PHXations—Friday, June 4
Is ASU too big for it’s own good?
> ASU is too big and wields too much power in politics and development. The Empire must be broken to give Arizonans more choices and greater access. Arizona could increase college graduation rates (rather than mere enrollment rates) and Arizona could easily strengthen its university system.
Read the whole post at Voices of Arizona.
/yaa
KEZ has set up a tribute page for Bill Austin. From Phoenix Business Journal:
Austin co-hosted KEZ’s morning show with Beth McDonald from 1990 until February 2010. He retired in February at age 55. McDonald continues to host the soft-rock station’s highly rated morning drive show.
KEZ’s website offers a venue for fans, radio station staff and other to talk about Austin’s positive impact on the business and the Valley. It also links to news stories about his passing and includes pictures of the longtime Phoenix radio duo.
Austin never talked about his illness on the air and did not mention his failing health as a reason for his retirement. Before joining the “Beth and Bill” show, he was a weatherman at KPNX-TV Channel 12 in Phoenix.
/yaa
RIP Lola Tapas
Chef Eric Gitenstein tells me he just found out about owner Felicia Ruiz’s decision — but he doesn’t seem very surprised.
“Slowly, sales have dropped over time. We tried lunch, but people would always go to Culver’s to get a burger instead of coming here,” he says. “We were busy on the weekends, but the weekends alone can’t support a restaurant.”
This was Lola’s fifth year in business. Ruiz opened the business back in 2005 with her now-ex-husband, Daniel Wayne, who owns Lola Coffee.
[…]
This, more than ever is an era where saying ‘I’ve been meaning to go there’ is not enough. Intent does not save local businesses, action does. If you find a local gem, support it by being a patron, otherwise we will be just a city of chains and mediocre food.
/yaa (bolding added)
Looks like Russell Pearce has some still competition for most zany state senator in the US:
The story said that although Haley has “gone out of her way to make sure people know she is a Christian,” she was raised in the Sikh faith and placed more emphasis on that tradition when she ran for the state legislature in 2004.
This evening in an interview with Pub Politics, state Sen. Jake Knotts (R-SC) — who is supporting a different candidate — slammed Haley by using a racial slur:
We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.
Ouch!
Addendum. Turns out that Senator Knotts wasn’t done:
Knotts says he believes Haley’s father has been sending letters to India saying that Haley is the first Sikh running for high office in America. He says her father walks around Lexington wearing a turban.
“We’re at war over there,” Knotts said.
Asked to clarify, he said he did not mean the United States was at war with India, but was at war with “foreign countries.”
Well that’s something, I guess.
Addendum 2. Senator Knotts Just can’t keep his foot out of his mouth. Here is a transcript of his ‘apology’:
“Unfortunately, the show was not recorded as was intended. If it had been recorded, the public would be able to hear firsthand that my “raghead” comments about Obama and Haley were intended in jest. Bear in mind that this is a freewheeling, anything-goes Internet radio show that is broadcast from a pub. It’s like local political version of Saturday Night Live, which is actually where the joke came from.
Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize.
I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.”
/yaa
ASU and the Mayo Clinic are in talks about … something, the Phoenix Business Journal reports:
ASU spokesman Virgil Renzulli said the university and Mayo are in an intense planning phase to further develop their relationship and are discussing about 50 topics, including expanding collaborative research and creating curriculum. He did not provide further details.
But the story quotes Phil Gordon saying something bigger might be up:
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said he hopes to see ASU and Mayo develop a medical school in the next decade.
“I’m confident in the future (ASU President) Michael Crow, working in partnership with Mayo Hospital and Councilwoman Peggy Neely, will figure out a way when the time is right to have a medical school there,” he said. “It’s not a pie-in-the-sky dream. It’s a matter of when, not if.”
11:22 PM
First Friday recommendations
Local ad agency E.B. Lane is using a new social media tool called Sticky Bits to promote the First Friday event and local merchants.
Sticky Bits allows iPhone and Android users to scan any barcode and instantly view, tag and upload photos, videos and information about a particular place or topic.
In partnership with Local First Arizona, E.B. Lane put stickers with Sticky Bits barcodes all over downtown for April’s First Friday event. Since then, people from all over the world have scanned and uploaded pictures, videos and comments to the barcode more than 140 times.
Our friend Jane Redden, owner of Practical Art, is featuring the show “Inside Outside” by Karrin Taylor:
Karrin’s paintings “come from within.” Which means she paints what she feels, as opposed to what she sees. Her paintings are comprised of layers— personal memorabilia, newspaper articles, obituaries of relatives, and found textures.
While the final images tend toward botanical images, she thinks of her final product as metaphors. She works on panels she constructs herself, and on found remnants such as old pallets. The artist says “the organic rawness of wood adds another layer of complexity” to her work.
The free artist reception is tonight, starting at 7p.m., and open to the public.
Beverages and snacks will be served.
For more information on what’s going on downtown tonight, check out Jackalope Ranch’s Field Guide to Downtown’s First Friday. It includes a snazzy pdf map to help you make sense of it all.
For Light Rail fans, Tony Arranaga, aka the Light Rail Blogger has some good First Friday suggestions. Mr. RailLife, Nick Bastien, offers his suggestions here.
Shooze, Booze Schmooze at Blueberry Deluxe
Come enjoy some “wining, dancing and shopping” at the Melrose Curve’s newest boutique.
- All shoes 50% off
- Play Dance Dance Revolution and get 10% of your entire purchase
- Free wine inside the shop (21+ only)
6=10 pm, 702 W Montecito Ave (in the Wagon Wheel building, next door to Melrose Pharmacy)
Live Music @ Royal at the Market
Royal Coffee Bar at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market will be featuring LIVE music with Laila Hirtz. Enjoy some freshly roasted coffee and delicious pastries as you hear the lovely sounds of some talented musicians! The show will start at 7 p.m. and go til around 10-10:30.
At After Hours Gallery, on McDowell just west of Central, the “Fridge-A-Thon Show.”
The gallery says it will have fifteen uniquely painted recycled refrigerators.
It’s part of an SRP project to get energy-inefficient refrigerators out of homes; the company will come pick up old refrigerators and give you $30. Details here.
After Hours site here.
9:32 PM
More on the EVT's mysterious reference to "race" problems at a (night)club in Chandler
Earlier today we noted an odd story in the East Valley Tribune, which detailed a legal dispute between a new nightclub and some other local businesses, a group of restaurants at the same strip mall.
The dispute has something to do whether the place is a club, a nightclub or a concert venue.
Way down in the story there were unexplained references to remarks about the clientele’s “race.”
But the story never said what “race” was being singled out. It could have been Hispanic or Asian, Ewok or Eloi, black or … [gulp!] white!
Friends in Chandler have subsequently informed us that clientele is black—and that African Americans were the object of the alleged racial comments alluded to in the story.
I dug through the EVT’s archive on the dispute, but didn’t find an example of the paper’s having vouchsafed this information to its readers.
Besides one sidelong reference to a “civil rights” aspect—“civil rights” being a well-known euphemism for “black-related”—there was nothing to let a disinterested reader know what in the hell was going on.
Isn’t this overdelicate? On the one hand we have the crazy Arizona Republic, which insists on capitalizing the words “black” and “white.” The Republic’s treatment gives you the sense that someone there was indignant that the word “black” was getting capitalized, and insisted on capitalizing “white,” too.
It is a practice that to my knowledge is followed by no other daily paper in the country. The Republic is the journalistic equivalent of a kid wondering why moms and dads get Mother’s Days and Father’s Days, but there’s no Kid’s Day.
(The answer, of course is that every day is Kid’s Day.)
And now we have the EVT, trying in effect whisper the news.
“It’s about race.”
Huh?
“It’s about race.”
Huh?
Previously in PHXated:
Why does the Arizona Republic capitalize the words “white” and “black”?.
4:06 PM
Cronkite School students rake in awards
From the Cronkite School, a release detailing a number of awards won by this year’s student body. Congrats to all the winners!
Carnegie-Knight News21 Schools Honored in Contests
June 4, 2010
Journalism students in the national Carnegie-Knight News21 program have been recognized with more than 40 awards for reporting, design, multimedia and photojournalism.
The students from 12 of the nation’s top journalism schools spent 10 weeks last summer reporting in-depth stories around the country and presenting them in innovative ways on the Web.
Students produced work that won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award as well as awards from the Society for News Design, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others.
The RFK collegiate journalism award went to David Kempa of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University for a project about one man’s mission to help impoverished farmers in Mexico.
The University of North Carolina won seven awards in the Society for News Design quarterly competitions. The winning projects will go on to the national competition, to be judged in August.
UNC also won eight awards in the National Press Photographers Association competition, three College Photographer of the Year honors and two awards in the Pictures of the Year International competition, which honors the best photography around the world. The school’s “Powering a Nation” project earned the Pictures of the Year International Award of Excellence, coming in behind only Reuters, MediaStorm and The Associated Press in the Documentary Project of the Year category.
UNC, ASU, Syracuse University and the University of Maryland all placed in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Best of the Web contest and took top awards in their regional Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards contests. The University of California at Berkeley also placed in the AEJMC contest.
Students in the News21 program come from the nation’s leading journalism schools. They spend a semester studying critical national issues, followed by a summer traveling the country to produce in-depth news coverage and experimenting with innovative digital methods to tell their stories. Nearly 100 students participated last summer.
In addition to ASU, UNC, Maryland and Berkeley, other schools in the alliance are Columbia University, Northwestern University, the University of Southern California and Syracuse University. Students from four other schools – Harvard University, the University of Missouri, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Nebraska – also contribute.
News21, headquartered at the Cronkite School in Phoenix, is part of the Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The complete list of 2010 awards:
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Best of the Web
• “Latinos & Hispanics in America,” 1st place (tie), Team Innovation
• “The Young and the Wireless,” 2nd place, Team Journalism
• “Powering a Nation,” 3rd place (tie), Team Journalism
• “The New Voters,” 3rd place (tie), Team Journalism
• “BARThood,” Honorable Mention, Team Journalism
Additionally, 2010 News21 fellow Tracy Boyer of UNC won first place in the individual journalism category for her 2009 student project Honduras and the Hidden Hunger.
42nd Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
• “Crossing Borders,” Sole Collegiate Winner, College Print or Online Division
International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences Webby Award
• “Powering a Nation,” Finalist, Student Sites
NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism 2010
• “Powering a Nation,” Overall Best Use of the Web
• “Powering a Nation,” 1st place, News or Feature Multimedia Package
• “Mining the Mountains,” 2nd place, Documentary Video
• “Roping the Wind,” 2nd place, Feature Video
67th Pictures of the Year International
• “Powering a Nation,” Award of Excellence, Documentary Project of the Year
• “Mining the Mountains,” Award of Excellence, Issue Reporting – Multimedia
College Photographer of the Year 2009
• “Powering a Nation,” Gold, Large Group Multimedia Project
• “Roping the Wind,” Gold, Individual Multimedia Story or Essay
• “Battle for the Mountains,” Bronze, Multimedia Project
National Press Photographers Association, Monthly Multimedia Contests
• “Debating Coal’s Future,” 1st place, Team Video
• “Religion Rejuvenates Environmentalism,” 1st place, Team Video
• “Down the Lines,” 1st place, Team Video
• “Roping the Wind,”1st place, Individual Video
• “Battle for the Mountains,” 2nd place, Team Video
• “Moving to Higher Ground,” 2nd place, Team Video
• “Powering a Nation,” 2nd place, Multimedia Project
• “Voices of Roscoe,” 3rd place, Team Video
Society for News Design Best of Multimedia Quarterly Contests
The following are winners in the Student News category and qualify for the national contest in August.
• “Fighting Battles”
• “Powering a Nation”
• “Roping the Wind”
• “Climate Refugees”
• “Down the Lines”
• “Energy Portraits”
• “The High-Energy Diet”
• “Reclaiming Creation”
Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Regional Awards
First-place regional winners qualify for national SPJ awards, to be announced this fall.
Mid-Atlantic Region
• “Debating Coal’s Future,” 1st place, Online In-Depth Reporting
• “Reclaiming Creation,” 1st place, Online Feature Reporting
• “Down the Lines,” 2nd place, Online In-Depth Reporting
• “Powering a Nation,” 2nd place, Best Independent Online Student Publication
• “The New Voters,” 3rd place, Best Independent Online Student Publication
• “Roping the Wind,” 3rd place, Online Feature Reporting
Western Region
• “Building Success,” 2nd place, Online Feature Reporting
Student Society for News Design
• “Powering a Nation,” 1st place, Best Overall College News Website
• “Powering Down,” 1st place, Best Display for Multimedia
• “Powering a Nation,” 1st place, Best Interactive or Animated Graphic
• “Debating Coal’s Future,” 1st place, Best One-Subject Stand-alone Mini-site or Special Section/Special Package of a Larger Website
3:01 PM
Gratehouse: Undocumented workers who apparently work for no one rounded up in latest Arpaio raid.
Employers? What employers? Here’s yet another Arpaio raid where reports name some of the suspected illegal immigrants but, once again, the people who hired them are shielded with anonymity. Arpaio and his posse were acting on a tip from a former Burlington Coat Factory manager and conducted the raid on Thursday to search for 10 suspected undocumented workers. They netted three. That someone who used to work there provided the tip should be a clue to the local MSM that some “knowingly” was going on there with respect to hiring illegal workers. Arpaio compared Social Security numbers to identify the suspects so it’s likely that this former manager was aware of the use of fraudulent documents. There’s more “knowingly” for ya, but don’t expect any reporters to pick up on that.
Not one article I’ve found so far about the raids says the reporter even attempted to get a comment from the current management. Sure, they’re probably not going to go on record and are highly unlikely to be prosecuted under the joke of a “toughest employer sanctions law in the nation” but the local news media could at least try to shine some light on the real immigration problem. We don’t have and illegal immigrant problem. We have an illegal employer problem. Again, everyone who isn’t a belligerent xenophobe or a Chamber of Commerce lackey knows this. This “comprehensive immigration reform” most people want ain’t gonna happen until the industries that employ most of the undocumented workers are made to act in an aboveboard manner. It’s obviously not going to come from the government, since both parties are in the pocket of the cheap labor lobby. It’s got to be public pressure. But the public is only getting coverage that focuses on the workers and not on those who hire them. If there was a concerted attempt to expose employers, and people started noticing the steady stream of “no comment” and “can’t be reached for comment” coming from managers and owners then maybe we’d see some pressure.
5:13 PM
Jan Brewer is Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World"
… for saying her said died “fighting the Nazi regime in Germany,” and having a spokesperson who said she hadn’t meant, by saying that, that her dad had died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany.
Meanwhile, Politico piles on, mercilessly dissecting Brewer’s appearance on Greta Van Susternen last night, on which she blamed the media for her troubles:
Brewer […] incorrectly asserted that she “never” said her father died fighting, despite having been quoted by both the Guardian and the Arizona Republic as saying so, and strung her statement to mean that her father died from the exposure to chemicals while working in a munitions factory during the Second World War.
“My father died fighting the German regiments of Hitler,” she said. “And he did. He was building the bombs.”
“I never said he was overseas,” she contended, though her initial statement seemed to indicate otherwise. “I never once said he was in the military.”
8:05 PM