Overland literary journal

the Starbucks logo and Greg Sheridan

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 8-05-2009

Critiquing Greg Sheridan loses its charm once you discover that, in the computer program that writes his columns, stupidity is a feature and not a bug. Today, however, we should make the effort, given that he pops up on Arts and Letters Daily.

Did you know the woman in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther of the Jews? Just part of a vast Israeli plot against Arab people. Greg Sheridan can tell you more ...

Sheridan's piece is the usual boilerplate about how the Left hates Jews and so has aligned with Islamists in order to bring about a global caliphate headed by Noam Chomsky. Or something like that. Anyway, the bit on Starbuck goes like this.

[O]n Al-Nas TV, another Egyptian cleric, Safwat Higazi, revealed the wholly fictitious scoop that the female figure in the Starbucks logo was really Queen Esther of the Jews.

Silly old Muslims! What kind of insane death cult could be so worried about the logo of a coffee shop? Wait, what's this?

A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style 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."

And what does the nuttiness of Mr Dice prove? Nothing, of course -- but then neither does Sheridan's column.