To celebrate their 35th anniversary, Starbucks is serving drinks from cups bearing their original logo for the month of September. The logo (top right) shows the Starbucks mermaid in full, complete with split tails and bare chest, unlike the more streamlined version that is usually seen in their stores.
BloggingBaby mentioned that a Seattle area school saw some problems with the more detailed logo. The principle or an elementary school in Kent, Washington has asked teachers to make sure that the logo on their coffee cups is completely covered up if they bring it into school. A spokeswoman said that the principle "thought that it could be distracting for students."
Some students, like one 12-year old, said that students would definitely talk about the logo if they noticed it and said that the rule was a good idea. Parents in the area largely thought it was unnecessary, especially considering the very small size of the logo on the cups, and commenters at BloggingBaby felt the same way. Schools, they felt, have bigger problems to worry about than an inch high drawing on a coffee cup that isn't particularly scandalous.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-12-2006 @ 2:31PM
Spoonman said...
'Cause Jayzus forbid a child see a boob. They might go out and rent pornography and rape and kill their neighbors. Oh, the pandimonium!
Can we tell I'm tired of living in Taliban-controlled US? :)
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9-12-2006 @ 3:30PM
Brad said...
I do vaguely remember what I and my classmates were like as teenagers, especially in the 13-15 range. It did not take much to "set us off" as a whole and cause a raucus in class. The quote from the "12 year old" is probably bang on - it'll get noticed, and be a cause of snickering, adolescent jokes, probably also used to harass other girls in the class.
I realize there's broader cultural issues as to why these things are perhaps more problematic then they should be, but there are practical issues to being a teacher in a public school. Why make your job harder?
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9-12-2006 @ 5:43PM
David Blaine said...
Just for the sake of trivia...it is a siren not a mermaid, hence the split tail and the maritime theme is drawn from Moby Dick's coffee slupring first mate Starbuck. Bonus Trivia: The original title was Mocha Dick and the whale was black not white. I believe Mocha was the name of the African country near the fabled whale's home turf. I hope I got all of the right, we did not have coffee in my school when I was trying to get through the book, but I did have a Penguin CLassics edition of Neitche's Beyond Good and Evil which featured a topless women on the cover. The cover wa the best thing about that book when you are 18 years old.
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