Eideard

About 200 members of a Roswell church are protesting discipline against students who tried to leave doughnuts with religious messages for their teachers.

Members of Church on the Move said at Tuesday’s Roswell school board meeting that the students faced suspension and detention for leaving doughnuts in teachers’ lounges…

Church officials said about 25 students tried to distribute doughnuts…

The students are part of the church’s ministry group, Relentless in Roswell, which sued the school district, accusing it of violating students’ constitutional rights in a separate incident.

The lawsuit came after students at Roswell and Goddard high schools were disciplined after distributing plastic dolls last spring that resembled fetuses. The dolls had cards attached that had a Bible verse and promoted the services of an anti-abortion center.

District officials have said they prohibited the students from distributing the dolls because school policy does not allow advertising or solicitation on campus.

I know there is no end to holier-than-thou bible-thumpers. They are so convinced of their religious correctness that everyone must come to obey their message if they just shout it long enough and loud enough.

Our constitution and system of law are supposed to allow the rest of us freedom from their preaching. “Relentless in Roswell” sounds to me like a season in hell.

Shipley Do-Nut Flour and Supply Company Inc. paid the government $1.5 million Friday for conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein sentenced the corporation to be under court supervision for three years and fined the company $250,000. That’s in addition to $1.3 million the company paid to Immigration and Customs Enforcement instead of forfeiting the houses where the illegal immigrant employees were living.

The sentencing hearing marked the end of several years of legal battles for the regional company, said president Lawrence Shipley III, a third-generation doughnut maker.

The company had a crap history involving everything from company housing and discrimination, which Shipley blamed on his late father – who died in 2004.

Then in April 2008 came the immigration raid, which resulted from a tip from disgruntled workers also involved in the discrimination case.

In that raid, 20 immigrant workers were arrested. Seven were released for humanitarian reasons, some have been deported and others are still here as material case witnesses but will likely face deportation, lawyers in the case said.

Shipley said he didn’t hire the people swept up in the raid, his father did.

He’d been in charge of the company for 4 years before the bust.

He and three of his managers pleaded guilty to hiring or continuing to hire illegal immigrants. All four men were sentenced to six months of probation and received fines in the amounts of $1,000 to the $6,000 for Shipley himself.

There’s some doughnuts I wouldn’t buy. Let’s face it. If he wasn’t busted, Shipley probably wouldn’t have changed a damned thing about how the company was run.

Dunkin’ Donuts, the popular fast food chain famous for its coffee and baked goods, has released Dunkin’ Run, a free app for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s designed to make it easier for Dunkin’ Donuts customers to make group orders — a social application, according to the press release.

“I’m making a run to Dunkin’ — does anyone want anything?” is a refrain heard in workplaces near where Dunkin’ Donuts are common. The Dunkin’ Run app and its companion Web site help to make it easier for Dunkin’ customers to solicit and place those group orders.

“Runners” initiate the group order, then interactive alerts are sent to the Runner’s friends and co-workers, informing them when a trip is planned and inviting them to place an order online. The Runner can then print the order or use their iPhone to produce a checklist, to make sure everyone gets what they wanted.

Makes sense to me.

A Chicago police officer has been suspended for 15 months for demanding free coffee and baked goods from six different Starbucks.

Chicago police officer Barbara Nevers apparently had a taste for Starbucks, especially the free kind.

The Police Board ruled in May that 55-year-old Nevers intimidated Starbucks employees by screaming at them and flashing her badge, handcuffs or gun when they wanted her to pay.

Officer Barbara Nevers, a 14-year veteran, has also been ordered to undergo counseling.

Counseling is the least of it. I hope they don’t put a gun back in her hands for a spell.