Breaking Point

Yesterday, I was on a little errand at the airport that led to me standing in a waiting area for a few minutes, subjected to CNN. I'd nearly forgotten what watching CNN is like. We don't get that channel in our house, and I apparently became spoiled by those several blissful years abroad watching CNN International, which isn't anywhere near as inane or sensationalist. Anyway, there I was, and Wolf Blitzer alerted me to some "breaking news": that in their latest poll, Donald Trump led by more points than ever, and soon he would be holding a rally, for which CNN was "standing by."

Breaking news?  As the kids say, Wolf, I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

Breaking news refers to an ongoing situation, a story that is developing even as it is being covered. It is not -- I repeat, NOT -- a synonym for "a new story." They are not the same thing. That's what we have the word "news" for. Adding "breaking" is adding another element. Journalists are not reporting "breaking news" when they report "something exciting." The results of a poll, any poll, are in no way on this or any other planet "breaking news." They are in fact the very opposite: poll results are planned, anticipated, and in fact in the case of this CNN-conducted poll, manufactured by the very entity that then "reports" on it. Neither, by the way, is a campaign rally that is about to start breaking news.

Essentially, this ridiculous use of the term made me want to throw things at the TV. Instead, I'm going to throw some actual examples of breaking news out there to help people understand the difference. (Are you reading this, CNN producers??) Let's take a look at some of the recent winners of the Pulitzer Prize in the Breaking News category:

Most recently, the staff of The Seattle Times won the Breaking News Reporting Pulitzer for, and I'm quoting the official Pulitzer web site here, "its digital account of a landslide that killed 43 people and the impressive follow-up reporting that explored whether the calamity could have been avoided."

Contrast that with the most recent winners in other categories, such as Explanatory Reporting (Bloomberg News' Zachary Mider's "clear and entertaining" explanations of how corporations dodge taxes) and Investigative Reporting (shared by The New York Times' Eric Lipton on how lobbyists sway legislators and attorneys general and The Wall Street Journal for their "Medicare Unmasked" project). 

Previous Breaking News Reporting winners include: 

• The Boston Globe, for its "exhaustive and empathetic coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing"
• The Denver Post for coverage of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, "using journalistic tools, from Twitter and Facebook to video and written reports, both to capture a breaking story and provide context"
• The Tuscaloosa News,  for "enterprising coverage of a deadly tornado" even when power interruptions forced them to publish at a plant 50 miles away
• The Washington Post, for "telling the developing story" of the Virginia Tech shooting in print and online
• The Times-Picayune of New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina coverage, "overcoming desperate conditions facing the city and the newspaper"

Does this help, CNN, et.al.? Do you see what happens in breaking news coverage?  

If not, could you maybe try reading a few more newspapers until you figure it out?

Come on, even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is excited about journalism these days, having bestowed the Best Picture Oscar on Spotlight the other day. Journalism is great! Get your vocabulary right, everybody.

Forced to Awaken to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So, I had it all figured out. At some point in the first few weeks of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it came to me; rather than seeing the flick first, what I clearly needed/wanted out of life was to be the last to see it. I'm not the type to buy movie tickets two months in advance -- I don't even plan things out two DAYS in advance, or sometimes two hours. So, I realized, for me it would be fun to see the movie last -- I would see it on that last Thursday night show on its last week in whatever Chicago theater continued to run it the longest. What a funny plan, was how I saw it.

Then, it got nominated for five Oscars. And now I was, as they say, on the horns of a dilemma. Two months is a good long time for a movie to have its first run, but from the looks of it, I thought, a month in, it could easily stay in theaters beyond Oscar weekend. And then I'd have to make a choice between seeing it before the Oscars ceremony and my silly plan of seeing it last.

Which was more important? This newfound plan I had hit upon, to see last the film that everyone else wanted to see first, or my oldfound plan to see as many Oscar-nominated films as humanly possible before the night of the Academy Awards?

Well, I told myself, maybe, just maybe, its last week in the theatres will conveniently also be the last week before the Oscars and then everything will work out? And so I've kept my eye on the showtimes and checked mid-week to see what's changing each upcoming weekend and...here we are.

The Oscars are this weekend, but Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still playing in theatres during the movie-run week that starts tomorrow, Friday the 26th. Which of course means that I cannot both see it in its last showtime AND see it before the Oscars.

And so my choice was made.

I went to see it. (Shout-out to my mom, who had generously gifted me with an AMC gift card!)

I've seen a very good amount of the nominated flicks. Just missing three of the foreign films (two of which will be coming to theaters in Chicago in the next month or two, after the Oscars), three of the documentary Shorts (which are HBO docs and going to air on HBO this year), and three of the Original Song nominees, one of which I am going to help myself to this weekend via Netflix (Racing Extinction), one of which will be on DVD in a couple weeks (Spectre) and one of which is the ONLY nominee I have no plans to see (Fifty Shades of Grey). So I'm in excellent shape this year.

Oh, what did I think of Star Wars? It was fun! I enjoyed it!

And now we know who wins in the battle between my contrarian quirks and my obsessive quirks. Glad we could put that question to rest.

A Scalia Footnote

I'm not entirely sure I should blog about this, for fear that people searching for the term I'm going to have to mention end up here; I don't want those kind of people reading my blog or, being anywhere near me, or, you know existing -- but exist they do. So hey, those kind of people, if you're reading this: seek help! 'K?

So anyway, I was reading an article about Antonin (it feels weirdly unnecessary typing his first name) Scalia's funeral etc. that went on for many paragraphs about his defense of free speech over the years. The article reminded us about the stances he took defending free speech of all kinds -- speech is speech, man. Expressing a video game is no different from expressing a masterful painting or writing a novel. Stuff like that.

This article also reminded me of something else along these lines that ol' Justice Scalia and a whole lot of the rest of you out there have got very, very wrong, and it pisses me right off every time I think about it. The unfortunate topic is the so called "films" in which animals are crushed; these films are made because there are some sick, twisted f*ckwads out there who find this exciting/a source of pleasure. (Hi f*ckwads, if you're reading this.)

Well, so some people with their heads on straight were trying to do something about this murder and torture and the ensuing legal case made its way to the Supreme Court where our nine robed overlords said they had no way/reason to ban these atrocious things because free speech.  As the article I read today reminded me, Scalia wrote about how this may be offensive and stupid and bloody and depraved but so are slasher horror flicks and they're protected, aren't they?

Well, hey brain dead Scalia and all y'all defending the cr-sh films! You miss the point so grievously. It's not the f*cking depiction that is the problem. In said stupid bloody mindless depraved slasher horror flicks, the blood, stabbing, and hiding in the basement are faked. But if some f*ckwads are filming another f*ckwad stepping on and smashing and torturing and murdering small animals so another f*ckwad can get his jollies, it's the actual stepping on and smashing and torturing and murdering we want to stop. What the hell is so hard to see about this? The f*ckwads who make these films should not be allowed to make them because they should NOT BE ALLOWED TO MURDER. What the duh fucking hell is wrong with humanity?

Not that you were necessarily looking for a reason to be pissed off at Scalia, because he offered plenty throughout his life, but there's one, just in case you need it.

A cat, a book, and a good cause(Bring Quincy to the USA)

So here's the deal: I am fundraising to bring Quincy, the amazing cat we rescued from the street in Guangzhou when he was an abandoned 4-week-old kitten, the very cat you see pictured on the left side of this blog, from China to the U.S.

(If you'd like to just donate to the cause straightaway without being bothered to read any further, I will not stop you: here's the link. But if I were you, I'd read on to see what you can get out of it...plus other options for donating.) 

The problem is, essentially, that it costs a whole lot to fly a cat from China to the U.S., not to mention the several circles of Chinese bureaucracy that have to be navigated before he can get on the plane. AND I'm managing all this from a distance. Although I have been trying to save up for this endeavor, we are now up against a February deadline (when the people in Tianjin who now have Quincy are leaving Asia for good) and are short of funds. What kind of funds? We're talking, basically, a $2,000 swirl of bureaucracy, vaccine checks (yes, we got his shots previously, but the government needs us to pay them to check his vaccine status in order to approve his emigration), customs fees, export health examination, the flight itself, etc.  It's a bit maddening. But those of you who followed the saga of Quincy back when we originally rescued him, and watched him (online) develop into the playful, good-hearted, creative, magnificent young cat that he became, may understand why it's worth the cost to bring him back to people who love him instead of leaving him to the uncertainty of fate. 

Here's where we get to what's in it for you. Despite the magical things crowd-sourced fundraising can do (e.g. pay for a lot of young drunk people's Uber rides, or Tila Tequila's rent), I did not actually want to ask for money, to ask people to give something for 'nothing.' But what could I give? I asked myself. Well, anyone who knows me probably knows that there is one thing I have a lot of: books. And so, this.

If you donate to the Bring Quincy to the U.S.A. cause, I will give you a book of mine. 

I will select it personally, basing my decision on who you are, what I know of you, our friendship, what I think you might like -- you get the idea. 

Do I want to part with my books? Of course not. But there's something that is even more important to me than my books, and that is Quincy. A sacrifice, they say, is when you give up something you want for something you want more. Well, I can definitely see that definition applying here. 

So, you see, everybody wins!
*I raise the money, and ponder what's truly important.
*You get a book, and the satisfaction of contributing to a good cause. (And a fun surprise!)

*Quincy gets to come live with us in the USA, with the people who saved, raised, and loved him. 

You can send your donation however you like -- PayPal the gift directly to me (a good option), use Chase QuickPay (a very good and easy option), use the GoFundMe link, put a check in the mail, whatever makes you happy. (Note that sending money directly avoids the GoFundMe fees.) I will then give you (if you're local) or send to you (via the cheap media mail of course) a book that I select for you. It's yours forever, to read, cherish, ignore, keep, regift, throw across the room--your call. (Donation amount? Whatever you think a book and/or Quincy is worth. You decide.) 

It's basically like you're buying a book, which you should be doing anyway, right? (Riiighht???) But instead of supporting Amazon or whatever this time, you can support the awesome Quincy. 

Feel free to email or message me for more information or if you have any questions at all. I would love the opportunity to select a book from my personal collection for you in exchange for your kindness in helping the Bring Quincy Quest. 

Oscar season in full swing

It has been a few days since the Oscar nominations were announced. Let's check in and see where we are. (Oh, wait, you mean, you don't have regular check-ins with yourself to chart your progress during Oscar season? What's [not] wrong with you?)

On Thursday, when the nominations were announced, this is basically where I was at.  I had seen 13 out of 16 of the multiple nominees, missing only The Revenant, The Big Short, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, all of which I will surely see, but in good time as I do not like to see movies during their first couple of weeks because too popular = too crowded in the theater. Of the 13, here is my rough order of how much I enjoyed them: Steve Jobs, The Martian, Spotlight, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hateful Eight, Sicario, Room, Ex Machina, Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies, Inside Out, The Danish Girl, Carol. Basically, the first ten I just listed were good, then Inside Out was fine (I can see its charms, absolutely, but just don't get quite as blown away as some do), and then The Danish Girl and Carol are both big ol' snooze fests that are completely self-aware as Oscar bait/overblown heavy-righteous themes but are partly saved by good performances, mostly from Alicia Vikander. Also, her wardrobe in The Danish Girl is pretty much the greatest and I want to steal every dress she wore and it should win for Costume Design. Other things that should win? Sicario for Cinematography. Can we just award that right now? So amazing. So well done. The second I walked out of that movie, several months ago, I said, "Cinematography Oscar." I just don't know how The Revenant will compete.

Of the single nominees, I had seen Joy, Trumbo, and Amy, and have since seen Creed (that is a whole lot of one-word titles; fun fact: the first names of the women but the last names of the men) and Cartel Land. No judgment from me yet about whether Amy or Cartel Land is better; they are two VERY different documentaries, but both do really well at depicting aspects of a situation without telling you what to think. Joy is overrated and Creed and Trumbo were both fine for what they were. Sylvester Stallone is on the almost-a-sure-thing track like The Revenant right now, though. I've got a bunch of the other one-off noms stacked in my Netflix queue and a few others, like 45 Years, Boy and the World, and a couple of the Foreigns are coming to some theaters around Chicago. And by the way, I would just like to gratefully acknowledge that right now I do have some major budget constraints but am luckily, very luckily, mightily luckily, able to have access to some gift cards/free movie tickets at several very awesome theatres, allowing me to see a bunch of flicks I would otherwise not be able to right now, for which I am profoundly grateful.

The shorts will be making their way to theaters as always, and I hope to get a chance to see those.

Really, I will end up being able to see everything, except Fifty Shades of Grey, which is nominated for one of its songs and which I will steadfastly make a point of not seeing.

Oscar complaints:
*Yes, they are so white. This is a problem. It's a pervasive problem in the industry, and I can't blame the Oscars for reflecting it. In fact, maybe we ought to be grateful to the Oscars for drawing attention to this problem when no one seems to pay attention to it during the rest of the year.
*Get it together, Supporting Actress category. Neither Alicia Vikander nor Rooney Mara belong there. Both played leading roles. Maybe you were thinking of Alicia V. in Ex Machina. Maybe you meant to put Charlize Theron from Mad Max: Fury Road...who was also kind of a lead, in a way...
*Keeping in mind that I haven't seen The Big Short and The Revenant yet, I look at the Directing category and think Danny Boyle for Steve Jobs should have been in there, maybe over Tom McCarthy?
*The score of Carol was so boring and derivative -- trying to imitate Philip Glass' awesome music from The Hours, were you? Sigh. I can appreciate the technical achievement of that movie but it just did not move me at all. And viscerally, I loathe it--I really can't stand that fetishizing of the 1950s and early 1960s. I just can't. It's why I don't enjoy things like his previous film Far From Heaven, or Happy Days, or Grease, or Mad Men. When I watch Mad Men I just get the howling fantods, and the feel of it, so similar to the feel of Carol, is why. Not my cup of tea.
Other comments:
*The Sound Editing category is full of amazing work.
*I had never heard of Racing Extinction before nomination day.
*The Foreign nominee from Jordan, Theeb, was actually playing near here in December the week before Christmas when I was swamped with work, holiday planning, Christmas, all that jazz. I had the flyer for it and wanted to see it but missed it. Have any of you had the chance to see it? It might be one of the few I don't see before Oscar night, waiting for Netflix to get it.

So, Oscar season is off to a great start. I'll check back in as I continue to work through it. What about you? What are your favorites so far?

Twenty Sixteenplus a bit of a twenty fifteen rewind

Well, hello team!

Are you wondering what ever happened to this blog? Were you sure it had met its demise, never to be resurrected? Does your curiosity get the better of you some nights, as you sit there thinking that maybe Linda has, I don't know, suddenly found herself with some borders?

Maybe you thought personal blogging had gone the way of the dinosaur, the Model T, the Beta VCR... After all, it does seem like the internet is pretty hopped up about blogging for business, blogging your brand, and just generally caring more about product and platform than jabbering. That's all well and good, but it isn't why I stopped blogging. Really, it's been more mundane. I had major laptop issues and went computer-less for vast swaths of time (blogging from a phone? just no) and on top of that, I spent the bulk of 2015 working a part-time job that took as much time as a full-time job. That's fun for exactly no one!

But anyhow, it's a new year and things are new and different. But some things are also the same. For example, here are some things that totally stayed the same from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015: Cats. Job. Apartment. City.  This in itself is pretty nuts. For the first time in ages, we renewed a lease, and so here we still find ourselves in Chicago, happily residing near Lincoln Square even though moving inland from the Lake initially seemed like a fall from grace. And the same job! (That part-time one that might as well have as a slogan "All the hours, none of the health insurance.") I am so used to ESL-teaching jobs being one year contracts. Having instead a U.S. office, co-workers, an annual review, and stuff like that as I teach English is still a little weird to me on some level.

But did 2015 bring anything new and different? Let's see. Things I did in 2015 that I had never done before:
*Visited Madison, Wisconsin (twice!) -  I had been to Wisconsin, but never to Madison, and in 2015, I discovered that I really like that city. conveniently located just under three hours from Chicago as it is. We also visited Devil's Lake State Park, in the Madison area, inspired by an article I came across that recommended the top-rated hike in every state. Now by "top rated" this particular piece did not mean the best, per se, but the actual top-rated-by-online-trail-raters on a particular site, so there's definitely room for an amateur vote to get in there, but it was still interesting, and in fact we later also visited the Illinois top hike, Palos Park, which is just a short piece from here, towards south suburban Chicago. (Or at least what I think of as the south suburbs. I'm still so decidedly Not From Around Here.)
*Pilgrimaged to and "climbed" to  a High Point: Speaking of hiking...I started in on another project which has been a longtime goal of mine, to climb to the high points in all of the fifty states plus D.C. This, by the way, is a thing, and there's a Highpointers club and whatnot, and may I just tell you that I first got into this back when you still sent off for the information via U.S. mail, OK? Of course, at that time I was living in Arizona, and then California, and neither of those two states' high points are ones you just go climb on a whim one day, and then I ditched the car and switched to public transit lifestyle for the next decade on the East Coast and in Asia and...so on. But being in the Midwest, with a car, and finally being able to do stuff like that again that I want to do, I hopped in the car and pilgrimaged to the highest elevation in Illinois, Charles Mound. Spoiler alert: It's not that high. This is Illinois, after all.
*Saw Patty Griffin in concert. Saw other good live music in Chicago, too, including the Girls twice (hello, that would be Indigo Girls) and quite a few bands at the many, many festivals that make up summer in Chicago, but seeing Patty had been a goal for a while.
*Ran my tenth 10K: My Year of Ten 10Ks was not actually a calendar year; it went from summer of 2014 to summer of 2015, so I finished it up with the same one I started with, the Reeds Lake Run in East Grand Rapids, no thanks to the Tiki Run here in Chicago that was meant to be my tenth but got rained and lightninged out one stormy June night.
*Spent a lot of time in Indiana: Have I mentioned I'm in the Midwest? It's really starting to sound like it, isn't it? I'm starting to know all the landmarks on I-65, and to know which exits have the Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks and stuff. This is mostly due to trips to see Brian's various relatives in various towns for various festive occasions, but I also hit up the Hoosier State to see a friend from law school and a friend from high school, so who says this isn't just the crossroads of 'MURica? Still haven't done the high point or the top-rated hike of Indiana, though, but that's on the 2016 agenda. Right now this little thing called winter is in the way of blazing through the Midwest trails.
*Took a guitar class at the legendary Old Town School of Folk Music, which by the way is just down the street. Have I mentioned we like our neighborhood? If only I didn't always go, like, eight years between guitar classes, I might be pretty good by now. Can't you just hear the Murmurs singing "You Suck" in your head? ("Right now there's dust on my guitar, you !@$%*...")   I do still have my Murmurs shirt, from the era of my first guitar class... I also took a German class in 2015, at the Dank Haus German American Cultural Center, which is -- you guessed it -- down the street. It was super fun to have my high school German come back to me.  And super duper fun to take so many classes in the neighborhood!

Hmmm.... I can't really remember what else I did in 2015 that was new. Of course we tried new restaurants (we are in Chicago after all) and saw new plays (ditto). Maybe I should also mention some of my things that I continued over the past year, like my million and one book and movie projects that go on and on but in which I am in fact making progress (in the Prez Bio quest I'm finishing up Nixon! That means I've reached my actual lifetime!)

Basically, what happened in 2015 was that I just kind of lived. Here in the U.S. In the Midwest. Most of the time this fills me with a kind of what-the-hell shell shock. Other times, I like that things are generally easy, that I don't have to really notice them--but I do miss being abroad. I miss being around people that don't think the U.S. is the one and only place to be. At least I can tap into foreign media reasonably easily, but when you live in a country you're surrounded by its media culture even in ways you can't always pinpoint.

Then there's the whole effort/debacle/frustration/money pit of health insurance in the U.S. (particularly when one works at a part-time job that takes the effort of a full-time job but gives no health benefits), but let's not get into that just now, eh? We've got the whole year of 2016 ahead of us in which we can rant about stuff.

What are you up to in 2016?

Forties Flicks

I have recently closed a gap in my Oscar-film viewing experience, specifically, I have now watched all of the Oscar-winning Best Pictures from the 1940s. This should have long since been accomplished, but hey! Spilt milk! Now it has. (If only I weren't always getting distracted from my projects by other projects. So many projects I have! So many...)

Anyway, the 1940s winners are fun; they include, among other things, one of my favorite all-time films and one of my mom's favorite all-time films. But I will point out one not-as-fun thing, which is that after you have watched half a dozen of the flicks in a month period you start to get really sick of the opening credits, which all blend together. Laaa! Dramatic music! Black and white! Studio presents! This music sounds the same as the last three movies! Sweeping crescendo!  Ugh. Boring.A girl can hardly wait to get to a decade where someone makes a bold move in how to start a picture.

The 1940s Academy Award movies themselves, though, are a great bunch. Here's my ranking, from my favorite to my not-as-favorite:

Top Tier: Simply the best!
Casablanca (1943)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Next Tier: I still really like them and recognize greatness here.
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Going My Way (1944)
Hamlet (1948)
Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Third Tier: I can still order my third tier, unlike the U.S. News law school rankings
The Lost Weekend (1945) and Rebecca (1940)
All the King's Men (1949)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)

How does your ranking of these ten films compare?

Now for a few thoughts:

Casablanca is not just my top film of the 1940s but one of my top five of all time; it has been for years. It's astounding and I love it and if you watch it after being alive in the English-speaking world for any length of time you will probably recognize a billion quotes from it. Actually, Hamlet kind of has that going for it, too. Hamlet, naturally, is great, but Ophelia is super crazy and the film really does start to drag just a bit somewhere in Act III...

As for underrated gems, The Best Years of Our Lives and Gentleman's Agreement really should get more buzz than they do. They are so prescient, socially relevant, thoughtful, and still entertaining. Going My Way, on the other hand, IS more on people's radar, I think, what with the Bing Crosby factor and all, but I can't say that before I watched it as an adult I really knew much about it besides its star. It's full of neat little bits, though, and well worth a watch. Perhaps my favorite undiscovered gem is Mrs. Miniver. Whatever you're picturing when you hear that there's a film called Mrs. Miniver from the early 1940s is probably not at all accurate. Also, it had one of the best depictions of a non-native speaker trying to use the English language I've ever seen on film, and it features a most awesome cat.

About the others: I grew up watching or not really paying attention to Rebecca because my mom adores it but when I finally read the book and sat down to watch the film all the way through I was not as impressed as I'd hoped to be. (The book, especially, left me sorely disappointed; you just want to punch every character in the face. At least the movies has cool visual stuff going for it.) The Lost Weekend was all right; I actually didn't read that book of How Green Was My Valley, but I suspect both are better than their film versions. All the King's Men was. While I did feel plunged into the hot air of Louisiana and its politics, some of the performances were kind of cliche and the whole thing almost feels perfunctory.

Next up, I'll watch whatever I've missed/forgotten in the 1950s, my other weirdly gappy Oscar decade. 

Moooove over, dairy: how to win my udder loyalty

From the true-true files: I drink a lot of coffee. And the salient point here is not just that I drink it, but I buy it. Regularly. With enthusiasm. (Like most foods and beverages,) I much prefer buying it to making it at home. I like going to coffee shops. I like getting coffee to go on the way to work.  I consider stopping for iced coffee an essential first step to any errand. I like barista lingo, the hiss of steaming milk, and rewards programs.

Let's focus on those last two for a moment.

In the circles I run in, or any circles that I would ever want to run in, it's fun to debate the grand question of our era, to wit: Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts? I used to say that Starbucks is like cocaine (addictive, expensive, a definitive part of certain lifestyles,  ubiquitous in L.A. and Manhattan) while DD is like crack (cheaper, grittier, arguably more powerful, easy to find on every corner in certain cities). But this is not to say I'm all about the behemoths, because I also dig independent coffee shops. I've done quality time in Insomnia, Buzz Coffee, Someday Cafe, Champion Coffee, and more recently, Beans and Bagels. I also like the coffee chains that haven't reached cartel saturation levels, like your Peet's and your Caribou and your Intelligentsia, and I like the local heroes: Dutch Bros., Biggby, Angel-in-Us. Basically, if you are willing to invest in espresso, ice cubes, and employees,  I'm yours. "Iced coffee is civilization!" That's my motto, but I won't turn down a hot one, either.

So we need to talk about milk.

The dairy industry lobby is really powerful in the U.S./world. Disgustingly powerful. They have convinced so very, very many of you that milk is an essential part of your diet. "Got Milk?" "It does a body good,"  you know. Ha! The non-advertising truth is more like, what's up with suckling at the breast of an entirely different species, something most mammals only do when in dire orphaned straits? Because lattes, cappuccinos, cafe au lait, etc. are the greatest thing in the world, the aforementioned coffee shops buy a whole lot of milk. We are talking unfathomable amounts. The power of the dairy industry and economies of scale mean that milk comes cheap -- well, that and the immense suffering borne by the dairy cows, the calves ripped away from mothers, the mothers locked, immobile, in pens, the milking machines, the unjustified captivity, the industrial nightmare of it all. ("Got torture?" "It wears a body out!")

The coffee shops offer dairy alternatives, such as soy milk and more recently the trendy almond milk and coconut milk. This makes me happy. The coffee shops charge extra for these alternatives. This makes me sad. I have paid these extra charges over the decades because I have to, and I've watched them go from 30 or 40 cents extra to a standard of 50 or 60 and even sometimes 75 cents more for soy. 75 cents extra! For one drink! I can buy a carton of soy milk for $2.75 and get way more than four drinks out of it. (Don't even get me started on having the same upcharge for a latte, which is mostly milk, as for an iced coffee with milk, which is just a splash of soy. Some Starbucks cashiers do the right thing when you get just a splash and note "with soy" not "add soy" but you take your chances on this in general.) But the coffee shops don't pay anything close to retail prices for their truckloads of cow milk, so it makes some kind of economic sense to them to think of the cow milk in a latte as costing them a cent but the soy milk in a latte costing them 50 cents. That's not quite right, but I follow their thinking.

The problem is that the dairy industry is evil, and most coffee shops aspire to be socially conscious. What they should do is make soy/almond/coconut/oat/hemp milk free and charge extra for dairy.

Since the vast majority of people are ordering dairy, they could upcharge a mere ten cents and more than make their money back, but still call attention to the issue that your dairy choice is a bad choice (because it's cruel) (not to mention unhealthy) and that you could make a better choice. Or, hell, they could be brave enough to really speak truth to power and just go ahead and make it a fifty cent upcharge on dairy from the word go, which might light a fire under the ass of some of those who just need reality pointed out to them once in a while but who are willing to do the right thing.

And so here is my announcement:

Despite my love for any and all the coffee places, I hereby declare the I will permanently switch my loyalty to the first coffee place that makes soy and other non-dairy alternatives free while simultaneously charging extra for dairy.

If Starbucks has the socially responsible guts to do it, I'm theirs. If feisty upstart DD does it, something I find hard to imagine seeing as they recently made me pay the 50-cent almond milk upcharge when I got a "free" rewards drink that I had earned in their Perks program, then I will forever more choose to run on Dunkin' even if the mermaid is looking longingly at me from a block closer.If a smaller chain does it, I will visit that smaller chain every time I have the option to do so.

You might be thinking, um, what's the big deal? But if you actually know me, you know that the idea of becoming loyal to one coffee shop is a very big deal indeed. There couldn't be a bigger deal for me, unless I announced that I was going to read only genre fiction from here on out or something. (Note: that would never ever happen.)  And whatever coffee shop is willing to make people face a tiny portion of the cost that the cruelty of dairy incurs will get the added benefit of my evangelizing on their behalf forever, too, because when I'm loyal, I can also be loquacious.

If there is some coffee place already doing this, not just giving soy/non-dairy alternatives free but also charging extra for cow's milk, some beautiful little coffee shop somewhere, then let me know, because that place is my next vacation destination (and who are you that you haven't told me about it already?)

In China, Starbucks didn't charge extra for soy. I don't always espouse the benefits of living in China (or, you know, ever espouse those largely non-existent benefits) but that one is a good one. In the U.S., we Starbucks Gold Card members used to get free soy, but it was apparently costing them too much, so they changed their rewards program. They should have changed it to charging all customers for dairy instead.

Who will do it? Who wants my loyalty -- for LIFE?