Julie Murphy is from Oregon City. She was inspired to become an entrepreneur by one of her favorite television shows. She and her mother traveled up to Portland, to set up shop in a more lucrative location — Alberta Street. As is often the case, Julie was shut down by the authorities and their “heavy handed regulations.”
The authorization in question is a $120 temporary restaurant license. The business in question is a lemonade stand. Julie Murphy is seven years old.
Even before her daughter had finished making the first batch of lemonade, a man walked up to buy a 50-cent cup.
“They wanted to support a little 7-year-old to earn a little extra summer loot,” she said. “People know what’s going on.”
Even so, Julie was careful about making the lemonade, cleaning her hands with hand sanitizer, using a scoop for the bagged ice and keeping everything covered when it wasn’t in use, Fife said.
Everything was going great for Julie and her mom . . . until the authorities showed up.
After 20 minutes, a “lady with a clipboard” came over and asked for their license. When Fife explained they didn’t have one, the woman told them they would need to leave or possibly face a $500 fine.
Surprised, Fife started to pack up. The people staffing the booths next to them encouraged the two to stay, telling them the inspectors had no right to kick them out of the neighborhood gathering. They also suggested that they give away the lemonade and accept donations instead and one of them made an announcement to the crowd to support the lemonade stand.
That’s when business really picked up — and two inspectors came back, Fife said. Julie started crying, while her mother packed up and others confronted the inspectors. “It was a very big scene,” Fife said.
Technically, any lemonade stand — even one on your front lawn — must be licensed under state law, said Eric Pippert, the food-borne illness prevention program manager for the state’s public health division. But county inspectors are unlikely to go after kids selling lemonade on their front lawn unless, he conceded, their front lawn happens to be on Alberta Street during Last Thursday.
If Lemonade Stand taught me anything, it was the basics of capitalism and entrepreneurship. I learned how to build a business from scratch, keep track of inventory and finances, and understand what kept me afloat. I even opened a lemonade stand in my apartment complex in Hong Kong at age eight, to see what all the fuss is about.
While safety concerns are legitimate, this was a responsible seven-year-old with her mother on hand. Laws are laws, and health regulations are realistic, but . . . seriously Oregon?
I leave you with this, from Julie Murphy’s mother:
While Fife said she does see the need for some food safety regulation, she thinks the county went too far in trying to control events as unstructured as Last Thursday.
“As far as Last Thursday is concerned, people know when they are coming there that it’s more or less a free-for-all,” she said. “It’s gotten to the point where they need to be in all of our decisions. They don’t trust us to make good choices on our own.”
So I was going to do a post bout the Afghan soldier evacuation and the $500 million in planned aid to Pakistan. Then I saw this, a fan made video turned advertisement on Apple’s website touting another use for their titular iPad.
Ignoring the fact that the iPad is pretty much a glorified, expanded iPhone–a less sophisticated computer with a touch screen–this ad takes the cake in Apple consumer pretentiousness.
Effectively touting how you can use velcro to suspend an iPad anywhere in the home/car/work, the ad re-makes the wheel when you remember that it’s just as easy to prop the damn thing up without needing to place velcro all over the house.
The highlight of the video comes as a user places the gizmo on velcro placed on the wall. Not only would two black bars look fucking ugly on the wall when it’s not covered, but this idiot is using the iPad as a picture frame.
Total: $304 and some ugly ass black stripe on the wall
I enjoy new technology, I really do. But the way this fucking trinket is hyped is goddamn deplorable. There’s nothing new or interesting to see, folks. Move along, move along.
His name is Ma Yaohai. He is a slim 53 old man with glasses and lives with his mother in China. Sounds like a dork right? Wrong. Professional bad ass in my opinion. Why you may ask? On Thursday, Ma got sentenced to jail for three and a half years for something most of us could only dream of…. ORGIES!!
That’s Right! This guy…..
IS A LOVE MACHINE!
Doesn’t look like it, but this guy has planned and taken part in 18 orgies and has even created his own internet chat room for swingers. What I really love about Ma, is that during this whole ordeal he constantly told the Chinese government to suck on his love whistle, even blurting out in his own trial, “How can I disturb social order? What happens in my house is a private matter.”
For those of you in the uninformed proletariat, China has for decades tried to manage and control the population. Going so far as to create “moral laws” aimed at preventing the perversion of their citizens. The law the Chinese government is prosecuting Ma under is a leftover law at preventing people from having sex outside of marriage, specifically against “Hooliganism.” Which of course made me giggle, because my mom used to call me a hooligan back in middle school.
Mr. Ma plans on fighting the ruling with as much rigor and fervor as he takes into one of his orgies and I for one am rooting for him. What someone does inside the privacy of their own home is no ones business but there own, even if it is in a two bedroom house with your Alzheimer inflicted mother. (as in the case of Mr. Ma, Weird right?) So in support of Mr. Ma, I’m asking everyone to go out and do something perverted that would piss of the Chinese government. Have an orgy, Watch some porn, Threesome, four-some, dropping goos in public. Hell, I’ll even count just having sex with someone you care about as support for Mr. Ma.
First of all, let me say that today’s Ol’ Dirty is full of gems. I suggest you pick up a copy.
I’m here today, however, to talk to you about one of the most absurd acts of protest I’ve ever heard. Last night’s ASUO Senate meeting did not carry on as planned, due to lack of quorum (to be a legitimate voting body, the ASUO Senate needs two thirds of its members present, or 13 people). They were planning on having exactly quorum, until Sen. Jairo Castañeda failed to show up without notification. His reason? I’ll let Tomchak’s article speak for itself:
Castaneda said his absence was a deliberate attempt to make a statement about an incident at the April 28 Senate meeting.
There, the Senate gave the club women’s lacrosse team funding to go to its national championship in Scottsdale, Ariz. While voting for the funding, Sen. Ben Fisher told members of the team to “bring your birth certificates,” a reference to Arizona’s recently passed immigration law, which critics have said will lead to racial profiling.
“I believe that was highly disrespectful,” Castaneda said after the comment, at which many senators and audience members laughed.
Fisher said the comment was intended as a joke criticizing the Arizona law, which he, like Castaneda, opposes.
“The whole reason for me not going to tonight’s Senate meeting was not Fisher,” Castaneda said. “It was the climate that allows things like this to be said.”
The best part of all of this is the only group who had time constraints on receiving money was the Multicultural Center, a group largely considered to be the greatest advocate for marginalized communities:
The only group seeking funding whose members said it needs the money before the Senate’s next meeting was the Multicultural Center, looking to pay for two speakers coming May 12 and 13. [Senate President Nick] Gower told the MCC’s representatives the Senate would hold a special meeting for them if necessary.
“Unfortunately, a few senators who don’t want to represent their constituents are the reason we don’t have quorum tonight,” Gower said.
Sen. Gower really hit the nail on the head there. You want to talk about respect, Sen. Castañeda? Not allowing a public meeting to go on as scheduled and postponing potential funding for at least seven student groups is, to quote Sen. Ben Fisher, “stupid,” as well as one of the most asinine forms of protest I’ve heard of. You are an ASUO Senator, and it is your job to show up to your meetings and dole out student money. So do your job, or get the fuck out.
P.S. I saw you last night at the bars while you were supposed to be serving the student body. Real classy.
According to Cimmeron Gillespie, who I just ran into in the hallway, the Pacifica Forum is no longer meeting at the downtown Baker Center. They will be having their next meeting this Friday at Agate Hall on 18th and Agate – namely, on campus.
Police have released the 911 call from Max Wolfard of SAE. My favorite part is the girl in the background when she finds out the laptop was stolen by Masoli. Below is the video from Downtown Eugene News.
Central Falls School Superintendent Frances Gallo fired a total of 94 teachers, administrators and assistants on Feb. 22 because of poor student performance.
With a graduation rate of less than 50 percent and abysmal standardized testing scores, Gallo implemented the “turnaround” model of reform or, the removal of all staff.
The firings come after the teachers’ union rejected six conditions Gallo presented to improve the school. Those conditions were: extending the school day by 25 minutes, requiring teachers to tutor students weekly for one hour before or after school, eating lunch with students once a week, undergoing more rigorous evaluations, meeting once a week for 90 minutes to discuss education and planning, and attending two weeks of paid professional development in the summer.
Other than the professional development, extra compensation did not accompany the proposed conditions.
A few issues ago I wrote a “fake news story” about the Ol’ Dirty filling their news editor position with an orangutan named Pat. During a conversation with the Emerald’s business manager Kathy Carbone, she complimented me on the story as well as asked me, “It’s funny, but can you just write that? Or is there some kind of rules against writing fake, ridiculous quotes?” I told Kathy that anyone who thinks a chimp getting hired at a school paper is real was not worth my time. We never received any complaints.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the Vancouver Voice, ran by former OC editor-in-chief Ossie Bladine. In a section titled “Not Real News” they ran a fake story about a local business considering implementing casino games for children as part of their business model. Just wait, it gets better.
Apparently a local citizen called the Washington State Gambling Commission and the business is now under investigation. Now, I can understand Ossie’s problem of readers’ lazy eyes — I have read links to this very blog (mostly from Tea Party people who hate me) saying that “there’s not even an author to this blog!” when clearly, my name is directly under the title.
What is more confusing, however, is how on Earth anyone could think that a news organization like the Voice would run a straight news story about a children’s gambling establishment with no commentary or editorial substance. Is the generation gap becoming so large that The Onion is becoming a dividing line?
This is not the first time this year the Voice has had such confusion over a clearly labeled and clearly satirical article. In their Jan. 21 issue, the Voice ran a story about The Columbian changing its name to The Fort Vancouver Tribune. Apparently this caused some mental anguish for their readers, and Ossie had to formulate a very obvious, simply-worded note for his slower readers that read, We’d like to state that this was not quite real news–as in, we made it up.”
In any case Ossie said, “From an outsider’s view, this is pretty funny. But for Big Al’s, a locally owned business that works hard to keep a family friendly image, not so funny.” But Ossie’s wrong, isn’t he? It’s not funny.
Now that the sun has started to shine, it inevitably means that Zach Vishanoff will break out his easel and get to work painting Eugene in bloom. As such, the state of Oregon will be requiring a new conspiracy theorist to take his place. Enter Professor John Hall of Portland State.
In an insane story, Hall has accused one of his students — a former Israeli Defense Forces member and contracted mercenary — of being an agent provocateur and an FBI informant.
It started when Zachary Bucharest brought a deconstructed and firing pin-less AR-15 to class for a presentation in November. After months of interaction with Bucharest, Professor Hall had decided he was dangerous to the PSU community. In January, Hall called Bucharest out during a class session, and presented a letter he’d written to the local FBI office.
In the letter, Hall makes several cliche, paranoid references like “As you would [already] know…” The story seemingly tangles itself considering Hall took a campus safety officer to class with him to “pat down” Bucharest — a violation of his privacy — to look for a gun (lets not forget OUS/PSU rules that violate the 2nd Amendment either).
As a result, Hall has been suspended with pay pending investigation into the matter. There are so many directions to go with this story, so much input it’s hard to know where to start. For starters, Bucharest brought an AR-15 to campus, violating PSU’s “rules” against firearms — a sticky situation in itself.
Then comes the attack by Hall, asking a campus officer to do an illegal search of Bucharest. Combine that with the fact that a tenured professor going off about a secret FBI informant in his midst is going to seem a little batshit crazy (even if he did somehow hit the secret hotspot).
For Christ’s sake, even if Bucharest is an FBI informant, what is Hall expecting with that letter? I’ll save you the long, rambling read but the professor ends his letter with a warning to the FBI that he will, “Inform my students’ parents of this likely threat.” Was Hall expecting the FBI to come out and say, “Wow. You really got us, John. We tried to slip it past you but you were too on the ball. Great job!”
This may be serious business a little farther north, but from where I’m sitting this is just plain funny.
As though the issue of hate speech on campus hasn’t been covered enough.
ASUCSD president Utsav Gupta pulled funding to 33 campus media outlets on February 20, following coinciding with perfectly with the dying Pacifica Forum outrage.
Apparently, “Jigaboo Jones,” a local radio shock-jock, organized a party he called the “Compton Cookout” with the help of several fraternity members. Jones, in his own off-color way of celebrating Black History Month, used the ghetto for the party’s theme. The facebook ad encouraged attendees to dress ghetto style, telling men to roll with their “Jersey’s, stuntin’ up in ya White T” and women to “have short, nappy hair.” No fraternity houses hosted the party, although several members of the UCSD Greek community helped organize it.
Days after the party, outrage of the offensive stereotypes swept UCSD. And in politics, you cry to state litigators instead of mom and dad. Legislative pressure prompted UCSD authorities to launch an “aggressive investigation” (Why hello, Joe McCarthy) of the students involved in promoting the party.
UCSD publication “The Koala,” known for patently racist and provocative content, aired a public statement on SRTV objecting to the investigations. The statement used the words the words “ungrateful n—-rs” among other racial slurs, according to Adam Kissel of FIRE.
Last night saw the Winter Olympics come to an end. America won the overall medal count and host country Canada won the most gold medals. One victory celebration in general caused an uproar. The Canadian women’s hockey celebrated their gold medal victory by smoking cigars and drinking beer.
The International Olympic Committee was not pleased with the celebration and called in the international hockey committee and the Canadian Olympic International to inform them they will be investigating the situation. The biggest problem with the celebration according to media outlets is that 18 year old Marie Philip Poulin was photographed drinking beer, 19 is the legal drinking age in British Columbia.
Stories like this just prove that American media has become too sensitive. Poulin scored the only two goals in the gold medal game. She spends most of her time training in Alberta where the drinking age is 18. Yes, there are different “states” in Canada, they are called provinces or territories, for all the geographically ignorant. The team won the biggest game of their careers and achieved the highest level of success in women’s hockey. Let them celebrate with some beer. They did not drink or smoke while spectators were in the arena, give them a break.
If a 18 year old wants to drink a Molson after winning an Olympic gold medal I say let them drink up. It’s an amazing accomplishment that many strive for their whole lives. If that person score the only two goals in the gold medal game, there should be people lining up to buy her a drink. This was a goal oriented successful young woman (pun intended) celebrating with her teammates , not some high school drop out getting drunk by the train tracks.
There was a letter to the editor in Monday’s Emerald signed by members of the Climate Justice League (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Heart!) denouncing the ACFC’s recent decision not to fund OSPIRG. In part, the letter said:
“Although OSPIRG provided all of the materials and information the committee asked for, ACFC never clearly articulated a reason to not fund OSPIRG, except a vague sense of uncertainty.”
Of course, those who have read anything about the ACFC’s decision understand that the ACFC clearly outlined why they decided not to fund OSPIRG. Even more surprising is that many of the signers of the letter — including Sen. Jeremy Blanchard — attended the meeting and heard the ACFC’s reasons in person. A response was printed yesterday, signed by ASUO Senate President Nick Gower and Sen. Demic Tipitino (in addition to many others, including myself) that said:
“The problems with OSPIRG were clearly articulated, and they have been for years. OSPIRG sends student money off campus to pay non-students to lobby for issues that have little relation to the University of Oregon campus. Additionally, OSPIRG’s system is structured in a manner that partial funding would make the organization ineffective and an even greater waste of student dollars.”
Do the Planeteers need this outlined again? Let’s go “bulletpoints” on this one, shall we?
The fifth annual zombie walk was held on Valentines Day, described as a general screw you to the cliches of the Hallmark Holiday. Bloody festivities started at Pioneer Cemetery, where the organizer laid down the rules, including “Don’t bite anyone, don’t get in the way of traffic, and don’t overcrowd the bars.”
After waiting roughly an hour for stragglers, the horde began its grisly walk to Taylors and the festivities began. If a venue was at capacity, the almost-undead moved on to the next. Walking dead were seen at Diablo’s, John Henry’s, and the Horse Head in addition to the bars around campus.
“Bar’s love us,” remarked a participant, her mouth caked with fake blood made from starch and food coloring. Indeed, Diablo’s had gone out of its way to accommodate the walking dead with skeleton themed decor and DJ’s that played Thriller.
But all good things must end, and by the time the horde left Diablo’s, it had fractured into smaller cells, which quickly split off to go to their own pubs. See all the gruesome action below.
Costumes ranged from super elaborate to smeared blood.
Zombies drink red ales, because red is also the color of blood.
A number of zombie hunters also hit the bars on sunday, seen here delivering a coup de grâce.
