For the past month, Weekly World Central has followed and covered the Rose Hamway case, reporting on the former Tucson Unified School District school psychologist and whistleblower who filed a retaliation complaint against TUSD. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights released it's findings that sided with Hamway and TUSD agreed to settle the case for $180,000.

There are 14 students Hamway tried to help before and after she was fired from TUSD. Those families filed their own discrimination complaints to OCR with Hamway's help. Although a resolution agreement between OCR and TUSD was signed last year, some parents have slowly come forward and shared that they are still waiting to receive the kind of help their students need. This week's paper features an interview with the first parent to come forward — Kathy Winslow Richmond about her son, Brian Richmond — recently contacted by OCR to find out why were issues remain unresolved.

We continue to get documents every week regarding this case, and wanted you to have chance to see documents we are able to share to help you better understand the case, the parents complaints and the OCR process. We promise to post additional documents this month as we received them.

Rose Hamway OCR findings:

Hamway_findings.pdf

Hamway resolution signed by TUSD Superindendent John Pedicone:

Hamway_Resolution_Agreement.pdf

Brad Remond complaint narrative:

Richmond_complaint_summary.pdf

Richmond complaint issues:

Richmond_case.pdf

Stick around. There's more.

Turns out our beautiful Noshing dude Adam Borowitz isn't the only person trying to figure out how to live on $4 fucking-bucks a day. (Hunky) Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton (sorry Mayor "I'm a believer in pedestrian areas" Rothschild) is finding himself having the same troubles as Mr. Borowitz:

When local activist groups challenged Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton to live on a food stamp budget for a week to mark Hunger Awareness Month, he took them up on the offer and found out just how hard it was. Stanton kept a diary on the challenge, which allotted him roughly $29 a week, the same amount 1.1 million Arizonans receive from the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) each week.

By day four, Stanton noted that he was “tired” and “it’s hard to focus” after leaving the house for work without time to scramble eggs or eat a decent breakfast.

Read it all here.

The building on the corner of South Sixth Avenue and 35th Street, where the extremely short-lived but awesome place Tako Burger used to be, is gearing up for another round of restaurant action.

There are signs hanging on the building indicating that a new restaurant is setting up there. I was driving pretty fast when I saw them, but distinctly saw the word "pollo" as I zipped by. That leads me to believe that a Mexican joint that serves some sort of chicken is on the way. See how easy this investigative food-reporting stuff is?

Anyway, it's nice to see that old building back in action. Let's hope this restaurant fares better than Tako Burger did.

In this issue our heroes Eric and Arnie rave about everyone's favorite dragon-punching, Watchmen-inspiring, zen vigilante: Peter Cannon (a.k.a "Thunderbolt")!

Brought to you by the Best of Tucson® Award-Winning comic book and game store, Heroes and Villains!

For your heroes, and the cover of "Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt," go below the jump!

Jonathan Paton's campaign has launched a round of automated phone calls with a new nickname for his democratic opponent: Kickback Kirkpatrick. The first call highlights Ann Kirkpatrick's spending during her last days in Congress.

The Paton Camp's press release cites a June 2011 Arizona Republic article that reveals Kirkpatrick spent more than $100,000 during their final days in office. Only three other departing House members paid out more money, according to the article.

The phone call echoes the sentiments of a National Republican Congressional Committee funded ad released Sept. 23 that alleges Kirkpatrick "snuck campaign aides onto payroll." See that and a House Majority PAC ad knocking Paton here.

District 1 Breakdown

As of the August 28 primary, there are just more than 361,000 voters registered in Congressional District 1. Democrats hold a slight advantage with about 38 percent over the Republican's nearly 31 percent, according to the Arizona Secretary of State.

The National Journal listed CD 1 as number 12 on a list of competitive congressional districts likely to switch colors on the map, at the end of August.

The new-ish CD 1 stretches from the Utah border to the northern edge of Cochise County. Eleven counties including Coconino, Pima, and Pinal County all have a toe (or more) in the CD 1 lake. Pinal County boasts more than 84,000 registered voters, the highest in the district.

In terms of total population, the district has a largest percentage of Native Americans in the state, with 162,087. The next closest is CD 3 which counts 22,441 Native Americans among its population.

Non-hispanic whites account for 50% of the district and Hispanics for about 20 percent. Find the full breakdown here.

It appears local restaurant and bakery Beyond Bread has been nominated to participate in the upcoming World Food Championships, which is billed as the "highest-stakes food competition in the world." From an e-mail received today:

Dear Adam,

Recently, your best sandwich winner Beyond Bread from Tuscon Weekly Best of Tuscon 2011 was selected to compete at the World Food Championships. The World Food Championships, hosted by Adam Richman, will take place at Bally's, Paris and Caesars Palace, on Nov 1-4, 2012 and will pit the winners of the biggest and best food competitions and contests against each other for a championship title and a total prize purse of $300,000.

I'm always near the front of the line when it comes to finding opportunities to make fun of those freaks upstanding young folks from Tempe Normal, a.k.a., Arizona State University. But this is just too much.

A photo surfaced over the weekend of a bunch of ASU fans holding a toddler (in just a shirt and a diaper, no less) up to the nozzle of a keg, likely during tailgate time prior to Saturday's game against Utah. See the report from a Phoenix TV station for yourselves: (UPDATE: Looks like the video's no longer available on the Fox 10 site. We'll keep looking for it.)

Whether it's staged or not — the kid's mouth is ON the nozzle, by the way — doesn't really matter, except in terms of the possibility of any sort of child abuse charges that could come from it. What does matter is that this is a school that many of your kids want to go to. In fact, the photo participants might have gone there.

Says a lot about a school, don't it?

Although a marriage equality bill was voted down last week by the Australian House of Representative, some gems of support for equality are making their way through the internets, including a heart-felt argument for marriage equality from Australian Labor Senator Louise Pratt delivered on Sept. 17.

The bill was defeated 98-42. Marriage rights activists now look to state and territory parliaments to make change. It was reported that Tasmania's lower house last month passed a marriage equality bill and now makes its way to the state's Legislative Council before it can become law.

From Pratt's speech:

“I think it is one of the bitterest, bitterest ironies of this debate that historically, gay people have been stigmatized as promiscuous and immoral while being denied by the law the right to demonstrate the importance and consistency of their relationships in the way that any other Australian can. Think about that.

...

We exist. We already exist. Our relationships exist. Our children exist. Our families exist. Our marriages exist. And our love exists. All we ask is that you stop pretending that we don’t, that you stop pretending that our relationships are not as real as yours. Our love is as true, our children as cherished, and our families as precious.”

With a little over two weeks until early ballots are mailed out, the political ads for Congressional District 1 have taken an almost festive tone. One ad features a fluorescent color palatte and the other celebratory toasting. However, the messages are serious.

The House Majority PAC started airing "Neon" today. The ad uses the familiar "Payday Paton" moniker and criticizes him for wanting to privatize social security and "eliminating traditional medical care."

Paton spokesman, Barrett Marson, dispelled the accusations made in the ad via email to the TW: "It's no surprise now that Ann Kirkpatrick is having to answer questions about how she gave taxpayer-funded bonuses to her campaign staff that Nancy Pelosi has run to her rescue. This ad is full of lies and distortions about Iraq veteran Jonathan Paton, but Kirkpatrick knows she can't talk about her record of supporting ObamaCare and the failed stimulus."

Marson used similar rhetoric earlier this month in response to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attack ad that focused on Paton's involvement with the payday loan industry. He called that ad a "a complete lie and distortion of the facts" and also referenced Paton's service in Iraq.

The clip will run in Phoenix for the next week, so as to reach the eastern and northern parts of the expansive CD 1. The House Majority Pac dished out $1,000,000 for this and ads in three other districts: Arizona's CD 9, Illinois' CD 17 and Virginia's CD 2.

On September 23, the National Republican Congressional Committee released "Office Party." The ad accuses Kirkpatrick of surreptitiously hiring aides and distributing $100,000 to staff in her last few days in office as the CD 1 representative in 2011. Republican Paul Gosar replaced her seat after winning the 2010 election.

Kirkpatrick spokeswoman, Jennifer Johnson, compared the NRCC to controversial Missouri congressman Todd Akin in an email to the TW: "Given that they are bankrolling our payday-loan lobbyist opponent, the NRCC has as much credibility on payroll issues as Todd Akin has on women's issues. The fact is, Ann sponsored a bill to cut congressional pay, and when Congress refused to pass it, she went ahead and cut her own pay. And at the end of her term, Ann's office returned more than $100,000 in unused funds back to the Treasury. Her office employees were paid for their long hours, hard work and accrued leave.”

After two days of living off $4 a day I can tell you that it pretty much completely sucks. And not for just the reasons one would assume - less-than-full stomach, lack of choices, sense of impending doom - but for a whole grocery list of other reasons I'd never even thought of. (It felt so good to type "grocery list" just now. There is something very sad about that).

I've got plenty of food to make it through the week. There's still around $17 worth of lentils and potatoes and bananas and instant pancake mix and I've gotten by with much less than that before. What's really got me squirming, though, is what a flimsy excuse for a survivor I have become in the past several years. A spoiled little twit, really, and but a husk of the cheap-living man I used to be.

For one thing, somewhere along the way I became dependent on coffee, which is expensive and not in this week's budget. So I walk around hating things I shouldn't and wandering aimlessly when focus is sorely needed. I've also been pretty much an asshole most of the week, partially because the banana pancakes don't stick to my ribs like I thought they would and partially because I simply can't have what I want, when I want it, like a flimsy little twit. I don't like this version of me, but it makes me realize how entitled I feel regarding little treats like coffee and snacks between meals.

It's also got me thinking about some of the things people said when I first wrote about all this. One of the comments was from a guy who worked at a Circle K and watched people come in on the first of the month to buy a ton of junk food with food stamps. Well, guess what: After two days of nothing but brown rice, baked potatoes and instant pancakes, I feel like doing that. If I were forced to live on this same food budget for a few months I would certainly buy tons of sugary crap. I don't even like sweets, but it just sounds good right now. Why is that?

The other thing is that I actually have a little bit of money, so if I started actually starving I could just ditch this whole thing and go to Los Betos. People on the brink of poverty don't have that option, and it takes a ton of work and good fortune to work a life back up to the point of financial well being. It's a strange scary feeling and I'm only feeling this in a tangential way for a limited amount of time. It makes me want to hug my parents for struggling their way out of poverty. It makes me want to give every single mom or dad a money order for $50,000 and a handwritten apology from Mitt Romney and anyone who supports him. I'm serious. Or hypoglycemic.

So, as you can tell, this little jaunt through living on SNAP benefits has already driven me crazy and bent my mind so terribly that I can't stop writing run-on sentences about the most miniscule understanding of what it must be like to be living in poverty today. I thought I understood, but I didn't.

Now, if anybody needs me, I'll be having some more lentils and rice. If beer were in my budget right now, I would purchase as much of it as humanly possible. What have I become?