By Masha Gutkin

lydaileapfrog@yahoo.com

Stick with the same subject long enough and people take notice. Among responses elicited by the Snoop's series on coffee was an e-mail from a blogger who goes by the moniker Green LA Girl. Byline: "It's not easy being green ..." Green LA Girl (who is, yes, located in LA) is at the root of the Starbucks Challenge.

The germ of the Challenge sprouted last September, not too long after GLAG felt impelled to blog in the first place. "The main thing," she says, "was, at that time I was trying to recycle a DVD player and I seriously had to search for 2 hours before I was able to find a place to recycle this e-waste. When I did that I was like, I have to spread the news or else my 2 hours of work will be lost ..." Now she gets a few hits a week on her Web site from people all over the country wanting to recycle their "e-waste."

In her e-mail to me, GLAG mentioned that she would be in town at the end of the month for a forum on blogging (see below) and that the Snoop's list of fair-trade and organic coffee-slinging joints would come in handy. I was glad to have a chance to tell her about, and mitigate omission from my list of, my personal favorite coffee and fresh-baked-good destinations en route to the fog-shrouded environs of my Inner Sunset setting of employment: Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative. I guess the big sign saying all their coffee is fair trade and organic just doesn't register when my mind's on the: "Scone? Focaccia? Pizza, bialy, wolverine, shortbread? ... Scone?" merry-go-round.

GLAG's e-mail also brought my attention to what one might call the theory-versus-practice aspect of Starbucks's (and perhaps other coffee leviathans'?) offer to make a French press of fair-trade coffee for any customer so desiring.

Here's how GLAG describes the Starbucks Challenge: "This challenge tests Starbucks's claim that they will make a French-pressed cup of fair trade coffee for any customer who asks for fair trade coffee in their stores – any day of the week. While the mega-corp has gotten lots of green creds and gotten less vigilant fair trade activists off their backs with this claim, this policy is often not carried out in stores. Basically, the Starbucks Challenge ... asks people to go to a local Starbucks, ask for a cup of fair trade coffee, and report back what ensues. That way, we have a compiled, written blog-based documentation of how Starbucks isn't living up to its promises."

What apparently started as a personal "mission to get to the bottom of Starbucks' fair trade policies" turned into an international movement, with, Green LA Girl says, "over 300 challenges taken with more than 200 blogs participating," as well as a Google map littered with "challenged" Starbucks locations and stories thereof from across North America, Europe, Australia, and even what looked to be the middle of the ocean (a Starbucks cruise ship, perhaps, dispensing caffeine to java-starved sailors?) ... but turned out to be Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Starbucks Challenge, which has been gathering momentum since its launch, on October 4, 2005, shows how blogging can be an intersection of personal narratives, activism, and journalism. Because blogs don't have the journalistic imperative to appear impartial, they can work as reportage and offer opportunities to take action.

What the Starbucks Challenge addresses is "newsworthy": the obfuscation by, and prevarication of, a major corporation. Unlike traditional reportage, the blog format – personal, interactive, and ongoing – reveals the "seams" of this piece of "news" by letting the reader in on the process of the story's development through personal experiences. Inclusion of experience can be more informative than a "just the facts" recounting, and more interesting because it's attractively, sympathetically, human.

Another thing about blogs, for better or worse, is the feature of carte blanche re word count. That not being the case on this-here beloved printed page, I'll take this last paragraph of ink to let you know that we've got some local fair-trade bloggers, the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition. They just had a fair-trade rice tasting and have a Café Crawl coming up on Feb. 28 as part of their effort to raise awareness and availability of fair-trade-certified products. And an added bonus (?): If you go to one of their events, you'll get to interact with other humans corporeally, not just virtually! Reach out and touch the rainbow connection.

SFBG

Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative 1331 Ninth Ave., SF (415) 566-3117 www.greenlagirl.com/category/starbucks-challenge www.bayareafairtradecoalition.blogspot.com