Para Espanol vea abajo

It is nice and late but I wanted to put a few things up here before I hit the sack and drift off to wonderland.

So, Starbucks spends between 15k and 30k on health projects in East Timor. Then they spend 45k to cut a deal with United Airways to promote a video that cost them 100k to make. A video which promotes these recent social investments in East Timor. During this process a young Starbucks employee discloses to the owner of an independent coffee company that they, Starbucks, were overcharged by the production company that made the video. Topping it off the Starbucks representative that attended the United Students for Fair Trade annual convergence was heard saying that, "Starbucks doesn't really like to brag about what it does."

Please, fucking shoot me you greedy corporate bastards. You spend 5 times as much on the promotion (145k) of, than you spend on the project (15k to 30k), to improve the lives of coffee farmers. Then, you complain about being overcharged by a production company and proceed to state, "That you, as a corporate entity, don't like to brag?" Are you insane? This example of a company spending so much time promoting themselves and their greatness that the actions that make them great, such as bettering the lives of coffee producers, have become secondary to the promoting of an image that, in retrospect, is a well crafted lie.

Got some travel coming up in my life. DC this weekend for NCOR with S. Though the possibility of hanging out with C again before she darts off to Prague dances around the peripheral of my brain, clouding my vision and making me think of only one thing. Wonderfully enough, before the 18th I'm pretty excited that P is coming to visit. Then off to Philly sometime after the 18th and before the 23rd to see D and J and then up to Boston to see A. Quite the adventure filled month, no?