Joe Peterson is a retired educator who has lived in Ashland, Oregon, for twenty-three years. He has taught history, political science and education courses at Southern Oregon University and has managed Teaching American History federal grants for Southern Oregon Education Service District. He has presented lectures for the Southern Oregon Historical Society’s “Windows in Time” series and is the author of three books, including Ashland for Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. His most recent publication is Hidden History of Ashland, Oregon.
Literary Ashland with Jennifer Sherman Roberts
Our July 2020 guest was Jennifer Sherman Roberts, a writer, a writing teacher and the former president of the Josephine County Public Library Board. She holds a PhD in Early Modern Literature, from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities as well as degrees from Villanova University and the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently at work on a historical novel loosely based on the life of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, a 17th-century writer, natural philosopher, and poet.
Literary Ashland with Zeke Hudson
Our June 2020 guest on Literary Ashland was poet Zeke Hudson. Zeke started his academic career as an electrical engineer, but graduated from SOU in 2011 with a degree in creative writing and completed an MFA in poetry at Boise State University. He divides his time, unevenly, between technical writing for CU2.0 where he develops marketing strategies and oversees content production.
His poetry has appeared in Wend Poetry, Nightblock, Bad Pony, and Banango Street, and he published a chapbook with Thrush Press called Blue Lake. When Zeke isn’t writing, he’s usually doing something “fun,” like mountain biking. Or Dungeons & Dragons. Or snowboarding.
Literary Ashland with Amber McGee
Our May 2020 guest was Amber McGee. Amber is a Creative Writing major and English minor at Southern Oregon University and winner of this year Outstanding English Minor award. She is a club officer for the Multi-Racial Student Union, Queer Student Union, and Creative Writing Club. Her previous writing experience includes being book columnist and editor-in-chief of the James Logan Courier, as well as receiving the 2018 Outstanding Student award for English at Ohlone College. She has been published in Southern Oregon University’s Main Squeeze, inQluded‘s first issue, “Welcome Home,” and will be featured in Mixed Rice Zine’s “Queering Friendships” edition.
Money Laundering 101
Say you just made a cool million dollars. Except, it wasn’t by legal means. Also say you’re the careful sort. You know that buying a big car, or blowing it on $1,000 bottles of Crystal is going to attract attention of the sort you can’t afford.
How can you enjoy your ill-gotten gains without running afoul the authorities? You’ll need to launder it first. That means make your newfound wealth appear to come from perfectly legal sources.
The traditional way, expertly portrayed in the Netflix series Ozark, involves mingling the illegal cash with legal income to hide its provenance. That’s why Marty Byrd is to eager to buy businesses around the Lake of the Ozarks. The marina, the funeral home, and, eventually the casino are all cash based businesses. They provide a perfect way to get the illegal money into legal accounts. But even then, a sudden spike in income would arouse suspicion.
