Starbucks Responds In Kind To Oxfam YouTube Video 492
Kligmond writes "Last week, Starbucks placed a video on YouTube responding to a video posted by the Oxfam Charity. The Oxfam video was launched in conjunction with 'Starbucks Day of Action,' held December 16th, when activists visited Starbucks locations across the world in protest of the coffee retailer's alleged mistreatment of Ethiopian farmers. The Starbucks video calmly addresses the Oxfam allegations, citing an impasse over Ethiopian trademark legalities. Starbucks claims the refusal to sign a trademark agreement with Ethiopia is a stumbling block they hope to resolve on behalf of the farmers. The coffee chain's representative goes on to refute the contention that Starbucks refuses to pay a fair price for its coffee reserves and, in fact, routinely pays well above commodity price, and above fair trade price. Unlike many recent ineffectual corporate reactions to social journalism and networking eruptions, Starbucks' response is unique in that the corporation managed Oxfam's unconventional assault in a very unconventional way, via YouTube. Regardless of the outcome of this particular incident, the move on Starbucks' part comes off as unmistakably in touch with today's communication modes and methods."
And me thinking it was Kara who posted... (Score:5, Funny)
But why ? Does she crave for good coffee on the Battlestar ? Didn't the 12 colonies invest in fair trade coffee ? Why is she all of a sudden so sensitive about why Oxfam posted a youtube video anyway ?
What new plot twist of BG do I not understand ?
Re:And me thinking it was Kara who posted... (Score:4, Funny)
In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Informative)
And to all the people that say *bucks pushes out the mom and pops: when was the last time they offered carreers or health insurance?
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm glad that they are relatively socaially concious, but my personal opinion is that their coffee sucks. When I was still on campus, I really prefered the one coffee shop off campus that was also all fair trade stuff.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, from what I understand, they don't do any real pre or post roast QA to remove clinkers, which are light, immature beans that give a grassy or off taste to coffee. They also don't date their roasts like a good gourmet shop will. As 90% of varietal flavor in coffee is gone two days after roasting, this is crucial to enjoying good coffee. When I go to my local roaster, who is an true coffee enthusiast like myself, I just say "Give me a half pound of whatever you just roasted."
OTOH, they are a model of social repsonsibility, treating employees and suppliers well and giving back to the community through charity.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Funny)
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2) There is no McDonald's in Barnes & Nobel, but there is a Starbucks.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Informative)
Some differences, notably body and acidity, will still be there, but the complex and subtle flavors have all evaporated.
A clinker is a lightweight, immature bean that tastes awful. Ever taste rancid, burnt, grassy, or hay-like flavors in coffee? If brewing isn't the problem, those flavors are most likely from clinkers.
That's probably more than you ever wanted to know about coffee. I only know all this because my college girlfriend worked at a REALLY snooty coffe roaster, Willoughby's in New Haven, CT. If you want to try some really good coffee, I think they do mail-order.
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Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, as another poster said, it's the McD's of coffee; you go there for the consistent experience - and the wifi - not the quality. The quality isn't nearly as *bad* as McDonalds, but it's not nearly as good as many of the places I used to go, before they folded trying to compete with Starbucks. And I agree with others - they are a remarkably socially conscious big business, they treat employees well, they are fairly locally active, and I have no problem with their success.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think to some organizations, any global corporation is "bad" - there's no rationality behind it, and no amount of social responsibility will be enough to satisfy them, even if the corporation in question is giving a positive benefit to the world. Starbucks' perfectly legitimate disagreement with Ethiopian farmers is more than enough "justification" for people who are not being entirely rational to start protesting.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's important to make the distinction between brewed coffee and espresso. To be fair, Starbuck's espresso is admitedly a weak point. Like you say, it has to be strong do make an impression in the coffee drinks. But their brewed coffee varieties are something they spend a lot of effort on. They do roast darker than a lot of people, but as far as I can tell, it because they genuinely like it better that way.
I know it's popular to assume that Starbucks doesn't care about coffee, but that's simply not true.
Starbucks QA (Score:5, Interesting)
As to QA, this just isn't so. My son did his internship at the Starbucks roasting facility in Auburn, WA, an operation that is highly computer controlled (so they do know exactly how they are roasting the beans), they have an extensive QA program. So, if the coffee sucks, it's because they like it that way (!!!).
Re:Starbucks QA (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, a lot of people who constantly go to Starbucks do it because it's the cool thing to do. They do it because it's what everyone else is doing since they don't want to be left out. Starbucks is more about "brand" than coffee anymore.
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Of course they know how not to, they simply chose to burn them as a matter of course. The reason? It's the only way to get a truly uniform coffee "flavor" across their entire chain. You can walk into a Starbucks anywhere and know what the coffee will taste like. In my opinion it tastes like shit, like all burned coffee does, but that isn't the point. The funny part is that for people
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Insightful)
Starbucks is certainly quite successful at projecting an image of social responsiblity, yes - so much so that uninformed people like you believe that they created the fair trade movement, when actually Fair Trade is a decades old idea and Starbucks use of a tiny amout of Fair Trade coffee is just greenwash [organicconsumers.org].
While Starbucks is certainly not the Pure Concentrated Evil of, say, a Halliburton or a Monsanto, neither are they the angels that their PR department would like you to believe. That they seem to treat their direct employees fairly well, is no indication of what ethics apply (or don't apply) to their deals with suppliers.
Uh huh. So rather than owning one's own small business, being a successful entrepreneur, the new American dream is to work for a national franchise, so that you can get health insurance. How incredibly fscking sad is that?
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Which would you rather work for? And if you say the local roaster, you clearly have never had an ambulance ride and multiple-day stay in the hospital. Neither have I, but I know what they cost.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no one "cost" to know; the screwed up American health system is notorious for charging different prices depending on who you are and whether you have employer-provided health insurance (cheapest price), health insurance you paid for yourself (ripoff prices), or no health insurance (extortion). Generally, the more you're hurting for money, the more zeroes they append to your bill.
The local roaster will also pay a much higher premium than Starbucks would have to pay for the same coverage. And if you buy health insurance yourself, instead of getting it from your employer, you run a much higher risk of having your coverage retroactively cancelled if you get sick.
But remember, best health care system in the world.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:5, Interesting)
Being an entepeneur was supposed to be the dream? I find that even more depressing. Working extremely long hours, risking bankrupcy every day, insane stress levels, all for money? No thanks, I'd rather put in my 8 hrs a day, make a fair wage, and enjoy my life.
As for the health insurance- vote the current bunch out and vote in some liberals who will actually work on healthcare reform.
Re:In other words: Oxfam just got own3d! (Score:4, Insightful)
The article you linked just says that Starbucks only buys a small amount of FairTrade coffee. But it says nothing about how much fairly traded coffee they buy. These are two different concepts. FairTrade is a trademark for a certification process. If something is labeled you can be assured that it is fairly traded, but if something is not labeled FairTrade you cannot be sure of the opposite.
Starbucks is a sufficient large buyer to make it interesting to implement their own fair trading. And there may be good reasons for this, e.g. the overhead of the FairTrade process. In the YouTube video they claim that they often pay even more than FairTrade, and this seems completely possible since they could optimize logistics in a way that selling FairTrade coffee to consumers wouldn't allow.
So the complaint in the linked article is that the money Starbucks spends on coffee is not run through the FairTrade organization, not that the coffee is not traded fairly. Somehow they forgot to make this more obvious.
Should any fairly traded product be bought from FairTrade? I don't think so. Competition does not only lower prices, it also increases efficiency (thereby allowing lowering the prices). If Starbucks can pay the coffee farmers more than FairTrade due to their better process, I welcome this, because it will increase the consumption of fairly traded coffee in a significant way, while this might not happen if the price difference stays the same as it is today possibly due to inefficiencies in the FairTrade process.
I don't know these things, I have no numbers about how much Starbucks pays coffee farmers etc. But I have the ability to distinguish between a justified criticism and someone trying to defend their monopoly by calling someone else unethical.
Why "fair trade" is a horrible concept (Score:5, Interesting)
Economists, for a start. The standard economic argument against Fairtrade goes like this: the low price of commodities such as coffee is due to overproduction, and ought to be a signal to producers to switch to growing other crops. Paying a guaranteed Fairtrade premium--in effect, a subsidy--both prevents this signal from getting through and, by raising the average price paid for coffee, encourages more producers to enter the market. This then drives down the price of non-Fairtrade coffee even further, making non-Fairtrade farmers poorer. Fairtrade does not address the basic problem, argues Tim Harford, author of "The Undercover Economist" (2005), which is that too much coffee is being produced in the first place. Instead, it could even encourage more production.
Mr Bretman of FLO International disagrees. In practice, he says, farmers cannot afford to diversify out of coffee when the price falls. Fairtrade producers can use the premiums they receive to make the necessary investments to diversify into other crops. But surely the price guarantee actually reduces the incentive to diversify?
Another objection to Fairtrade is that certification is predicated on political assumptions about the best way to organise labour. In particular, for some commodities (including coffee) certification is available only to co-operatives of small producers, who are deemed to be most likely to give workers a fair deal when deciding how to spend the Fairtrade premium. Coffee plantations or large family firms cannot be certified. Mr Bretman says the rules vary from commodity to commodity, but are intended to ensure that the Fairtrade system helps those most in need. Yet limiting certification to co-ops means "missing out on helping the vast majority of farm workers, who work on plantations," says Mr Wille of the Rainforest Alliance, which certifies producers of all kinds.
Guaranteeing a minimum price also means there is no incentive to improve quality, grumble coffee-drinkers, who find that the quality of Fairtrade brews varies widely. Again, the Rainforest Alliance does things differently. It does not guarantee a minimum price or offer a premium but provides training, advice and better access to credit. That consumers are often willing to pay more for a product with the RA logo on it is an added bonus, not the result of a formal subsidy scheme; such products must still fend for themselves in the marketplace. "We want farmers to have control of their own destinies, to learn to market their products in these competitive globalised markets, so they are not dependent on some NGO," says Mr Wille.
But perhaps the most cogent objection to Fairtrade is that it is an inefficient way to get money to poor producers. Retailers add their own enormous mark-ups to Fairtrade products and mislead consumers into thinking that all of the premium they are paying is passed on. Mr Harford calculates that only 10% of the premium paid for Fairtrade coffee in a coffee bar trickles down to the producer. Fairtrade coffee, like the organic produce sold in supermarkets, is used by retailers as a means of identifying price-insensitive consumers who will pay more, he says.
As with organic food, the Fairtrade movement is unde
I hate to repeat myself but: (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees'
Step 3. Become the dominant organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate.
Step 4. profit!!! (no, really)
Fair Trade coffee (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.ifat.org/furtherreading/libraryftgoods
Good for Starbucks (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see a company address accusations directly, without resorting to lawsuits or just more propaganda. These points were well refuted in the vid, though I would personally like to see a bit more documentation provided to show that they're not just pulling things out of their collective asses.
I wish other companies would follow this lead - transparent, straight-forward, no-BS rebuttals of claims against them. Apple, where's your rebuttal against Greenpeace?
Re:Good for Starbucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I had the same reaction at first, but you know -- if Starbucks is correct (*If*. I have no idea.) and a very large, very wealthy group is engaged in a completely dishonest, high-profile smear campaign against their business, that group should get its pants sued off.
Technicaly It Is (Score:4, Insightful)
Propeganda is merely an attempt to sway a group's opinion through communication. "Getting your message out." That message can be truthful or lies, honest or deceptive, present all facts or cherry pick; it just needs to be pursuasive. I think sometims the negative connotation actualy discourages non-deceptive propeganda from more honest parties because they feer being accused of engaging in 'propeganda'.
Good for Google (Score:2)
--
Your gene pool needs some chlorine.
Rebuttal of Greenpeace (Score:2)
Apparently, sensationalist lies tend to generate more checks for the cause.
Re:No Good for Starbucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Good for Starbucks (Score:4, Insightful)
What would you rather they do instead? Stop buying Ethiopian coffee at all? Pay even more for the stuff grown in Ethiopia and thus attract even more growers to the already saturated market [economist.com]?
If Oxfam were really concerned about the third-world farmers, they would've been making noise against Europe's farmer-subsidies, against the smaller-but-still-significant American ones, and against Japan's protectionism. Instead Oxfam goes against a prominent corporation — they are well aware of the shortness of the attention span of their contributors... Much easier to bash a corporation (especially an American one), than to be "against the small farmers", is not it?
Re:No Good for Starbucks (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they'd be going after non-shade-growing coffee farmers, since they're the ones who created the oversupply in the coffee market. As a bonus, they could get a greenpeace tie-in, since removing the shade plants has devastated the biota in many locations.
Who's next? (Score:2)
ex-starbucks employee (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the mission statement that they live their lives by:
Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow. The following six guiding principles will help us measure the appropriateness of our decisions:
* Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.
* Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.
* Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee.
* Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.
* Contribute positively to our communities and our environment.
* Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success.
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Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.
For a company that exists purely to homogenise and standardise everything about the way it operates, that's a hilarious thing to have in their "mission statement".
What they should be saying (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Promote Brand loyalty by pushing Gift Cards thereby forcing even non-customers to occasionally consume Starbucks
3) Say that we embrace diversity while actually embracing conformity (see above)
4) Reduce the number of artistic venues by putting small coffee shops out of business with our pre-packaged experience
5) Raise the prices on our addictive substance every six months
6) Profit!!!
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That said, I prefer the underdogs, as long as they make good coffee.
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Someone gives you a gift card and suddenly Starbucks is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use it? Wow... didn't know they had that kind of power. So what happens when you don't use it? Thugs come by and beat you up?
Nobody is forced to go to Starbucks. If people li
cry me a river (Score:2, Insightful)
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1) You do realize that ( at least to my knowledge ) just about all Starbucks are franchises.
No, they're not. [mysitespace.com] It's the other way around - some Starbucks are franchises, like those in bookstores or in malls, but the rest of the stores aren't.
Triv
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Well, if someone gave me a Starbucks gift card, I'd thank them kindly then wait for an opportune moment to throw it away (or sell it to a Starbucks-frequenting friend). Just because someone gives you a gift doesn't mean you're compelled to use it. Hell, if they were a good enough friend, I might even point out the error of their ways - it's not that I have anything in particular against Starbuc
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If they are really living their _lives_ by their _employer's_ mission statement, then something is seriously wrong - that is slavery, not employment.
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I meant corporate lives their work life by those guidelines. same as the employees must generally abide by these guidlines. say what you want, but it works.
So, you worked for Starbuck's, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
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seriously, there is a small size(which i forget the name of),tall is the medium, grande is italian for large and venti is italian for 20 as in 20oz of zomg expensive coffee.
Re:So, you worked for Starbuck's, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.slate.com/id/2133754/ [slate.com]
Solving the mystery of the elusive "short" cappuccino.
Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why.
The drink in question is the elusive "short cappuccino"--at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu...
Re:So, you worked for Starbuck's, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
So a certain anonymous individual went into a Starbuck's one morning, a bit cranky because he had to be up earlier than usual. He spoke to the individual at the cash register...
Anon.: I'd like a medium chai, please.
Register Person: Do you mean tall or grande?
Anon.: I mean medium.
Register Person: We don't sell a size called medium.
Anon.: "Medium" is a description, not a name. You sell three sizes. I'd like the one in the middle.
Register Person: We call that size "grande."
Anon.: Right.
Register Person: So what is it you'd like?
Anon.: I'd like a medium chai, please.
Register Person: You mean a "grande."
Anon.: Haven't we already been through this?
Register Person: I just would like to be certain.
Anon.: You can be certain I'm not going to use your ridiculous trademarked name, when a descriptive adjective completely connotes my intent.
Register Person: It's not a ridiculous name -- it's Italian!
Anon.: Yes, and "chai" is either Chinese or Sanskrit. What's that got to do with it? The word I want in English is "medium."
Register Person: Dude, what have you got against Italians?
Anon.: Nothing. Well, perhaps they bear some responsibility for Madonna, but I think she's actually from New York.
Register Person: Bay City, Michigan, actually. That'll be $3.50.
How hard is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The final comment of the summary does have the ring of truth(or shall I say, truthiness?).
But then I stop to think...c'mon, this is Youtube. How hard is it to post something on Youtube, a free service? What's more interesting is that this move is a suprise rather than the suprise itself.
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Let's see. I'm guessing Starbucks don't have movie-makers on their books. Perhaps they employ a... erm.. media relations/PR consultancy of some sort? And perhaps that PR consultancy is enamoured of "grass-roots" style communications?
Hmmm. That would explain the (admittedly impressive) YouTube response. And the subsequent posting of said response to Slashdot.
Someone earned their dollars today. Congrats,kligmond. (or prove me wrong)
Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
uh well, it's easy to post on youtube, but I think you're missing the point.
Most big megacorps don't "get it" Their decision making process involves things like lawyers who always fail on the side of caution. That's why, if you posts some completely made-up allegations about, for example Bank of America, then (if they even noticed what you had done) the Bank of America corporate execs would have a meeting in their conference room on the 400th floor of some far off building. They'd have to call in the CTO to explain to them exactly what this "ewe toob" thing was. Then the lawyers would caution against making any kind of direct rebuttal, because that might be seen as *insert lawyer-speak here*
Meanwhile, Starbucks goes, "wtf, get a webcam we're going to respond to this bullshit"
So you see, the point here isn't the ease or difficulty of youtube. The point is the that one corporation gets it and made a simple, common sense move.
(btw, I hate Starbucks)
Probably a non story (Score:3, Interesting)
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Then they burn the shit out of them. Roasted beans are supposed to be shiny with the oils that come to the surface. Starbucks beans are dessicated. Thank god I live next to a Peets.
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Its their visibility. Kraft and Nestle buy way more then any of the coffee chains even combined.
You should try Cape vinta, but thats only available in phillipines.
20% below market price (Score:2)
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Amen to that. I can't find a citation but I'm told that Ben Franklin once said or wrote "nine tenths of all men are living suicides". I couldn't agree more. Most people might as well be dead for all the enjoyment and just plain living they get out of life. Grind 9-5 so that you can come home and grind on the weekends too? Fuck that. I have a 9-5, actually, but it's usually not horribly strenuous (although dealing with some of the p
I buy fair-trade products too (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism [wikipedia.org]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly [wikipedia.org]
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Examples of government blessing of monopoly:
- land usage easements (for utilities, etc)
- the copyright/patent system (for intellectual property)
- airwaves / frequency ranges (for cell carriers, radio stations, etc)
Can you think of some monopoly in the US that isn't suppo
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Microsoft is the easiest example of a monopoly that exists only via a construct of government.
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Sure - companies are a quasi-artificial construct of the government but are not a necessary feature for monopolies to exist.
Which argument?
Clearly I'm not advocating lawlessness - societies form and governments a
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about par for the course I'd say, eh?
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Of course in 1200AD most people didn't live past 40.
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1. Capitalism allows for and indeed promotes exploitation of common resources, putting immediate profits over long-term sustainability in things like the air and water quality, fish populations, or eco-diversity. Not even post-damage litigation can undue the damage done, and in many cases post-damage litigation is hampered because the original instigators are dead or retired or have spent all their gains. The short-sighted nature of ca
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How?
The "infrastructure to produce efficiently" required investment, investment which apparently in the short term pays off, but which may not pay off in the future. Nothing practically prevents the "disadvantaged" party in a free trade system from not only duplicatin
Biggest question (Score:2)
Seems fair enough (Score:2, Insightful)
Women (Score:5, Funny)
Did a little research for those who care (Score:5, Interesting)
And I do mean a little research... First, I watched both videos. The most notable thing is that neither Oxfam's video-mentioned webpage nor the video itself actually says what Starbucks is doing. They say that starbucks is preventing the manufacturers of this coffee from using the names of the coffee, but that's as close as they come to discussing the actual situation. I was however able to find the information on Oxfam's site using google: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/starbucks26 1006.htm [oxfam.org.uk]. Here's the meat:
What, exactly, does "prompted protests" mean? It's a little further down.
Okay, so if Starbucks is part of the NCA, then they didn't prompt anything - they just did it.
Let's take one more look at the press release.
Starbucks claims that to do so would be illegal, as far as I can see from their video. I don't know how that works out - maybe a lawyer can explain. But September? It's probably taken this long for their legal department to figure out what it says, let alone how they feel about it. We're talking about a document that would have legal repercussions in at least two countries, and possibly in every country in which Starbucks does business. I wouldn't sign the fucker either.
Now let's take a look at some other documents I just googled up...
There's about 25 16oz (coffeeshop standard) cups of coffee per roasted pound. Three cents per cup would be $0.75/lb. Starbucks claims they pay over the fair trade price, which is under a buck and a half per pound.
Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from that, regional trademarks == bad bad bad. Form Blue Mountain's wikipedia entry:
"Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is protected worldwide as a certification trademark meaning that only coffee certified by the Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica can be labeled as such."
So, say the Ethiopian Board of Coffee doesn't like a farmer, I mean hell, there's a lot of problems in that area, it'd be pretty easy to pick some farmers you don't like, whoever the new gov't is, and put a lot of people out of work.
Starbucks is big and therefor evil (Score:2)
As usual, it's easy to sympathize with the little guy and easy to attack the big guy. The powerless are innocent, the powerful are guilty.
Starbucks is attains self preservation by way of selling things. Oxfam and IFAT are attain self preservation by way of finding people to attack and making people feel guilty.
At least Starbucks is respons
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Which begs the question, is Coke really in the big-bad-bin? This is the first I've heard of it. I mean, I've heard murmurs about unfair practices but nothing really big.
It also suggests the question, how much of the proceeds from each cup of McDonalds "coffee" goes to the farmer?
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Do some digging on Coke in India (especially Kerala), and find out just how much damage they've done. Fertile ground has been turned into parched earth, groundwater has been contaminated across the country, and there's some question about the incidence of birth defects near the bottling plants. Unfortunately, it's far enough away from the Western World(tm), and also India's special interest groups tend to stray farther from the truth than
The issue isn't even about the farmers! (Score:2, Insightful)
Starbucks and Oxfam had been working together (Score:3, Informative)
There's even some allegation that Oxfam stopped working with Starbucks due to political pressure ( see http://society.guardian.co.uk/charitymanagement/s
Starbucks lied. (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, the guy conveniently omits that "Starbucks intervened in the USPTO decision by prompting the National Coffee Association of USA, Inc. (NCA), of which it is a leading member, to oppose the approval of the trademarks." (see here) [oxfamamerica.org] Why would Starbucks actively oppose the Ethiopian trademark application if they really wanted to help Ethiopian farmers?
All the talk about "we want the farmers to succeed, we built schools, we pay over commodity prices", while making up 90% of the video, is bullshit and completely besides the point. They don't care about that charity crap, they want hard and cold trademark agreements.
Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just cause its not *quite* mountain dew... (Score:4, Funny)
Coffee! (Score:2)
The nerdy navigators of old drank it and pretty much everyone else since then.
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Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news for nerds not because of what is happening, but because of HOW it's happening.
Not only is Oxfam going directly to the internet to mount a campaign against a corporation (in and of itself a cool thing - proving yet a gain the power of the internet), the corporation responded in kind.
This type of one to one presentation of views has never happened before in such a powerful way. It could herald a new method of consumer/producer interaction, which of course may spill into political spheres. All because of the internet.
It is proof that the internet is radically changing the face of our entire society, so much so that we are only on the cusp of realizing what may happen. Geeky enough for you now?
Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:4, Interesting)
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a.) Lots of nerds care about what happens to Starbucks.
b.) They used YouTube.
Slashdot isn't always going to have news you're interested in. Sorry.
Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:5, Funny)
Every culture and subculture has some form of 'machismo'. In the world at large, machismo mostly consists of its literal interpretation, ie. doing those things that you stereotypically associate with being male: ie. being physically fit, healthy and attractive, being able to bed large numbers of women, being able to tolerate large amounts of drink and so on. Nerds, on the other hand, are very poor at these things. But they still need some form of token machismo so they can show off to their peers. This manifests itself in a couple of different ways. The obvious one is showing off your technical ability, eg. by displaying arcane knowledge of poorly documented parts of your OS. And another is to show off your ability to tolerate caffeine. Just observe any group of nerds together and watch the endless stream of little geeky jokes displaying their insecurity about caffeine: "The day hasn't started until my fifth coffee", "I'm a machine to turn caffeine into code", "why would anyone drink decaf?", even clothing [thinkgeek.com] to show off ones's capability for caffeine intake. Nerds worry that if they don't make these little comments, their ability to tolerate caffeine will be doubted and they will be perceived as somehow inferior.
And hence it's no surprise that Starbucks is an important part of geek culture.
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That's the funniest thing I've heard this week.
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Not only is the internet proving to be crucial for communication (we've known that for a while now)... it is quickly showing its value in preserving freedom. Never in history has the average man been given such power to influence so many, it truly levels the playing field to a large degree.
yep (Score:3, Interesting)
why can't you pay more? (Score:2)
so the problem is the free market? (Score:2)
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