At the beginning of the decade Starbucks seemed like a company bound for Wal-Martian greatness.  Many felt that Starbucks was going to be the corporate behemoth of the future: pleasant, faux-bohemian AND made of a gold/coffee bean alloy.

However, the company has taken some hard hits in recent years, having to close down stores across the country.  Some Yuppies (yes, they still exist) have had to take their business to those other chains (i.e. McDonald’s, McDonald’s & McDonald’s).  Now, instead of drinking their twelve-syllable coffee in the quiet, guitar-strumming and lightless environs of Starbucks, Yuppies face the daily possibility of being beaned in the head with a plastic ball from a Playplace, or worse, having to listen to John Secada pouring his heart out of the adult-contemporary station that pines from the overhead speakers.

In this economy Starbucks would, of course, love to boost their lagging sales, and would probably do most anything to make that happen…

…even appeal to our common humanity and decency.

The Oughts (I know how it’s actually spelled) are almost over.  The years 2000-2009 mostly sucked, personally for me and for the world.  Everyone wants to make a tribute or a memorial for the decade that shouldn’t have happened.  The Internet abounds with lists that prattle on about the top 10 this or that, best dressed something or most exciting nothing.

To be fair, I hate 99.9% of what’s on the Internet.  I hate ads that scream at me.  I hate – well, that pretty much describes 99.9% of the Internet.  Glad that’s done.

You may wonder where I’m going with this, well, as I was dicking around on the Internet tonight, I found this:

Sweet, you may be thinking, another montage video with people doing stuff. 

Great, another video about AIDS in Africa.

If Earth ever does face imminent doom, this is the video that should be blasted out into the nether-regions of space as the last bleep of humanity.

This video is humanity.

It’s a corporate giant trying to use pop-culture moral crusading as a selling point.

It’s people trying to out-sing one another.

It’s an introduction that is overly simplistic in order to be highly dramatic.

It’s Palestine with the Dome of the Rock in the background.

It’s a beautiful Norwegian girl.

It’s people in costumes trying hard to be remembered, more remembered than those that came before and will come after them.

It’s national flags and school children and an entire planet of people who can live in day and night at the same time.

It begs us to “Please Pass This On”, as though it were a cheap e-mail about Jesus.

It promises donations on our behalf.

We’re going to have to do more than just fight.