Starbucks, Snowmen, and Christmas Cups

What's going on with the stupid hullabaloo over Starbucks' red Christmas cups and delicious red-scarfed snowmen?  What is the source of all that negative publicity? A rival coffee shop, a red-and-green-only organization, a snowman-protective movement?

Fio, of course, has her own theory.  She thinks a Ku Klux Klan-type hate group has declared war on Starbucks because the coffee shop developed a social conscience a while back and tried to spread the good word with the rather innocuous "Race Together" message inscribed on its cups.

Therefore, Fio being Fio, she has decided to patronize Starbucks a couple of extra times this season to show her opposition to racism and her support of snowmen and red cups.

On the other hand, maybe Fio and her ilk are being maneuvered.  Maybe Starbucks itself is the source of the outcry.  As 'tis often said, there's no such thing as bad publicity.