There's a site called TweetCongress.org which collects the feeds of all the Twitter-using U.S. House and Senate members.
However, if you're thinking it might be a great idea to collect the Twitter feeds of members of the Arizona Legislature, you might want to consider that only 27 percent of our state lawmakers have accounts—the irony being that the more accessible the lawmaker, the less likely he/she is to have a Twitter account. Thirty-three percent of federal Congress members are on Twitter.
I'll avoid the obvious joke about how many Twits there are in the Legislature, but here's how it breaks down: Coming in at a whopping four senators out of 30, the Arizona Senate has a Twitter-per-member rate of about 13 percent. The good news: Two of those senators (Frank Antenori and Al Melvin) represent the Tucson area. It's also interesting to note that the real Twitter feed of Lake Havasu City's Ron Gould has fewer followers than a parody feed @NOTRonGould, which highlights "facts" about Gould's mustache.
The House of Representatives fared better: 21 of 60 state representatives (35 percent) have Twitter feeds that are mostly active. (Several Twitter accounts share names with state legislators, but these Twitter accounts don't include pictures, tweets or anything that could positively link them to lawmakers. In short, if these are indeed lawmakers' accounts, they signed up for an account and stopped there. Fill in your own joke here.)
See @TucsonWeekly to follow a list of all the state legislators we found—and drop us a line if we somehow missed any.
BEST OF WWW
This week's cover story concerns the F-35 fighter jet, which could find a home in Tucson. The problem: The jet is loud. How loud? In a video at TucsonWeeklyTV.com, we share a comparison between the F-35, the F-15 and the F-16. The audio was recorded at Eglin Air Force Base near Valparaiso, Fla., and was recorded in a continuous clip, with the only editing being done for time. You'll hear two sounds regarding the F-35: The first is a gear-up, touch-and-go pass, and the second is an actual landing. We recommend turning your speakers all the way up, putting the video on repeat, and leaving the room so your co-workers can get the full effect.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
"I completely disagree with (another commenter's) statement that these 'would-be artists' show no talent in their art. Graffiti artists use an immense amount of talent and creativity to produce such works of art. They show far more creativity and talent than Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol had painting techniques down, but was majorly lacking in creativity and imagination. He took an existing image such as a soup can or Elvis Presley and simply filled it in. ... Don't get me wrong; not all graffiti is art. Graffiti artists are the ones doing murals and pieces, not the ones just spraying their gang name around. The majority of graffiti art is unseen by the public, down in the tunnels and washes of our fine city. ... Just because Graffiti is illegal does not disqualify it from being art."
—TucsonWeekly.com user "Jordan Franklin" in response to our Aug. 27, 2009, Guest Commentary, regarding graffiti
THE WEEK ON THE RANGE
Regarding politics, we gave you updates on the McCain vs. Hayworth vs. people-with-less-of-a-chance U.S. Senate race; shared what a former Reagan administration official thinks of earmarks; and brought you the latest poll numbers regarding the public's support for the state sales-tax-increase measure.
You heard about Access Tucson coming back, and about Arizona State University's embarrassing mistake of leaving an important word off of a promotional billboard.
The Chow desk told you about O'Hungry's, which is coming to Main Gate Square.
In the Books department, we introduced a new feature on local authors called Writer's Block, with a look at George Hathaway Gardiner's new collection, On the Winds of Time. We shared trailers for upcoming literature mash-ups Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
On the science front, we brought you more Mars pics from the HiRISE camera, and shared a video of a Mars fly-by made using data from the camera that anyone can download.
In Artistic Range, we featured Barbara Cowlin (Tohono Chul Park), Weekly contributor David Kish (Tucson International Airport) and David F. Brown (Temple Gallery), among others.
