There's a joke going around that Starbucks has so saturated the coffee market that it is now opening new Starbucks stores inside its old stores.
Well, not quite — not yet — but the corporate coffee colossus is presently trying to expand through an equally bizarre marketing strategy: By disowning its globally ubiquitous brand name.
I grew up in a home where family
meals were the norm. Nearly every night, nine of us would crowd around
the kitchen table to enjoy a home-cooked meal together, recount our
days, laugh and argue, celebrating each unique personality's contribution
to the whole. Each meal made the fabric of our family stronger. Those
experiences have stayed with me as I've grown and started a family of
my own, where I happily continue the tradition of sitting down together
nightly to share a meal and exchange stories.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives
and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all
pay in the US... Highly paid
employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in
2007, the latest figures available."
All
you need to really know about the Obama health "reform" initiative
is that it is being supported by retail giant Wal-Mart.
One hundred and fifty years jail time for Bernard Madoff is a good thing.
To listen to the victims of his swindle, or read their words, is to
appreciate the very far-reaching ways in which Madoff's quiet crime
has wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of families.
Former CNN correspondent-turned-PR consultant Gene Randall's video "report"
for oil giant Chevron might be unprecedented for how it blurred the
line between public relations and journalism. But the Randall-Chevron
production raises not only ethical questions, but also the question of
whether a surge of newly pink-slipped reporters might go, as one media
critic put it, "over to the dark side" and how that might further muddy
the line between news and corporate advocacy.
In May, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared [1]
the Obama administration's intent to close and "turn around" 5,000
'underperforming" public schools in poorer neighborhoods across the
country.
TAYLORSTOWN, Pennsylvania - A small Pennsylvania town is trying to ban coal mining in a battle being played out across the state as rural communities try to assert control over mining, gas drilling and other businesses.
Blaine Township, a community of 600 about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, hopes to trigger a legal battle that could determine the rights of municipalities throughout the United States to control corporate activity.
Despite budget pressures, President Obama
has not backed off his commitment to universal healthcare reform. But
the devil is in the details. And if he is not careful he could end up
with a reform worse than nothing.
A crucial question is whether the law will include a public,
Medicare-style plan. This public plan could be used by people who
otherwise lack good insurance, or by employers who conclude that the
public plan is a better deal for themselves and their workers.
A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for and closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion.
Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.
