Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 for a business license | Washington Examiner

Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 for a business license | Washington Examiner

I can understand governments wanting to access potential revenue streams whenever and wherever possible, but is it too much to ask them to exercise some common sense in the process? Wait, sorry, forgot for a moment that I was talking about a government operation.

Personal blogs are not money generators, even if they have adds on the page. If they make any money at all from those adds it might be enough to pay for services, but even that is usually a stretch.

Professional blogs however have the potential to be money generators, and are often treated as newspaper editorial columns. Blogs like that are typically part of a larger network (Gawker Media anyone), and the bloggers are treated as journalists by the network, and are even typically paid for their contributions. Their legal status as journalists is currently under examination, and while many treat them as journalists and feel that they should be protected by the same laws that protect journalists, their legal status as such is far from conclusive.

Is it right for a government to charge a blogger for a business license? I think that before they can do that they need to legally classify a blog as a business, therefore giving them the legal groundwork to actually tax it as a business. Then there is the additional consideration of whether or not the blog has to be hosted on local servers to qualify as a business in the community attempting to tax it. If the host server is in another state, would it still count as a local business, or would it be considered a business in the state where the host server is housed? Lots of questions that really should be addressed before taxation is rolled out.

I suspect that before long we will see a group such as the Internet Freedom Foundation stepping in to offer to fight for the rights of these bloggers, and force the city to back off. Until then...we shall have to see.

Homebirth: conflict escalates over midwives scope of practice in Oregon | OregonLive.com « …Geoffrie, A Work In Progress

Homebirth: conflict escalates over midwives scope of practice in Oregon | OregonLive.com « …Geoffrie, A Work In Progress

Posting link to primary blog as I am too lazy right now to copy and paste the content of the post.

Red Robin Restaurant Policy

Update (06/24/10): The mother referenced in this post now has her story up on her blog. Please wander over to get the story from the source.

Recently a very dear friend of mine went out for a date with her husband to a local to them Red Robin in Kennewick, WA. She is a breastfeeding mother with an infant who has respiratory problems. During the course of their meal the child was hungry so she fed the child. As they were seated in a booth this was a bit more difficult than it would have been had they been seated at a table with chairs, but she managed to do so in as discreet a fashion as possible under the circumstances. Unfortunately this was not sufficient for some of the other patrons, and the manager, responding to complaints, asked her to cover up while feeding her child. In the state of Washington this is against the law, and when the manager was advised of this he persisted in asking her to cover up. Rather than causing more of a scene the family decided to pay their bill and leave, cutting their evening short. She contacted the company to lodge a complaint about this situation, but the response that she received was less than satisfying, with the regional manager essentially stating that they could not be responsible for every law in every state, and they do not expect their managers to be aware of these laws either. Not exactly the best business practice that I have ever heard about, and certainly a risky approach when it comes to human rights laws.

My wife and I have decided that we will no longer patronize Red Robin because of this incident, and we have both lodged complaints with the company through their customer feedback page.

I will readily admit that I am not completely up to speed on issues around this topic as my primary area of interest lies in other areas. However, this is a very important issue to my wife, therefore making it an important issue in my family. Another friend has written a fantastic educational post about the issue, and she has pointed out relevant laws pertaining to this issue. Please wander over and read the post. You will find yourself enlightened, and potentially shocked at the details of the incident referenced above that I chose to not include here myself.

In case you are interested, following is the letter that I sent to Red Robin about this incident:

I am disturbed by the actions of one of your managers, and his willful violation of state human rights laws. The incident in question was that of a mother discretely feeding her child at the table. Discretely breastfeeding her child. The manager approached this mother and asked her to cover up while feeding her child. The husband spoke up, advising the manager of their state protected right to feed the child, and that should have been the end of the matter. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and in the end, the family left the establishment rather than cause a scene.

The mother contacted your company and the regional manager overseeing this establishment contacted her later that day about the incident. Apparently the regional manager felt that the store managers were not responsible for knowing local laws, and she did not feel that it was important for her, the manager overseeing the region in question, to know the laws that would have an impact upon the businesses under her guidance.

One simple question here: Since when have those conducting business in any location not been required to familiarize themselves with the laws that directly influence their business? This has always been a standard business practice in my experience, and certain laws and regulations are part of any business owner or manager's knowledge base. These laws are typically employment laws, public health and cleanliness regulations (especially in a food service industry), and hazardous material management guidelines.

I recognize that in a national organization, it can be difficult to stay abreast of local laws, but that is part of why a national organization has regional offices or managers. They are better positioned to be up to date on laws and regulations that affect the facilities under their leadership, and it is their responsibility to ensure that those working under them are aware of these laws and regulations. To not do so is truly a dramatic oversight that can lead to dangerous precedent and negligence.

Red Robin has been an eating establishment of choice for my family and me for a long time. I have some truly powerful memories of birthdays spent in your restaurants. I had hoped to pass these opportunities down to my own children, but in light of this act of willful ignorance, I have decided that I will withdraw my support of your establishments, and I will encourage my family and friends to do the same unless I see some minor, but relevant changes to your organization.

I understand that strategically the loss of business of my family may not be a major loss, but consider the trickle-down impact. Look at statistics regarding the impact a single dissatisfied customer can have. Now factor in that this incident has reached the awareness of roughly 1,000 potential customers nationwide, and the story is being actively spread.

What changes would encourage me to reconsider my position and return to a restaurant chain that I have frequented happily for years? Three simple things would cause me to reconsider. First, if your organization has internal guidelines regarding breastfeeding mothers and how to handle complaints of patrons about a mother breastfeeding their child I encourage you to review these guidelines on a state-by-state basis to ensure that your guidelines are not actually violating local laws. There are some very real business risk reasons to follow through on this particular item. Second, I would also encourage you to post your policy in an easily accessible location so that all mothers who may be nursing their child can read your policy and decide for themselves whether they are comfortable with your policy. Third, a public and sincere apology to the mother in question. I understand that a less than sincere apology and offer of bribe in the form of a gift card has already been tendered. Make her feel like you as an organization really are sorry that she felt that her only course of action was to leave your restaurant.

These are not difficult or particularly onerous requests and they are certainly not difficult for an organization of your size to implement. Consider the alternative of not updating policies to comply with local laws. Potential lawsuits and loss of business are a strong motive for any business to stay on top of issues like this.

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

It has been so long since I have taken time to maintain a blog that I find myself wondering just where to start. I suppose the best place to start is a brief recap of recent events.

These last few months have been...chaotic. In a nutshell the following events have shaped the last few months of my life:

• I found a wonderful woman who agreed to be my wife.
• I married this wonderful woman.
• I learned that I was going to be a father.
  
• I learned that the surgery I had hoped to avoid was finally necessary, and I underwent aortic valve replacement surgery.
• Ollie, my pet and constant companion of the last several years had to be put to sleep.

As you can see, there is a mix of both good and bad in all of this. I would love to focus on the one thing that is the primary focus of my life right now, but every one of these is a primary focus, so that option really isn't open. So instead I must choose one, and I suppose the surgery is as good a place as any to start.

I don't care how routine the doctors say heart surgery is, it is still major surgery, and it takes a lot out of the patient. I went to the hospital afraid that I wouldn't make it, or that I wouldn't be able to handle the pain. The greatest fear was that I would lose my life on the operating table, but when faced with certain death if I didn't have the surgery...well, surgery was the better option, and at least I had good insurance so the expense wouldn't be too bad.

For those who are not familiar with what happens, they have to literally crack open your ribcage to get to your heart. Ironically this is the most traumatic point for me. Sure they went in and replaced a heart valve with an artificial valve, but that actually heals fairly quickly in the grand scheme of things. Waiting for my ribcage to heal is another matter, and is a constant source of pain in my life right now. Simple things like being able to sleep on my stomach are impossible right now. Correction, I could certainly try sleeping on my stomach, but the pain from compressing my ribcage would certainly convince me that it isn't the best idea. Waiting for the bones to heal is...frustrating, and is the primary limiter on what I can do on a daily basis.

They tell you long before the surgery that you will tire easily, and will be weak while recovering. What they downplay is just how weak you will be, and how easily you will tire. Here I am, 7 weeks after the surgery, and a 4 hour work day sitting in front of a computer exhausts me. Me! The person who could put in a 10+ hour day at work, and then come home and play computer games for a few more hours. Now I find that after 4 hours at work I need a nap, and most of the time the last thing I want to do is play a game or even sit at the computer.

Even the littlest things like talking to a friend on the phone can be taxing!

The good news is that while tiring, the more I do the better I feel. It is rather like going to the gym and starting to work out on a regular basis, just on a far smaller scale. Those first few times you are so exhausted that you can't imagine doing it again, but you go ahead and try again. Eventually it becomes routine, and you aren't as tired as you were to start. Better, you find that you can do more, and the more you do the more you find you can do. The same applies here, but in a more limited sense.

So what do I do? I try to do more. I try to not sit at my desk all the time I am at the office, and make it a point to get up and walk about at least once an hour. Sure I could call my co-workers halfway across the building to see how they are doing on something that they have been helping me with, or I could email them, but instead I get to me feet and walk over. This gets me some much needed exercise, and it is exercise at a level that I can handle at this point in my recovery. It also lets me spend some face to face time with the people I work with, and I find that if they talk to me face to face they are more energetic about finishing the task.

I still tire easily, but I am happy to find that I can do more without getting tired as fast, and I have dreams of being able to get out in the woods and going for multi-mile hikes again as the weather gets nicer. I miss being able to do that, and now I have somebody to enjoy those hikes with me. Sure, we can't tackle some of the more difficult hikes now that she is pregnant, but there are plenty of low impact trails that we can hike, and this is the perfect country for a wide variety of hiking options, even within the city.

Speaking of tiring easily...it seems that I have reached that point. My wife has already gone to bed, and I am thinking that perhaps I should follow her...