Not Enough Funds for Some Tact?

Update on the leg is that it feels some better. I've iced, I've stretched in the warm shower and I'm icing again. It's not fixed by a long shot but improvement is clear. I'll be exploring my options today and hoping that a call to my doctor, who is on the board of the theatre I'm renting from, with an explanation of my performance time constraints will yield results.

Thank you all for the good thoughts and suggestions, I will greedily absorb as many as I can get.

Anyway...

ChemE recently sent me this forwarded e-mail*:

Guess I will not be drinking Starbucks any more.

Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there.

Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should not support them by buying any of their products! I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house.

If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will never know.

Thanks very much for your support. I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.

Semper Fidelis.'
Sgt. Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT

PLEASE DON'T DELETE THIS .. ALLOW IT TO BE PASSED TO ALL IN MEMORY OF ALL THE TROOPS WHO HAVE DIED SO THAT WE MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE TO SUPPORT THEM OR NOT!!!

For the record I'm not a fan of the current (or previous) war in Iraq, or of any of the other fronts being prepped. I do however support the troops who I believe are being screwed from many angles.

Starbucks has every right not to send free anything to anybody if they don't want to. I go occasionally but usually try to find a coffee house that isn't a chain if I'm going to go to one at all. However, when you're writing to people who are risking their lives and are asking for your kindness (I do find the request itself a little odd but not out of the ordinary) then you need to have someone with an actual degree or at least success in Public Relations reply. It's just good business. I mean, yes, a lot of people are dying in Iraq but some are coming back and all of them have families here so you're alienating customers by being all randomly self-righteous about it. What gives?

*For the purposes of this post I am assuming that this e-mail is legit. I know full well that it could just as easily be a hoax. For that matter I know there are plenty of reasons above and beyond this to keep from spending my money at Starbucks. But for now I'm just writing in a world that assumes this is all true and that the other reasons are irrelevant.