Thursday, August 20, 2020
Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story
I’m a major Ren and Stimpy Show fan. Love the first two seasons to death. Not crazy about what happened after its creator, John Kricfalusi, left the series; he didn’t make it past the second season. The quality dropped off in a big way.
Also, I’m not at all happy that it turns out John K. was a pedophile—a story that came out two years ago. (John K. seduced a teenaged Tucson girl, Robyn Byrd, who would later move in with him after she graduated high school at age 17 and go to work at his animation studio; you can read the details in this Buzzfeed report.)
This new documentary, Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story, which includes John K.’s participation, wouldn’t delve into his issues with underage girls, right? That would be crazy. Surely John K. would avoid any film that paints him as the sicko that he apparently is. Right?
For a large part of the 104-minute running time, it seems as if the subject won’t be breached. Directors Ron Cicero and Kimo Easterwood interview John K. and his colleagues about his rise and fall in the animation world. He was a genius, but he had a crazy attention-to-detail obsession that got him in trouble—along with a nasty temper.
But then, lo and behold, the movie goes there—not only speaking to some of the women who were victimized by John K. as girls, but talking with the man himself about what happened—and not in a whitewashed sort of way. They go right at him; he answers; his answers are not good. It’s really quite remarkable.
So, the movie is two things: It’s a really cool look at the institution that is Ren and Stimpy—which is being rebooted by Comedy Central without John K.’s involvement—and it’s a surprisingly daring character profile of John K. and everything he did to mess up the show, his life and the lives of others. He’s a mess, but this movie isn’t.
Available for rent and download on Apple TV and Amazon
The Watershed Management Group is hosting their first Monsoon Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 24, and is currently seeking film submissions from the public. The virtual Monsoon Film Festival is planned to share audience stories and perspectives from the Santa Cruz Watershed and beyond.
Videos can be submitted to one of five categories:
- By or For Children: For all videos made by children or created for a young audience
- College: For films made by any college student
- We Are One Watershed: For films emphasizing WMG's values of diversity and equity
- Science: For shorts that emphasize the different scientific disciplines that relate to water, such as biology, ecology, etc.
- Steward In Place: For films that show what you can do on your own to make positive change for the environment
The only requirement is that the videos are five minutes or less and are received by Monday, Sept. 7. No experience required.
The Watershed Management Group is a Tucson-based nonprofit organization supporting sustainable communities.
Democrat Gabby Giffords, whose career in Congress was cut short after she survived an assassination attempt that ended with six dead and 12 others wounded in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, spoke last night at the DNC.
Giffords tied her own fight to recover from her injuries to the importance of fighting against the Trump administration.
"Confronted by despair, I'm summoned hope," Giffords said. "Confronted by paralysis and aphasia, I'm responded with grit and determination."
Giffords talked about the struggle to recover her ability to speak.
"Words once came easily but today, I struggle to speak," Giffords said. "But I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words."
She ended her brief speech with a call to elect Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
"We can protect our families, our future," Giffords said. "We can vote. We can be on the right side of history. We must elect Joe Biden. He was there for me. He'll be there for you, too. Join us in this vote. Vote! Vote! Vote!"
Giffords' husband, former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, is leading in the polls as he challenges appointed U.S. Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona this year.
The number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 196,000 as of Thursday, Aug 20, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County had seen 20,139 of the state’s 196,280 confirmed cases.
With 50 new deaths reported today, a total of 4,684 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 534 in Pima County, according to the Aug. 20 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases continues to decline. ADHS reported that as of Aug. 19, 1,070 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state, the lowest that number has been since June 1, when 1,009 people were hospitalized. That number peaked at 3,517 on July 13.
A total of 1,035 people visited ERs on Aug. 19 with COVID symptoms. That number, which peaked at 2,008 on July 7, has plateaued at between 1,100 and 900 since Aug. 8.
A total of 388 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Aug. 19, the lowest that number has been since June 4, when 372 people were in ICU. The number in ICUs peaked at 970 on July 13.
City of Tucson offering rental assistance, grants for those affected by pandemic
The City of Tucson has allocated $4.5 million of federal CARES Act funding for an emergency rent and utility assistance program available to city residents.
To be eligible for the financial assistance, participating renters must have been financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the household income cannot exceed $68,400.
One application will be accepted per household, and each household can receive up to $2,500 to cover up to three months of late or upcoming rent or utility payments that were incurred after March 1, 2020.
The City of Tucson’s We Are One | Somos Unos Resiliency Fund recently received a $1.25 million donation to provide financial relief for Tucson’s immigrant communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The donations, from the Open Society Foundations and an anonymous donor, will provide funds to immigrants living in the City of Tucson and the City of South Tucson. These are people who have been significantly impacted by COVID-19 but are often excluded from federal aid.
The Open Society Foundations is a worldwide philanthropic organization run by billionaire George Soros.
The $1.25 million will be disbursed through grants to those who were not eligible to receive federal CARES Act stimulus checks earlier this year, and who face additional barriers to financial assistance programs, according to a city press release.
“It is unconscionable that many of our fellow Tucsonans do not have access to federal aid despite risking their lives serving as essential workers during this pandemic,” said Mayor Regina Romero in the release. “No one should suffer hardship in the shadows and, unfortunately, that’s the painful reality many immigrants are enduring.”
Tucson council member Lane Santa Cruz said that early in the COVID-19 pandemic advocates from the Immigrant Empowerment Taskforce shared information about how immigrant families were being affected. In the release, Santa Cruz said they were grateful for the donations which will help the city address these economic injustices.
The Sunnyside Foundation has been designated as the administrator of the funds, and details on how to receive aid will be shared on Sept. 1 at www.sunnysidefoundation.org.
“Entire families in our community are being evicted from their homes, losing jobs, and having to decide between buying groceries or paying utility bills,” said Sunnyside Foundation Executive Director Kerri Lopez-Howell in the release. “We are honored to steward these resources and eager to work alongside grassroots community leaders, organizers, and advocates to ensure that those most impacted receive these dollars.”
Tags: COVID-19 , Coronavirus , Relief , Financial Assistance , City of Tucson , We Are One Somos Unos Resliency Fund , Open Society Foundations , Sunnyside Foundation , Image
Tags: maga , trump , baby , blimp , bad year , goodyear , political , cartoon , Image
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
The Arizona Supreme Court will allow the Invest in Education initiative to appear on the November 2020 ballot after it was previously tossed out by a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge, who ruled its petition summary was “fraudulent or substantially confusing to Arizona voters."
The initiative proposes a 3.5 percent surcharge in state income tax on Arizona’s wealthiest residents—individuals earning more than $250,000 per year or couples earning more than $500,000 per year.
The measure could potentially raise about $940 million in tax revenue per year for the benefit of Arizona public schools and their stakeholders and would affect only the top 1 percent of Arizona earners, according to the Invest in Ed campaign.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury made the ruling to toss the initiative last month, saying that their 100-word description on petitions signed by voters didn’t include key components of what the initiative would actually do.
The Invest in Education campaign appealed his ruling, and today the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the initiative’s description “did not create a significant danger of confusion or unfairness and reverses the trial court ruling.”
“Today’s ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court keeping Invest in Education on the November ballot is an important victory because it gives millions of Arizona voters the opportunity to put more resources into our schools,” said Invest in Education Chairwoman Amber Gould in a press release. “We are confident voters will say ‘yes’ to improving Arizona’s K-12 schools by voting ‘yes’ on Invest in Education this November. The Invest in Education Initiative was crafted to benefit all Arizona’s 1.1 million K-12 students while not taxing working and middle-class families impacted by the pandemic.”
Election officials are expected to complete a review of petition signatures for the proposition this week.
To learn more about the ballot initiative, visit investined.com.
Tags: Invest in Ed , Ballot Initiative , Arizona Supreme Court , Image
The University of Arizona has announced it is employing a new app where students, faculty, and staff who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 can anonymously notify others who may have been exposed. The COVID Watch app is available on Google and Apple devices, and is "able to calculate a person's level of exposure risk by assessing duration of exposure to an infected person, distance from an infected person and the point in the infection arc at which a user was exposed."
The COVID Watch app is being developed by UA in partnership with the nonprofit organization of the same name, co-founded by a UA alum Tina White.
However, this means the app can only track possible infections through the population if users have their phones on them.
Joyce Schroeder, head of UA Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, is leading the app's development for the campus.
Who spent much of her allotted 30 seconds in the national spotlight talking about the reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was part of an unorthodox roll call of the states during an unorthodox Democratic National Convention, where almost all of the business is being conducted virtually because of coronavirus concerns.
As they announced the voted that led to former Vice President Joe Biden’s official nomination Tuesday, delegates from each of the 50 states and seven U.S. territories were encouraged to spend part of their time talking about an issue important to them – and the party.
For Garcia, that was the challenges schools are facing.
“So clearly as an Arizona educator I wanted to talk about what reopening schools is looking like for us. I wanted to talk about being a mother of a high school freshman,” she said Tuesday.
“I wanted to talk about being a union leader in this state and then I also wanted to talk about the fact that I am a very proud Chicana Latina living in Arizona where the majority of us are really going to take our chance and have our voices heard this fall,” Garcia said.
The speakers will deliver their addresses virtually to the convention, which has been forced mostly online because of concerns over COVID-19 – a pandemic that has hit the Navajo Nation particularly hard.
Nez, a member of Arizona’s Democratic delegation, talked to Cronkite News reporter Tyler Manion in a video call Tuesday about the honor of being a keynote speaker at the convention.
“It is an opportunity also to remind the U.S. citizens throughout this country that tribal nations have contributed greatly to the freedoms of this country and have also contributed on a daily basis to make this nation the most powerful country in the world,” Nez said.
