[media-credit name=’JAKE NAUGHTON/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Starbucks — that gigantic, looming coffeehouse chain auspiciously named after the first mate in Melville's "Moby-Dick." And just like in the book, Starbucks is almost more of a symbol than a coffee shop — for some, a business model for success in a global free market, and for others, the consistent exploitation of people and resources in third-world countries at the hands of said free market. It's a murky issue to be sure: In the Sept. 13 issue of Time magazine, it was reported that Starbucks is looking to eventually open up 20,000 locations worldwide, roughly the number of stores they currently have in the United States. On the other side of the coin, Starbucks' website promotes itself as the biggest distributor of fair trade coffee in the world (with 10 percent of all imported fair trade coffee worldwide in 2006 sold to it). Still, fair trade only makes up 6 percent of its total coffee sales, a fact that for many people is unacceptable. A big, fat polemical issue to be sure — yet, for all of this high drama, a far smaller, local issue impugns upon me. I sit here, at 2:00 a.m. on a Wednesday night, sipping on a white chocolate mocha at the 24-hour Starbucks on 1515 University Ave. — just past Whole Foods and another, less advanced Starbucks. Despite my general abstention from coffee-related beverages, the mocha is surprisingly good — but that's not why I'm here. For me, the drink is just the price of admission. You see, Madison manages to simultaneously support such exotic faire as Afghani, Nepalese and Peruvian cuisine, yet for some time now it has been absent of something as banal as a 24-hour establishment tailored for the procrastinating student. Once all the coffee houses on State Street and the Capitol Square close around midnight, our only options have been to go to College Library, catch a meal at Perkins as you study — not the most conducive environment, with a waiter staring you down as you get refill after free refill — or to go back home. This has always been highly unsatisfactory to a procrastinator like me, for whom the intense, blinding white fluorescent lights at College Library have the unfortunate effect of making me both anxious and incredibly tired at the same time. To add insult to injury, it has all of those enticing beanbags lying around, just daring you to sneak off for a nap. Now, with this Starbucks, which converted to 24-hour operation Aug. 14, there's a new option for us nocturnal scholars — with the slight caveat that you must have access to a car or be willing to ride the 2 during all hours of the night. The interior, in contrast to College Library, reaches a strange, satisfying equilibrium: It's well-lit, with a dozen tables, a few easy chairs and a couple desks to spread your computer and books out on — yet the shadows cast everywhere provide just a hint of moody calm. Plus, like every Starbucks, it has that faux coffee shop charm — the earth tones, the quirky still-life paintings — which even in imitation far exceed that horrible lightning white painted and shining everywhere in College Library. I must admit, however, that the late-night ambiance of the unsleeping Starbucks is a little lacking. There are three other people in the store with me this particular night: a man working at his computer at a larger table, and a couple deep in conversation over at the easy chairs. After a few minutes they leave, however, and it's left to me and the other guy to continue fighting the good fight — or so I think, until he turns out to be an off-duty employee just wasting some time before he goes home. Then, grimly, I realize I'm the only customer here. This seems to be the normal swing of things here once it creeps into the morning hours. A few Sundays ago a handful of grad students seemed to be in it for the long haul, and people drifted in and out, but that was far and away the exception. The following Sunday, with the cold weather dampening everyone's spirits, it was once again just me and the omnipresent Starbucks radio station. Speaking of that radio, it seems to be another Starbucks paradox. It is often playing much louder than background music should be, yet it isn't in the least distracting — except when a cover of "Dancing In The Street" comes on and seems like it'll never end. Even more curious, however, is that it divides songs into thematic blocks of 15 minutes. Desmond Dekker's classic "You Can Get It If You Really Want" comes on, for example, and you're immensely pleased. And then comes some more reggae. Then more. Then the Dave Mathews block — all of it in the same order, night after night, ad nauseum. If the radio is any indication, the average customer is intended to linger in the store exactly 15 minutes, not camp out all night. I have no desire to heed such intentions, however. The beauty of the coffee shop, it goes without saying, is that for the price of a single drink you have the privilege of squatting in a residence for as long as you so choose. The beauty of a 24-hour coffee shop, therefore, is you can pretty much live in it indefinitely — that is, if you weren't so conspicuously the only person there. One would think this whole operation wouldn't be even remotely profitable, and even the drive-through — the meat and potatoes of late-night profit — seems awfully slow most nights. The management and employees all claim that there are no plans of scaling back the hours anytime soon, and yet one wonders. Unless a large student population suddenly starts taking refuge here in the months to come, I just can't see them keeping it up, or even more than a handful of people caring when they scale the hours back — just some grad students, a few early risers and me. Yet it's this general disinterest that makes me pull for the place all the more. Though Starbucks may be a goliath in the daytime hours, though it may reign over its coffee empire with an iron fist, once the clock strikes twelve, this coffeehouse on University Avenue transforms into just another little guy vying for the few scant scraps of business. And I can't help but root for the little guy.