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Kidist will fight for her perfume and coffee if she has to


super skeptic

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I usually buy Kidist's beloved Pike Place roast for home use. I'm no coffee snob(I hope to become one someday), but even I know it's nothing special. I feel like it's a step or two above Folger's in a can.

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Basically there was no room in the marketplace for Starbucks here. Gloria Jeans has the lion's share of the coffee chain business and between that, a handful of smaller coffee chains and the vastly superior independent cafes that populate the country there was no way for Starbucks to get a foothold.

It's pretty satisfying, knowing how Starbucks basically destroyed independent cafes and coffee houses in the states.

Isn't Gloria Jean's run by fundies or at least evangelical Christians though?

Also I wouldn't necessarily say that Starbucks destroyed independent cafés. It's harder to get market share true, but at least in larger US cities like mine, there are a lot of independent stores and/or smaller local chains that survive specifically because of people who go out of their way not to patronize Starbucks.

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The thought of Starbucks running every other coffee house out of business gives me teh sadz.

We had Gloria Jean's Coffee Bean for some years close to where I live, as well as a Seattle's Best coffee house. Both chains made better drinks than Starbuck's ever has. I only patronize Starbuck's now because it's all that's left. :(

And as far as perfume afficionados go, they turn up in the oddest places sometimes. One of the best that I ever met was a man who worked in one of those 80% off perfume discount stores in a wholesale district downtown. He sold the average run-of-the-mill cheap, fruity, floral stuff, but he also had a number of specialty scents that were mixed in Saudi Arabia. Pure essential oils, and none of them like anything I'd ever smelled before. He was able to explain all of the scents in loving detail, and they all had the same highly discounted prices. I appreciated the time and attention he gave me in explaining all of them, and I did make several purchases.

Maybe Kidist would have appreciated this experience as well, but the question is, would she have thought it beneath her to enter a shop that called itself 80% off Discounted Perfumes?

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Basically there was no room in the marketplace for Starbucks here. Gloria Jeans has the lion's share of the coffee chain business and between that, a handful of smaller coffee chains and the vastly superior independent cafes that populate the country there was no way for Starbucks to get a foothold.

It's pretty satisfying, knowing how Starbucks basically destroyed independent cafes and coffee houses in the states.

It's a bit counter-intuitive, but Starbucks isn't actually bad for local business, nor has it destroyed the local coffee shops in the US. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... bucks.html

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Gloria Jeans is owned by Hillsong (or royalty members of or something), so evangelical rather than fundy. (A fellow musician once summarised Hillsong well by saying if you replace the word "I" and "Me" in their songs with "God" then they produce some really great music.) Interestingly, there is no attempt at hiring Christian staff as several of my very vocally atheist students work there. Coffee is adequate but prices are higher than our independent cafés so I don't bother going there.

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They used to have collection boxes out for "Mercy Ministries", who treated their inpatients with exorcisms and guilt trips for things like drug addiction and homosexuality. Part of their profits to it too iirc. Stopped after public outcry and boycotts but I still won't go near them - that's what the owners are like, that's what they think is okay, fuck them.

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Gloria Jeans is owned by Hillsong (or royalty members of or something), so evangelical rather than fundy. (A fellow musician once summarised Hillsong well by saying if you replace the word "I" and "Me" in their songs with "God" then they produce some really great music.) Interestingly, there is no attempt at hiring Christian staff as several of my very vocally atheist students work there. Coffee is adequate but prices are higher than our independent cafés so I don't bother going there.

They give quite a bit of money to Family First & the ACL. So I think they might be a bit fundie?

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Probably depends on how you define fundy. I tend to use Hillsong as my definition of evangelical and Plymouth Brethren as my definition of fundy. As for donating to Family First, most of the Christians I know do that. They don't bother to look at their policies, they just vote for the people standing on a CHRISTIAN!!! platform.

One fact I love about Hillsong: Darlene Zchech, who is head of the worship team,( ie. she writes the music), is the highest grossing Australian musician. She outsells all our rock stars. The music industry got caught out a while ago by this singer none of them had ever heard of. Almost all her music is sold to the US.

*A Hillsong service is fun and the people are very welcoming. MrMiggy took me along once and then learnt exactly what happens when you take your epileptic girlfriend to what is effectively a Rock concert. A romantic evening in a hospital?!

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I boycott Gloria Jeans because I can't stand families first and their political allegiance is just too close to fundie/anti-gay for my comfort.

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Kidist loves to think she's classy and high end but she's just... not. Starbucks is good? I'm no coffee aficionado but their coffee always tasted kind of burnt to me. I'm glad they shut down here.

It tastes burnt because that is how SB maintains their quality (or "quality"). They have to roast their beans near charcoal because it is the only way to quarantee that coffee is similar in their shops around the world.

Now, we Finns are the biggest coffee consumers in the world (currently 12 kg per capita per year). But what is different here is that Finns generally love light roast coffee (Finnish coffee is the lightest roast in the world). But, in last 10 years or so Finns have been introduced to darker roasts. One of the reasons is that people have visited in Starbucks shops abroad in their travels. And I am sad to see people think SB coffee equals good dark roast coffee.

We have now two SBs in here and when the most recent one was opened, there were tens and tens of teenage girls queuing. I think mainly because they (poor things) think that SB coffees have something to do with really good tasting coffee... My experience is that they are really sweet or without milk/whiteners they are so over-roasted that there aren't many flavours left.

Ok. I know my opinion is biased :D I looooooove coffee and so does my spouse who is trained barista (although not working as such). And I am always sorry to see how people don't give any culinaristic value for coffee.

But I don't understand why Kidist complains in the tone she does. Um, she clearly understands that SB makes automatic coffee ("measure the water") and still complains how non-white immigrants _destroy_ the coffee. Muahaha. Poor training, perhaps? Interesting how anti-immigrants always directly blame immigrants for their errors that can be a result of a poor training, faulty machine or just a simple mistake people do everyday.

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The racism is definitely mixed with some sort of cultural dislocation and genuine mental illness.

I post mostly because she's the only blogger who is from my area. That sometimes scares me - crazy people in my old neighborhood are nothing new, but it was a bit of a jolt when I suddenly realized that I used to live a few minutes away from her, and likely walked past her building daily.

Some of her posts are also more disconnected from reality when you realize the Toronto context. She used to live in a very multicultural area in downtown Toronto, and have random conversations with wait staff at a 24 hour diner. Picturing the place, it was obvious that their nods didn't mean "we agree", but meant "let's not confront the crazy lady".

Here are the demographics of Mississauga, where she currently lives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississauga#Demographics (unbroken b/c it's wikipedia). Half the population isn't white. To imagine that ethnic store clerks are only hired because of government interference is to be delusional.

She once lived in France, and clearly it made an impression on her. In Paris, it would be perfectly normal to go into a parfumerie and have a discussion about notes in a perfume. Mississauga isn't anything like Paris, and she'd really have to be deep in her own world not to notice that. She also uses really European language - nobody hear says "shop assistant", for example. She constantly talks about white Canadian culture, without having the faintest clue what it is.

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I'm a coffee lover but most definitely NOT a coffee snob and Starbucks is my favorite go-to place for coffee. I like the ambiance and I enjoy drinking the coffees they have there. I've been to independent coffee shops and it's been a mixed bag for me. For the most part, I can't tell the difference in terms of taste of coffee or environment (i.e they may look different but the general atmosphere is the same). I feel part of the distaste people have for Starbucks is because it's a corporate chain but I don't mind it at all. It's a successful model coming out of Seattle, who am I to begrudge having it replicated the world over? I'm glad there's a Starbucks everywhere....I can get my Starbucks without having to rummage through a different list of coffees and prices every time I enter a shop. Plus, it was an awesome place to study as a med student!

She once lived in France, and clearly it made an impression on her. In Paris, it would be perfectly normal to go into a parfumerie and have a discussion about notes in a perfume. Mississauga isn't anything like Paris, and she'd really have to be deep in her own world not to notice that. She also uses really European language - nobody hear says "shop assistant", for example. She constantly talks about white Canadian culture, without having the faintest clue what it is.

I'm starting to think whatever problem Kidist has, it stems from a fantasy life based in Paris. I don't know much of her history, just that her family were fairly prominent under the old regime in Ethiopia back when they had an emperor but they lost that standing (and possible their money?) when they fled to Europe. Kidist talked about attending elite schools in Europe before settling in the US and Canada. I wonder if Kidist is fixated on her European days because she considers that period the highlight of her life. Her weird racism may stem from this fantasy life she's envisioned for herself living in Europe where, for a brief time, she associated with a "sophisticated" crowd (i.e wealthy children). Perhaps that time in her life left a deep impression. She works as a shop attendant at a mall these days....probably a step down from her fantasy life she dreamed up as a poor emigre attending an elite school. Maybe she projects a type of self-loathing---as an immigrant, as a non-white, as someone whose family lost status---onto her worldview and ends up trying to pretend she's not any of that.

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I think you're right - something in her mind is fixated on Paris. It's her happy place, and somehow she got stuck in that head space and can't process her current reality. She really has this fantasy about what "white" culture is that simply doesn't match white Canadian reality, but it may be based on her French experiences. [At the risk of engaging in broad stereotypes, white Anglo Canadians basically fall into 2 catetgories: those who are connected to urban, very multicultural areas, and those who are more small-town/rural. She's clearly not into farming or fishing or hockey or hiking, which are all things typically associated with white Canadian culture.] Trust me, white Canadians were not all dancing ballet and designing dresses and drinking gourmet coffee and sniffing perfume until the evil non-white foreigners showed up.

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As I said above, in Australia we describe American coffee as "sex-in-a-canoe coffee" (f$$@in' close to water, for those who haven't heard the term). The jokes about Starbucks started even before the first store opened.

OT but that's what some of us Canadians call American beer.

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Not to repeat my post on page 2 of this thread, Kidist's family left Ethiopia as refugees. I have no idea where her rabid anti-Asian crap and self-hatred comes from but the dislocation of a move like that and long-term refugee status is huge. The fixation on France is interesting. FYI, there are some oddities in her CV. I think she claims to have a Baccalaureate from the Sorbonne somewhere but she would have done GCSE in the UK.

I don't think she has ever said which school she attended in Ethiopia, I suspect one of the International Schools, possibly the one I went to, or perhaps the Lycee, but she finished elementary school in France and then went to an English boarding school, probably in the early 80s. I looked her boarding school up once and would say that it is a very middle ranked independent boarding school much like the one I went to. Let me just say that non-elite boarding schools in those days were hardly luxurious accomodations! At my school over 1/3 of the student body and at least 50% of the boarders were there because our parents were overseas. Very middle class and not terribly wealthy. The wealthy kids were all at posh schools. :)

I'd suggest looking at Kidist's own writing for more details. I agree with her about Mengistu Haile Mariam, FWIW, and what would have happened to her father. She also claims to have rejected her heritage, or most of it, at 17.

reclaimbeauty.blogspot.com/2013/07/reclaiming-beauty.html

I left Ethiopia because it was a matter of saving my father's life. We were political dissidents. My father was part of the Haile Selassie regime, and he secured a post in the Paris-based UNESCO months before the regime fell apart, and the brutal and vicious dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam took over. Many of my father's colleagues, and friends, were imprisoned. Some were excecuted. This would have probably been the fate of my father.

But, by the grace of God, we ended up in Paris, the most beautiful city in the world! My young years until my late teens were spent between school holidays in Paris, and boarding school in England. My brothers and I got the best of the Western world. We were hardly wealthy. Most of my father's assets had to remain in Ethiopia (and were later confiscated). We lived in cramped apartments. And UNESCO payed the bills for our primary and secondary education. My parents then sent us to college in the U.S. Only one child could secure UNESCOS's college education assistance (which I received, being the eldest), and later, I managed to get a collection of scholarships and grants which took me through graduate degrees.

Soon after we arrived in Europe, we had very little relations with Ethiopia. There were a handful (three of four) Ethiopian families in France since almost all who left Ethiopia had gone to America. I speak Amharic, but my youngest brother barely speaks it. All my post-Ethiopa life has been immersed in the West. But, it wasn't for lack of opportunities that, for me, Ethiopia was in the background. New York and Los Angeles have a huge hub of Ethiopians. When I went to college in the U.S. at seventeen, I could have resumed "where we left off," and started a whole new chapter of "Ethiopianness" with the huge community in New York, but for I opted to stay away from that. I couldn't understand the nostalgic relation to a country which is so far away, culturally, geographically and for me, emotionally.

My blogs and writing will show that I am a unique (odd, some will say) defender of the West, and Western civilization. I have tried to include some Ethiopian elements, primarily its Christian heritage, but that seems to be the only, significant, point of intersection with my Western-oriented work. I have been asked, both in my writings and in my design work, why I don't focus on Ethiopia. Each time, I have ignored those remarks, or made a quick, dismissive reply in order to be left alone. The questions have never been genuine, and were by people who were in some way trying to belittle Western civilization.

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It looks like she must have started suffering some kind of mental illness in the 2000's; looking at her resume, there's no way she could have functioned well as an ESL teacher with the school board and at COSTI (an agency that helps immigrants) with her current beliefs.

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It looks like she must have started suffering some kind of mental illness in the 2000's; looking at her resume, there's no way she could have functioned well as an ESL teacher with the school board and at COSTI (an agency that helps immigrants) with her current beliefs.

I agree. Adult onset of serious mental illness. Kidist managed to get scholarships for graduate degrees and hold down real jobs for quite a while.

These days I think she is existing on a combination of disability, Etsy sales of rather poor art-work, part-time sales jobs when she is stable enough to get them and not be fired fast, and whatever her extended family can afford to give her. I don't assume that her family has completely deserted her, but dealing with this kind of mental illness is really hard for family members.

Refugees (and Kidist is/was a refugee, albeit a comparatively "rich" one) are subjected to very serious trauma often resulting in mental illness. Per WHO "It is established that an average of more than 50 per cent of refugees present mental health problems ranging from chronic mental disorders to trauma, distress and great deal of suffering."

If you don't believe in the refugee stuff, there is also "culture shock" a not-so-mini-trauma, if you will. It is a real thing. I've experienced it a couple of times and it isn't a whole lot of fun.

If we think of Kidist in terms of culture shock -- she somehow got stuck in the "honeymoon phase" in France.

I think after 30+ years I'm at the bicultural phase in the US, but in my 8 years in the UK after growing up in Africa I never ever fit in there properly. Of course, I then married and moved to the US. I must be a sucker for culture shock punishment! :lol:

Eh, I will forever be a Third Culture Kid/Adult. I'm lucky enough to be able to deal with it and remain comparatively sane, but I do have a lot of empathy for those who find it much harder than I did.

Like Kidist. Vile as she is.

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I wonder if she actually IS on disability. Given what she's posted, she shouldn't qualify... I wonder if she still works at Laura?

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