So hot in fact that all kinds of big ol’ corporations are trying to get in on the action, as documented in this article from The Wire.  Starbucks’ efforts are especially interesting…

In one of the more brazen attempts by a corporation to disguise itself as a locally owned business, Starbucks is un-branding at least three of its Seattle outlets. The first of these conversions, just reopened after extensive remodeling, is called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. All of the signage and product labels bear this new name. The Starbucks corporate logo is nowhere to be seen.

This is the latest, and arguably most audacious, in a string of corporate attempts to imitate and co-opt local-ness. But there are plenty of other examples.

h/t: LaVida Locavore (via Mark Bittman)

Photo courtesy of the Seattle Times

Some Decatur stories have a certain je ne sais quoi and find themselves quickly being reported on much larger stages.

Country Music Television summarized the recent falling out and reconciliation between Decatur CD and Sugarland in a blurb…

Sugarland’s Kristian Bush visited Decatur CD record store in his hometown of Decatur, Ga., on Wednesday (Aug. 12), after a store employee criticized the duo’s exclusive distribution deal with Wal-Mart for their new CD/DVD, Live on the Inside. Decatur CD employee Warren Hudson complained on the store’s blog that by “shutting the door on independent record stores, you’re in effect shutting the door on your hometown.” Bush posted a reply on the blog entry that he would come to the store when he had a break from his tour. During his visit, he signed autographs for customers who happened to be in the store and purchased three CDs.

If there’s a moral here, it’s that criticizing celebrities is a great way to get free publicity.  With that said, look forward to my critiques of various Decatur celebs attached to random initiatives I support.

For example: “Dear John Mayer, why did you write a song about an Atlanta highway (I-85) thereby promoting the stigma that our city is all highways and subdivisions?  Did you not perform often in Decatur?  Did we not nourish your young mind with progressive thought and a ‘shut up and be quiet’ stage? And this is how you repay us?  It seems you were more than just “tempted to leave the car in drive and leave it all behind.”

Sometimes it seems like negative news dominates these pages.  So there’s nothing like a positive story to serve as a little tonic for the “All News is Negative” blues.

A Heliotrope employee told this story in a comment yesterday.

Good News Story of the Day

A customer, who had come into Heliotrope with her baby to shop, made her purchase and proceeded to her car parked across WePo in front of the CVS. She sat her bag on the sidewalk while she got her child seated for the ride home. Upon arriving home, she realized what she had done.

Meanwhile, one of Decatur’s great PALS, Jonathan Scheffel, while making his appointed rounds, noticed the bag in front of CVS with no car in that spot, saw the Heliotrope logo and dutifully took it to the store.

The customer made her way back to CVS to find the bag gone. She decided to take a wild chance (knowing that her goods had been lost) and came in the store. When she heard me call out that I was so happy she had come back, here are your things, she became visibly emotional, with me soon to follow, and said her faith in the inherent goodness of people had been fully restored. (She asked her girl, “What were we looking for?” “Bag,” she replied and pointed to the counter.)

Jonathan Scheffel – Today’s Decatur Hometown Hero!

Every news junkie,myself included, should remember that for every frightening crime or misdemeanor, there are perhaps hundreds of random acts of kindness that go unreported every day.

Look at this one story as the ambassador for hundreds of thousands of others.  Or even better, add your own “kind act” story below.