Starbucks is shutting down Kismet, a local Turkish cafe under the claim they serve espresso
Spoilers: they don’t. It’s Turkish coffee.
In the center of Alderwood Mall in Washington, there’s two kiosks.
One is a creation built from the ground up (Literally. They had to install the plumbing and electric themselves.) by a married couple from Turkey. They had a restaurant before immigrating here, and chose to set up shop in a region with a huge middle eastern population. Achma, simit, baklava, Nutella Bomb (Bomb of Izmir remix), börek, and whatever baked goods they’re giving a whip up are worked on as they chat with you. Turkish coffee is brewed and served in beautiful little cups, Italian sodas prepped, and with a baked good of choice enjoyed at the wrap around counter. The place has become a tiny cultural island of familiarity, where friends and families gather to chat, eat and drink.
The other is a duplicate stamp fast food kiosk by a bloated multi-billion dollar corporation that’s already shut down one of its three (3) locations within the mall, leaving yet another unoccupied dead space.
For years, it’s ignored Kismet’s presence while it made the usual hard climb from startup. But it’s gotten popular. And they don’t like it.
And so they walk up to Brookfield Properties who own the mall, and whip out the contract of no one else on the property serving espresso (yes. they have that. insidious isn’t it?) demanding that the Turkish coffee shop close. Here’s the screamer though: They. Don’t. Serve. Espresso. But Brookfield won’t squirm under the thumb of the megacorp unless it’s made loud and clear what a big mistake that is.
If you would like to help, even signing the petition will carry this forward. Reblog and share it too, and let’s see if we can’t give Starbucks a well-earned kick in the groin.
Please give this petition your signature. These kinds of stores are so important and especially because they are immigrants!
they’re real out of necessity, out of pressure, from the relations they obfuscate, they’re made “real” necessarily
no no no no no, friend, you misunderstand me, I’m critiquing this viewpoint!
We can’t just “pretend money never existed”, we have to change the relations that necessitates it in the first place! Change them to the point of complete departure, a break.
If we go forth without changing the conditions, these will force themselves back into existence by necessity. The good news is that they are contingent on how we relate to each other so if we relate in a different manner, we necessitate differently; or, put simply, don’t need money and laws etc.
This is also the bad news because it requires a complete overturn of even very basic things not least of which includes economic arrangements. It’s just a lot.
in my lifetime, every attempt to address this need - even just speaking about it - has been met with deadly opposition
The part about “relations they obfuscate” is important because saying “I owe my landlord 1000 dollars every month” doesn’t explain the actual relationship but “if I don’t pay the police and the courts will make sure I am evicted”. So it’s really a description of a power imbalance between tenant and landlord (but mostly between agents of the state and those they oppress)
psychically smacking my new hire with a spoon like “no, don’t work off the clock” “yes, we give you breaks” “no, we aren’t nice for doing this, it’s literally the law” it feels like I’ve adopted a shelter cat
*in the arms of the angels playing softly in the background* with your help, we can give just-out-of-college workers some god damn standards
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it’s more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It’s performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.
This is ultimately why propaganda is going to work on you. Because you never learned how to think for yourself and the actual ideology behind things. You simply rely on group think and the bare minimum explanations to tell you what’s good and bad.
Sawthis article linked on twitter yesterday and…. yeah. YEAH.
Okay I have a lot of thoughts on this so this is probably going to get super long.
The main things I’ll elaborate on:
1. Critical thinking is important.
2. Nuance (also important) and critical thinking are not the same thing, as the repost above is conflating them to be.
3. Your public support (or lack thereof) of a work deemed problematic has meaning, and you should consider that meaning before engaging.
4. Kindness and empathy need to be present in these conversations for those who have the energy and capacity.*
So the above posts are (I believe) pretty clearly talking about Harry Potter and JK Rowling, and how people have been dumping Harry Potter over the last several years because it’s been deemed problematic. OP is saying that this is due to group think and a lack of critical thinking and/or willingness to look into and fully understand why something is problematic. I will admit I may be wrong, as the repost linked article is about a different work, but I do want to use HP as an example of how this thinking may be flawed.
First, I agree that people need to be practicing critical thinking skills. It happens way too often that things just get shared without any fact checking. The most recent example being “Elon musk said he’d give $6Billion to end world hunger if given a plan and then didn’t do it then bought Twitter for 7x more than that” yes, elon musk is absurdly rich and I am not a fan for a number of reasons, but this is still a bit misleading (“ending world hunger” was not on the table for one, and due to legality with anonymous donations it is *theoretically* possible that he has done it [or at least 5.75billion] and we just….can’t get confirmation of that). That said, is the sentiment that the absurdly rich should be more proactive about giving back and have some responsibility to use a small percent of their wealth to do good in the world or care for their fellow humans still a valid sentiment, and something Elon musk doesn’t seem to be living up to? Is it absolutely ridiculous that an individual can buy an entire social media company? Absolutely. Should he be off the hook because the facts in the quippy little post that’s blowing up are a little off or don’t tell the whole story? I don’t think so, because there’s still some truth to the message the post is really trying to get to. Anyway, critical thinking is super important, especially in the age of algorithmically designed social media ‘bubbles.’ Please fact check things before blindly posting them. And let people know when you choose to post something anyway that may be misleading, and why.
Second, you can’t make a nuanced opinion without talking about specifics. That’s the whole point of a nuanced opinion, is that it’s going to be different depending on the (nuanced) circumstances of each thing. I know OP didn’t bring up nuance in particular and that was the repost, but it does ring true for “you need to use discernment” as well.
In the case of JK and HP (which again is what I believe OP is talking about, but they failed to be specific in their sweepingly broad statement about critical thinking, so I may be incorrect), HP was deemed harmful because of a number of things:
The primary reason, of course, was JK being deemed a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) based on the fact she opposes trans rights bills, doesn’t seem to believe that trans women are really women, specifically doesn’t want to open up women’s spaces to trans women for fear of men taking advantage of that and pretend to be trans to gain access to spaces where they can prey upon women. This is all stuff that was in her blog about it (which I did actually read, unlike a certain fantastic beasts actor who condemned people for cancelling her without knowing things/making judgements without knowing the facts when that’s what he did by judging people who’ve cancelled her without educating himself on it first?), so this is verifiable things people can look up and find it’s true. She’s also publicly supported anti-trans politicians and researchers, and continues to double down on her position whenever confronted about it.
Since then, the negative things about the books have been more in the forefront and people have been calling attention to them. Antisemitic themes in the descriptions of goblins, the gross abusive grooming behavior of Dumbledore, the lack of diversity, the queer baiting (that’s a little outside the books but still), etc.
All this to say: there are very valid reasons to be upset with the state of Harry Potter right now. OP said “No one knows how to simultaneously critique and consume media. You need discernment.” Well, There are reasons why someone would think critically about the situation and not want to consume or engage in it any more; that is discernment.
Especially because the media does not exist in a bubble! JK has made a lot of money off of Harry Potter (and continues to do so), and can use that money and her influence to continue to support anti-trans politicians etc. Her views are harmful to trans people, and her having the influence to spread and perpetuate those views makes it exponentially more harmful.
Now, that said, as well as getting to the paranoid vs reparative reading point of the reposter: should people drop all things HP because of JK’s views?
“It’s performative and it does nothing” is simply wrong.
Because we live in a capitalist society, we show support by the things we spend money on. Furthermore, in the world of influencers and social media, publicly showing support for something (via tweet, Instagram posts, etc) has an impact on the people around us. It sends a message. To trans people it says “my love for this fictional thing is more important than your need for safety.” To people who may be on the fence about supporting HP, it says that it’s okay.
Now I am pecifically saying public support. This is where my personal desire for nuance, kindness, and empathy in these conversations comes in.
The other side of this story is that there are a lot of wonderful things about Harry Potter. It’s a story that has numerous layers of meaning to it and ultimately is about the powers of love and friendship. It’s a series a lot of people felt acceptance and belonging when they weren’t able to find it in the real world, and a series that brought together many beautiful and lasting friendships. It really sucks for people who grew up loving this series to feel like it’s been tainted and is no longer available to them, especially if it was a social crutch or simply the first place they felt at home. It’s hard to let go of that, and frankly, a lot of the aspects of the story don’t line up with the stuff JK is saying today. It feels like a betrayal we could have never seen coming. So how are we supposed to go on from there? By considering the impact of how you’re going to proceed.
Ultimately, everyone needs to make their own choices with how they interact with problematic media. They should be encouraged to make educated choices, engage critical thinking when making those choices. But you can’t bully someone into making the choice you think is right. And to the point of “a story cannot do everything,” there are a lot of facets to a story and a lot of reasons why someone might find good in that story and think it outweighs the bad elements. But also, there are so many other authors and stories that have similar good things that don’t have all this negative baggage. (Rick Riordan and Tamora Pierce, just to name two examples off the top of my head)
For me, I don’t think the good in HP or the good that JK has done in the past outweighs the active harm it and she are causing trans people today. I’ve moved on from HP. And I believe that others who care about trans people and trans rights should also come to that conclusion and withdraw public support from JK and anything she makes money off of. But am I going to blindly judge and condemn everyone who still engages with licensed HP stuff? No. I’ll have a conversation with them, ask why they engage with it and/or spend money on it*. You aren’t going to change anyone’s mind by just telling them they’re wrong for liking something. Because directing the reasonable anger I have for JK at people who like Harry Potter is not necessarily reasonable (kinda depends on the reason and the person and that’s my point—it’s important to get to the why, and if they are reasonable people, to share your why and what you know about it so they have the information to make a more informed decision*). Assuming hostile intent isn’t going to help anything. And, for example, if someone’s playing the new Harry Potter game specifically because the makers of the game (not Rowling) made the option to make your character trans, I’m not gonna judge them for that. That seems like a pretty important reason. But should they still consider the impact they’d have if they post on social media what a great game it is and how much they love Harry Potter and whatever else? Yea. Should they consider that at least some of the money spent on the game will go towards Rowling? Yea (maybe throw twice as much money at a charity like Trevor Project for example). Will these considerations affect your decision and make you ultimately decide it’s off-limits or that you don’t want to engage? It’s entirely possible, because just because you could simultaneously consume and critique media doesn’t mean you’re absolved of the impact your consumption would have.
It’s tricky water to navigate, and I just can’t find it in myself to be angry at others who are trying to find their own way to navigate it. The best I can do is try to share how I’ve navigated and hope it helps them. Educate, make thought-out decisions. Be open to changing your decisions when new information comes up. Be open to conversations about the ‘why’s.*
*Disclaimer: be healthy and stay safe! If someone literally does not think you or people like you should have basic human rights, that’s not a situation you need to put yourself in. Maybe ask an ally to intercede (hi I will be that person if you need one!), or remove yourself from the situation, or simply leave it for other people to have these conversations and don’t get into those situations in the first place, it is okay to prioritize your safety over changing someone’s mind who may not even change. Please stay safe friends!!
The only thing you check for is if someone else already asked for PTO in the same slot. That’s it.
My department fell apart 2 weeks ago when I took my PTO. we were already short handed, someone quit at the start of the week, and there was literally nobody to even call in to cover, so they were fucked. But that’s on corporate for refusing to hire enough people. That’s on corporate for thinking we need no overlap in our shifts, no midday people . That’s not my fault that I needed a specific week off, or even if I just WANTED it off. Businesses know what they need to do, it’s not on me to make things easy for a billion dollar corporation that doesn’t even give a shit about my store.
Word of advice kids: Don’t take workplace advice from someone who uses Scrooge McDuck lighting a cigar with a bank note as their user icon.
As a transit worker anyone who whines about fare evaders can lick, suck on, gargle, lightly tickle, and then carefully blow dry my balls, it’s a non issue. We need to eliminate a fares and fully fund public transit with some of the money we’re wasting on dressing cops up like master chief, and on collecting them in the first place which is expensive and dumb.
It’s about time I talk about the righteous anger all solarpunks have with capitalism and how all subversive action is necessary action, all mutual aid is essential mutual aid, how it’s okay to be pissed at the system in which we live. Peace, love, and understanding can be afforded to people, not to the system which exploits them. This isn’t the hippie movement 2.0, non-violence isn’t always an answer, especially when violence is counted as property damage.
In short, feel that righteous anger, it’s justified. We’re solarpunks, that doesn’t mean we’re pushovers, to attack the state we must speak its language.
After reading George Orwell’s book Animal Farm and his life-changing dystopian 1984, I happened to be struck with a very powerful and triumphant point; why it is important to read.
In general, the books reflect events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was remarkably known to be a critic of Stalinism.
Anyways, why is it so important to read?
In the Animal Farm, Old Major – who symbolizes Marxism – was the oldest pig, he had assembled all the farm’s animals before he died. “Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night.” He had a dream of a world in which animals would live without the tyranny of the farm’s owner, Mr. Jones. – Who symbolizes Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II.
Animalism – which symbolizes Communism – was a system of ideals that Old Major established, which were put into words and hung on the barn wall for all animals to see.
After the rebellion of the animals against Mr. Jones, pigs were the ruling class, and as time passed by, they had started taking excessive advantage of all of it.
Clover was a female horse – who symbolizes the working class people – and when the pigs begin sleeping in beds, she thought that she remembered a rule against animals sleeping in beds.
Like in the Animal Farm, countless people are currently living under tyranny and opression. They are being, on ongoing basis, disdainfully patronized, fooled, with their rights being abducted away from them with all complacency and indifference.
In fact, the female horse, Clover, was right. One of the ideals was “4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.” But how could she prove the pigs’ deviation from the authentic laws if she could not read?
Clover represents those people who are able to distinguish deviation, but are helpless to change anything.
Another important moment was that of Clover watching other animals being executed by the ruling pig, Napoleon. – who symbolizes Stalin. – “As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago…”
The key phrase is, “If she could have spoken her thoughts.” But could she? Clover was not so good in using her words. She could not read.
Like the Animal Farm,1984 also speaks of betrayed revolution. The ruling party, which led to the revolution (in a very particular way), started to change and to take advantage of the people’s hard work. People were living under a totalitarian tyrant system. There was no such thing as freedom. “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.” For, “Big Brother [Oceania’s autocrat] is watching you.”
Until now, you may think just ‘knowing words’ might be useless. Well, that isn’t as futile and as simple as it might sound. In Orwell’s 1984novel, the totalitarian state Oceania had created a controlled language, the Newspeak, as a tool to actually limit thought. Yes, to limit thought! By reducing the vocabulary of the actual language.
The Newspeak had barely something new. It was English, but a more limited one. It attempted to eliminate personal thought by restricting one’s expressiveness.
By creating the Newspeak, Big Brother sought to tighten the range of thought through “the Destruction of words.” “It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words.” Says Syme who works with Winston, the main character, at the Ministry of Truth.
Big Brother, who was all the time watching them through the Telescreen, managed to narrow the range of thoughts and concepts that would pose a threat to the regime, such as self-expression, individuality and freedom generally, in order for Thoughtcrime – the crime of simply thinking – to be “literally impossible.”
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” For the less you express yourself, the less you’re likely to make change.
In conculsion, and in Orwell’s view, the deluded dominated people must seek for knowledge. They need to wake up, to be aware, to become “concious”. For it is by conciousness that Truth would result, and it is within Truth that lies freedom.
“Until they became conscious they will never rebel…”
to be honest i feel like discussions about Representation need to come second to discussions about dissolving corporate media monopolies. i don’t care how diverse the characters in a show are if the system in place still demands that art has to be palatable for the masses and filtered thru a corporate assembly line just to exist. its crazy. its craaazy how far people will go to defend the honor of corporate media. i guarantee whatever Creatives are responsible for the representation in your favorite piece of corporate media could have made something better, realer, and more valuable if they didn’t have to sanitize their shit for the mass market. i guarantee there are a million people out there who would make stuff you would love but the fact that media is treated as a product and not an art form means theyll never get a chance to do anything at all.
And this is also why you have stop only watching american media. It can’t be diverse if everything is made in one country.
Saying the quiet part out loud. The west is demanding blood - the deaths of millions of Chinese people - in order to sustain Apple’s stock price a little longer.
It wasn’t boomerswho made it impossible to survive on a librarian or gardener’s salary - it was rich people.
Plenty of boomers work as librarians, teachers, gardeners, and so forth, and are finding that as the cost of living skyrockets and corporations take over more and more of the world, that their salary is no longer able to support them.
And thus you have boomers - who understand how much you want to be a librarian because they also work as librarians - going bankrupt, losing their homes, drowning in debt, and dying because of unaffordable healthcare. And they get why you’re becoming an IT specialist instead of a librarian - because they! Know! That you can’t survive! On a librarian’s salary anymore!
On the flip side, the rich people sucking money out of every service and person they can! Aren’t! Always! Boomers! Tons of them are Gen X! And an increasing number are millennials! I haven’t seen a Gen Z billionaire yet but I’m willing to bet there’s a couple by now!
Oh, and it’s not like they “don’t know” how much people want to do these sorts of jobs - they do! That’s how they justify underpaying people, because it’s your passion, you don’t ~need~ to be paid a living wage for your passion.
You have more in common with poor boomers than you do with Kylie Jenner (born 1997). Go and talk to them. Organize with them. You’ll find they have a lot to offer once you stop dismissing them as rich old folks who ruined the economy.
the more war-hungry politicians and power-hungry CEOs speak of human rights and democracy, the more apparent it is that morality is an important component in justifying ruling class ideology. just like the patriot act and concept of economic freedom, you can successfully any policy and ideal as intrinsic to a free, safe society, no matter the reality of its effects.
the world bank has recommended poor nations strip their workers of fair wages, workplace safety, and ability to unionize and negotiate. what do they call this? a path to economic freedom. of course, we know that such situations have killed thousands. the rana plaza collapse occurred due to the carelessness towards wellbeing of factory workers that existed solely to serve billion dollar multinational corporations seeking cheap labor. these workers warned of collapse, and they were just ordered to keep working. what is freedom, if this extreme amount of deregulation is defined as it? what are human rights? simple: freedom of the ruling class to profit at the cost of innocent lives.
economic freedom. right to work. free trade. these things only provide freedom for the ruling class. when will people learn what a disastrous scam this idea of freedom and human rights has become?
I know iPads are becoming a super popular drawing medium as of late, so I just wanted to put this out there: be wary of getting your device fixed at apple.
I had a barely 2 year old iPad that just up and quit working, I brought it to apple and they said it was a software issue with no fix. My apple insurance had JUST expired, so they told me I’d have to trade it in and spend $600 on a new one. I couldn’t afford that so I took it and left.
I ended up sending it to a mutual connection who fixes apple stuff on the DL. He figured out that the “software issue” was actually just a bad battery - a $100 fix. There was NO WAY that apple wasn’t going to pocket the $600 and then turn around and resell it for a profit.
This advice could go to all apple products: if they can’t fix it in the store for free take it somewhere else! They’ve made it impossible to fix at home but there are individuals out there with the tools and knowledge to fix it for less cost to you. Apple is corrupt. Don’t let them scam you like they almost did with me.
Texas’ privatized power system literally cannot handle how effective wind energy has become. The price of electricity went negative around an area producing lots of wind energy earlier this week because the deregulated state grid can’t even effectively bring it over to the neighboring metro area, where electricity prices were high and rising.
This is why “I shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s loan” is a bullshit reason to be against student loan forgiveness. Making the loans interest-free would greatly reduce debt without passing it onto anyone else.
Omg I will FLIP MY EFFING LID the day this witch is finally dead, and EA’s sold off, with Andrew Wilson losing his job. Could you IMAGINE!?
EA has run SO MANY IPs AND developer studios into the dirt–Unicronic Arts is infamous for bringing the kiss of death to everything they touch. How they haven’t been sold off already is a frikkin mystery!
And Android Wilson is the shystiest of devils, cuz while he doesn’t care or know EFF ALL about video games, he’s business savvy.While Ubisoft, Activision, Blizzard, and Square Enix have been IMPLODING over the past few years, Wilson’s actually been keeping his nose clean–you can’t pin anything on this mofo (cuz androids ain’t even human). When the NFT craze started, I thought for sure Electronic Farts would be the first to start cramming that sh!te down our throats, but con artists can spot scams a mile away, and Wilson actually said no! I was actually hoping they’d take the bait, so we could have a great reason to tell Wilson to GTFOH and take his crap company with him. Ah well. U_U
If EA gets bought by anyone, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s by a non-gaming company. We dodged the bullet with EA rejecting Comcasts’ deal (a nightmare in the making), and hopefully they don’t go with Amazon (they suuuuuuck at gaming). Disney seems unlikely though, since they just removed EA’s exclusive rights to Star Wars, right when EA was actually–finally–starting to do the IP some justice with Fallen Order and the VR Squadrons (the less said about Battlefront the better, jfc).
If Disney bought anybody I’d see them taking Square Enix, cuz they have Kingdom Hearts, and that gives them more inroads to the Asian markets. Disney nabbing a gaming company would just be a notch in their dang belt at this point though, so hey, they could just wind up taking BOTH companies, LOL.
However, I can see EA getting bought by United Artists. We’d get a crapton of Top Gun games, and other movie licensed titles, which MIGHT be cool, if they’re done right–none of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy BS, or that Fast & Furioustravesty.
Whatever–I just want EA TO BURN, so I hope these rumors are actually credible, so I can celebrate.
