A love letter to a less shiny city, and the teenagers, insomniacs,
and eccentrics who populated it. by Ben Coleman

It was December 25, 2013, and everyone in the gay steakhouse was getting amiably drunk.

It was one of those Portland winters that was cold and wet and absolutely miserable to be out in, and I had to work. But before that I was going to pre-spend my holiday pay on a fancy dinner—or at least the fanciest dinner I could afford working the graveyard shift for a bit more than minimum wage. Starky’s was what you’d affectionately call an “establishment.” It wasn’t a dive, but it was dive-adjacent: Formica tables, napkins for coasters, stately framed prints of drag queens and bodybuilders on the peach pink walls. In the summer they ran a raunchy charity car wash you could hear from blocks away. In the fall and spring, the iron-fenced patio always had a handful of elegant old swains sipping cocktails while they watched the world go by. In the winter they were open on Christmas Eve.

People who go to bars on major holidays often exist on the margins of society. Drunks, malcontents, lost souls estranged from religion or tradition, those who have no family or are burdened by what family they have. And folks who just can’t afford not to work. I didn’t take an inventory of my fellow travelers, but I’m sure there was the usual mix of those usual suspects, along with the clientele of a relaxed neighborhood gay bar: pretty Midwesterners with sad eyes, pairs of middle-aged husbands who didn’t want to cook, the aforementioned swains. Some were socializing like it was an office holiday party, others were lost in thought as we studied our mashed potatoes for clues to the human condition as freezing rain whipped against the windows. I’d like to say that “Fairytale of New York” came on the jukebox and we all got misty and sang along, but I suspect if anyone made a move to change the Britney Spears music video on the wall TV there’d have been a riot. But I still left feeling better about the world.

“Old Portland” is a moving target, but it’s not ephemeral. It began when you found somewhere in this city that welcomed you and ended when it was torn down to make way for a condo. Townies my age wax rhapsodic about all-ages music venues like La Luna and Meow Meow, about the Church of Elvis, the terrible service at The Roxy, stiff drinks at Club 21, late night LAN parties at Backspace. We like to talk about how you could smoke in bars, even though most of us have long since quit. But previous generations had their own haunts and hollows: jazz clubs and punk houses that lived and died and exist now only in memory. It’s not like they sold tickets to Old Portland and we’ve got the stubs in a shoebox somewhere.

What I suspect we’re all nostalgic for is the feeling, however subjective, that the margins of society were a bit wider, and more people could afford to exist in them. That Portland was not a precision machine. It had looser tolerances than today. There were poorly-optimized businesses in the service of teenagers, insomniacs, artists, and eccentrics, alongside the usual cadre of office workers and serious restaurateurs that all cities need to function. When those places went away they were rarely replaced. Willamette Week’s Aaron Mesh once wrote, “Every generation gets the ruining of Portland it deserves,” and it’s as true today as it was in 2015 when they tore down Starky’s to make way for the 46 modern apartment units that sit there now.

Cities change and culture shifts. Style moves from hard forms to soft, sarcasm makes way for sincerity, the rebels sell out and so on. But these cycles aren’t arbitrary. They are shaped by market forces and public policy. Coffee shops used to have couches so that people would hang out in them, fill those spaces with the sounds of awkward first dates and someone scribbling the first chapter of a terrible novel. Coffee shops aren’t soft anymore. They’re full of angular, industrial surfaces, because to make rent this month they need several hundred people to buy eight dollar macchiatos and fuck off somewhere else.

The Portland of today is shinier than the Portland of my youth. There are luxury retailers and well-moisturized influencers and futuristic cube houses with two-Cybertruck garages. Presumably this was done because the hippie granola markets and communist bookstores and neighborhood dives that were already here don’t pull the property taxes needed to fund a proper 21st Century metropolis. Our city fathers promised us prosperity if we’d only sacrifice a couple of eyesores on the altar of urban renewal and mixed-use development. It’s a bargain many willingly made, perhaps believing that for once in human history the rising tide would lift all boats. The bodies of the displaced lying in our streets seem to say otherwise.

Someday this city will be a vast and uniform sea of tasteful residential buildings named after the ugly and interesting places they replaced: the needle parks we walked past on the way to school, the cart pods where you could get a pretty good gyro, bars like Starky’s where neighbors gathered on holidays in defiance of the shitty weather. They’ll have large matte photos in the lobby of musicians who couldn’t afford to live there and gig work security guards to shoo away any indigents who get close to the property line. That’s progress, I suppose.

We miss Old Portland not because it was cheaper or somehow more authentic, but because of the people it once accommodated. We miss the sense of community that animated those old, demolished buildings, that warmed them in the way that only old buildings full of people talking can be warm. Every day we’re tested, and no more so than during the holidays, by how we welcome the strangers in our midst. I was a stranger once and found welcome in a neighborhood bar that’s not there anymore. I hope it can be found again somewhere new.

Companies selling dairy products in Oregon must understand whether they have obligations under the EPR law.

Fantasia Fairy by Starlite Disney is a(n) Artist Proof. The Edition is Limited to Artist Proof No 6 of 125 pcs

How did the world and life come into being in all its diversity, what is the plan of the supernatural powers that determine destiny, what are the causes of evil, illness and death, and of what extraordinary deeds are there new insights? With its new major exhibition, Liechtenstein NationalMuseum is presenting the topics of fairy tales, myths, legends, fables, and sagas, which form a fundamentally important part of every culture and its collective memory.

Describes benefits of eating organic meat and dairy products and practical advice on limiting exposure to anti-biotics, growth hormones, and heavy metals.

Is it Real—or is it My Big Ol' Hairy Godmother? That's the question that hits a depressed Fr Joseph as he faces up to Change, and he tries to get up ... in anticipation of falling again.

A chance meeting at a hospitality suite at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has led to a former Brazil international playing for free in the FA Cup second round.

A while back, I blogged about what it means to be Cloud Native. One of the key issues is multi-tenancy. As I discussed in that blog, there is a huge cost benefit in resources to multi-tenancy. This is how we can afford to run http://cloud.wso2.com and offer multi-tenant Tomcat currently for free beta use.

Today Amazon announced Elastic Beanstalk. They call it a PaaS. Unfortunately Elastic Beanstalk is only multi-tenant at the VM layer - in other words it is fundamentally IaaS not PaaS. In other words you don't get the true benefit of PaaS: every Beanstalk user has to pay for at least one EC2 instance. Amazon tries to put this in a nice light:

Each of your Elastic Beanstalk applications will be run on one or more EC2 instances that are provisioned just for your application. 

Food quality is defined as a collection of properties that differentiate each unit and influences acceptability degree of food by users or consumers. Owing to the nature of food, food quality prediction is highly significant after specific periods of storage or before use by consumers. However, the accuracy is the major problem in the existing methods. Hence, this paper presents a BEFA_DRNN approach for accurate food quality prediction using dairy products. Firstly, input data is fed to data normalisation phase, which is performed by min-max normalisation. Thereafter, normalised data is given to feature fusion phase that is conducted employing DNN with Canberra distance. Then, fused data is subjected to data augmentation stage, which is carried out utilising oversampling technique. Finally, food quality prediction is done wherein milk is graded employing DRNN. The training of DRNN is executed by proposed BEFA that is a combination of BES and FA. Additionally, BEFA_DRNN obtained maximum accuracy, TPR and TNR values of 93.6%, 92.5% and 90.7%.

Washington – Are you one of the thousands of men who grow facial hair – and awareness for men’s cancer – in November? If you are, and you wear a respirator at work, NIOSH has guidance for you.

Irish dairy cooperative, Ornua, completed the acquisition of US cheese ingredients business, Whitehall Specialties Inc. (WSI) for an undisclosed sum from Mason Wells, a private equity firm based in Milwaukee.

ReadiCream® ND is a non-dairy, PHO- and allergen-free product that—when hydrated—is designed to be 1:1 replacement for liquid heavy cream or other dairy products. Although replacing real dairy, ReadiCream® ND provides an authentic fresh dairy taste and excellent mouthfeel resulting in no loss of quality in finished product.

Innophos explores the underlying mechanisms that influence protein interactions and offers a database with available solutions to help formulators better understand what influences protein interactions and how to improve plant-based protein functionality to optimize the taste and texture of plant-based cheese. 

Made with real whole cashews, Elmhurst’s Cashew Creamers are naturally smooth and velvety, with a rich consistency that performs in hot or iced coffee or tea. 

CP Kelco’s new KELCOGEL® DFA Gellan Gum is a single-ingredient, dual-function solution for formulating plant-based, dairy alternative beverages.

“Truffle is a beloved flavor that provides decadent luxury; combining with our rich and bold White Cheddar delivers the best of both worlds,” said Amanda Vaal, brand director at Cracker Barrel Cheese. “Dill also continues to be high in demand, delivering a sharp and savory twist to a snacking classic.”

Amano Enzyme experts are also presenting as part of the official IFT FIRST 2024 education program. Monica Henry, Scientist at Amano Enzyme, is presenting the session, “Improvement of Physical Properties in High Protein Plant-Based Cheese with Enzymatic Treatment,” on Tuesday, July 16, at 12:00 p.m. CDT. 

This year’s contest theme aligns with checkoff-led insights that show consumers are seeking dairy products that deliver health-related benefits.

"I would like to thank the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association for hosting the World Dairy Expo competition platform. Winning 65 awards is a great honor, and not only did we top last year's number of WDE awards, but we also retained our place as the competition's most-awarded dairy," said Matt McClelland, Prairie Farms CEO/EVP. 

Available nationwide at Whole Foods Market in boxes of six, the gluten-free ice cream bars are made with grass-fed organic dairy, fair trade cocoa, and organic berries. 

Pour it On! New products help Rich Products build on 79-year legacy of non-dairy, plant-based innovation.

Milchwerke Schwaben’s presence in the dairy industry starts as early as 1922, dairy farmers in Ulm, Germany joined together to form a cooperative that would make it possible to produce dairy products with greater efficiency. This merger resulted in a company whose products meet the needs of consumers throughout Germany and abroad.

Changing characteristics, product and orientation effect can disrupt product signals and affect detection sensitivity if not addressed. However, digital technologies and machine learning are pushing the innovation boundaries and streamlining inspection processes.

The sampling was conducted to better understand the extent to which these products potentially contain unintended milk at levels that may be hazardous to people with milk allergy.

Any milk dryer operation uses a lot of energy, and when you have the biggest operation in North America, you use…a lot of energy.

With this carbon dioxide chiller installed at a dairy, not only does it cool the milk better, it also provides heat for washing equipment.

Dairy-free Pumpkin Spice Cheezecake is made with a sweet artisan crust and creamy pumpkin filling.

The new product offerings address historically high butter prices with cost-conscious flavor solutions.

Butter Buds Non-Dairy 32X serves up the same well-rounded butter flavor with medium-strong salted butter middle notes as Butter Buds 32X and is ideal for a variety of foods.

Synergy Flavors, Inc., a supplier of flavors, extracts and essences for the global food and beverage industry, announced the launch of Dairy by Nature, a new portfolio of custom taste solutions.

With 67 percent of consumers stating that they were concerned about their stress and anxiety levels in 2020, Americans are more stressed than ever before.

Consumers are hungry for dairy-free cheese, and Papa Murphy’s is ready to serve it up.

The white paper shares ways to overcome challenges associated with incorporating real dairy ingredients.

The company’s goal was to create a treat with the same appearance, taste, and texture profile as its original brownie recipe.

Dairy farming is vital for rural communities and household nutrition. Durable materials like REHAU PEXa plumbing systems are essential for dairy barn construction. Three WRC dairy barn projects feature these systems.

Shifts of consumption preferences from consumers in terms of dairy and dairy alternatives beverages, impact performance of category.

Teams up with University of Kentucky's Reed Sheppard to deliver the power of dairy milk

Dairy farmers celebrate new a milestone of success in Virginia

Celebrate National Milk Day, Jan. 11

Educates consumers on informed choices and sustainable nutrition practices

The Dairy Alliance shares the benefits of milk for childhood development

The organization highlights the significant contributions of women in agriculture all month long

Education program hosts "Most Kissable Calf" contest throughout February for classrooms across the Southeast

Set against the backdrop of a quirky village and an epic race, join an orphan girl, a cantankerous farmer, and a singing miniature donkey, set to right the wrongs in a heartwarming tale of faith, friendship, and miracles.

Enhancing milk quality in Uganda: Challenges and innovations in the dairy value chain

Improving market incentives.

The post Enhancing milk quality in Uganda: Challenges and innovations in the dairy value chain appeared first on IFPRI.

CLASSIC FAIRY TALES W/THREE LITTLE PIGS COLL. BOOK and PRINT by Scott Gustafson is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited to 150 pcs

A Fairy's Reflection by James Coleman is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to limited to 30 pcs