January 28, 2015
Issue 1566
Phoenix poet adopts hiphop to reach the masses State University campus and recently switched to hip-hop after he realized that it’s the mass language of young people today. He says he wants to bridge the gap between NAS or Tupac Shakur and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or William Cullen Bryant because “they all have something to say.”
Myrlin Hepworth
OBSERVER STAFF PHOENIX -- Hardly anyone builds a career the way Phoenix’s Myrlin Hepworth is going about it, but it seems to be working. He started out performing street poetry near the Arizona
Inside Mormon Church: Let’s make a deal on LGBT antidiscrimination Page 13
Trans immigrant released from Eloy Page 5
Oklahoma stampedes ahead of Arizona, Florida as No. 1 anti-gay acorn patch Page 4
Serving homeless people in Tucson Page 10 Nine of Tucson’s curiously queer installations Page 15
Alabama’s marriage equality placed on hold for two weeks Page 11
More than 300 people -- basically a capacity crowd -- reportedly bought tickets to his first major performance earlier this month at Phoenix’s Crescent Ballroom. That’s considered exceptional for a local act. According to Hepworth’s blog about that night, he’s been doing hip-hop publicly for barely Continued on page 6
Phoenix appeals court vacates Monica Jones’ prostitution conviction PHOENIX -- A court of appeals in Phoenix declared a mistrial Monday and vacated sex-worker activist Monica Jones’ November conviction under Phoenix’s “manifesting prostitution” statute. The appeals court ordered a new trial, but it’s unclear whether prosecutors will reopen the case. “Manifesting prostitution” is defined in the statute to include using sexual language in public. Jones never denied doing that; both she and the arresting officer testified at the trial that she accepted a ride from the officer and there was sexually suggestive talk, but they differed on which one initiated those things. Since Jones does have a prostitution conviction from previous years, the trial judge assumed Jones was lying in order to avoid the 30-day jail term for a second offense -which would have stopped her studies at Arizona State University.
Google apologizes for calling gay people ‘pansies,’ ‘poofs’ and ‘homosexualists’ QUEERTY -- Google is in trouble with the gays again. This time for offering offensive suggestions for the word “gay” on its translation tool. Google Translate works sort of like a thesaurus. A person types in a word and the software pulls up suggested translations for that word. It’s a handy little tool, especially for high school students struggling with their French homework. However, a number of users have noticed that the software gives a number of offensive homophobic terms when trying to translate the word “gay.” Some of the terms include poof, queen, faggot, and fag, as well as fairy, queen, sodomite, pansy boy, and homosexualist.
Naturally, an online petition was created demanding Google remove all antigay words from its Google Translate software. So far, the petition has garnered more than 50,000 signatures from homosexualists and their allies.
Republican who wanted Grijalva excommunicated gets state party post OBSERVER STAFF
high school, Manny Herrera.
TUCSON -- Former congressional candidate Gabby Saucedo-Mercer of Tucson was elected second vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party over the weekend.
That set off a firestorm from Herrera’s relatives, who questioned why SaucedoMercer was even at the funeral of someone she didn’t actually know, let alone turning it into a political event.
Before losing to Rep. Raul Grijalva by 20 points in 2012, Saucedo-Mercer became more famous for her outrageous statements than for her policy or campaign knowledge. Last year, she went even further by suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church should excommunicate Grijalva after she saw him taking communion at the funeral of his friend since
Herrera’s nephew, Richard, responded on social media: “You are a disgusting human being, Gabriela. You had no right to attend my uncle’s funeral, which you arrived late to. And now you are trying to score political points by passing judgment on your opponent’s religious practice, which should be between him and God. Continued on page 11
Gabriela Saucedo-Mercer speaking at a Tucson Tea Party rally.
Saudi Arabia no ally of any democracy, no matter what the U.S. claims By R.D. Smith GUEST COLUMNIST For more than half a century, the American people have endured their government referring to the Saudi Arabian government as a great ally.
The appeals court ruled that presuming someone guilty doesn’t make it so. The courts did not rule on a constitutional challenge to the Phoenix statute brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
A spokesperson for the tech giant apologized for the most recent mishap, saying: “As soon as we were informed that some of our translations for certain terms were serving inappropriate results, we immediately began working to fix the issue.”
It’s a great ally of U.S. oil companies, but a pernicious enemy to democracy.
Raif Badawi, who started the “Free Saudi Liberals” website, was sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes. [Facebook]
Raif Badawi is a young blogger sentenced earlier this Continued on page 12