Carolyn Classen

Carolyn Sugiyama Classen, a life long Democrat, was born & raised in the State of Hawaii, was a Legislative Aide for U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye on Capitol Hill, and practiced law for a while. In Tucson she worked as a tribal staff attorney for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and later was the Interim Executive Director of the now defunct Domestic Violence Commission. In 2008 she became a “My Tucson” guest columnist for the Tucson Citizen newspaper, then continued blogging for Tucsoncitizen.com for over four and a half years. Her blogsite was entitled “Carolyn’s Community” about community events and some political news, until Gannett Publishing shut down the site on January 31, 2014. She started with Blog for Arizona on Feb. 11, 2014. Part time she sat as a Hearing Officer in Pima County Consolidated Justice Courts Small Claims Division since April, 2005 for 15 years. She is married to University of Arizona Distinguished Professor Albrecht Classen, a native of Germany. They have one son, who lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and daughter. She is also the Editor of the Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition website, www.southernazjapan.org (since Jan. 2013).

Enjoy full moon open houses at Metal Arts Village

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March 16, 2014 is the next lovely  Full Moon night, and the Metal Arts Village at 3230 N. Dodge Blvd. (just north of the northeast corner of Ft.Lowell Rd.) is once again opening their  studios and coffee shop (Big Moe’s Coffee Emporium) to the public.  They do this every Full Moon evening throughout the year, starting at 5 p.m. in the winter months, going to 8 p.m.  Summer hours (May to September) are 6 to 9 p.m. due to the heat.

Some of the artists offer free demonstrations, refreshments, activities (such as Beads for Courage, where you can help volunteer to string metal/plastic/ceramic beads for sick children).  There is also a lovely sculpture garden to walk around & admire the huge, creative & beautiful sculptures.  There is often a live band performing in the garden as well during these open houses.

 

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Tucson St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Festival on March 15

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StPatricksmap2014

It’s that time again, to wish all of you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day on March 17.

The annual St. Patrick’s Day parade & festival in downtown Tucson will be held on Saturday, March 15 at 10 a.m. See the parade map above starting at Stone Avenue and E. 16th Street and going north to Armory Park (between E. 12th and E. 13th Streets and along S. 6th Avenue).

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Wildly popular Tucson Festival of Books in 6th year

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festivalofbook2014Thousands and thousands (and thousands) of people have attended this popular Tucson Festival of Books, since its inception in 2009.  Go to the website for information on the authors, schedule of activities, map, etc. (click here).

I participated there once in 2011 in our Tucsoncitizen.com booth (along with lots of other bloggers/citizen journalists, and our staff at the time).

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Final lecture in The Evolving Brain series

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Last lecture tonight of this six week series at UA Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. (east of Park Avenue),  at 7 p.m.evolvingbrain

“More Perfect Than We Think”

William Bialek, PhD, John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics, Princeton University
“From its ability to appreciate beauty, to the reassembly of distant childhood memories, to our almost unthinking ability to respond to the unexpected, is our brain really “doing a good job” at solving the problems we confront as we move through the world? Has evolution granted us a rich inheritance of tools, or saddled us with artifacts of a distant past, limiting our ability to solve new problems? Many other animals, from insects to our fellow primates, do many equally remarkable things, but several examples will be presented allowing us to see how the human brain solves problems in an essentially perfect way — no machine operating under the same physical constraints could do better. Examining what is common among the problems that the brain is good at solving begins to suggest a more general principle that may be at work”.