Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
— STAFF EDITORIAL —
Sexpression of values
Money, money, money. That’s what America runs on, thanks to our capitalist values. The American dream, after all, is rags to riches. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, big business became a major player and the stock market created billionaires.
One of the most important parts of a well-run business is the advertising department—seen especially in our current society.
People from other countries might think it’s weird if others were to talk during the televised games of huge sporting events and become silent during the commercials to hear what is being said, but we Americans find it perfectly normal.
Maybe the reason advertising agencies are so successful is because they have figured out what people want to see—it has all come down to the catchy little phrase: “Sex sells.”
Actually, sex seems to be the paramount motivator for consumers these days. A perfect example of this fact is the new style of coffee shops in Seattle. Seattle is globally famous for their coffee, making the market for new coffee companies extremely competitive. Yet, a new brand of coffee shops are rising to the top of the corporate ladder, using improved tactics. They call themselves “sexpresso.”
The sexpresso stands are drive-up coffee shops that serve average tasting coffee. Instead of using their coffee as their main attraction however, they use their scantily-clad baristas.
Customers have their pick of newly named drinks like the “Wet Dream” or the “Sexual Mix” served to them by young girls in bikinis, lingerie or wet T-shirts. The Newswire can only guess what gender most of the customers are.
“In a way, it is perhaps stunning that it took so long for entrepreneurs here to figure out that coffee, the fabled Seattle obsession, mixes very well with sex, the fabled human obsession,” wrote LA Times writer Sam Howe Verhovek.
The tactic is obviously working very well. The baristas claim to make around $200 or more in tips per day and surrounding coffee shops have been forced to join in with the trend or sell their companies. “We had a much better atmosphere, good coffee. Unfortunately, they ran around half-naked and we didn’t,” said John Cambroto, a rival coffee shop owner. Last spring he sold his business to “Cowgirls Espresso,” one of the sexpresso shops.
The Newswire wonders if this kind of capitalism should be what America continues to support. The sexpresso shops aren’t breaking any laws as long as they have the necessities covered, but aren’t they breaking something far more important?
These baristas throw their modesty and morality out the drive-thru window along with the caffeinated drinks they continue to serve to lusting customers. While America is based on citizens’ freedom to live and make money however they choose, the Newswire, a Jesuit-affiliated institution, has to hope that most citizens will choose to use that freedom in better ways than advertising their bodies for a little extra cash or buying coffee from a barista with very little clothing.
Hopefully our capitalist society will encourage more rags to riches stories instead of rags to risqué, which seems to be the current trend.
Snowly crap! What are we to do?
Matthew Finger
Op-Ed Editor
It’s finally winter here in Cincinnati. I know this for a fact because everything has shut down completely. Buses are sliding around on Dana Avenue, the shuttle broke down and had to be towed away and, perhaps the most shocking of all, River Downs casino closed due to inclement weather, because let’s face it: playing craps in the snow is dangerous.
I can’t help but ask myself why? Every time the “Great White Death” rears its mildly-apathetic head at the Queen City, life as we know it stops.
Classes are cancelled, secondary schools are cancelled the night before, people are buying milk and water from Kroger in bulk and all the people from New England and Wisconsin are laughing.
Is Cincinnati going to remember—ever—that snow comes along just about every year? It seems as though the Nasty forgets, or somehow thinks, that it will never happen again. No one is prepared. The city’s armada of plows and salt trucks are caught with their pants down. It’s utter chaos.
What Cincinnati needs to do is work on its infrastructure, especially the road system. No more of this crap where roads just end or change names out of nowhere.
It seriously looks like the city planners had just left Soupies when they thought this up. Maybe if we had better roads, a quarter-inch of powder wouldn’t freak everyone out so much.
Since Xavier is such a diverse community, there are students here from all over the United States and the world.
Because of this, when it does snow here, you can almost assuredly find students from Colorado, Minnesota and even Clevland outside sledding, driving around, running on ice with scissors and other such things of an arctic nature.
But the Cincinnati people are in their caves, hiding from the imminent doom that accompanies precipitation.
Come out and play, Cincinnatians. It will be fun. We can have a snowball fight (until Campus Police breaks it up), build a snowman with a magical hat, sculpt male-genitalia out of snow (because college students are assuredly the most mature people in the US education system) and if you have a lot of free time you can build an igloo and hot-box it.
We’re not going to die at the icy hand of Jack Frost and his minions of doom.
Just remember to take it slow when you’re driving, dress warm (girls, that means don’t wear a skirt while you’re waiting for a taxi to take you to Martino’s on a Wednesday night) and just enjoy the day off without worrying.
It could be worse. At least you didn’t get snowed into Dayton. I don’t think they even have running water, much less heat.
Matthew Finger 
Op-Ed Editor
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
The Xavier Newswire
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Cincinnati, Ohio 45207-2129
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