But they don't deserve it. I'll give them 1,111 words.

There's been buzz recently about DCC's public request for $12,000 in donations by mid-August to stay open. When I heard them call it community supported enterprise I chuckled. When I heard all the people squawking about support, I got miffed. When people indirectly morally aligned this travesty against the news of Starbucks testing a new brand of "canned culture," I got footstomping earsmoking angry.

Karma? Shame on you Dandelion.

This is the point where diehards will refuse to read anything else I say. What they don't know is I believe it is absolutely sensible to eat organic locally grown foods whenever reasonable and support independent folks who provide goods and services of acceptable quality at a fair price. You don't have to be some moronic hippie liberal to have these principles.

I am all for supporting local businesses, but I don't distinguish them from any other business. If I don't like what I'm offered for my money I won't buy it. If I do like what I'm offered I'll be compelled to buy it again. As a consumer I give a for-profit business my support in the form of normal business transactions.

I'm not vegan or vegetarian but I eat lots of vegan and vegetarian food. I choose organic and locally grown foods when they are a sensible option, but I will not regularly purchase a sandwich that is not good at a price that doesn't justify it. Vegan food can be every bit as delicious as non vegan, but pretentious sorts of vegans make food that is generally gross. At Dandelion there is no passion for food or for the end user; the passion exists in the Moral Euphoria.

This False Pride and Moral Euphoria are what give them the balls to cite community service as a reason for us to donate. They have potlucks and new and full moon celebrations! But potluck means everybody brings something? And even though I always feel a little awe when I look up at the space past the sky, a bunch of silly hippies would surely ruin it. They say they support local art and then make it a picky friends club and only put up pieces that suit their own tastes. They call themselves socially conscious but what no one realizes they really are is conscious only of their own social niche. Sometimes people like that are necessary, but more often it takes someone to work out an approach that inspires more outsiders to appreciate the good points.

I'm too lazy to research but I hear the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market, Seattle was opened by a guy with a dream to bring a love of espresso to North America. And boy did we ever love espresso. Starbucks expanded swiftly and all of a sudden cafes were everywhere. Then Starbucks was a giant and all the socially conscious like-to-hang-out-and-be-seen caffeine addicts supported their trendy local cafes. I've seen a lot of cafes open and close, change hands, change names. They're usually cool at first, but they're so caught up in being the 'conscious' place they lose sight of the fact that it's a business. Whereas Starbucks finds out what people want and does their best to give it to them, and when times change so do they. They're testing full size cafes with different product lines and style of service. Is calling it local based on style underhanded? Not really. They're not Frito-Lay.

I consider Dandelion to be canned culture. Not mass produced, but places like Dandelion take an idea and image and compress it so ridiculously it becomes a self-defeating caricature. It is not only incredibly cool, but imperative we buy organic, locally grown salads-on-bread from them. They are the one haven for the good decision makers of Orlando. The fact is there is better vegan and healthful food out there. And despite the widespread notion that organic is expensive, the food at Dandelion is not fairly priced. Especially as the growers of the five ingredients they use for everything are nearby.

They are going out of business because I enjoy good food at a fair price in a minimally comfortable space with a mostly unobtrusive and vaguely welcoming atmosphere. As do most people.

I like giving money to things I like. I don't mind giving ten dollars to a non-profit I believe promotes the public good, or to support a creative effort I happen to like or believe in. But if you are a restaurant, dammit, give me food.

Do I want to donate $11.11 to keep Dandelion open? Of course not. They make claims about viability and sustainability beyond this publicity stunt, but wouldn't anyone? More often than not they have more people working than consuming, and at a fair wage. A woman thinks she can smoke pot all the live long day reveling in hip stardom without doing much honest work and wonders why the place is a charity case. I guess she didn't know the standard for opening and running a restaurant means blood, sweat, and 80 hour work weeks. After three years of offering the same dozen mediocre, shamelessly overpriced menu items and running the place like a moron, I'm not inclined to think their first crack at "changing some things about the menu" and "cutting costs" are going hit a magic bullseye that saves them until next quarter.

But guess what? We only have to have 1,000 or so people stupid enough to sanction this. That figure isn't hard to come by. And it isn't just loudmouth corporation-haters and pretentious vegans. According to the Sentinel donors are "young professionals" like this network administrator from a local law firm. It's been less than a week since the announcement and they already have almost $2,500. And if they implement a pay-in-advance membership plan, I'm going to laugh when they close anyway and season ticket holders can't cash in their $300 club cards for all the vegan salad sandwiches they rightly deserve. Laugh and laugh and laugh.