Big Soda

A few weeks ago, the Mayor of New York decided since all of the problems of New York have been conquered, he needed to focus his laser beam like attention to something very very serious: obesity. It is not known if he was in the company of Gov Chris Christie at the time. The Mayor’s solution: a ban of sugary drinks sold over 16 ounces at the city’s restaurants, delis, food trucks, movie theaters, and sporting arenas. Beer and milkshakes are exempt.

Of course, there has been a backlash because: 1) It is stupid and 2) It is really dumb and 3) It is unconstitutional. We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and sometimes that pursuit takes 16.5 ounces of Pepsi.

To be fair, there have been those who think this idea is nifty. One is Mika Brzezinski, who is on MSNBC but is almost FOX News hot. She referred to sugary soft drinks as “poison”. I guess you can say it is not her cup of Joe. (Humor Alert: She is the co-host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. I know it is not funny if you have to explain a joke, but you pretty much have to explain everything when it comes to MSNBC.)

David Frum, who is a house conservative at The Daily Beast (when did news organizations start coming up with such terrible names?) called The Mayor “visionary” for trying to do something about these awful fat people and the awful diseases they have and how awful they look in the summer. Everyone knows that the fattest guy at the ballpark will be the first one to take off his shirt.

To those of us who think that this is an assault on personal freedom, Frum says, “Some object that the mayor's proposal to restrict serving sizes will restrict liberty. But the liberty restricted is not the liberty of the soda-drinker. If they wish, soda drinkers can buy a 2-liter bottle of soda at the grocery for about $1.70 and pour as much of it down their throats as they wish. The liberty that is being restricted is the liberty of the soda seller to manipulate known human weaknesses to the seller's advantage and the buyer's detriment.” Those people at Sterling,Cooper,Draper, Pryce, Humphrey and Muskie sure know how to manipulate the known human weakness to be a Pepper too.

The most hilarious support for the soda restrictions came from Neil McDonald of The Canadian Broadcasting System in an “analysis” titled “The Sacred American Right To Overeat”. In it he says, “Americans are really, really fat. Walk down any street here in any state, but most particularly in any southern state, and you'll see what I mean.” He admits that sometimes it is a thyroid condition that causes this fatness. But, “In the vast majority of cases, the cause is over-consumption of over-processed, high-sugar, ultimately toxic food.” He does not add how he came to this conclusion so I can only speculate that it was due to his being a highly trained Canadian journalist.

He says “efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, to fight childhood obesity by encouraging healthier eating have been widely ridiculed by conservatives here, many of whom are plenty fat themselves. Step right up, Rush Limbaugh.” McDonald then deconstructs Limbaugh’s position (Nanny State, Obama drinks beer, etc) by stating that the fat people cost us a lot of money in medical costs through Medicare and Medicaid due to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and just plain grossness. Oh yeah, they have to make toilets stronger now in the US now to accommodate all of our fat rear ends.

If McDonald could not resist the Limbaugh angle (Limbaugh’s Fat!) you know he couldn’t resist the obvious conspiracy: BIG SODA. “The ones that make enormous profits marketing unhealthy food to adults and children and fight hard to keep school food vending machines stocked with sugary garbage. They make a fortune by combining syrup with carbonated water and charging markups of several hundred per cent. (Such drinks account for more than 10 per cent of the added sugar in Americans’ diets)”. McDonald makes Coke and Pepsi seem like drug pushers. The nerve of these companies to combine syrup with carbonated water to make money-it is simply outrageous! Next thing you’ll, they will “claim” they will like to teach the world to sing when all they really want to do is give you Type 2 diabetes.

My favorite sentence is this: “Try to buy a diet soda at a service station south of the Mason-Dixon Line and you’ll have to search through the wall cooler.” The nicest word to describe this sentence is hyperbole. If McDonald was Dave Barry, I would have thought he was just being funny. Nope, this is serious Canadian analysis. Therefore, a more apt description of this sentence is: bigoted bull feces. I have lived “south of the Mason-Dixon” 24-7 for almost 53 years. I have never had to “search” for a Diet Coke.

First, they came for soda, but I am an iced tea drinker and I did nothing. Then, they came for chocolate, and I did nothing because I’ve out grown chocolate. Then, they came after cheeseburgers and there was nobody left.