Starbucks has a pretty bad rap. Lately, there has been the news that the coffee giant is closing 600 stores. But even before Starbucks had these financial difficulties many people saw the chain as a sort of representation of all that was wrong with capitalism; it was the big, heartless chain store closing down locally-owned businesses.

Starbucks does make a point to open up stores next to already established mom and pop coffee shops and wants to be the exclusive coffee vendor in the area but according to Slate Magazine, Starbucks actually helps these locally-owned or small chain stores.

“Just over the five-year period from 2000 to 2005—long after Starbucks supposedly obliterated indie cafes—the number of mom and pops grew 40 percent, from 9,800 to nearly 14,000 coffeehouses”

Because Starbucks isn’t like a big box store that offers cheap products at cheap prices, it’s not really undermining the often more-affordable local coffee shops. Indeed, Starbucks coffee is notoriously expensive (A recent survey says that 76% of Americans think it’s too expensive), but people choosing to spend more for their caffeine fix at the local ‘Bux is not hurting the cheaper, local shops.

I was listening to NPR the other day and they mentioned something called the “Latte Factor”, which is basically taking all the money that you would spend on coffee and similar “unnecessary” things and spending it more wisely, or investing it. It makes sense; the math they did indicates that if you buy one coffee a day (which is a tad unrealistic) then you spend around $1500 a year supporting your coffee habit. That’s $1500 dollars that I could be putting towards my credit card debt or investing so I can have money to put a down payment on a house. Or so they said. Read More »

Most of the time, social networking sites are only discussed when devious, nasty, and vicious things occur. For instance, many parents have decried places like YouTube, and its variants, to be “evil,” and an infernal, virtual breeding ground that prey on teens’ desire for instant “web-celebrity” status – a type of immediate stardom in which individuals will even beat up others just to enjoy 15 minutes of fame.

There was the case in 2007 and most recently in 2008, in which teen girls were lured to a home and then beaten – all of it caught on camera. Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the transferal of information via the Internet is pernicious in so many ways.

That’s why this story about James Karl Buck is particularly refreshing, and points to the ways in which social networking sites can be useful in serious situations. Buck is a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley. On April 10th, he was arrested in Egypt when covering an anti-government protest as a student reporter.

Buck had the wherewithal to text just one word – “Arrested” – on Twitter as soon as he was apprehended. Read More »