Messed Up News for the Month of May 2006
Family Booted From Buffet For Wasting Too Much Food
Manager Says Family Wasted Food Several Times
POSTED: 10:19 am EDT May 5, 2006
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Wendy Dershem may think twice before leaving that egg roll on her plate at her next Chinese buffet.
The Des Moines woman, her boyfriend and her two children were kicked out of a restaurant last week after management at Dragon House accused her of leaving too much food on her plate.
Dershem said she paid for her buffet on Saturday but was abruptly told to leave after eating one plate of food.
Employees said they had been watching her family on previous trips to the restaurant and were fed up with her habits. They said she would pile her plate with food, take one bite and throw it away.
"They just take one bite and throw it away," said cashier Lin Huyen. "They take four egg rolls and crab ragoon, take one bite of egg roll and throw the whole plate. That is wasting food."
Dershem said she was shocked by the scolding and complained to management when she paid her check.
Dragon House manager Kent Cao said his restaurant does not offer an all-you-can waste buffet. He said Dershem's family took food, didn't finish it and then piled on the same food again, he said. He says he won't allow her back in the restaurant unless she changes her ways.
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Text messages give '411' on teen sex By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
Mon May 8, 8:19 AM ET
FYI: if ur yng and wnt the 411 on sex, just txt ;-).
San Francisco just launched the nation's first text-messaging program aimed to shoot instant cellphone messages to sexually active young people seeking advice about sex and health. The service focuses on everything from what to do "if ur condom broke" to whom to call "if ur feeling down ... like u wanna xcape ur life."
Written in the abbreviated style of text messaging, SexInfo is open to anyone with cellphone text messaging. But it is aimed at sexually active 12- to 24-year-olds in San Francisco, especially blacks, whose rates of sexually transmitted diseases have increased in the past year, says Jacqueline McCright of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Kids, McCright says, "often do not get accurate information from their friends, and many times their parents don't discuss sexual issues with them. This is a way that they can get quick, easy information confidentially."
The service, based on a London program that launched in 2004, provides instant, automated responses to specific questions about pregnancy, HIV, sex and depression. Kids send a text message to 36617 (Metro PCS users use a different number) with the word "SexInfo." They are then sent a list of codes from which to choose.
"I think kids will use it," says Alexis McBride, 16, a junior at John O'Connell High School in San Francisco, who says she sends "about 100" text messages a day. "Kids text a lot," she adds.
Organizers expect other cities to pick up on the program and are hoping it develops into a national service where live operators answer text messages in real time.
"We launched San Francisco as a small pilot to show what the possibilities are," says Deb Levine, executive director of Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS), the non-profit organization hired to run SexInfo. "It's very clear that public health advocates are watching San Francisco to see what we're doing - I have gotten e-mails from colleagues across the country."
The city health department paid ISIS $40,000 to develop SexInfo and will spend $20,000 to market it and about $2,500 a month to maintain it. Messages direct youths to San Francisco health services.
Jennifer Hartstein, psychologist with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., worries that text responses lack detail and will help teens avoid parental involvement, giving them one more way that they can keep secrets from parents. Still, she calls the service "a wonderful and innovative response" to the problem of sexually transmitted diseases among teens.
Manager Says Family Wasted Food Several Times
POSTED: 10:19 am EDT May 5, 2006
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Wendy Dershem may think twice before leaving that egg roll on her plate at her next Chinese buffet.
The Des Moines woman, her boyfriend and her two children were kicked out of a restaurant last week after management at Dragon House accused her of leaving too much food on her plate.
Dershem said she paid for her buffet on Saturday but was abruptly told to leave after eating one plate of food.
Employees said they had been watching her family on previous trips to the restaurant and were fed up with her habits. They said she would pile her plate with food, take one bite and throw it away.
"They just take one bite and throw it away," said cashier Lin Huyen. "They take four egg rolls and crab ragoon, take one bite of egg roll and throw the whole plate. That is wasting food."
Dershem said she was shocked by the scolding and complained to management when she paid her check.
Dragon House manager Kent Cao said his restaurant does not offer an all-you-can waste buffet. He said Dershem's family took food, didn't finish it and then piled on the same food again, he said. He says he won't allow her back in the restaurant unless she changes her ways.
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Text messages give '411' on teen sex By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
Mon May 8, 8:19 AM ET
FYI: if ur yng and wnt the 411 on sex, just txt ;-).
San Francisco just launched the nation's first text-messaging program aimed to shoot instant cellphone messages to sexually active young people seeking advice about sex and health. The service focuses on everything from what to do "if ur condom broke" to whom to call "if ur feeling down ... like u wanna xcape ur life."
Written in the abbreviated style of text messaging, SexInfo is open to anyone with cellphone text messaging. But it is aimed at sexually active 12- to 24-year-olds in San Francisco, especially blacks, whose rates of sexually transmitted diseases have increased in the past year, says Jacqueline McCright of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Kids, McCright says, "often do not get accurate information from their friends, and many times their parents don't discuss sexual issues with them. This is a way that they can get quick, easy information confidentially."
The service, based on a London program that launched in 2004, provides instant, automated responses to specific questions about pregnancy, HIV, sex and depression. Kids send a text message to 36617 (Metro PCS users use a different number) with the word "SexInfo." They are then sent a list of codes from which to choose.
"I think kids will use it," says Alexis McBride, 16, a junior at John O'Connell High School in San Francisco, who says she sends "about 100" text messages a day. "Kids text a lot," she adds.
Organizers expect other cities to pick up on the program and are hoping it develops into a national service where live operators answer text messages in real time.
"We launched San Francisco as a small pilot to show what the possibilities are," says Deb Levine, executive director of Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS), the non-profit organization hired to run SexInfo. "It's very clear that public health advocates are watching San Francisco to see what we're doing - I have gotten e-mails from colleagues across the country."
The city health department paid ISIS $40,000 to develop SexInfo and will spend $20,000 to market it and about $2,500 a month to maintain it. Messages direct youths to San Francisco health services.
Jennifer Hartstein, psychologist with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., worries that text responses lack detail and will help teens avoid parental involvement, giving them one more way that they can keep secrets from parents. Still, she calls the service "a wonderful and innovative response" to the problem of sexually transmitted diseases among teens.