Seven whole days

Possible Republican campaign poster

I know it sounds shocking, but poor fiscal management is not the greatest immediate threat from GOP presidential candidates to me and my friends. It’s not even their complete absence of actual family values and its companion, blatant hypocrisy. Here’s the frightening truth: there is every chance a Republican president will demand the death penalty for drinking coffee.

You think I’m being alarmist, right? Well, read on my friends. Consider some facts: Newt Gingrich was speaking against the opening of a Starbucks franchise when he said that Starbucks is part of a “Liberal cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.” Now if you think something is a threat to civilization, wouldn’t you do anything to stop it?

Then there’s well-known serial killer Mitt Romney whose religion is famous for opposing coffee consumption as a moral evil. If you’ve killed once, killing again isn’t so hard. See where this is going? Stay with me: it gets worse.

Ron Paul finds Starbucks useful, but only as part of his culture of half-truth and outright deception. He wants everyone who orders at Starbucks to give their name as “Ron Paul.” It is increasingly difficult to write satire. (Since Ron Paul likes everyone saying their name is Ron Paul, he should watch Being John Malkovich sometime. He’d get a kick out it.)

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If nothing else, Americans like big things. We drive giant cars. We live in big houses. And now we can have a big cup of coffee. A really big cup of coffee. This one leapfrogs even the efforts of Starbucks to coin ridiculous words to describe ever-larger cups of brew.

Let the buyer beware. You’ll have to monitor your consumption carefully, since only a few of these monster cups will kill you. Each one of these babies holds 20 regular cups of coffee, so make sure you know how much coffee it takes to kill you. I don’t think there’s a website to find out how much coffee it takes to make your eyes go gaga like the dude in this photo, but be wary of that too.

Consider this cup. It’s ridiculously large. It’s impractical. It’s potentially fatal. In other words, it fits right in with American patterns of consumption.

Buy yours at Archie McPhee. Wave of the coffee filter to Likecool.

Blog note: my archnemesis is always going on about coffee on his blog, and I didn’t want him to have an advantage. By my count, we’ve each written eight posts (mine, his) devoted to coffee. Until now. This one puts me ahead.

This is one of those things that I read and then immediately think, “This needs to be on 7WD.” Just when you think Starbucks has reached market saturation, they astound you with new locations. Here is a doozy, as reported by the Courier-Gazette of McKinney, TX.

The Turrentine-Jackson Morrow Funeral Home opened a Starbucks franchise in their building back in February as part of a recent expansion and the owners said it provides a perfect and familiar corner of comfort for grieving family and friends.

“When families come to a funeral home to make arrangements and tend to those details that they have to attend to, there is no reason they can’t take a break to have something nice to eat or drink and we wanted to incorporate something familiar and comforting,” Turrentine-Jackson Morrow Funeral Home owner Diana Morrow said. “So they can sit back and enjoy a nice cup of coffee and relax.”

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It’s easy to take things for granted. Take, for example, the quintessential coffee cup. It wasn’t always the quintessential coffee cup. Someone had to design it, and that someone was Leslie Buck. Mr. Buck died on Monday, and the New York Times has an article about Mr. Buck and his cup.

It was for decades the most enduring piece of ephemera in New York City and is still among the most recognizable. Trim, blue and white, it fits neatly in the hand, sized so its contents can be downed in a New York minute. It is as vivid an emblem of the city as the Statue of Liberty, beloved of property masters who need to evoke Gotham at a glance in films and on television.

It is, of course, the Anthora, the cardboard cup of Grecian design that has held New Yorkers’ coffee securely for nearly half a century. Introduced in the 1960s, the Anthora was long made by the hundreds of millions annually, nearly every cup destined for the New York area….

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Coffee is my vice, so I’m always glad to read about how it’s good for me. As Wired reports:

Even though several studies have found a cup-a-day habit imparts health benefits such as decreased risk of obesity, Alzheimer’s and colon cancer, many coffee lovers drink decaf or forgo the beverage altogether because it irritates the stomach or spurs heartburn.

Great! It’s good for me. I don’t have irritation problems, and perhaps now I know the reason. My preference for dark roasts has been affirmed.

Roasting coffee beans doesn’t just impart bold, rich flavor. It also creates a compound that helps dial down production of stomach acid, according to research presented on March 21 at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society. The discovery may explain why dark-roasted brews are gentler on the stomach than their lighter peers, and could lead to a new generation of tummy-friendly coffees.

Women appear to benefit from drinking three cups or more each day, according to Psychology Today.

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I love coffee, but only the old fashioned way: freshly ground beans, strongly brewed, and nothing added. Apparently I haven’t been keeping up with coffee trends.

The Daily Mail introduces us to the “car-puccino”:

A car that runs on coffee is unveiled today – but it certainly won’t take the grind out of commuting. And at between 25 and 50 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won’t please any motor industry bean-counters either. Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a converted 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for £400 and chosen for its resemblance to the time-travelling DeLorean in the movie Back To The Future.

As much as I love coffee, I think I’ll steer clear (ahem!) of that one for now. I also do not intend to take part in the latest way to consume coffee. Inhale! The NY Post offers a breathless report:

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I love liturgy. I love espresso. Now I know how to enjoy both of them at the same time, thanks to Billy Kangas (posted on beliefnet). Here’s a sample:

Blessing of The Steam (Meditation on the Holy Spirit)

Turn on steam wand for 5 seconds

Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe, by whose breath we have become living beings. Your spirit guided your people through the wilderness, and guides and empowers your pilgrim church today.

As this steam breathes through the milk it causes a transformation on the deepest levels. So to the Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of God. Let us praise God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ promises us that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

Holy Spirit renew me and all of your creation.

At this time have the following verses read either while the milk is being steamed or just before if the noise is too much. Also begin extracting the shot of espresso into a cappuccino cup.

The photo, by the way, is a photo of an actual espresso macchiato I was served a few months ago, speaking of combining liturgy and espresso.

A few weeks ago, I received the following comment from a regular reader of 7WD: “You’re a terrible blogger! I come to your blog every day, and sometimes it doesn’t change for weeks!”

In order to stave off another one of these comments, I thought I’d proactively post a bit here. It’s been one of those weeks in parish and personal life. Nothing individually has been overly dramatic, but there’s been lots to do. On my normal days off (Monday and Tuesday), I often spend 2-3 hours blogging up entries for the rest of week. Sadly, there was no time this week. So, for now, please know that I haven’t forgotten about 7WD. In fact, my blogpile has grown quite large. If I get to it before everything’s hopelessly outdated, I might have some good stuff here.

Here’s my “top of the hour” roundup of recent news:

• The USA is full of chuckleheads who apparently will believe anything that spews from the right, as evidenced by the large number of people who are now worried that Barack Obama is setting up “death panels” to off grandma.
• People are still pronouncing, with boring regularity, the death of the Anglican Communion. And yet Anglicans throughout the Communion are still going about their parish business, caring for people in countless ways all the while glorifying God. How can something so full of life be dead?
• The Eastern Pope of the Episcopal Church is no longer a major threat. He’s locked in an epic struggle to find the perfect coffee shop, and so the folks at 815 should be able to wrest control from him.
• USAA continues to be one of my favorite companies ever. Now they’ve outdone themselves. I will be able to ditch Bank of America (which must be run by Dr. Evil’s mentor) at last. How is that, you say? How will this work, since I live in Rhode Island and the bank is in another state? How will I deposit checks? USAA has developed an iPhone app that will let me deposit checks by photographing them! I am not making this up. If you are eligible to be a customer, I recommend USAA as the definitive company for every line of business in which they operate. Read more »

Here’s what you need to know about coffee consumption at General Convention.

1. The line at the Starbucks in the Marriott is usually pretty short. The espresso is tolerable.
2. The line at the Hilton Starbucks has never been short enough for me to sample their wares. Like the Marriott Starbucks, it is a franchise store, not a company store. That means the drinks are not likely to be of the same quality as a free-standing company Starbucks.
3. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ORDER THE “ESPRESSO” IN JAVA CITY. That’s the place inside the Convention Center itself. This faux espresso-like substance is not easily drinkable, and it was expensive. I can’t remember the amount, but I think it was around $157. Maybe not that much, but whatever the cost, it was too much.
4. The best coffee to be had, both in terms of price, quality, and ethics, is to be found at the ERD booth in the exhibit hall. They serve up free samples of Bishop’s Blend in paper shot glasses. Yum. I’m told they’ll pour you a full mug if you bring one. It’s fairly traded coffee as well. Even better, buy some to take home, and sign your parish up for this coffee for Coffee Hour. Good for your taste buds, good for the planet, and good for the coffee growers.

If I have a chance to sample other coffee, I’ll let you know, dear reader. I’m hoping there’s a good local coffee place in walking distance. (Yes, Jessica, I know there’s some kind of amazing place “near here”, but it might as well be in France if I can’t walk there.)

I don’t think I need to add anything here.

From Church Marketing Sucks.

I am always happy to contemplate the merger of two of my favorite things, Christianity and coffee.

A ‘prayer cafe’ is being run by a local church in Croatia, to keep the kids coming in. At the Jedno cafe you pay for your food and drink with prayers.

“In the Acts of the Apostles, it says the disciples used to come together for a meal after the Eucharist, so we’re following a biblical ideal,” said Salesian Father Damir Stojic.

Parents and church leaders donate the food and drink. Three Our Fathers buy you a coffee (four for a cappuccino), a Coke is five Hail Marys and a Glory be. Not sure about the muffins, but a quick Memorare should do it, with a decade of the Rosary if you want choc chip.

What a great idea! See how they moved past the usual “let’s see how much we can charge” right into a different approach? I imagine this will work very well, if the coffee is good. People thirst for God. People thirst for coffee. So if you put the two together, it seems like a sure recipe for success.

From the Times Online, via the Blingdom of God.