup of water out of the ocean. Hardly noticeable after a brief ripple of water rushing in to fill the gap.

Blog for Arizona's got a great new look. I helped in the creation process and in bringing over the 15,000 posts from the old site, so I'm kinda proud of the results. Other than a more attractive and open look and feel, BfA's two best new features are the ability to connect with social media — you can easily share a post on Facebook, Twitter and a bunch of other sites — and a robust search engine. If I want to find what I've written, say, on the online charter school corporation, K12 Inc., a simple search will pull up a list of all my old posts containing that phrase. The Range has both features as well, but the old BfA was lacking in both areas.

News and information are where you find them, and you'll find a lot worth reading courtesy of the dozen volunteer writers, many of whom are experts in their areas of specialization. As you move around the web looking for some serious reading, especially Tucson- and Arizona-related material, BfA is definitely one of the places to go.

You don't have to like President Barack Obama, but you will love him after watching the latest episode of Zach Galifianakis' and Funny or Die: Between Two Ferns. The comedy video site became the #1 referral for healthcare.gov hours after the video went live, according to PolitiFact. Galifianakis grilled the President on drones, the health care website and called the commander and chief a nerd. Obama rebutted with "Do you think a woman like Michelle would marry a nerd?"

With a run of positive pieces about Tucson in the media lately (seemingly all of which mention Hippie Gypsy, so ok), there had to be some balance provided by the universe, so today, we get an article in Slate by smart weatherguy Eric Holthaus remarking upon our impending drought-induced doom!

Holthaus interviews Mayor Rothschild to discuss what the heck we're going to do about the general unsustainable nature of living out here in the desert, but I guess because he lived here once ("my home for two years and my wife’s home for six," he mentions), he gets the knives out as well:

Before the housing crash, Tucson was one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. Since then, the area has seen some serious reversion to the mean. Tucson is now one of the poorest big cities in the country with a per capita income of slightly more than $20,000. Tattoo parlors, seedy dive bars, and gas stations seem to make up the bulk of the retail establishments. There are few sidewalks, so The Walking Dead—esque scenes of people stumbling through the street at all hours of the day or night are commonplace. Tucson is off-the-charts poor and getting worse.

From the city’s reviews on Yelp:

I have never felt more depressed by the environment around me as I have been living in Tucson. A strong runner up would be Baku [Azerbaijan].

Honestly, the piece is totally worth reading (despite a sponsorship by Arizona State), but man, Holthaus would feel right at home shittalking our town on one of our right-wing talk shows (outside of believing in climate change, obvs):

Tucson was recently named one of the top cities in the country for twentysomethings. But the overwhelming feeling my wife and I got from living in Tucson was that most people there were transient. It didn't feel like a permanent place at all, or that it even should​ be a permanent place to live, at least not in its current state. Maybe it was an effect of living in the desert—it's a place you go to visit, not to live.

Kudos to Howie Fischer for his article in Saturday’s Star, Education software law written by software vendor raises questions. It’s about a bill, HB2485, which would award a no-bid contract to a Utah company, Imagine Learning, to supply software to Arizona school districts for English Language Learners. It’s not officially no-bid, but as Fischer indicates, the language in the bill is so specific to the Imagine Learning product, no other company could compete successfully.

In 2013, I wrote a series of posts on Blog for Arizona about a similar bill sponsored by Al Melvin, SB1239, (the posts are here, here, here and here) as well a column in the Weekly. Fischer mentions Melvin's bill in his article. I also noted that current Ed Supe, then State Senator John Huppenthal joined Melvin in sponsoring a similar bill, SB1319, in 2010.

I suggest anyone interested in this attempt to hand a multi-million dollar contract to Imagine Learning give Fischer’s article a close read. Let me add some information, some of which overlaps with Fischer’s reporting.

The mood was more celebratory than tense Tuesday when the city council voted 7-0 to create a César Chávez holiday. It was pretty much a done deal. But that doesn't mean it was easy.

I talked with Cam Juarez, chair of the Arizona César E. Chávez Holiday Coalition since 2013, to get the back story, the work behind the Tuesday vote. He filled in some of the details.

Tucson is actually late to the table in creating César E. Chávez Day. Pima County voted for the holiday in October, 2001. The cities of Phoenix and Tempe, not exactly bastions of liberalism, celebrate the holiday. So does South Tucson. And California's official César Chávez holiday is twenty years old. That puts a bit of perspective on people's concern over the money the holiday will cost Tucson. True, it will cost an estimated $500,000, but this isn't "the People's Republic of Tucson" going it alone, making some expensive, radical statement. Tuesday's vote is really about the city playing catch-up, doing what it should have done long ago.

President Obama was talking about serious business on Thursday's White House manufacturing innovation event. Obama jokingly blurted out "Basically, I'm here to announce we are building Iron Man." Unfortunately, we can't tell if this was just a display of Obama's wit or the honest-to-god truth. Obama backpedaled and said, "Not really. Maybe. It's classified."

Hopefully, Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau are going to run for office and carry out the President's plans if this doesn't happen during his term.

Make my Marvel, Mr. President.

Tired of plowing your vehicle through crater sized potholes in the mean streets of Tucson? Someone started a wordpress photo blog that exposes potholes around town. "Help hold Tucson City Council accountable for the potholes on Tucson's roads" is the blog's slogan. Tucson Potholes encourages you to email pictures of potholes and the locations.

A picture blog says a thousand words, but a meeting with Tucson Council could be more effect:

On March 4th we will be heading over to Tucson City Council to make a speech about the importance of fixing the potholes seen around Tucson. Support us by sending in pictures, stories, or facts you would like us to tell City Council.

• Photo from Tucson Potholes.
• "This is the second pothole found outside of 1304 E 10th St. Clearly this is a street that needs more attention."

If you want to take matters into your own hands, click here to get a hold of the Streets and Traffic Maintenance Division.