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Posts published in “Day: July 17, 2008”

The Starbucks list

The Starbucks list is now out - the list, that is, of hundreds of Starbucks around the country the coffee giant, based in Seattle, plans to close before long.

A few words about the Northwest selections.

For the most part, the numbers aren't all that large. In Idaho, just two Starbucks will close - one in Boise on University Drive (take a look at the area and you can see how that location might not have worked out), and one at Meridian on Fairview. Not a massive impact, especially since in both cases there are other Starbucks available in close range.

Not much larger in Oregon, where six locations are slotted for closure - three of them in Portland, two others in nearby Beaverton and Hillsboro. (One relatively remote, in Tillamook.) The Portland stores, and to a degree Beaverton and Hillsboro too, are located near other Starbucks and loads of other coffee places.

Proportionately, many more in Washington state - 19. But more than half of those are in or near Seattle - seven in the city (several, we know from driving by, in real close proximity to other Starbucks), plus Kent, Federal Way and Tukwila. The remaining nine are widely scattered (Aberdeen, Burlington, Wenatchee, Orting, Port Angeles, Spokane Tacoma, Vancouver, Yakima). Suggesting, again, some thinning of the overpopulated herd (not only in Seattle but in most of other cities too).

Conclusion - little economic impact, and more than that just a size-of-marketplace correction.

Satire is hard

National politics has the New Yorker Obama cover, but th Inland Empire, apparently, has a dustup of its own.

At least, we presume the Coeur d'Alene Press was being satiric in its editorial response to a letter to the editor from a resident of Bismark, North Dakota, complaining that in the course of a 3,700-mile vacation, "By far, the people of Coeur d'Alene were the most rude, awful people. We took the fireworks cruise and again were confronted with rude, pushy people. People at the RV park were also unfriendly, drunk, loud and rude. Even the people at the service stations were unfriendly."

The Press replied that the locals were not the problem: "That was the drunken hordes who migrate to Coeur d'Alene from 30 miles west every summer weekend, holiday and any other day they're being sought for outstanding warrants and/or child-support payments. These Spokane invasions do far more than put ill-manners on public display. They are to North Idaho what the locusts were to Pearl Buck's 'The Good Earth,' with one notable exception. Locusts have the decency not to leave their trash behind. We endure them because the law does not allow us to ban them, put up blockades at the Washington-Idaho border or shoot them. We've thought about charging them for these free fireworks shows, but that's not logistically feasible. Too many Spokanites would further tie up the tumultuous traffic by bartering warm beer and cheap cigarettes for passage."

Which of course led to some commentary from the Spokanite point of view . . .

Everyone does realize this is a joke, right? Or do they?