I wanted to comment on this yesterday, but moo knew was being fussy.

{...}Now comes the airline service equivalent of End Days. Yesterday, American Airlines announced it will charge $15 for the first checked bag – a once sacrosanct free service.

The nation's largest carrier, which will impose the fee starting June 15, said it will also raise fees for such things as reservation help and oversized bags, and lay off workers and cut domestic flights by up to 12 percent.

That's on top of American's decision last month to join other major carriers in charging $25 for checking a second bag.{...}

Look, I don't fly American. Ever. How could I? Northworst has MSP International Airport locked up, hence there really are very few American flights coming and going from here, but this is freakin' ridiculous? $15 to check a bag? The first bag, not the second bag, which they'll charge you $25 for having the GALL to think you could pack a second set of flip-flops and some extra beach towels for your trip to the seaside.

Who do these people think they are?

Look, it is not the customer's fault that American Airlines hedged their fuel costs erroneously. It's not the customer's fault that they still---still!---think that they can keep their business in business by following an outdated business model wherein they charge business travelers an arm and a leg and, somehow, that will keep the whole shebang afloat. Somehow, some airlines---gee, I wonder who they might be---managed to lock in their fuel prices at a decent rate, and they're still managing to make money with oil at $130 a barrel. Not as much money as before, but they're still up and running and NOT charging their customers---you know, the people who fund their largesse---$15 to check a bag.

I can understand cost cutting/revenue enhancing maneuvers in so far as they actually help the business they're trying to run. Cutting underwhelming routes is something I can understand. But I fail to see how, if American actually goes ahead with this cockamamie scheme, pissing off their customers by charging for something that used to be free is going to help them out in the long run. Because, ahem, if your customers are so pissed off that they refuse to fly your airline, you're not really going to make $15 for each bag that's not checked, are you?

It's one thing to charge for extras, like booze, or even---dare I say it?---food. But many would argue that a checked bag---particularly after the airlines' massive push toward checking bags after 9/11---is a necessity. People have gotten used to the new security requirements. They plan ahead. And since it's been no problem to check bags, and it's actually been encouraged, how does this change that scenario? People can only cut back so much, ya dig? They can cut back from two to one, but from one to a carry-on? What kind of problems is that move going to create? For one, I forsee many a delayed departure, with more gas being guzzled by idling planes, because all the overhead compartments are full and they have to figure out how to stow all the bags that won't fit. That's really going to help with fuel costs now, isnt' it?

When will these people learn?

And if they go crying to the government, to bail them out again, like after 9/11, I say let them rot. If the airlines cannot figure out how to make a buck in leaner times, then sayonara, boys! I don't care anymore. Which is appropriate, because the airlines patently don't care about me, or my needs, as a paying customer. They just want my cash---actual passengers and the luggage they bring with them seem to be something of an inconvenience to them.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fer the love of all that's good and holy.

A Christian group out of San Diego has found grounds for outrage over the new logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves, Slutbucks."

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.{...}

Charbucks has gone from this

To this:

Notice anything different about the second one, other than that it's got a "slutty" naked chick on it? (Never minding the fact that the woman on the logo doesn't, indeed, have legs "spread like a prostitute," like Mr. Dice claims. She, apparently, doesn't have legs at all. )

Well, gee, Gomer, could it be that it's printed in black and white instead of color?

While Charbucks is selling this as a "keeping it real" move, this is more likely about money. Color in the logo costs money. And if they have to print cups and napkins, etc., with black, white and green, you can be sure the green is costing them coin. Switching to a black and white logo is the money saving equivalent of American Airlines taking one olive off every meal they served: it's a small move, but it's coin that can be used for other things. Like buoying up their decreasing stock price. Because that's what this is about: keeping those shareholders happy. They've apparently realized that they can't sell more coffee, so they've got to find the pennies wherever they can find them to keep the stock from decreasing any further.

But that's really beside the point: some Christian group is po'ed because there's a naked chick on the Charbucks logo.

Sigh.

Don't these people have anything better to do with their time? You know, there are millions of people around the world who are, with increasing regularity, falling victim to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (you know, famine, plague, war and pestilence) and this is what they choose to get their knickers in a twist about? A naked chick on a coffee cup? A logo that won't even be seen once the barista puts the cardboard coffee clutch on the cup? Get real, would you? Go and picket the Burmese embassy. Your social activism will be put to better use---and, ahem, it might actually accomplish something worthwhile.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:02 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I suspect what Mr. Dice is really upset about is that if you look really close, the right breast is labeled "soy, no whip". Your advice to Dice is spot on.

Posted by: BobM at May 15, 2008 09:17 AM (xRH1I)

2 Cripes! Talk about blood and stones. After they hoover my wallet for a four dollar latte every morning do they really think I have the extra coin to blow on a hooker? As Gob would say, "C'mon!!"

Posted by: Robbo the Llama Butcher at May 15, 2008 08:30 PM (ZqnQ6)

3 OMG....how desperate can people get. And here I thought us San Diegans were farther evolved.

Posted by: Jenn at May 16, 2008 11:06 AM (90r1G)

4 dude can bite me. Go save a strving child, willya?

Posted by: caltechgirl at May 16, 2008 04:21 PM (IfXtw)

5 More than that, it's Starbucks going back to that logo; it's the original one from Before Massive Fame. Though on another level, the critic is right - the "mermaid" (more aptly a siren*) on the Starbucks logo in question really is a sexual symbol. (* Medieval confusion making a "siren", while not mythologically originally a water-dweller like the mermaid, into a form of mermaid with a sometimes-split tail. And I tried to link to the wikipedia entry, but evidently that's "questionable" to your spam filter...?) The guy complaining about it is still a doofus, in that only students of medieval art are likely to be aware of the symbolism, and frankly the "previous" version of the logo (ie, the cleaner non-original one that was replaced by going back to the original) is more attractive than the "dirtier" woodcut. Maybe it's just me, but scales? Not so hot.

Posted by: Sigivald at May 20, 2008 05:40 PM (3iY68)

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Because If I actually vent my spleen on this one, I'll wind up in a hospital bed in a catatonic state for a good long while.

You'll understand after you watch it.

{ht: WWTDD}

Posted by: Kathy at 04:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hey Jerkweed, weren't you supposed to leave the country in 2000 if Bush was elected?

According to many travel sites, there are still loads of flights available. Why don't you GET ON ONE and spare us your sanctimonious bullshit, eh?

The fat head you save could be your own.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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When the Minneapolis Police Department decides that it's time to bring out the freakin' chariots as a crime fighting initiative, it's time to move.

What I really want to know is where are the broom helmets? Eh? You know what I'm referring to, right? If you don't, let Marvin the Martian enter your mind and you'll know of what I speak. You can't drive a chariot without a freakin' broom helmet. There's some law that dates back to Roman times that decrees each and every chariot driver should have a big armored helmet with a broom on top. So they can sweep up after they rape and pillage the population. It's mandatory. And since the Mpls Police Department is all about following rules and regulations, they should get with the damn program already.

I can't wait to hear from the husband, who has to traverse through downtown daily, how these neo-chariots help the cops cut down on all the drug dealing at Block E. Or even the chronic spitters, who regularly drive the husband up the wall with their disgusting habit of hocking lugeys every five seconds, in competition with their fellow thugs. I suspect they'll be able to hop the curb from Hennepin Avenue in impressive fashion, but will the cops actually be able to hop down from their motorized chariots in time to, you know, actually arrest the drug dealers? I suspect not. I have a feeling that by the time they park the stupid things, the drug dealers will be long gone.

Because, after all, how are the cops going to haul someone in with one of those things?

Stick a fork in me. I'm so done with this place.

{ht: Lileks, without whom I'd have absolutely no idea of what was going on in this place I call home...for the time being.)

Posted by: Kathy at 08:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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