Starbucks: Insert Clever Subtitle Here

I'm not a frequent coffee drinker. However, occasionally I feel the need for some caffeine and there happens to be a Starbucks nearby. I mean, there almost always happens to be a Starbucks nearby. You could be a town with a population of three and you've got a post office and a Starbucks. But I digress. So, I went and got some Starbucks this morning. I didn't even bother to order fair trade as I thought I was ordering a frap (I mis-ordered because I'm a super-spazz)and they are pre-mixed. However, as I looked at the menu, I couldn't even tell if there was a fair trade option at this particular 'bucks. If anything was labeled as such, it was done in really tiny letters (I have pretty good eyes, so verrrry tiny). So, as it is practically impossible to boycott Starbucks (sometimes you just need a cuppa and as I mentioned earlier, they are everywhere), I'm proposing that my readers write letters. Hurrah! My first ever injunction to write letters! Anyway, here's the contact 411:

Starbucks
2401 Utah Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98134 USA
Phone: 206-447-1575
Web: www.starbucks.com

Also, you can check out Co-op America's Starbucks Responsible Shopper Profile for more dirt on Starbucks.

AIDS: Helping the Gap Sell

I've got a beef. The Gap is featuring a new line of (Red) products to go to AIDS programs. Forget that the Gap is still being monitored by various environmental, sweatshop, and human rights groups. Let's just focus on the fact that certain companies, including The Gap, MAC cosmetics, and others, do these promotions where they create certain product lines with the inducement that part of their profits go to AIDS and breast cancer programs (for example). So now the burden is on me to buy the products that will donate to charities regardless of whether they are the products that I actually want. Meanwhile, The GAP looks like a good corporate citizen (which they aren't, though admittedly they seem to be working on cleaning up their act) and take a tax break on the donations. Why doesn't The GAP just donate a portion of ALL their profits to charity? Or better yet, a percentage of all their profits with a minimum guaranteed donation, so that it doesn't matter if people run to buy their products. Because, that's what genuinely good people do. And, if you really want to give, then skip the GAP shirt and just cut a check to your favorite organization devoted to AIDS relief (or the environment, or animal rights, or women's rights, or whatever). At least then you get the credit, instead of a big corporation who has shown more care for their bottom line than social responsibility.

By all means, shop with corporations you think have good corporate policy. But don't get sucked in by slick campaigns.