Sunday, March 29, 2015

"USDA herding internet's celebrity llamas out of the spotlight, owners say"

"The llamas that became a social media sensation while running around a Phoenix-area retirement enclave last month are saying goodbye to the spotlight with one last event on Saturday."
The llama drama that spawned jokes and Twitter hashtags also got the attention of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Freund said.

“If this opens up a can of worms where everybody across the country gets shut down doing this, that’s really unfair,” Freund said. “That’s really a horrible thing to do to people who benefit from them.”

A USDA official contacted the llamas’ owners shortly after the 26 February incident, saying they needed a license to showcase their llamas or even allow people to take photos of them, the couple said.

“They just totally destroyed everything I had planned for my retirement,” Freund said. “We’ve taken them to schools before. Now they’re telling me I can’t do anything, even like a photo shoot.”

12 comments:

bagoh20 said...

Could someone please address the potholes? I mean we could use a department of potholes, a pothole czar, maybe even a hashtag?

Guildofcannonballs said...

Only entitled white people think they can take pictures without permits of all shapes and sizes.

Oh, and colors too.

You extreme libertarians depend on the State you hate, and mark my words you will rue the day folks can take photos without permits' permission to do so.

chickelit said...

¿Cómo se llama llama drama?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Blanca y negra? I don't know.

JAL said...

Catch me up. How is it the USDA controls the photo rights of a person's personal llamas?

I can't even begin to figure out what that is about.

So I can't have my animals (don't have llamas, have other critters) pictures taken? Why this guy's llamas?

Orrey G.Rantor said...

JAL, because the USDA said so. Thats why.

They're just lookin out for the folks and the llamas. Llama exploitation is on the rise these days.

Chip Ahoy said...

They used public streets to transport their animals to and fro. Something happened and the animals ran loose on the public streets. This is attention-getting catalyst but there are other twining between state and commercial activity that occupy the bureaucrat's mind.

ALL your activytah are belong to us!

From the point of view of government department apparatchik you have entered their their barony. Whatever it is you are doing, your existence in their claimed space makes you business partner with them. They are the forts build along important rivers that tax everything using the waterway. They claimed a segment of waterway for their department(s) and used larger government to do it, as they grow, as we all grow. Now pay up and keep paying while they sit back and do nothing to advance your business except tolerate an occasional semi-exotic animal running around on the streets that need fetching.

Just pay the mafia and shut up. Or else don't bother with any business, like me, because you deplore such lousy and intolerable business partners.

They couldn't just sit back and enjoy the entertainment. No. They had to view it as occurring within their space, they saw themselves uninvolved except as space-providers for all activity to happen. They inserted themselves into your activity as mafias do and they will do even so far as your child's lemonade stand and for the same reasons.

This is why I am amazed with people who DO start businesses knowing that they automatically accept the worst of all possible business partners no matter what business you choose.

The successes that I see take a different attitude entirely. The successes seem to accept city and state and federal agencies as resources to milk. The trick is knowing what help and what subsidies, what knowledge-based assistance, what freebies they offer.

When your child opens their lemonade stand start with city first. They might even be able to help in some unexpected way.

A friend of mine used State to fix up his property. All he had to do is promise not to use the property for commercial purposes for X number of years and that suited him just fine. He wanted the property for animal reserve and so does the State.

They came in and planted thousands of trees. Thousands of bushes, in accordance with their plans and their land-study ways. Hundreds of bushes of certain types bushes planted just so on a slope to capture snowmelt. Windbreaks with trees. Clusters that attract wildlife. They created these situations with vegetation all across his property. Now when we visit we pass by a very long row of tress, about 1/2 mile that is their driveway. I watched it grow up. First a bit of terraforming, then trenches, black-plastick lined, then double rows of medium-ish size trees. Nothing much to look at. A mess really. And now it is a very tall solid wall of insane chirping at roosting time. Thousand and thousands of birds take up in there for the night.

That's one example. People work the system. That is what it is there for. If these llama people played their cards right, they could have State out there building their confinement pens for them, with proper drainage and shelter, the whole bit. It is a matter of knowing a few of the thousands of ins and outs that other people built into government and willingness to hook up with them and a willingness to bend.



Rabel said...

"How is it the USDA controls the photo rights of a person's personal llamas?"

Animal Welfare Act

Subpart A - Licensing

Section 2.1
(a)(1) Any person operating or intending to operate as a dealer, exhibitor, or operator of an auction sale, except persons who are exempted from the licensing requirements under paragraph (a)(3) of this section, must have a valid license.

ricpic said...

What's the problem if the llamas are limited to the right lane?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

You go to Scotland and there are sheep all over the place but it's okay because Scotland.

Chip Ahoy said...

Here's another example of how a bad attitude toward government is unhelpful and a partner-attitude is better.

I know, right?

I had a bicycle worth about $50.00, possibly worth ¢50, I don't know. The bike sat up here in my way for three years. Finally tired of moving it around up here I decided it was time to put it to use. I wanted it to help build up my legs, do errands, what have you, I envisioned running usual local chores and regular shopping more often than taking the truck. I had it pimped out beyond reason, new seat, balanced, new tires, new whatever it needed, with baskets front and back, additional saddle-type baskets that fold. It was an experiment.

I didn't have ribbon streamers flowing form the handlebar ends, yet, nor playing cards cloth pinned to make noise against the spokes. Nor did it have a headlight with its own little generator, but it was pimped out shingly.

Lasted a week downstairs in the garage locked up. I could pinpoint the hour when it was stolen and that is unusual. We reviewed tapes to no avail.

When I called police they were all, "Did you have it licensed?" And I'm all, "f'k'n wit?" And they're all, "Well what do you expect us to do when we don't even have its serial number on record, nor even a simple thing as a license?" And I withdraw meekly whimpering, "fuck me."

I should have had it licensed, have city be part of my bicycle activity, just like bicycle mafia, I could sport the official license on the back, then they can protect me maybe possibly perchance subjectively if events allow sometimes. But if not, then forget it.

And I learned a valuable lesson. Make note of the bike's serial number and bother to license it. It is our bicycle activity, not just my own. And that is only the basic level of bicycle security policing. Nobody is going to look for your goddamn bike. You can just kiss that thing goodbye.

ricpic said...

When I was a kid I left my Schwinn lying on its side after racing to wherever I wanted to be and just left it there and when I came back THERE IT WAS! This was in Brooklyn before the great change. I could go on but I don't want to burst Schmendrik's everybody's the same bubble.