Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is at the White House today to talk to President Obama about immigration, trade and what the two countries could do with this Cuba situation.

I guess the main focus of the meeting, according to an article by The Washington Post, is Obama is looking to recruit Mexico, and other Latin American countries, to promote some sort of political and social change in Cuba (Even though none of them are really that good of role models politically? Hmmmm. Maybe Uruguay - their president is bad ass.) Now that the U.S. is moving toward rebuilding a relationship with the country, everyone wants the communist government of Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother, to head toward a democratic reform. 

Obama's move to stop shunning Cuba was an act of good faith, and maybe that'll persuade the Castro brothers to compromise. As long as they don't ask Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for help, negotiations should go smoothly. 

Also in the talks was a plan for Peña Nieto to help spread the word of Obama's recent immigration changes, which could affect as many as 4 or 5 million people, two-thirds of which are Mexican citizens, the article said.

What I really hoped Obama would bring up (since Peña Nieto has chosen to ignore this "elephant in the room") is the abduction and possible murder of the 43 Ayotzinapa students. 

They have been missing since the end of September and Peña Nieto hasn't really been vocal of the fact that the local government of the state of Guerrero, the police (both local and federal) and drug cartels worked quite harmoniously in this. He met with the students' parents, but lately he's been saying that it's time for the country to move on.

He's on a high dose of several hallucinogens if he thinks the Mexican people are ready to move on any time soon. Is he fucking kidding?

There needs to be global pressure for this guy to grow a pair and accept his role on letting Mexico get this deep in the shit hole. He's chosen not to speak about it much, while protests after protests take place in his backyard, demanding for him and his telenovela actress wife to evacuate immediately.

From The Washington Post article:

Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to Obama Monday urging him to press Pena Nieto to take the case and “a broader pattern of abuse and impunity” in Mexico more seriously. Obama administration officials responded that Obama plans to raise the issue of strengthening Mexico’s law enforcement and judicial institutions during the visit, which includes an Oval Office meeting followed by a working lunch.

There's been an ongoing community investigation—I say community, because people in the region have done as much work as the authorities—with forensic teams from Argentina and other countries. Apparently, the FBI is also involved in the investigation and American scientists are doing some DNA research, as reported by NBC News.

So far, only the ashes of one student have been identified.

Allegedly, members of a Guerrero drug cartel burnt the bodies after the police turned the students over.

If you're not too familiar with what happened, this VICE video does a great recap:

If you've used the Internet in the past few days, you probably already saw Leelah Alcorn's story.



The 17-year-old from Ohio committed suicide by jumping in front of a tractor trailer on Sunday morning. A note set to publish on her Tumblr a few hours after her death detailed the why.





In her note, she referred to herself as being a girl trapped in a boy's body, "And I've felt that way ever since I was 4." 



At age 14, when she learned that were more like her out there, she felt relief. She wasn't crazy...there are others who were assigned a sex at birth but growing up identified otherwise. Leelah told her mom about what was happening.



"She reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn't make mistakes." 



I have had the pleasure of meeting and writing stories on a handful of moms whose child - some as young as three and four-—expressed identifying as the opposite gender, and the moms' responses were, "How can I be a great parent to my child, provide him or her with the best resources so that she or he can be happy?" 



A few months ago, I did a story on a local camp for transgender and gender creative kids for the publication I worked at the time. I met three amazing mothers who taught me so much about the importance of being a backbone to children going through what Leelah went through.



They searched everywhere to find people and places where their daughters could be reassured that what they were feeling wasn't wrong—it was simply who they were and they were going to tackle it in the best way possible. They spoke about their daughters with pride, happy that they were healthy, did good in school...with such devotion. 



One told me about getting her daughter hormone blockers, so she wouldn't start going through puberty, which can be traumatizing to children assigned the sex boy but identifying as girl and vice versa.



This is something Leelah wanted. At age 16, she asked her parents for permission to start transitioning. They said no.



The rest you can read in her suicide note. Many media outlets in Ohio continue calling her "Joshua" (her birth name, not her preferred name) and using the pronoun "he."



It's horrific to still have cases like Leelah's. The world needs more moms and dads who stay true to what being a parent is - standing with your children even if they don't meet what society defines as the "norm." What the hell is it, anyway? It certainly goes beyond two boxes marked male or female.



In January, the LA Times wrote about a study looking into the "exceptionally high suicide attempt rate" among transgender or gender nonconforming people. It said about 41 percent had attempted suicide in their lives, nearly nine times the national average. 



If you're a parent with a child who expresses identifying as the other gender, there are local resources where they can explain you what is happening. You can meet others going through the same experience...just fucking be there for your child. The outside world is crushing enough to deal with.



Here's a link to Southern Arizona Gender Alliance's trans parents group. This local organization is amazing, please use it. It makes a huge difference if you find the support and the information. We cannot have more cases like Leelah's. It's just inhumane.

You know how, as you get older, more and more often the wrong word pops up while you’re speaking, and you accidentally say silly things like “Hold on, I have to charge up my refrigerator” or “Honey, is there any OJ in the laptop?” (For you college young-uns out there, just keep sucking down those beer bongs and nasty pink Smirnoff things and you’ll experience this phenomenon soon enough.)

It’s embarrassing, but there’s a silver lining. Sometimes the wrong word is really the right word in the wrong context, like when you say “OJ in the laptop” and do the “Oops—duh!” thing, but immediately follow it with, “Oh yeah, that reminds me, I gotta charge up my laptop!” Maybe it’s self-regulating behavior, of a subconscious sort. (Um, yeah, OK—never mind. Maybe I’m just getting old and loopy.)

My posts get lots of comments, and I read them all, sometimes more than once (OK, I admit, if a commenter writes a short book, I may stop in the middle). I enjoy the heated discussion that goes on in the comments section, and I expect and appreciate comments from people who disagree with me. That's part of the process.

But comments that try to hijack the discussion, frankly, piss me off, and I will begin deleting them, not because I disagree with them but because they're off topic, and their comments either sidetrack or end the discussion.

If I write about candidates in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, commenters should write about that race and those candidates, not the TUSD school board race. When I write about the governor's race, a commenter should talk about the governor's race, not his opinion of Obama, in two consecutive posts.

People who don't like the topic of any given post can ignore it. People who desperately want to write about the TUSD race or Obama can start their own blogs and see if they can find an audience, or save their comments until I write about TUSD or Obama. If you go way off topic in a comment on one of my posts, there's a good chance I'll delete it so the on-topic discussion can continue unimpeded.

A word to commenters who enjoy a hearty discussion of the issues at hand. When I was posting on Blog for Arizona, we had a number of people known as trolls, who would do everything they could to short-circuit a discussion or move it in another direction. Our advice there, and my advice here is: Please don't feed the trolls.

Just when you thought it was safe to continue to blame crazy on Arizona state legislators whenever we make the Daily Show or national news, along comes an opinion piece in the Arizona Daily Wildcat and the national venue is feminist blog Jezebel.

In the opinion section of the student-run newspaper comes a piece by a male student on how women are responsible for their own rapes and some sage advice on exactly how they can do that, after all if the guy was drunk too, well ... (shoulder shrug).

To be fair, the piece is part of a package:

EDITOR’S NOTE: This column was presented in the Sept. 2, 2014 print edition of The Daily Wildcat as part of a “head-to-head” feature on the Opinion page. These were companion columns addressing an important campus issue and not intended to be read separately. To read the companion piece click here.

The other editorial by neuroscience and cognitive science sophomore Elizabeth Hannah supports what most folks consider to be the norm in rape and perpetrators. Alcohol, this obvious science-savvy student writes, doesn't absolve anyone of their actions—perpetrator or victim:

Let’s get one thing straight: Alcohol does not absolve a person of responsibility for their actions. A drunk driver bears full responsibility if they injure another person. Being convicted of committing murder while intoxicated still leads to life in prison.

With these precedents firmly set, it seems obvious that perpetrators of sexual assault should be held to the same standards. If a drunken man rapes his girlfriend, he must be punished accordingly. Why, then, does society excuse the behavior of young men who commit acts of sexual violence while under the influence of alcohol?

The other editorial by general studies senior Rob Monteleone, well, takes a different approach:

Only 6.6 percent of women who smoke will develop lung cancer. A woman who smokes is more than three times as likely to be sexually assaulted than she is to develop lung cancer. We turn our noses up at smokers and just made our campus tobacco-free. Yet, nothing is done about sexual assault, short of blaming the "attacker," a guy who was likely as drunk as his "victim." We do everything we can to mitigate the small risk of lung cancer, but nothing at all to mitigate the much greater risk of sexual assault.

We all make mistakes, and we all want to be understood, consoled and forgiven, but there's a double standard here, and it needs to be addressed.

If drunk women who have sex are able to claim "rape," why aren't drunk men alleviated of responsibility for the poor decisions they make?

And someone was paying attention—Jezebel, who rightfully and gleefully raked Monteleone over some nice hot feminist fire:

Women, rejoice! We've finally solved rape, thanks to the brilliant and groundbreaking words of Rob, a University of Arizona senior who has written an op-ed in his school newspaper entitled "Only Responsibility Can Stop Rape." In it, he urges women to consider preventing their own rapes by simply taking responsibility. (sound of a million Beyoncés singing "THANK YOU ROB FROM ARIZONA!" in perfect harmony. All the ladies line up to french Rob in gratitude.)

Yes, always nice to have both sides in a series of opinion pieces, but when it comes to rape, how exactly does Monteleone's handy list contribute to preventing rape? They read like a courthouse playbook victims have had to encounter when they have the guts to take their perpetrators to court, once again proving why it's so fucking hard for many women to come forward to begin with.

I mean, why bother, when our institution of higher learning produces students who really feel it's all so simple if women listened to what he had to say:

don't go to a guy's room at 2AM

go out in groups and don't get lost

tell your girl friends if you plan on hooking up before you leave to go out.

I guess if your girl friends see you making out with a guy when you didn't get your hookup pre-approved, they're supposed to karate chop him or something? Rapists love being cock blocked. I'm sure this couldn't end terribly.

Rob Monteleone, this isn't a piece that needed to be written, but even more so, the Opinion editor at the Wildcat should learn something from all this about discretion in what should be run in the first place.

WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?

WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??? There is always one schmuck that needs to recycle that bumper sticker quote in the comments section of an immigration article. And it has to be in CAPS!! And it has to have multiple question marks and perhaps a couple exclamation points. If it’s not in CAPS and does not have the multiple punctuations, than the point is not made. So, let me be that schmuck today and pose that question to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, the Arizona State Militia, Russell Pearce, gubernatorial candidate Frank Riggs and congressional candidate/newest member of the Village People, Adam Kwasman: WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??!?!?

This lesson is for all those law-abiding folks that came to protest that fictional bus carrying unaccompanied migrant youths (aka UAC’s) to Oracle, Arizona on Tuesday. The minors are being held by the U.S. government pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protections Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). The TVPRA instructs our government to transfer the custody of unaccompanied minors to the custody of Health and Human Services (HHS). Once in the custody of HHS, the minors are processed for possible removal from the United States which includes evaluation of whether the minor can remain in the U.S. in some form of lawful status. It is the LAW that was originally signed by President George W. Bush in 2008.

If law-abiding U.S. citizens don’t like the TVPRA or its unintended consequences, lobby to get it amended. Feel free to peacefully assemble and protest, but don’t block the bus from going to its intended destination (a la the protestors in Murrieta, California). According to an article by Stephen Lemons in the Phoenix New Times, Oracle resident Robert Skiba was originally tipped off to this busload of migrant youths and Mr. Skiba told Mr. Lemons:

"We're going to engage in peaceful assembly and if these buses with these people from Central America come in, we're going to stop it. we're going to turn them around and send them back, just like they did in Murrieta, California."

Sheriff Babeu even posted on his Facebook page that the “children should be returned to their home country - not to Oracle, Arizona paid for by American taxpayers.” But, that’s not how it works in the good ‘ol United States, if there is a law we are supposed to follow it. Right Mr. Sheriff? Mr. Law Enforcer?

So, if you are following closely, you will realize that the minors that turned themselves into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are not breaking the law. In fact, they may not even be “illegal”. But, what about the protestors? Would their attempts to stop the bus and send it back be breaking the law? It turns out that if you read the Arizona Revised Statute, not only would these protestors be breaking the law, there are several possible statutes that they could have been violating including:

13-2402. Obstructing governmental operations, which is a class 1 misdemeanor;

13-2906. Obstructing a highway or other public thoroughfare, which is a class 3 misdemeanor; and

13-2908. Criminal nuisance, which is a class 3 misdemeanor.

Perhaps there are other laws that they could have violated in the process, but those are just a few examples. So, the irony of this situation is that the minors on the bus would not be the law breakers, the bus blockers would have been! Would Sheriff Babeu, who allegedly conspired in the planning of this protest and who always preaches the rule of law, have arrested the bus blockers?

Wednesday nights are optimal for comedy. It's hump day, and we could all use a good laugh. For the last couple years, Mr. Head's Bar and Gallery and Kevin William Lee have hosted a spot for the local comedians to stretch their funny legs and try telling jokes in front of a live audience every week at 10:30 p.m. Unfortunately, Kevin was relieved of the position and has been handed down to Jacob Breckenridge and myself.

Recently, there was a bit of a skirmish between Lee and a traveling act that performed at the bar on Wednesday, May 21. To make a long story short, there was a discrepancy regarding payment and the format of the show. Jay Whitecotton, JT Habersaat and Joe Staats are on a southwest comedy tour, so they reached out to Lee to book a show in Tucson. They all met at a Super Bowl party at Doug Stanhope's house in Bisbee.

While I don't appreciate witch hunts or bullying, you can read Whitecotton's side of the story here and here and form your own opinion of the events that have transpired. I have been substitute host for two of Lee's open mics, and I have been paid for both times, so, I can honestly say I have been treated fairly. I think this whole situation could have been dealt with differently, but everyone makes mistakes.


Last night, there were 16 comedians and one homeless man that goes by the name Midnight. All the audience members referred to him as Jesus. Midnight sits behind the patio barrier and listens to the comedy show religiously, so it's charming and terrifying when he crosses the fence to tell some jokes. Doesn't happen often, so it's totally worth your attention.


Pauly Casillas took the stage, and he was upstaged by two Power Rangers. Casillas is a professional comedian, so he knows how to deal with hecklers. So, he made them a part of a show and challenged them to do some cartwheels and a dance off. You know, just basic Power ranger shit.


Overall, it was a fun night. The Tucson comedy scene is strong, always evolving and welcoming social circle. If you haven't tried it and want to cross out another bucket list item, we will be waiting for you.

While the news is usually focused on hate, corruption, and crime, not all is lost. While your favorite athlete spent the weekend injecting more steroids than you could pay for with a year's salary, or as his publicist says, "living in the gym, for the team and for the fans," an everyday hero was at work.

Our story begins in Lake Tahoe, California Republic. Again. A young man and his father reportedly went on a trip to the "snow," a weather phenomenon from traditional Scandinavian folklore where frozen water particles blanket the earth. Although a handful of Tucson locals say they have personally seen snow in the mountains in the dead of winter, others tell the same tall tales about sasquatch and the chupacabra. Bode Beirdneau and his father were spending time together riding "snowmobiles," a science-fiction transportation device similar to Santa's sled or luck dragons.

Unfortunately, the trip took a turn for the worse. After crashing his snowmobile and sustaining serious injuries, JT Bierdneau realized that riding miles into the wilderness without a map, emergency signal, radio, or phone reception was not his best idea. His nine-year-old son determined that his time window to act would be short in the severe weather and decided to ride out on his own to look for help, with no map and limited directions. He ultimately found another rider with an emergency radio and was able to direct rescue personnel to his father before the situation worsened.

In summary, Bode is a true hero: he went alone into the frozen wilderness, ignored everything taught to him by approaching a total stranger alone for help, then led the rescuers through the wilderness and/or followed his snowmobile tracks back to his father. Thanks to Bode's efforts, his father is expected to make a full recovery. I'm also obligated to add that Bode was happy that he was still able to finish his homework assignments, as that's adorable and makes us simultaneously reflect on the youthful innocence of the hero while putting his remarkable act into the perspective of an unassuming child thrust into a colossal situation or something.

Read the original story here

Until next week, may all your dreams come true.

So, I'm not a celebrity stalker. I keep trying to tell myself that. Honestly, I try to attend all the events I post on the Range. I didn't really intend on going to see Fabio at Whole Foods on Speedway because no one wanted to go with me. Why would they? Who wants to see the guy that started in those cheesy butter commercial and romance novels.

I noticed my buddy Erick Bornmann, Electric Blankets guitarist, was going to Whole Foods to see the Italian model. I decided to tag along with him and his friend Adam because I wanted to see who would actually show up. We all decided to go to Fry's and buy some "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" for him to sign. Adam decided to bring a dirty, mangy glass duck to try get a reaction from Fabio.

Here's the video where Fabio was hit by a bird on a roller coaster at Busch Garden's in Virginia:

We entered the store and the line wrapped the entire produce section. It was slightly embarrassing when someone asked why I had a container of fake butter while I crowded the bath salt and organic soap section. I have never pissed off so many hippies with dreads in my life. There was a familiar face that stood in front of me. We met at the Meet Rack during the Kardashian fiasco. She was there to get a picture of a topless Fabio with a tiger to give to her boyfriend for Valentines Day.

We received a photo of The Besmirchers' frontman Lenny Mental counter-protesting a man of God at the Fourth Avenue Winter Street Fair, but don't click through if you're offended by strong language.