When the cover is off the juicer, the hat looks more like a sombrero. They should offer a version with a racist Mexican mustache instead of racist Asian eyes.

What chink said those are racist?

Pinkberry is a Korean-American owned company (owned by Shelly Hwang and Young Lee). Either way, I want one of those juicers

I am beginning to wonder if the "Save-our-Starbucks" is another advertising gimmick of SB like when they shut down stores for a few hours a few months ago.

The two Starbucks on 15th Ave in Seattle are going to be gone. I thought it was odd both would close down; the one in Safeway yeah but the other one? UGH!

At least the one in Wedgewood is not going to close; if it did I would kill someone! GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Those are inaccurate portrayals. Although they may appear to be asian, the fact that they aren't designed to work (won't the juice run off the side) clearly makes them not real asians, maybe asian-americans (2nd or 3rd generation. The Mexican one, though--outside of the slanted eyes)--seems to be very accurately portrayed, I would make that juicer work for me anytime.

racist, but adorable.

sincerely,
diggum

#4, it's not exactly close to 75th, but check out Javasti.

Oh man.. the best comment (out of the 3 I read) on that juicer blog is definitely:

"The worst thing is that I am not sure I would have realized how truly offensive it is unless she pointed it out to me."

Ahhhhh. Bask in that one for a while.

If they really cared about the stores' fate they would have been inside buying lattes instead of standing outside with signs. The stores are/were unprofitable. That's it. Bet even money on more closures heading into 1Q next year.

@5 if you take a closer look at the picture you will notice that the juicer on the right in the back has his "hat" flipped over to reveal the traditional juicing mechanism. No juice will be lost.

I want one.

oh, the inhumanity of it all.

people will have to walk/drive 30 to 300 feet away from the closed Starbucks to one still operating.

when will the madness stop?

when?

Get out a dictionary and look up racism. This is anything but racism.

Since when did anything with racial stereotypes become racist?

Racist or not, they're awesome and I want one.

How is this anymore racist than Tiki art? If my vintage Trader Vik's Tiki glasses are racist, then call me Archie.

Oh my fucking god. Why does everyone think Starbucks is so fantastic and community friendly? Whichever marketing agency started that rumor deserves a fucking medal.

@3 is right, and if you'd watched those dumb AmEx commercials you'd know that.

Can't say I'll miss the SBUX stores.

I hate to generalize (well, actually, I don't), but something tells me these heartbroken McStarbucks protesters drink that bottled "I'm saving the Earth" water SBs sells and feel really pious about it. They probably also are aghast at the occupation of Iraq, etc etc etc. But the loss of their fucking non-fat vanilla tall lattes is what gets them off their asses to PROTEST?

Something wrong here.

Do those things double as buttplugs?

TO THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OVERPRICED COFFEE YOUR ARE SORELY MISTAKEN, IT IS THE COMMUNITY THAT WE BUILT FOR THE LAST NINE YEARS HERE IS WHAT WE CRAVE...

and if Starbucks thinks that we are going to pick up our neighborhood and community and move to some other Starbucks in Dallas...they are sorely mistaken too.

Get the facts, and get informed. Read the site.
http://www.savelowergreenvillestarbucks.com/

Hey now... there's no need to diss the tall nonfat vanilla latte. What has that drink ever done to you?!

Yo, Jen, why don't you open up your own independent coffee shop for your neighborhood and community? Or are those things in reality only worth $3.29 to you? Never mind; I used to live in Dallas, and I know the answer already.

@19 Why don't you gather your strong community together and start protesting something with a little more meaning. You can spout this community shit as much as you want, but when it comes down to it, it IS IN FACT FIGHTING FOR OVERPRICED COFFEE in your COMMUNITY. You're telling me the only place you have to spend time with your community is at your neighborhood Starbucks? That's just sad and pathetic.

Hello, jumping-to-conclusions people! What makes you think these people have never protested the war or Darfur or anything else? For all you guys know, they use their local Starbucks as a meeting place to talk about their other planned protests, write letters to their senators, brainstorm about fund raisers for homeless people, or whatever else you think they "ought" to be doing instead of caring about a business in their neighborhood.

Before you bash them for being upset about the closure of a place they enjoy spending their free time hanging out in (heaven forbid they HAVE any free time, of course, what with the WAR and HUNGER and BLOG POSTS to comment on!), I'd like to see a list of all the things you've done in the last six months to help with the situation in the Sudan, stop the war in Iraq, or dedicate your life to end hunger and disease in Africa. Have you spent any time or money buying coffee in a cafe? What?! You HAVE? You bastards! You don't care about the Sudan at all!!

Whatever, man.

WELCOME STARBUCKSJEN TO OUR SLOG COMMUNITY! Why does your community have to meet in a Starbucks? Also, do you know what Darfur is? No checking Wikipedia first!
(heart,)
Paul

You are making a whole lotta assumptions Jane. Even more ridiculous assumptions than some of the ones made in the original post. Now why don't you go on back to decorating your signs protesting the Starbucks closing down in your community.

These things look like The Merletons from The Nutcracker Suite sequence of Disney's 1940 "Fantasia". So I suppose that section will have to be edited out of all existing copies.

"pick up our neighborhood and community and move to some other Starbucks"

You just won the award for Most Unintentionally Hilarious Slog Post of the Day.

@4
Yeah, if the Starbucks closes in the 'Wood I will really be pissed! I am totally addicted to Pike Roast drip.
@7 Javasti is cool, too. Good treats.

Another stupid "point" made in #19's comment. If your "community" was consuming enough at their local Starbucks, they wouldn't be closing the store in the first place. Saying you won't be moving your neighborhood (haha!) isn't much of a threat when your neighborhood isn't sustaining the store anyway. Maybe your community should consider supporting a local business.

well, I just went to that website, and I'm convinced! I didn't realize the number of celebrities who DEPEND on that Starbucks being open! Here's a list:

• Chris Vognar and Thor Christensen, reporters for Dallas Morning News

• Alexa Conomos, Mike Castilucci, and Shelly Slater, news reporters for WFAA Channel 8 News

• Ron Kirk, former mayor of Dallas

• Jimbo Wallace, bassist for the nationally acclaimed band, Reverend Horton Heat

• Brendon McNally, author of the novel, Germania (Simon and Schuster, Sept
08)

• Elizabeth Marshall, author of The Contrarian Effect (John Wiley and Sons,
Sept 08)

• Jeff Crilley, former reporter for FOX News and author of Free Publicity

• Jennifer Wallace, nationally recognized graphic designer and
co-owner of Hip On Sunset a children’s clothing line.

For the love of GOD, don't deprive Jen Wallace and Jimbo Wallace, (are they related?) their morning frappachinos!!!

@19: I agree with Fnarf that you start your own coffee shop. Not only will you be assured that some corporation won't shut it down, but you could actually bring GOOD coffee to your town. Seriously, people will thank you.

Here's a tip: use good espresso from Vivace coffee or Cafe Vita. Make a trip to Seattle to see how coffee is made, and how to pour milk into cute little leafs and hearts.

Love, OM

@30, I'm sure those "famous" peoples assistants can truck on down to the next Starbucks a few blocks over and get them their daily frappucinos that they so desperately need!

@30: Jimbo Wallace?!?!

JIMBO?!?!?! NFW.

For those interested, here is the Mandarin Juicer. A bit pricey at 40 bucks, but I think it's cute as hell.

http://www.designwarehousesantafe.com/product/78/

Jimbo? That's racist.

@30, anyone who writes a novel featuring Albert Speer deserves to have their morning coffee as they like it. I'm sending $5 to their save the Starbucks fund! And buying the guy's book!

And unless anyone slams me as a Nazi, may I quietly explain that an area of study for me is totalitarian expressions in architecture. Thank you.

also, totalitarian expressions of nude male anatomy on Manhunt and the #8 bus...

@25: D, the only assumption I made in my comment was that I assume that just because you care about a Starbucks DOESN'T mean you are incapable of caring about anything else. It just annoys the hell out of me when people assume that if you care about something trivial, that also means you DON'T care about something important. That's such crap.

I protested Fox's cancellation of the Joss Whedon series "Firefly." And guess what? I've ALSO protested against the war and the genocide in Darfur, and once I gave a writer whose article I was proofing a stern lecture on the proper use of semicolons.

People can care about a wide variety of things that impact them both directly and indirectly. Just because you don't care about the same things doesn't mean their concerns are trivial or invalid. These people happened to enjoy spending time at their local Starbucks and they're sorry to see it go and wish it wouldn't. That doesn't make them bad people.

@37, #26. And that thing was a Speer, all right...

@36,

"...an area of study for me is totalitarian expressions in architecture."

Jube, did you just out yourself as a certain SLOG-noteworthy not-so-secret admirer of a certain former lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs?

an area of study for me is totalitarian expressions in architecture

sorry, Jube...I got confused because I take BOTH those buses to get to work...I stand corrected.

Though, there are some hotties on the #8...

@9 for the win!

I mean, seriously? There's no hidden agenda here, is there? Sbux claims that they're closing the least profitable stores... so, unless they're lying to us, there clearly isn't a whole lot of community happening in any of those stores.

Or, the more likely argument, for those up above trying to defend their protest cred, they hold meetings in these locations, or tele-commute, but don't actually buy very much.

Yeah, life is soooo unfair Jane.

I guess it's also completely unfair to suggest you and your fellow petition-monkeys might consider hauling your fat, overly privileged asses the SEVEN WHOLE BLOCKS to that OTHER Starbucks on E. Mockingbird & Homer - or do the "cool kids" who hang out there make fun of you behind your back whenever you walk in?

Or, here's a really radical idea: why don't you just invite all those "friends" you meet at #6262 every day over to YOUR OWN HOME for coffee and chit-chat? Wouldn't that be swell? Then, you wouldn't even have to leave your own house!

'cause you know, in the end, it's just a freaking cup of coffee - and not very good coffee at that.

I'm sorry! I meant DECAF tall nonfat vanilla lattes. Now THAT's a waste of time.

I don't buy the 'Starbucks is my community' stuff. You have to PAY to be there. It's sort of like paying people to be friends with you. Or to have sex with you.

@40, No I'm not Mudede. But I'm probably the only person on Slog that spent airfare to fly to Berlin to see a big wad of concrete (http://pruned.blogspot.com/2008/04/heavy-load-exerting-concrete-body-and.html)

@41, you're still a moron. Extra points for consistency. I wish you would perfect the human equivalent of a test pattern.

@42, maybe I'll join you for a trip on the #8 someday. strangeways, here we come...

@46,

That's the Bowiest thing I've ever read.

That's the Fnarfiest thing I've ever read.

That's the Morrisseyest thing I've ever read.

And no, I don't feel like fighting the feeling.

In reading all the Starbuck's comments I noticed that not many came from members of the Starbuck's 6262 neighborhood. It is easy for people to throw out ridiculous comments about how we should focus our attention on "Darfur" or "Iraq" when that is comparing apples to oranges. In fact, this little neighborhood Starbuck's has housed many community charity events for foster children, children with Leukemia and so on and so forth. This is the place where our little community rallies for many causes, takes care of each other, has art classes for our neighborhood children, etc. etc. We pass 100 Starbuck's a day in strip malls or in Target and none of those seem to be closing. The fact of the matter is, that Starbuck's 6262 is like a small piece left of a true community metting place where people care about each other and try to do right by our children and our neighbors. Maybe if more of you negative, unfriendly, uncaring bloggers who like to write about things you don't know about, and criticize the kind of people that are trying to fight for what is important in their neighborhood had a place like we do, then, perhaps, you wouldn't be negative and unfriendly. Maybe you don't know what it is like to have surgery, a baby, or just a bad day and have people you don't even know bringing you meals or Starbuck's gift cards because they just heard about your rough day at the neighborhood Starbuck's. Alas, it is too bad it might close, our next charity event just might have been for the children of Darfur or the soldiers in Iraq.

@48, Amy, if I'd just had surgery and you brought me a Starbuck's giftcard, I'd grab the scalpel off the tray and embed it in your face.

If I go through surgery, I get something from Barneys New York. Please make a note of it.

you're still a moron

It's true, though; all modern architecture is designed to belittle the human spirit. Speer, Philip Johnson, Frankie Wright, Frankie Gehry: all celebrate the wealth and power of the client by modeling oppression in space.

@50, it's sad you see so much beauty as ugliness. But that's your bag, fartf. I've seen work by each of the people you mentioned that were, in their own way, breathtaking and capable of creating moments of ecstasy (the brain chemical kind, not the I've-got-to- change-my-underwear kind).

The beauty is created at the expense of the people who have to live with it. Philip Johnson's favorite material was travertine, specifically because it was also Speer's, and Mussolini's, because his antihumanist goals were similar to theirs. Wright built houses where the residents weren't allowed to move the fucking chairs around, because he was Superman and they were idiot dwarves. Gehry's buildings assault the people who attempt to enter them. Koolhaas's library here is designed to Glorify The Creator -- Koolhaas -- not the pathetic morons trying to find their way around the library.

Big Name Architecture since WWII is, for the most part, a hate crime against cities and people.

Jubilation -
I will gladly bring you something from Barney's. Perhaps some Burberry mittens so you can't type on your little keyboard anymore. I am so turned on right now at the vision I have of you behind your Dell with a hot cup of Ramen, your childhood teddy bear, and some empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans on the floor. If you new what a big cute smile I had after my morning cappucino you would quit all your Starbuck's negativity and probably be here in Dallas holding up signs all day in front of our much loved 6262.

Fnarf,

You sure are in a fighting mood today, aren't you? Well, here's where I get back at you for dissing the fine, fine Ms. Naomi Klein in that other thread there:

Fnarf, you forgot to mention Le Corbusier. Really, why should we take anyone seriously in a SLOG smackdown over Big Name Architecture if they fail to mention Le Corbusier?

JTC, FTW. Fnarf, you owe me a Pepsi.

I used to have one of those juicers. I LOVED it. Lost it in a breakup, dammit.

It never occurred to me to actually juice a citrus fruit on the head of an Asian person afterward, so I guess I fail to see the problem.

I'm going to give you a D for that sarcasm effort, Amy dear, but I'll hold off if you can try again and come up with something better. "Cup of ramen"? That's not working for me.

Seriously, girl: there's another Starbucks on Mockingbird just a few blocks away. And I know there's gotta be an independent shop not too far away, even in a soulless hellhole like Dallas.

Jeff, you've got me on Le Corbusier. All I can say in my defense is that I have attacked Monsieur Jeanneret-Gris at length elsewhere in this forum on numerous other occasions.

@54, many thanks, sir!

The most profound tragedy of fartf is that he remains beholden to the intent -- or more accurately, perceived intent -- of the architects in question.

He cannot slip this ball and chain and own the structures in his own right.

Yes, Johnson's politics were outrageous, but does that negate the elegant handkerchief that is New Harmony's Roofless Church or the soulful chamber of Houston's Rothko Chapel?

Is the delicious explosion of space and light that erupts upon entering the sanctuary of Unity Temple less wondrous because Wright was churlish? And fartf, Wright was the dwarf -- try knocking your head on the doorjamb of a Usonian house...it smarts.

Gehry an assailant? I entered and exited the Dg Bank building in Berlin and Disney Hall with nary a bruise.

Koolhaas tyrannically self-absorbed? The same Koolhaas who has written more compellingly on the humanist aspects of urban design than any other living architect?

I guess we'll just have to leave this one to a different strokes/different folks outcome. The bottom line for me is that the art exists apart from its creators and, while a knowledge of who these men were as people is instructive, it is not the defining metric by which I judge the beauty and joy modern architecture brings to my life.

Koolhaas hasn't written anywhere near as compellingly about the humanist aspect of design as Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, or Mike Davis, or Christopher Alexander, or Peter Blake (not the pop artist), or Henry Petroski, or Hubert de Cronin, or William Whyte, or Jane Jacobs (last three not living, admittedly), or several hundred other people I could name. And his actions bely whatever words he's written (like that vacuous scrapbook "S, M, L, XL".

I believe that the purpose of modern architecture is to oppress, and by that oppression glorify the magnificent creator. No one's denying their skill at accomplishing this. You're acknowledging that this is their aim, aren't you? Interesting. Just ignore the architect's aim, and admire the craftsmanship of your cell.

There's more humanism in the meanest strip mall, or turn of the (Twentieth) century commercial block, than in any major project by a Big Name since the war. Why is it that all of the great building experiences come from buildings built before then? Why does Grand Central still inspire, while every modern train station (and airport) attacks and imprisons?

Dear Amy:

You want to know why your precious $tarbuck$ is closing?

Because you and your six friends probably spend so much time pissing on your own territory, that no other sane person can probably stand to set foot in the joint, and the six of you can't possibly drink enough of their swill to keep their sales margins on-target.

If the store was making money, believe me, it wouldn't have been on the list in the first place.

Look at it this way: without the distraction of your little "third place" getting in the way, think of all the extra time and $$ you'll now have to devote to helping out all those folks in Darfur...

@59, you win on the scholarly front. I'm just a piker, I'm afraid. But I have the conviction of my beliefs -- whacky as they are.

We're so OT it's pathetic. I'm done. Enjoy your strip mall :-)

OT? There's no such thing. Done? I'm just starting. Come on, ya bastard, fight me! Scholarly? I'm not scholarly, I'm an autodidactic blowhard. You've actually been to see these places; I've been in the Rothko chapel but none of the others. Clearly I don't know what I'm talking about.

OK, now I'm arguing with myself.

On topic, I think it's funny that if you googlemap that street in Dallas, and search businesses for "coffee" you get a list of Starbucks a mile long, and a Krispy Kreme. They're not hurting for chains in the Big D.

OMG! I already have the orange one! My sister gave it to me, and she has an adopted Chinese daughter! Where do I turn her in?!?

I m sirius!

This thread restores my faith in Jebus.

Dallas people: it's not you. We're always like this. Best of luck fighting the system.

And Paul? Protesting the right of somebody else to sell some tchotchke is a straight line path to oppressing the arts and political speech.

This thread has more storylines than an Altman ensemble film...

After 63 comments nobody mentioned that #2's "chink" comment is horrible? It shows that a lot of white americans still accept racism against asians...

"Ch-nk" really is equivalent to "n-gger" to many asians. I'm not comparing them in the trying-to-make-a-point king of way like "bitch" or "honky." I mean they're the same in the you-will-get-punched-in-the-face kind of way.

PS I know it's a total ripoff, but Crazy Cherry on Broadway is incredible!!!! I always see it empty so please go there and get some delicious frozen yogurt so it doesn't close down!!

@66, isn't "g**k" the closest equivalent? Isn't "ch**k" just a horribly outdated slur that your (or my) demented grandfather would use?

And didn't you just feed a troll?