Featured Stories
Town of Oro Valley election results
March 14, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Did you know that there was a town council election in the Town of Oro Valley on Tuesday? Not if you read our local newspapers. Only the Explorer News covered the election results. Oro Valley Primary Election results – The Explorer: The unofficial results are in for the Oro Valley Town Council Primary Election.
An act of generosity
March 13, 2012
by David Safier
I'm going to start at the end of this story, then I'll begin again at the beginning.
Matt de la Peña, author of "Mexican White Boy" and other books geared toward adolescents, spoke to groups of students at TUSD over the past few days. He used his entire speaking fee to buy copies of "Mexican White Boy" and give them to the students.
I guarantee de la Peña is not a wealthy man. He could have found plenty of ways to put the speaking fee to good personal use. Here's the story behind his generosity, which I learned tonight when he was the featured guest at the Save Ethnic Studies fundraiser.
Mexican White Boy is one of the books which had been taught in some Mexican American Studies courses but can no longer be used. I read it last week. It's a gripping, complex novel set in a San Diego-area barrio where all the characters, young and old, are flawed, often deeply, and the environment they inhabit is flawed as well. Yet most of them have wonderful qualities, as does the world they inhabit. Until the end — and even after the last page — there's no way of telling where the young people who are at the center of the story will end up. The characters and their stories resonated with this old retired Anglo English teacher. I'm sure they resonate far more with students who can relate directly to the experiences of the characters.
The book became part of the MAS curriculum when a student, a reluctant reader, brought a copy to one of the teachers to read. The teacher saw its value, especially viewing it through the eyes of the student who gave it to her, and decided it would be a valuable addition to her class.
When de la Peña heard his book was banned at TUSD . . .
Oklahoma House votes to drug test state legislators – Arizona should follow suit
March 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Last week I posted about our Tea-Publican legislature's attempt to demonize the unemployed. The GOP war on the unemployed continues:
SB 1495, which gained preliminary Senate approval this past week, is being pushed by Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa.
“With near-record rates of unemployment that we’ve seen over the last year or so, if you are fortunate enough for your state to pay you while you’re looking for a job, as far as I’m concerned, the very least you should be is in a suitable state of mind to search for a job,” he said. “If you are on drugs, you cannot pass a drug test, odds are you can’t pass an interview — if you’re going on them as you’re supposed to be.”
Smith’s original legislation called not only for all applicants to pass a drug test as a first step in eligibility but also mandatory testing for those already receiving benefits. But he agreed to scale that second half back, instead authorizing random tests for current recipients.
Anyone who fails would be denied benefits for 30 days but could reapply at that time.
The legislation also authorizes random drug tests for those who already have been approved. A positive test means the loss of that month’s benefits and a requirement for monthly tests for the next six months; a second failure kills benefits, with no new application allowed for another six months.
Several other states have imposed similar requirements.
I pointed out that Democrats in several states have countered with bills to require drug testing elected officials.
Bill to declare Baja Arizona a ‘danger zone’ is killed
March 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Update to State of Maricopa declares Baja Arizona a 'danger zone'. Rep. Peggy Judd (R-Wilcox) sponsored HB 2586, to establish a "danger zone" where warnings about the border will be sounded North of the border, limited to just 62 miles from the border. "Although no specific lines have been identified, 62 miles would appear to take in some portions of the city of Tucson."
This fear mongering on border issues did not sit well with local border communities that rely on tourism and cross-border business traffic with Mexico.
Local leaders from across the border region swarmed the state capitol Monday and helped kill a bill that would have created the border warning system to alert people to dangers associated with the border. Facing mounting backlash, Judd kills border-warning bill – Nogales International:
[B]usiness and community leaders who showed up to opposed the bill at a stakeholder’s meeting Monday at the House of Representatives said it would unnecessarily hurt the region’s reputation and damage its already depressed economy.
Don Bivens ad on Jeff Flake: The War on Women
March 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Don Bivens has release his first TV ad: The War on Women.
This ad is tough, and it’s hard-hitting.
The ad has a singular message: Congressman Jeff Flake and the Republicans in Congress have been waging a war on women.
Over the past weeks, we’ve seen an assault on birth control, disgusting comments from Rush Limbaugh, and a renewed attack on funding for Planned Parenthood and its critical work for women’s health.
It’s clear that Congressman Jeff Flake and Republicans in Washington have made their radical social agenda a top priority.This ad is an aggressive move. We’re hitting the airwaves early to show Arizona voters exactly what Congressman Flake’s priorities really are.
It’s no wonder the Heritage Foundation just released new official rankings that put Rep. Flake as the most conservative member of the House.
P.S. After you’ve watched the ad, please share it on Facebook, and forward this email to your friends and neighbors so they can see exactly what Jeff Flake has been up to back in Washington.
Video below the fold.
LD 29 Dems resolution calls on Rep. Daniel Patterson to resign
March 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Matt Kopec, Chair of Legislative District 29 Democrats, informs me that at the LD 29 Committee meeting on Monday night the precinct committee persons voted in favor of a resolution, with one abstention, calling upon Rep. Daniel Patterson (D-LD 29) to resign: "With criminal charges and an ethics investigation by the House of
Arizona Tea-Publican legislature one step closer to reducing women to second-class citizens
March 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Tea-Publican legislature is one step closer to reducing women to second-class citizens who are property of the state by stripping women of their Constitutional rights and liberties in Arizona. Birth-control-exclusion bill goes to AZ Senate:
A Senate panel voted Monday to let employers with religious or moral objections refuse to include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans for their workers.
HB 2625 would repeal a decade-old mandate that says companies that provide coverage must also include contraceptives. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, said the move is necessary to protect freedom.
The measure already has been approved by the House, meaning it needs only approval by the full Senate before going to the governor.
"I believe that we live in America. We don't live in the Soviet Union," Lesko said. "And so government shouldn't be telling employers, Catholic organizations or mom-and-pop employers to do something that's against their moral beliefs."
Wow. This Lesko is seriously whack. She has a different definition of "freedom" than everyone else. And the Soviet Union? Please. This is the most authoritarian piece of legislation yet from the Tea-Publicans.
What Lesko is really saying is that Constitutional rights and liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are not shared by all Americans equally, but are ranked according to classes of individuals, including the legal fiction of corporations ("corporations are people too, my friend"), who enjoy a preferential legal status over lower-ranked classes of individuals.
This is the only possible explanation for why employers (including corporations, many of them multi-nationals) and insurance companies should enjoy a preferential legal status to make health care decisions for American women, rather than American women enjoy the individual "freedom" to make health care decisions for themselves in consulation with their physician:
Class 1
Corporations, Partnerships, Nonprofit Organizations, Trusts, Sole Proprietorships
Class 2
Males (preferably White)
Class 3
Fertilized human eggs, zygotes, fetuses
Class 4
Females*
* Constitutional rights and liberties subject to and limited by the preferential status granted by the state of Arizona to higher ranked classes. Voidable upon the occurrence of pregnancy.
Librotraficante Caravan carrying “wetbooks” to Tucson Friday. SES fundraiser tonight.
March 13, 2012
by David Safier
Houston, Tucson has a problem. Books have been banned from use in TUSD.
Tony Diaz, a literature professor at Houston Community College, wants to help.
A professor and 30 of his supporters began a bus tour Monday from Houston, hauling hundreds of books they will deliver to Tucson in a demonstration against the recent elimination of Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American studies program.
Tony Diaz, a literature professor at Houston Community College, said he is leading the "librotraficante caravan,"or the book-smuggler caravan, to Tucson.
The bus will stop in San Antonio, El Paso, Albuquerque and Mesilla, N.M., to load more books and supporters bound for Tucson, he said.
Here's a map of the caravan's route:
More information about scheduled events here.
As you await the caravan's arrival in Tucson Friday, you can do something today: Attend a Save Ethnic Studies happy hour fundraiser 5:30 this evening (Tuesday). Margaritas and finger food will be provided.
Learn more about the fundraiser, and watch Tony Diaz's Librotraficante video (worth a watch) below the fold.
