Are We at Peak Boycott?Social media coupled with an increasingly polarized populace has brought us to what feels like an apex. Or is this just the beginning?
Everyone Is Right About StarbucksJust because somebody is out there giving advice that’s bad for you, that doesn’t mean they’re giving bad advice.
ByJosh Barro
howard schultz
Howard Schultz’s Deficit of HonestyHoward Schultz says he doesn’t “see color.” That doesn’t tell us much about him, but it does tell us something about racism in America.
Katrina vanden Heuvel Gets Most of Her Talking Points From Jezebel’The Nation’ editor and publisher reminds lady bloggers that imitation is flattery, Dick Grasso heads to court, and either a W or a Westin sets its sights on the Lower East Side — all that and more, in our daily digest of media, finance, real-estate, and law news.
company town
Jamie Dimon: ‘Many’ of Bear’s 14,000 Employees Will Lose JobsDid Bear Stearns collapse in part because of a whisper campaign? How will Starbucks keep its customers if everyone starts pinching pennies? And what did Sarah Jessica Parker think of Maxim naming her the “unsexiest woman alive”? Our weekly roundup of law, media, and business news.
company town
Scott Galloway Raises Stake, Prepares to Plunge It Into Heart of ‘NYT’FINANCE
• Ah, so that’s where all the G5s on the Teterborough tarmac were headed! The private-equity world descends upon Munich for the annual spectacularly named Super Return conference. [DealBook/NYT]
• Vagilante Scott Galloway and Harbinger Capital Partners raise their stake in the Times to just over 19 percent. [NYP]
• Hey, everyone! Hedge funds are a risk to the entire financial system! No duh. [Business Week]
photo op
Chelsea Clinton Floored at StarbucksYeah, hey, it’s me. I’m at Starbucks. Guess who’s sitting right behind me. [Whispers] Chelsea Clinton. She’s sitting right behind me. I don’t know, she’s typing on her laptop. She’s sitting on the floor. She looks hot these days. Totally hot. I mean, way hotter than when she was like 13. No, I’m at a table. What? You think I should give her my seat or something? No fucking way, dude.
Chelsea Clinton at Starbucks: We Have Soooo Been There [Jezebel]
21 questions
Sarah, Duchess of York, Wears Her Hair LongName: Sarah, Duchess of York
Age: 48
Job: Author, royal, and philanthropist. Her Sarah Ferguson Foundation will be the beneficiary of Thursday night’s La Dolce Vita Gala at Cipriani Wall Street.
Borough: Manhattan
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
I feel Eloise and I are similar in spirit.
What do you actually do all day in your job?
I connect dots. By that I mean my mind is like an idea factory, constantly on overdrive. So my job, in a sense, is building bridges that link a good concept with the right people and resources. In my work for the Sarah Ferguson Foundation, I get personally involved in raising funds for school-building projects in Sierra Leone and Liberia. As co-CEO of Hartmoor, my multimedia lifestyle company, I’m constantly developing ideas for new products, film, TV, books, and the Web, and then search my rolodex for the right contacts. I’ve got a great team around me, but I am a very hands-on type of person and in truth I’m never, ever idle.
Where do you get your coffee?
Starbucks.
the morning line
And in Non-Explosion News…
• As if last night’s man-made horrors weren’t enough, here’s one from Mother Nature: A tornado touched down in Islip Terrace, uprooting trees and ripping up a law office, as two storms pummeled Long Island at the same time. [WNBC]
• Some Wall Street Journal employees answer phones by drawling “News Corporation” in an Australian accent. [NYT]
• Congress is refusing to pass a “routine resolution” honoring the New York Archdiocese because it mentions scandal-tainted Cardinal Edward Egan by name. Honorable, we guess. Remind us why Congress is honoring archdioceses in the first place? [NYP]
• Al Sharpton, who led the drive to get Don Imus fired, will have no problem with his nemesis’ return to the airwaves: “He has a right to make a living.” So does the Rev, who clearly needs new material. [amNY]
• And mazel tov to Mark Malkoff, who visited every Starbucks in Manhattan — there are 171 — in 24 hours. Bad news: Dude’s an “aspiring filmmaker” and, naturally, filmed the journey. [NYDN]
photo op
Howard Schultz Wants to Buy You a Drink
We’re told Starbucks is giving away free iced coffee today. We’re told this is happening all across the city. We’re told it only goes till noon. So: Get moving! Quick! (Psst, there’s no line at Madison and 49th.)
intel
Paul McCartney Invades Starbucks!
Paul McCartney’s new album, Memory Almost Full, is the first on Starbucks’ new record label, Hear Music, and so to launch it today the java monolith has been playing the album nonstop at its 10,000 shops worldwide. How were people subjected to the music handling it? At the three Starbucks locations on Eighth Avenue between 16th and 23rd Streets — yup, three in seven blocks — the worker bees weren’t allowed to do interviews, and they didn’t want us to photograph or interview patrons. We did anyway.
gossipmonger
International RelationsGQ editor Jim Nelson has come under fire for using the phrase “Asian whore” twice in his editor’s letter. A staffer for Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t believe in global warming. Chelsea Clinton ex Ian Klause has a book coming out about his exploits teaching U.S. history and English in Iraqi Kurdistan. Iggy Pop’s Egyptology studies at the University of Michigan were the basis for the Stooges aesthetic. Some claim Starbucks only decided to stock Ishmael Beah’s memoir about the child soldiers of Sierra Leone to deflect criticism for exploiting Third World country farmers.
the morning line
Cardinal Rules
• Cardinal Egan turned 75 yesterday, and, as is required of cardinals who reach that age, submitted a resignation letter to the Vatican. The move could well be a mere formality — the Pope doesn’t have to accept — but Egan’s shaky standing within the archdiocese is giving it extra weight. [WNBC]
• They set ‘em up, he knocks ‘em down: Fresh from vetoing the proposed pedicab guidelines, Mayor Bloomberg is overriding the much-discussed City Council ban on aluminum bats. (“I don’t think that it’s the city’s business to regulate that.”) [NYDN]
• There will be an Imam on the NYPD payroll. The force is hiring a new chaplain. Khalid Latif, a Sunni who’s ministered at NYU and Princeton, will be in charge of counseling the department’s many Muslim officers. [amNY]
• Starbucks is accused of breaking the law 30 times trying to stem unionization in its Manhattan shops. Now brewing, allegedly: retaliation firings, illegal interrogations of workers, and selective enforcement of the company’s dress policy. [NYT]
• And police on Franklin Gallimore III, the man that allegedly murdered his parents in cold blood when they asked him to move out: “He was a 20-year-old who was not living up to his mother’s expectations.” [NYP]
