Jason Cohen, perhaps trying to kill me or just ruin my Friday, submits “Net Profit” by the Stranger’s resident Starbucks apologist Sherman Alexie. I’m not sure why, but I have to admit, it isn’t every day that a writer who compares himself to Luke Ridnour is suffering from delusions of grandeur.

I am obsessed with Luke Ridnour.

I think about Luke Ridnour nearly every day of my life.

If my father were alive, he’d be calling me to talk about Ridnour.

“Jesus,” he’d say. “I can’t believe they’re still playing the little shit.”

“I know,” I’d say. “I think it’s because he’s a white kid in a very white city.”

“That’s a racist thought.”

“It’s a racial thought.”

“There’s no real difference between racist and racial. Don’t be such a writer.”

“Well, okay, then, I think that Luke Ridnour’s fans, no matter what color they are, root for him because they see this tiny little guy running around the court and they secretly think they are better basketball players than him.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Of course it is. Ridnour is the 78th best player in the NBA, which means he’s probably the 128th best player in the whole world. But you know how people are.”

“Yeah, people hate greatness.”

Of course, my father wouldn’t have said any of that. He was a fairly simple man. But I put the words in his mouth because I wanted to put the words on the page.

I think that certain people do hate greatness. And I most definitely know that certain American leftists absolutely despise capitalistic greatness.

Can you imagine hating Howard Schultz simply because he’s the greatest coffee seller in the history of the world?

Think about it. There has never existed another human being who is better at selling coffee than Mr. Schultz.

He is the Einstein of coffee.

The Michelangelo of coffee.

The Meryl Streep of coffee.

The Emily Dickinson of coffee.

The Oprah of coffee.

The Michael Jordan and/or Larry Bird of coffee.

At the risk of being labelled a lefty who hates capitalism (as opposed to someone who hates terrible coffee), Howard Schulz is the Ray Kroc of java.