"temple" news and stories

I hate to be the one to break this to lifestyle reporters everywhere, but whining about the names of the drinks and the options at Starbucks is old. Very old. We've been there, we know what the names are and we have a great deal of pity that you find the option to have non-fat, low-fat or whole milk in your coffee to be "dizzying." They have medications to treat that sort of thing, you know.

If you want to cover something interesting, why don't you take a look at what cultural and social anthropologists (or historians masquerading as such) are studying when they visit Starbucks. Bryant Simon, a professor at Temple University, observes the patrons who visit Starbucks instead of the coffee shop's menu. He has done research at hundreds of Starbucks in six countries, looking at behaviors of the modern coffee consumer and learning about "cafe culture" in an age of globalization. He believes that Starbucks help fill "some kind of deep desire for connection with other people" without actually having to interact with them. The coffee shops, Simon says, are "selling comfort," letting people be anonymous together in an atmosphere that doesn't vary much from place to place; predictability is actually a somewhat rare virtue in a rapidly moving and changing world. And the effect spreads beyond America's borders, as patrons in other countries often exhibit similar behaviors and look for the same comforting things.

His paper, his "opus," will be titled Consuming Starbucks and will reach publication in 2008.

[Photo by Sarah Gilbert]

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Most people are already aware that you should not give your dog chocolates - but what about your elephant? Elephants are largely vegetarian and apparently like chocolate quite a lot. That doesn't mean you should let them indulge, though. Raja, who at 45 is the most famous elephant in Sri Lanka, has become very ill after eating too much chocolate and other fattening foods. The chocolates, deep-fried cookies, sweet rice and fermented pineapple slices were fed to him by fans while celebrating the Buddhist New Year.

The monks who care for the elephant found him in great distress, writhing on the ground, the day after the celebration. A vet said that his digestive system could not cope with the fattened and processed foods or "the cookies... literally are soaked in oil." There is now a sign outside his enclosure which reads "Do not feed the elephant."

[Image Yahoo!]

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