Coffee, Starbucks, and Sweden

Its not exactly big news or anything but it seems that Starbucks has decided to open its first store in Sweden. Where are they going to do so? At Arlanda (Stockholm) airport. To start with a side note before I continue with this discussion on the meaning of Starbucks and so on: I used to drink Starbucks coffee about once a week when I lived in the US. It was within walking distance from my house and no other cafe´s were. Now back to the situation.

Sweden is a nation of coffee drinkers. The last time I heard any statistics concerning coffee, it was that Finland was the biggest consumer per head while Sweden was second. I grew up watching my Swedish elders consume copious amounts of the black gold (usually in percolator form). As someone noted on The Local-We can coffee!

So now comes Starbucks, which has stores all over the world and they chose to go into the Swedish market. Well almost Swedish, Arlanda Airport is pretty far from being downtown. There are already big chains that sell coffee like starbucks already in place. My wife worked for Wayne´s coffee when I met her, actually coffee can be seen as one of the reasons we are together. So what is the problem with Starbucks and I note here that I am not writing this to bash the US or anything like that. No, I am approaching this from a coffee consumer standpoint.

1. Their coffee product is not as good as what the Swedes already have. Swedish coffee is tastier and less expensive than Starbucks prices will be.

2. They have a very corporate and scrubbed identity. There is nothing unique about a starbucks cafe i.e. they are the McDonalds of coffee. Wherever you go it will be the same.

3. They are anti-labor. This means that they have been against attempts by their baristas to unionize. This kind of thinking also makes it difficult for them on the Swedish market.

4. They are anti-competition. Every corporation is. They set up as many shops in an area as possible to weed out all the competition and become the only chain (not that Swedish chains are better about this).

5. If we go back to the product part again, we can also add that they are not about supporting the individual: employees are easily replaceable and are not encouraged to be creative in their barista skills. This is where independent coffee shops hold the edge for two reasons: they are more open to innovation and they are able to do things that could be controversial in a corporate setting.

I don´t live in Sweden anymore, but if I did I would not drink Starbucks coffee. I would also try to avoid the other chains. Mass produced food is not exactly something the human race should be proud of in the way that it is sold at McDonalds and Starbucks.

Why will the Swede´s love it? Because they are afflicted by a peculiar love/hate relationship with America. They will talk garbage about it, then give them record profits as soon as the first store is opened at Stureplan.

Sleepy Sundays

The canal water was still, the swans like specks of white drifting slowly on its mirrored surface. The path is wet from fall rain and like an unfinished clay pot, awaiting an oven to reach its final firm texture. This is what it is like to wander through a sunday. Two books in my bag, listening to the occasional passing cars, distant sirens, and foreigners talking fantasy football, making my way through the streets. In Berlin a new sight is always around the corner; something new to be experienced and a hidden neighborhood to be discovered. I tread carefully on this city´s cobbled streets.

Above me and along the canal:lofts with their big windows. Some lit, others black and cold. Lives happen there. Families come, paint the walls, share laughter and tears. They share living and dying. Someone else takes their place and repeat. Every corner, every stickered lampost, and fall browned leaf is a poem waiting to happen. This is what it is like to wander through a Sunday.

Wednesday Review

Tonight is Yoga night. That is right, for all those who didn´t know, I go once a week to a VHS and do some Iyengar yoga. I have noticed two things: A. I am more flexible and B. My back pains have gotten better. Now if only the weather would warm up a bit I would go skateboarding.

I am a bit more than halfway through Isabelle Allende´s Portrait in Sepia which is supposed to tie together two of her other unrelated books Daughter of Fortune(hated it) and House of Spirits (loved it). Its decent so far and I like that she has done her homework on Californian history. The best example of this is how the creation of Chinatown came about in San Francisco. She also illustrates very well what many Americans would like to forget: that the white people created an America for themselves and tried to keep others out of power as long as possible.

Next book that I will read seems likely to be a William Golding book or Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster. While I am a fan of Paul Auster I did not care for the last book I read by him one bit (Moon Palace).

Today I was able to send off another application and that means that I have send a total of five so far since graduating. Not good enough. I need to get to work and find more places to apply at.

Letter from a Tuesday

Things are returning back to normal after the chaos and despair of losing a chance of being in South Africa. It means I will only be cheering for Germany which is not a bad thing at all, considering that they will probably go quite far (dare I say final)? In other news the sun has made a small and unexpected visit to the otherwise gray and cloudy city that is Berlin in the fall (and winter and early spring).

Turns out I have to work today and that I have to keep looking for jobs which is never fun no matter what the thoughts are about there being so many possibilities out there. I wish, honestly, that I could get paid for reading and critiquing fiction.

I read too much political news and that has the effect that I just get depressed about the failure of progression in modern times and all that, but I won´t give up. I believe eventually the conservatives will come up really short and realize they are a thing of the past, a thing so far removed from todays reality that soon we will study them with amazement.

If writing were therapy, then this would be aspirin

It was not so much shocking what happened last night. I sat at home watching the game, which I had told myself over and over again would be a loss, hoping that some magic moment would occur; a glimmer of hope. To be honest that is not what the Swedes needed: they needed skill and team spirit. An active coach would also have been something we could have used. Lagerbäck has done great things with these boys. He´s taken them to championships for the last ten years, but like all good things, they had to come to an end. If I would compare us to another team, then I hope we will be like England who missed the Euros and then came storming back. I am not sure that is what will happen but hope is the last thing to die.

Its time for two things now: new coaching and new blood. I am thankful for what the older players have done, but I think the time has come for a different approach to Swedish football. Players like Svensson and Henrik Larsson need to retire, as well as Daniel Andersson and Mikael Nilsson. There have been highpoints that were truly high and there have been those low moments that scraped the bottom. Let us hope then on the next generation that they have the skills, the burning desire, and the leadership to succeed.

Thank you Lars Lagerbäck and your staff for the last ten years of Swedish Football. We´ll be back.

Don´t ask, Don´t tell. Its time to grow up.

There is no proof that the reasoning behind the creation of don´t ask, don´t tell (an excuse to allow homophobia in the military) has ever been valid. While it seems that the general feeling in the US is that this last-century policy in on its last legs, where is the outcry? Where is the outrage that we have allowed our military to discriminate against able bodied men and women for so long?

When this law is finally repealled I want everyone who reads this blog to do me a favor. Find out who votes to keep it in place and find out what their reasoning was. If they have one good reason among them I would love to hear it.

As for any who might chose to leave the military because homosexuals are allowed to serve openly there is only one thing to say: good riddance. The military should not be a place for bigoted world views.

Change, but the bend-over-backwards kind

The current debate in health care reform and other items that are up for "change" have run into a strange discussion. The discussion of bi-partisanship. The idea that the American people would much rather prefer to have their politicians work together and reach compromises. Imagine if this had been the approach to segregation. Brown vs. Topeka results in a compromise. One side gets something they want and the others get a bit of what they want. Change is not a bi-partisan. Bi-partisan is generally a status quo. Look at the election. Enough American voters were fed up with the system being the way it was that they voted to give democrats majority. Its currently filibuster proof and the democrats are wallowing around as if they are the minority. Strange and bizarre is the way to describe this.

One could say the opposition is getting their shit together and the Democrats are MIA. I am going after the President on this one. Do something so we don´t fall right back into the hands of the people who gave us the last eight forgettable years. As for the Republican party: why is it impossible to have a proper debate about health care without resorting to scare tactics? Why is anyone listening to a former governor who ruled a small state and quit halfway through? Why is Betsy McCaughey getting airtime with her lies. I remember when I was a little boy if I was thought to be lying I was threatened with the legendary leather belt. Worked everytime.

Lastly lets think about the right-wing propaganda machine (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and co.) Is this the face that the Republicans want to use to advance their cause? A group of uneducated, hate mongers? We can move forward in the US, the question is if we should really have to ask the republicans for permission on everything. The Republican party originally had a president who didn´t do things that way. Abe Lincoln got his way. Time for Obama to stop asking for change and just do it.

3 days to go...

Last time Sweden showed up at Parken they managed to surprise even themselves about how effective they were. This video includes all the goals (swedish commentary) from both sides and this one the fan incident. Lets be honest here Sweden got lucky, there is no way they should have let Denmark back into that game. On the other hand Christian Poulsen demonstrated something that was already known about him, that is his lack of control under extremely stressful moments such as this game. Punching a striker in the stomach in the penalty area is about as stupid a thing as you can do in football. A right deserved red card and penalty kick awarded. Then came the fan. Drunk as piss and trying to punch the referee. When you host a qualifier, it is your job to make sure that fans can´t attack the referee and that is why the game was abandoned.

There won´t be fan problems this time around, so Sweden should do the dirty work themselves. Lets win 3-1 this time and have Zlatan score a brace.

The Internationals

Destiny has arranged a date for Sweden to decide how much it wants to play at next year´s World Cup finals. The date is the 10th of October, the place is Parken in Copenhagen. Sweden has played how it often does: bad more often than not but still somehow managed to sneak into the second spot, which if clinched would mean at worst a playoff spot against another european powerhouse. Denmark opened really strong but has more often than not had luck on their side. Portugal has played terrible the whole way through and given that they finished in fourth at the previous World Cup they should be ashamed.

To return to the problem at hand, Sweden vs Denmark, the quality of the Swedish Squad has to be questioned. Ibrahimovic and Henrik Larsson deserve to start no doubt. Berg has had a rough start at HSV and should therefore ride the bench until he is needed. Källström is on fire at Lyon. Svensson, the old man at Elfsborg, is also a shoe-in. Rasmus Elm? He´s been a bit weak as of late but should still start. Sebastian Larsson takes Holmen´s place in my eleven or maybe if he want to go crazy hold Larsson on the bench for the first half and let Dusan Djuric show what he is made of (note: Swedish Coach Lagerbäck is a conservative coach and while this is not a way to play beautiful football, it has led to five tournaments in a row that Sweden has played in). As far as the defenders, Sweden´s spine, we are going to play as follows Safari-Majstorovic-Mellberg-Nilsson. My question mark here is whether or not Oscar Wendt isn´t the man for the job. Nilsson is also the reason we didn´t get a draw in the last game between Sweden and Denmark.

I am too nervous to predict a goal fest win for Sweden. If we have what it takes then it will be 0-1 or 1-2 and we will leave it till late to finish. Of course what I am hoping for is that Denmark plays it as a draw and we go up three before halftime and don´t have to deal with any drunken fans like last time.

Here is where I am going to be extremely candid: Sweden can beat Denmark. We have the quality for it, but the fire is another thing. I just hope those boys will show up as men and play their hearts out. If we don´t beat Denmark then to be perfectly honest, we have no business in South Africa. Ninety minutes are waiting on Saturday and no matter the result I am asking for an instant classic.

Oh, leftist city of underachievers!

For those reading this blog who appreciate or are interested in non-US based newspapers and magazines that are of absolut top class I have a recommendation to make: Der Spiegel. While I am sure critics are sure to retort by calling it left-leaning, biased, etc., I find it to be rather balanced plus there is the added bonus that the writers tend to see things from a German perspective which as a resident of their country is important to have access to. Final added bonus: they have an english news section.

There is currently an article about the former finance minister (SPD) Thilo Sarrazin who said recently that Berlin had an underclass that was too big and was only growing outward but not economically upward. He also added that people who aren´t contributing should go elsewhere. Note that his current employer the Bundesbank has made sure to distance themselves from this remark.

As a resident of Berlin I find his statements rather insulting. The notion that those who don´t have anything should just pack up their bags and leave is a slap in the face to those who lost their jobs when the west stopped subsidizing them at the end of the cold war. Perhaps we should look at the false economy that was built up in the Western parts of the city to serve as a sort of propaganda that the western model was working (without the subsidies manufacturing jobs in Berlin would have dissapeared long before the wall came down). The city is currently in the middle of an economic crises, that much is clear, but what is not clear is where the city itself is headed. Creative center? Business Center (can´t compete with Frankfurt and Munich)? Manufacturing (outsourced)? Essentially the city is in the midst of a shift that no one seems to be able to control (not exactly anything new) so I don´t quite see how blaming poor people helps in any way.

Thursday or how the weekend began...

Today is Thursday and I have to work at shift at the Pizzeria, which given the current weather patterns is likely to remain dead.

I have been struggling my way through a Faulkner novel because I thought that I should, but now I am realizing that I am wasting time with books I don´t want to read and that this is leading to me reading less (neither of these two are good) therefore I am switching over to Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov (otherwise famous for The Master and Margarita, which if you haven´t read it is fantastic).

Hopefully the clouds will part tomorrow and I will be given a chance to skateboard tomorrow (at which point I will hopefully have recovered from Wednesday´s Yoga class). I leave you all with this video which illustrates the joys of skateboarding: Jason Dill´s new video part.

Further, I read this interesting article about Cider, which if you didn´t know was the drink of choice for "real" Americans before this foreign thing called beer entered only recently. Worth a read anyway.