| rev:text
| - There are some undeniably regrettable parallels between the protests for democracy in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arabic world, and what's going on in Wisconsin, but there are also some very important differences. In the Middle East and North Africa, the protests are the result of an expansion of the literate middle class concomitant with growing social expectations, they're fighting for democracy. In Wisconsin, we're an embattled middle class, fighting to preserve democracy in the workplace. In Cairo, protesting is frightfully dangerous, and protective headgear for protesters is a must. In Madison, the three main police agencies are very nice, polite, not at all dangerous, and silly headgear for protesters seems to be de rigueur. In Cairo, a lot of coffee shops and tea houses are shut down, and protesters would be limited to Turkish style coffee or Arabic style tea. In Madison, there's an excellent, personable, unique bourgeois coffee shop serving organic fair trade coffee one block out from the state capital building (which is absolutely beautiful, protest or not) in literally every direction.
Okay, so if you're in need of a cappuccino, served properly in a dainty cup with saucer, finished with a leaf shaped mark of steamed milk, and you walked due north of the capital building from your protest, then here's your place. Its main advantage over the ludicrous plethora of other quaint little coffee shops playing independent indie-rock in this college town, is its location. For those who want to walk from the capital, it's very convenient. Other pluses are, it is a sunny little location, with friendly competent staff, tasty crepes (using Wisconsin produce and cheese), I recommend the spinach, cheese and mushroom. The somewhat cramped interior is ringed with seats facing out to the two streets for solitary drinkers and their notebook computers, but the center has an L shaped low table with unfixed stools, making it perfect for group project work. When you're protesting to preserve worker rights with a bunch of teachers, you want to proofread your placards for spelling and punctuation, these tables are perfect for neatly fixing those inappropriate apostrophes on protest signs with colorful Sharpies.
It is a small location, but when I was in there, the turn-over was quick, and the coffee is excellent. Although the location would seem to be convenient for the children's museum right next door, like most coffee shops, it's not really an appropriate place for young children, the space is tight, there's hot coffee everywhere, the tables are low, and "the grown-ups are talking here." If you're looking for a longer, solitary, coffee drinking and reading hide-out, there are better places for that near by, with more comfortable seating. The prices are pretty comparable to the other campus and downtown area coffee shops.
Okay, properly re-caffeinated, its time to return to the fight for democracy in the Wisconsin workplace. And Cairo, I hope you get both democracy, and cappuccino, soon.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)