Archive for the ‘Currents/Feature’ Category
February 11th, 2010
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Author: Will Arizona voters approve a one-cent sales-tax hike this May?
by Jim Nintzel
Gov. Jan Brewer finally got what she wanted last week: A sales-tax ballot question without any strings attached. It took 10 months of intense political battles, but a group of Republicans and Democrats finally joined forces to ask voters on May 18 to approve a temporary, one-cent-per-dollar increase. Arizona, which will face an estimated shortfall of as much as $3.5 billion in the fiscal year that begins in July, is in desperate need of additional revenue if the state is…
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Our annual tribute to citizens who make Tucson a better place
by Weekly Staff
W. Mark Clark He led the charge to keep Tucson’s only public, accredited social-work college alive [image-1] “In bad times,” says W. Mark Clark, president and CEO of CODAC Behavioral Health Services, “substance-abuse disorders, anxiety, depression and situational stress increase. These times bring out the unfortunate in people.” Economic hardship means more people and families are in need, and more people are qualifying for both financial aid and Medicaid. All of that increases government and nonprofit agencies’ need for qualified…
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We offered our readers the chance to join the kicking-out party. Here’s a sampling of what they chose to expel from the Old Pueblo. THE AMERICAN GEM TRADE ASSOCIATION AND DOUGLAS HUCKER Douglas Hucker’s threats toward Tucson—build a downtown hotel and remodel the Tucson Convention Center, or he will move the Gem Show—fail to note that his show is merely one of 40-plus different shows, and operates for less than one week out of the five weeks of gem shows.…
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Our annual ‘naughty’ list of people, places, entities and other ne’er-do-wells Tucson would be better off without!
by The Usual Gang of Idiots
Those of us here at Weekly World Central are a bit depressed. Why, you ask? Well, we’re now in our seventh year of kicking people/places/organizations/whatevs out of town, and a disturbing number of our dishonorees have not heeded our instructions to leave. Case in point: At least two of this year’s Get Out of Town! recipients have been previously booted out of Tucson in these pages. We have an informal rule around here that we try not to kick people…
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Want to find out where you fit on the human family tree? The UA’s Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory is on the case
by Jim Nintzel
Matt Kaplan and I go way back—some 10,000 years or so, according to our common Y chromosome. Kaplan, the director of research at the UA’s Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory, and I are both members of Y chromosome haplogroup J2 (M172), which means we—like every other human male alive today—had a common ancestor somewhere around northeast Africa’s Rift Valley roughly 60,000 to 100,000 years ago, according the best guess of some scientists. Our Y chromosome ancestor, along with his traveling companions,…
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At 93, Arizona’s only Mexican-American governor keeps on telling his inspirational story
by Leo W. Banks
Raúl Castro, the former Arizona governor, opens the front door of his Nogales home even before I can ring the bell. He’s been waiting behind those grand wood doors. Castro is 93. Am I wrong to think that old people, those of a certain generation, those who’ve accomplished things, are just this way? Punctual. Organized. Not a moment to waste. “Come in,” he says. “We’ll talk in the living room.” Because he came up before the ubiquity of blue jeans…
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The underfunded Pima Animal Care Center struggles to deal with societal ignorance and accusations that it’s cruelly killing too many pets
by Tim Vanderpool
The animal cops call it Dogpatch. This is not said with malevolence, nor to demean the humans who reside in this stretch of unincorporated Pima County for a variety of reasons, ranging from poverty to streaks of ramshackle independence. Rather, it is said simply because Dogpatch is filled with free-roaming canines. The corrective ways of government hold little sway in Dogpatch, a place where property lines are a mishmash of desperate intentions and midnight deal-making, where dwellings are as likely…
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Neighbors of Saguaro Ranch say their battle with the developer has unearthed an ugly truth: Money always wins out
by Mari Herreras
Stephen Phinny and his neighbors agree on one thing: The Tortolita Mountains are beautiful. The hills are covered in old saguaros; the history of the region is evident in the petroglyphs hidden among the rocks and caves. That beauty is the reason why Pima County owns the 4,500-acre Tortolita Mountain Park there. Phinny has been bitterly fighting his neighbors over two Tortolita Mountain Park access points that lead through Phinny’s 1,035-acre Saguaro Ranch development. On the east side of Saguaro…
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A film being made during this year’s All Souls Procession looks at how people remember the dead along the border
by Margaret Regan
Music, says Joey Burns of Calexico, is “part of remembering the dead in daily life.” Every time he picks up his old black-and-white accordion, he remembers his grandfather. “My mom’s dad was a doctor, a German-American who played accordion,” Burns says. “He gave me the accordion before he passed. I play it on all our recordings.” Playing the old-timey instrument is “challenging what’s cool,” Burns says. “It’s part of connecting with my grandparents.” He keeps the accordion in the corner…
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The All Souls Procession enters its third decade of helping Tucsonans deal with death
by Margaret Regan
On a recent dark night, under the half-light of a waxing moon, gusty winds swept through Tucson. At the Splinter Brothers and Sisters Warehouse studios, just east of the railroad tracks, a chain-link fence rattled in the breeze. Every once in a while, a train whistle wailed. The weather had shifted, with October’s balmy Indian summer suddenly giving way to a wintry chill. Ghostly November was coming. And a band of brave souls, wrapped up in sweaters and scarves, were…
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