Soda Jerk, Double Dipping and a History Lesson

My personal, in-house nutrition guru—aka Gilda—has advised me that ingesting real sugar is better for my health than absorbing artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Equal. Seems recent scientific studies have shown humans react the same to pseudo sweeteners as they do to sugar, so why risk the introduction of unnecessary chemicals into one’s body. 

As a lifelong Coca-Cola drinker who had a hard time acclimating my taste buds to Diet Coke once I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, I was all for a return to the Real Thing. But a funny thing happened on my way back to Coke. Turns out Diet Coke tastes better.

I’ve actually cut back on my soda drinking. When I do indulge with a meal at home I opt for an 8-oz. glass bottle of Diet Coke or a 7.5-oz. can (glass being the preferred vessel as we’re trying to cut back on plastic or metal containers). I don’t think of myself as being part of a major trend, but soda consumption of all types is decreasing for more than a decade, with diet versions dropping even more precipitously, no doubt plunging ever more rapidly as new studies on health risks emerge.

Double Dipping: Speaking of health risks, you’ve probably heard about the Listeria scares associated with such foods as Blue Bell ice cream and Sabra Hummus. Product recalls have been initiated, one of which unfolded before my very eyes at a local Costco. 

A customer directly before me brought back for a refund an almost fully eaten tub of original Sabra Hummus. He received his money but after he walked far enough away so he wouldn’t hear me I couldn’t resist noting to the cashier that the mostly consumed hummus obviously had not harmed him. I guess he felt as long as money had been set aside for the recall he might as well take advantage of it even if he had not been inconvenienced by Sabra or Costco. Voilá: another form of double-dipping!

History Lesson: For the moment, our troubled (illegal) immigration policy has been shunted off the front pages and airwaves as the country deals with the horrific and seemingly unending assault by police officers on unarmed men of color. 

The other day, however, I was intrigued by a comment from Drew Holcomb I heard on the radio (Holcomb, for those of you like me who have no idea who he is) is the lead singer/songwriter of Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors). 

As the story was told, one of Holcomb’s Los Angeles friends was complaining about the influx of Hispanics to his city. To which Holcomb replied, “What was the name of the city you live in?,” immediately calling attention to the Hispanic origins of Los Angeles. 

I don’t know where Holcomb attended elementary school but if it was anything like my Brooklyn school the history of European settlement of America was concentrated on the original 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. Spanish holdings in Florida were largely ignored despite the fact that St. Augustine was the first European settlement in the continental United States. Indeed, Spain’s contribution to the Americas mostly was related in terms of its conquistadors, their pursuit of gold alongside subjugation and often violent religious conversion of Native Americans. 

Spain and then Mexico governed most of the Southwest. It was the “gringo” who was the unwanted intruder in land eventually taken by force, first in Texas and then in points further west. 

I don’t have a solution to the immigration crisis. But I do know that too many people forget we are a nation of immigrants and the forefathers of the first Europeans who settled here spoke Spanish, not English, not French, not Italian, not German, not Russian nor any other European language. 

Twinkie Twinkie Stars No More

I wasn’t too distraught to hear Twinkies would no longer be processed by Hostess Brands. But Devil Dogs!!! Now that’s hitting me where it hurts—in my memory bank.

Drake’s Devil Dogs, along with Yankee Doodles and the occasional Ring Ding, were as integral to my first 30 years as wearing socks was. They sustained me, until, that is, my blood sugar levels oozed créme. Growing up, we always had fresh cake from the bakery, marble loafs or seven layer cakes or checkerboard chocolate cakes in the bread drawer or simply out on the dinette table. But for a quick fill me up, nothing came close to a Devil Dog or three-pack of Yankee Doodles. 

I continued this childhood gluttony even after marrying Gilda whose concept of a sweet tooth somehow never reached full development. She tolerated, barely, my sugar-laden eating habits which included a breakfast of Devil Dog with, not being a coffee or tea drinker, 6-8 ounces of Coca-Cola. My 10 am snack in the newsroom was another Coke and a Baby Ruth bar. Even after my triglycerides topped 1,100 I didn’t forsake my sweets. I’d drink Coke in front of our children. They were not allowed to imbibe any. Gilda told them, “Daddy has an addiction.” It worked. To this day, Dan and Ellie rarely drink sodas. But I did, until my internist demanded I change my eating and drinking regimen some 25 years ago. I now drink Diet Coke or Crystal Light lemonade. I haven’t had a Devil Dog in decades. Or a Yankee Doodle. Perhaps that’s why Hostess, which bought Drake some years ago, hasn’t maximized sales.

Twinkies? I think I might have sampled them two or three times. They really tasted ... tasteless. I never could understand other people’s fascination with them. Maybe it was their “white bread” sheen, so sterile within the plastic wrapping. Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles came out of Philadelphia-based Drake, urban, ethnic, mixed races. Twinkies was middle America—white on white. It was like mayonnaise on a white bread pastrami sandwich. Don’t cringe or laugh—that’s how airlines served deli sandwiches 30 years ago. At least they left the crust on the bread. Twinkies had nothing to sink your teeth into. Just air. And créme.

Financial watchers expect the equity bankers who own Hostess to sell off several brands, including Twinkies, to recoup some of their losses. I hope someone buys the rights to produce Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles. Even though I won’t buy any, it would be comforting to know part of my childhood and young adulthood lives on.

There have been many articles commemorating the 82-year rise and fall of Twinkies. Here’s one I particularly enjoyed:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=vaA0rt0p

A Drumbeat of Personal Tie-ins

Lots of personal tie-in stuff to write about today:

Not sure how proud I should be of this item, but the lead lawyer who argued in the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday against upholding the University of Texas’ affirmative action guidelines for admission is a cousin on my father’s side of the family. Bert Rein is a second or third cousin (I can never figure out how you figure out cousin relationships beyond first cousins). Bert’s father, Moe, was my father’s first cousin. They grew up in the same small Polish town, Ottynia. 

Bert’s a founding partner of the well-connected Washington law firm of Wiley Rein LLP. Sad to say, he’s pretty conservative. He often advocates for business interests. Though he’s previously appeared before the Supreme justices, it’s no small matter to have our family represented before the nation’s highest court. 

The Real Thing: Speaking of my father, I’ve written before about his factory on lower Broadway. One of the pleasures of visiting him there was the chance to raid the Coca-Cola vending machine. It was fire-engine red. A favorite job was filling it up. I’d stick the key into the lock on the right side of the refrigerator-sized machine and pull back the heavy door to reveal vertical serpentine rows of grey tubes ready for replenishment. My reward usually was a cold one. Often, at the end of the day, my father would hand out sodas to his workers. The rest of the time, for 10¢, you’d push down on a brushed steel lever, open a door on the left front of the machine and pull out a cold 6.5 oz. glass bottle of Coke. 

Sadly, I read Wednesday the last manufacturer of 6.5 oz. returnable bottles has stopped production http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=0ZDf8lmB. Not sure what ever happened to that old Coke machine. My brother and I, maybe my sister as well, always regret we didn’t salvage it when our father closed down his factory in the 1980s.

The Survey Says: Among the many polls being cited in this nail-biting electoral season is one from America’s Research Group. For many years I worked with ARG and its founder, C. Britt Beemer. My magazine had been using several research firms to track consumer spending and lifestyle trends when Britt sent me an unsolicited offer I could hardly refuse. He said he’d provide free research. I didn’t chuck the other research firms, but I did incorporate ARG into a meaningful part of our coverage of the retail industry. 

Speaking of polls, one of the weirder ones is taking place daily at 7-Eleven stores throughout the country. As it has since the 2000 presidential election, the convenience store chain has given customers a choice of self-service coffee cups imprinted with the names of the two major party candidates. It also color codes the cups, blue for Democrat, red for Republican. Undecided voters can pour their java into plain cups. Don’t discount this poll—it’s picked the winner every time.

To date, Barack Obama is swamping Mitt Romney by a 60-40 margin. In Ohio, after undecideds are removed from the count, Obama leads 57-43.

There might be an explanation as to why the 7-Eleven coffee cup poll is not as close as almost all other national surveys. “There’s a bias on 7-Eleven because their entire poll has a margin of error of plus or minus Mormons can’t drink coffee,” according to Stephen Colbert. 

Magic and Mystique: There may be some truth to the claim Yankee Stadium is enveloped by some supernatural force, especially after Raul Ibanez, pinch-hitting for Alex Rodriguez no less, stroked a ninth inning home run to tie Wednesday night’s game and then capped that feat by blasting a game winning four-bagger in the 12th. Everyone who witnessed his extraordinary heroics was stunned, doubly stunned. Those weren’t cheap, short-porch Yankee Stadium shots. The first one was estimated to have traveled 403 feet; the game winner 390 feet. 

Was it magic? Am I the only one who sees the resemblance between Ibanez and Voldemort as portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter movies? Could they have been brothers separated at birth? Is Ibanez really a wizard? Yankee fans and muggles the world over don’t really care. We just want Ibanez to continue his magical streak, and hope it is contagious to the rest of the team.

By the way, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you loyal readers that I semi-predicted Ibanez’s ride to the rescue. I wrote he would pinch-hit for Nick Swisher, but as it happened, Swisher was scheduled to be the fifth batter in the bottom of the ninth. Manager Joe Girardi realized he might not get a chance to use Ibanez if A-Rod and then Cano made out to end the game, so it was pull Rodriguez or let the opportunity pass by. 

Further by the way, over post-tennis pizza I actually suggested to a friend Ibanez might hit for A-Rod. He thought I was crazy but sent me a congratulatory e-mail this morning.

Twinkies and Other Food Tidbits

Gilda thought I’d be devastated. She told me Hostess, the maker of Twinkies and other soft confectionaries, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. So kind of her to be concerned for my culinary welfare, but no, sweetheart, I have no fondness for Twinkies, I replied. My cravings are for Drake’s Devil Dogs, or Yankee Doodles, and the occasional Ring Ding. No my sweet, Hostess filing a second bankruptcy petition just three years after emerging from similar protection was no reason on my part to be alarmed.

Of course, that was before I read the newspaper article and discovered Hostess owns Drake’s and has for more than a dozen years. I plead ignorance because I haven’t eaten a Devil Dog, Ring Ding or Yankee Doodle in more than 15 years.

I wasn’t always a snack food snob. Back in my 20s, I consumed Drake’s products daily. My routine before embarking on my morning police department checks in Derby and Seymour, Conn., was a breakfast that included a Devil Dog or three-pack of Yankee Doodles. By 10 am in the New Haven office, I’d take a Coca-Cola and Baby Ruth break. I had another Coke at lunch and at least another one with dinner. That’s at least three sugar-packed Cokes each day, though Gilda would tell you I sometimes started the morning off with another one at breakfast as I don’t drink coffee except on rare occasions. It was no surprise then that by my mid-30s my triglycerides had zoomed past the 1,000 mark (less than 200 is considered healthy). They’re under control now, but at the cost of giving up almost all sweets, including Drake’s cakes. I’ve learned to even enjoy Diet Coke.

Growing up in Brooklyn, my family usually stocked the cupboard with cakes from the Polish bakery two blocks away. Marble cake, seven layer cake, checkerboard cake, cherry, blueberry, and custard danishes. You could always find a piece of cake on our dinette table. My parents, especially my father, enjoyed a piece of cake with his coffee each night. Our children always knew when my parents were coming to visit by the sudden appearance of cake in our house.

I really miss not snacking on cake. It really pains me when we have to dump leftover cakes we put out for dinner parties we host. I inherited my father’s desire for cake. But I also inherited my mother’s inability to cope with too much sugar.


Fish & Chips: CBS Sunday Morning ran an interesting piece on the quintessential British fast food, fish & chips, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary as a pillar of the English diet.

Surprised me that fish & chips is so young a dietary staple of the mother country. Even more surprising was the belief that a Jewish fishmonger was responsible for at least the introduction to the English menu of the fried fish component (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8419026.stm). Gee, I always though gefilte fish was the extent of Jewish influence on seafood cuisine.


Princes of the Fisherman: Please don’t take this the wrong way, no sacrilege is intended, but I was amused the other day when a reporter asked New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan if he was doing anything special before his investiture as one of the 22 newly named cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI. He replied he was trying to lose weight to get into his new uniform.

Which made me wonder, why is it that so many religious leaders, of all denominations, are, shall we say, more corpulent than one would expect from religious orders that cherish not only piety but a certain amount of asceticism that would preclude the over-indulgence of food?

Just asking...

Public Service Announcements

History Lesson: For those who didn’t see it the first time it ran, there’s a great documentary series on Turner Classic Movies this week. The hour-long segments air 7 pm daily through Sunday and are entitled “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood.” Tonight is Episode 2 (sorry, but I didn’t realize the series started yesterday).

Anyone who has ever been to the movies will find this documentary fascinating and illuminating. Have fun watching it.


Healthy Diet: Gilda and I recently committed to eating more healthy, not that we weren’t already doing so, but we agreed we’d eat more fish, at least two or three times a week.

Last Friday night my gourmet-cooking wife prepared a delicious feast of roasted tilapia with herbs, one of the recipes Mark Bittman recently promoted in the NY Times Magazine section. Delicious. And healthy, too. Or so I thought.

Imagine my consternation when I opened Monday’s Times and came across “Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?scp=1&sq=tilapia&st=cse). Tilapia offered the lowest amount of omega-3 fatty acids per 100 grams of fish than any of the 19 varieties studied by the National Fisheries Institute, according to the article. It was lowest by far, providing just 135 mgs vs. roughly 2,000 mgs for farm-raised salmon. Moreover, farm raised tilapia can be detrimental to the life of a lake.

We’ll still eat tilapia, as it still is healthier than eating meat or chicken, but it sure is disappointing to know even when I try to do the right thing someone, in this case, Mother Nature, is not very supportive.


Drink Up: Here’s another of my dietary dilemmas. Drinking too much Coca-Cola the first four decades of life elevated my blood sugar levels, so I switched to Diet Coke. Trust me, Diet Coke has gotten much better. No more aftertaste. I’ve managed to keep my sugar levels in check, but there still is some uncertainty about the long-term healthiness of sugar substitutes. Oh well...

Anyway, I bring this up because of Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to receive federal government permission to restrict the use of food stamps to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages in New York City. Mayor Mike believes they contribute to obesity and diabetes (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/politics/30food.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Food%20Marketing%20Institute&st=cse).

I support him. Yes, I know this is another example of government getting into our pantries, but just as Bloomberg championed no smoking in restaurants, plus less salt and fat in fast food fare, it is proper for government to mandate behavior when the population at large (and getting larger) won’t take care of itself.

This is not a classic example of Big Brother telling us what to do, or not do. If you want to spend your own money to buy sugared drinks, fine. But don’t spend my money, my government money. Not when our collective health care system is overburdened by the overweight and the diabetic. We all wind up paying higher insurance premiums, and waiting longer in emergency rooms, because of it. We need to begin controlling the root causes of the health care crisis. Prevention should be paramount. Stopping the flow of sweetened liquid down our gullets is one of the quickest ways to have an impact on our collective waist line, blood line and bottom line.


Matza Meal II: My experiment giving birds leftover egg and whole wheat matza has produced less than spectacular results. A few birds, some grackles and even some cardinals, have nibbled at it. But by and large, the birds have ignored the religious offering.


Warm Feet: On the other hand, or foot, so to speak, I am thoroughly enjoying a toasty bed, thanks to the electric mattress pad installed last week. Normally, spring weather would have negated the need for a bed warmer. But this has been anything but a normal spring. I can favorably report my endorsement of this product.


Picture Perfect: Some people ask me why I never include pictures with my blogs. Here’s a reason why: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?src=rechp. I surely do not need to become penpals with copyright lawyers.


Dead, Again: Does it matter that the description of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has been officially revised to say he was not armed when shot, but was still resisting capture? To me, no. He showed no mercy to the innocents he murdered here and around the world. I have no problem with his execution, with targeted assassinations. Let's get the next guy on the list!

The Place

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire. One hundred forty-six workers, almost all young Italian and Jewish seamstresses, perished after fire broke out on the eighth floor of a 10-story building near Washington Square in Manhattan. The scene of the tragedy, the Asch Building (how achingly onomatopoetic was its name), still stands. Now part of New York University, it has been renamed the Brown Building of Science.

You don’t need me to tell you the story of that fateful, horrific day a century ago and how the nation responded with a more vibrant labor movement and safety laws to protect workers. Over the last week there have been quite a few newspaper articles and TV memorials (among the best: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-mind-set-that-survived-the-triangle-shirtwaist-fire/2011/03/22/ABh20rEB_story.html#).

My brother, sister and I grew up immersed in the community of small apparel factories in the neighborhood of the Triangle along Broadway north of Houston Street. Among our earliest memories are our father’s Manhattan factories, beginning in the early 1950s with the one at 718 Broadway near 8th Street and ending almost 30 years later at 611 Broadway at the corner of Houston, with stops along the way at 683 and 692 Broadway (for reference points, 692 Broadway is the building that housed Tower Records; 611 is where Crate & Barrel has a store).

At its zenith, our father’s business of making half slips and panties, and later knit shirts, employed 60, all but two—James and Ricky—Afro-American or Puerto Rican women. He ran a non-union shop, never, to my knowledge, challenged by the ILGWU (the International Ladies Garment Workers Union). The union knew our father—and mother— ran an honest, fair firm. His workers stayed with him for decades.

Lucy. Salita. Eloise. Big Mary. I can still see them vividly in my mind, each one standing or sitting at her station. Lucy was the floor foreman. Salita affixed labels. Eloise sat at the end of the line, sewing lace to the half slips. Big Mary sat at the other end of the line stitching fronts and backs together. The factory would open around 8:30 am, the workers would leave at 4:30. Our parents would finally depart for home around 6. Little Mary would saunter in around 11:30, after sending her kids off to school, and maybe after taking a snort or two. She sat two tables down from Big Mary. She’d often take a break from her Merro sewing machine to rest her head on folded arms. I once asked my father why he tolerated her lax behavior. Because, he replied, she was the fastest sewer he had. She turned out more in the short time she worked than any of the “full-time” operators.

Operators. That’s what the women were called. The sewers got paid by piece work. The more tickets of each batch they collected the more they made each week. Our mother handled payroll. Payday was Wednesday, in cash, in small manila money envelopes, the type that opened from the top.

The factory, or as our family called it, “The Place,” was a bee hive of noise with sewing machines buzzing out bursts of stitches, tall upright industrial fans beating the stagnant air, street noises filtering in through open windows, and our father screaming to be heard above the machinery. He was always screaming, never really in anger, just screaming as part of his perpetual motion. And yet, in the late afternoon hours, when the activity started to die down, as he’d be hunched over a Merro machine trying to coax it back into life, he’d start singing a song. No song in particular, just a melody of contentment. More often than not he’d open up the old Coca-Cola machine and pass out drinks.

I have fond memories of visiting The Place. Though he offered three times my 1972 starting salary of $7,800 as a newspaper reporter to join him (equal to roughly $125,000 in today’s dollars), I couldn’t work for, not with, my father. Chalk it up to the age-old conflict between fathers and sons. Let’s leave it at that.

Shopping Around

I love Costco, but as a senior citizen I have to wonder what type of message the wholesale club is sending to the 60-plus crowd.

Why do Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand Mature Multi-Vitamins come in 400-tablet bottles, while regular daily multi-vitamins are packed 500 to the bottle?

Does Costco think we seniors aren’t going to live long enough to finish off a 500-count bottle? Or is this a subtle ploy to keep us active and get us out of the house more often to replenish our stock?

Either way, I don’t like it. Nor do I like the fact that the senior formula costs more per pill.


It’s getting harder and harder to hate the company people love to hate. I’m referring, of course, to Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail company by a factor of, oh, five times its closest American competitor, Kroger (for the record, Wal-Mart annual sales exceed $405 billion).

But enough dumping on a company just because it is B-I-G. Wal-Mart keeps doing warm and fuzzy stuff, trying to cuddle up its image. The latest soft-sell idea is a plan to make its food offerings more healthy by reducing their fat, sugar and salt contents. Wal-Mart will transition the program for its private label products over five-years while encouraging brand name suppliers to follow its lead. When you have as big an order-writing pencil as Wal-Mart, that usually guarantees attention if not compliance (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/business/20walmart.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=sam%20kass&st=cse).

Wal-Mart’s also pushing for positive traction in efforts to penetrate cities like New York, citing what it calls “food deserts” as a reason urban areas should allow the non-union company to open stores. It’s true—too many inner cities lack large-scale supermarkets, requiring shoppers to either travel out of their neighborhoods or pay higher prices at bodegas, convenience stores or superettes.

Of course, one argument against Wal-Mart is once its tentacles latch onto a location they reach out to squeeze the lifeblood out of nearby stores, and not just grocers (which are mostly unionized).

Yes, and no. If you’ve ever visited a Wal-Mart you might notice there are lots of stores operating in its shadow. Retailers tend to flock around an anchor that attracts shoppers, and Wal-Mart sure brings ‘em in. Those stores that thrive in Wal-Mart’s back yard generally offer lower priced goods (like dollar stores), or higher priced, specialty products (such as found in electronics stores). Or they offer great service. Or better apparel. Or provide a service, such as dry cleaning. Retailers that try to compete on price tend to go out of business. As do the ones that try to be what Wal-Mart is, only smaller. Wal-Mart also is the undertaker for any retailer who has been lax in being efficient.

Speaking of efficiency, here’s another warm & fuzzy Wal-Mart initiative—a $2 million grant from The Walmart Foundation to help 16 regional food banks save money on energy bills. Lower utility bills translate into more dollars to buy food for the needy. The company estimates that simple, low-cost energy upgrades could save the food banks more than $625,000 a year, enough to buy more than 390,000 pounds of food for 300,000 meals (http://www.greenretaildecisions.com/news/2011/01/20/walmart-foundation-gives-2-million-to-help-food-banks-go-green).

Wal-Mart also financially supports organic farmers, and regular farmers. Since it’s the largest food retailer in the country, it’s not all altruism. Wal-Mart has a selfish interest in making sure it has sufficient product to sell.

But even with all the good the company does, not everyone will shop its stores. They just don’t “feel” right. It’s hard, however, to turn one’s back on the prices. As I reported 10 days ago, national brand products cost less at Wal-Mart (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/01/shopping-right.html). When I stopped by today, a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, already the lowest price in the area at $1.64, had an everyday “rollback” price of $1.30. Bananas were selling at 53 cents a pound, compared to 79 cents at A&P, 69 cents at Stop & Shop and ShopRite.

It’s hard to pass up those savings.

This Drink's On Me

I vividly remember the time I got totally smashed at college. It was an end of term party attended by many in the Brooklyn College Young Leadership Development Council I had joined as a second semester freshman.

When I arrived around 4 pm at the fraternity house where the party was already in full swing, I was immediately given a tall screwdriver (for those not familiar with that drink, it’s a combination of vodka and orange juice). From the first sip I could tell there was just enough OJ to give the 10 oz. glass a yellowish tinge. Before I knew it, I had downed three such drinks, all, I might add, on an empty stomach. The only thing that saved me from a fourth was my inability to swallow while prone on a couch, a position I had retreated into within an hour. I couldn’t move. I lay there for the next several hours, as every time I attempted to straighten up the room kept spinning. I didn’t throw up, as my friend Paul did, but I definitely, as they say, felt no pain. Around 10 pm I managed to stand up, stumble down three flights without falling, and slowly (stupidly) drove three miles back home.

I recalled that horribly intense and embarrassing feeling when I read earlier this week about the latest liquid craze to infiltrate college life—the consumption of a toxic mix of alcohol and caffeine. The caffeine camouflages the numbing effects of the alcohol, causing the reveler to drink more to get a buzz. More turns out to be near lethal amounts of alcohol, sending many to hospitals (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/us/27drink.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage).

Of course college kids are going to party to excess. But that should not absolve the makers of Four Loko and other such concoctions from the consequences of their creations. They claim their product is not intended to be abused or sold to underage drinkers. But let’s be serious. What redeeming quality is there for anyone to drink a mixture that masks how smashed you become and therefore wind up drinking more?

How do they sleep at night? How do the providers of these drinks sleep without having visions of their customers lying in emergency rooms, wasted beyond comprehension?

I don’t reserve the same wrath for purveyors of soda and other sugary drinks, though the negative health consequences of consuming too much sweetened water are obvious to anyone who has paid attention to our nation’s expanding waist lines and the number of people tipping into Type II diabetes affliction. While some might decry the Bloomberg administration’s attempt to intrude into people’s life choices, I have no problem agreeing food stamps should not be used to buy sugar-based drinks. Nor do I have any problem with raising sales taxes on these products. Just as cigarette consumption declined when taxes made it too onerous to buy a pack of smokes, so too must we legislate restraint for those who cannot do it on their own.

I’m a reformed regular soda drinker. I eagerly drank Coca-Cola until I was about 45 years old. Even with our children around and impressionable, I drank Coke. Gilda would tell Dan and Ellie, “Daddy has an addiction, a bad habit.” They never developed the sugar habit. To this day they prefer water to soda.

I drank Coke until my blood sugar left me no choice but to change my ways. Diet Coke didn’t taste good at first, so I switched to Crystal Light lemonade for refreshment. Eventually I made peace with the Diet Coke taste. The point is, behavior can be taught and modified. Our children did not learn (from me) to drink soda. I overcame my addiction.

Libertarians would have government stay out of our lives, stay out of our food and drink selections. But like it or not we all pay for the excesses of others. Our insurance rates reflect the cost of obesity in others. I’m tired of paying for their mistakes, their poor life choices.

Living in an Artless World

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

That statement, attributed to H.L. Mencken, is as applicable today as it was in the first half of the 20th century when Mencken reigned as one of our premier journalists. The cultural definition of the comment is as follows: People can easily be persuaded to accept the most inferior ideas or useless products.

Consider American tap water vs. bottled water. Our tap water is about the best water to be found anywhere in the world, not only in taste but also in purity. Yet we spend billions of dollars each year, about $10 billion at wholesale prices, on bottled water, usually spring water. At least one brand, Coca-Cola’s Dasani, rakes in more than $1 billion selling us ordinary tap water it has processed through another purification treatment.

It would be smarter to just fill up a jug of tap water, but like the man said, you won’t go broke underestimating our intelligence.

Last Thursday we were treated to the delusional rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a speech at the United Nations, the Iranian president presented a theory that “some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the (Sept. 11) attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grip on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime.”

It is not shocking he made that assertion, as many rank and file Muslims believe it to be true. Sadly, while 33 delegations, including those of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica and the 27 members of the European Union, walked out of his speech, apparently not one Arab or Muslim state, or any of our other supposed allies in South America, Asia or Africa, chose to express their rejection of this lunatic’s diatribe. We send billions of dollars in aid and our most precious resources—our young men and women in uniform—to defend and prop up Muslim countries. How is it that they do not automatically distance themselves from such statements? How is it that their leaders have not expressed abhorrence of these remarks?

Of course, we shouldn’t just look overseas for idiocy and revolting behavior, not when polls show 18% of the U.S. public believes President Obama is a Muslim (up from 11% in March 2009) and a discordant number believe he wasn’t born in the United States and therefore was not eligible to be elected president. Here’s how a Republican congressional candidate in Michigan (a former U.S. Representative seeking to win back his seat) handled the religion and citizenship questions during a radio talk show interview last Thursday: "I don't know, I really don't know," Tim Walberg said. "We don't have enough information about this president. He was never given a job interview that was complete. But that's not the issue now. He is president. Right now we need to make sure he doesn't remain as president, whether he's American, a Muslim, a Christian, you name it."

Seeking to oust a president and a Congress is acceptable. Undermining the legitimacy of our elected president is not. When our own countrymen play loose and goosy with the truth, why should we expect more from our enemies?

Tea Party candidates, and their siren leader Sarah Palin, are daffy. No need to go on a witch hunt to expose behaviors that would scare most thinking people away from their candidacies. But these are tough economic times and too often our electorate has shown a tendency to blame incumbents, even throw them out of office, in favor of demagogues and otherwise incompetent alternatives.

Lower taxes and fewer government programs are platform planks for the Tea Party and Republicans. We can have a serious debate on the wisdom of these ideas, but only if memory is included. Do people not remember that these ideas were part and parcel of the Bush years and that they resulted in huge deficits and the atmosphere of regulatory indifference that led to the banking and financial services fiascos that sucked the air out of the economy?

No doubt there’s a lot of waste, even abuses, within many if not all government programs. Heck, within the companies you work for there no doubt are inefficient, wasteful purchasing practices and people who fudge expense accounts. The ideal is to clean up these messes. But do we want to do away with government programs meant to protect us? Hasn’t the latest health scandal surrounding egg production shown us we need better coordinated consumer protection, not less?

It disturbs me that our political discourse has been reduced to sound bites. It disturbs me that too many voters pick candidates seemingly the same way a naïve bettor chooses a horse at the track, based on their name or the colors of their racing gear, rather than their track record. It disturbs me that we have entered an age of non-compromise. Politics used to be known as the art of compromise. Sadly, I believe we increasingly are living in an artless world.

Soda Jerk

I have several fond childhood memories of visiting my father’s factory at 718 Broadway in Manhattan. First was the train ride from Brooklyn on the BMT subway line to the 8th Street station. While our mother sat on a cane seat, my brother, sister and I would stand at the front of the first car, just to the left of the engineer. We’d pretend to be guiding the train through the darkness of the tunnel.

After the near one hour commute, we’d be ready for lunch. We’d eat in the automat on Broadway, across the street from the subway exit. My memory of the food is incomplete, other than learning to eat Salisbury steak (a fancy name for chop meat) there. The real treat, however, was not the automat’s food but rather the intriguing system of portion delivery. Most food sat behind hinged glass windows, unlocked only after you’d deposit the requisite change and turned the beveled brass and porcelain knob to crank open the hatch. Even more entertaining were the coffee and hot chocolate dispensers. For a nickel, a cup of either frothing, steamy brew would gush out from the mouth of a lion’s head.

As much fun as the automat was, once we arrived at our father’s “place,” for that is what our parents called his lingerie factory, we couldn’t wait for the moment we could quench our thirst with a six-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola. Dad had a fire-engine red Coke machine. Except when he treated them late in the afternoon, his workers paid a dime for each Coke, pushing down a grey lever to pump the next bottle up to the take-out slot. We’d pester him and our mother for a Coke until he finally relented and unlocked the door to the Coke machine. To “pay” for the soda, he’d have us refill the tubes that held each bottle and snaked their way around the inside of the machine.

At home we always had soda. But it never tasted as good as the ones we drank at the “place.”

I was reminded of my lifelong dedication (Gilda calls it an addiction) to Coca-Cola by an article in this morning’s NY Times, The Battle over Taxing Soda (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/business/economy/19leonhardt.html?scp=1&sq=soda%20tax&st=cse). For the record, I’m in favor of a tax on sugar-laced drinks, be they sodas, energy concoctions or artificial juices.

Again for the record, I wouldn’t have to pay a penny more for my current Coke fix. You see, after more than 40 years of imbibing “real” Coke, my blood sugar levels trickled in near diabetic levels. I switched to Diet Coke, and to Crystal Light when I wanted a non-carbonated sweet tasting drink (Gilda can’t understand why plain water, or maybe club soda, is not sufficient for me. She just doesn’t get it, but anyone out there who also has a sweet tooth does.)

Our kids never drank Coke, even though I had it right in front of them every meal. Gilda just told them, “Daddy has an addiction.” They didn’t get cavities as I did as a child, though Dan did have one year when four cavities showed up. (Turned out one of his teachers rewarded him with M&Ms for good work. Well, we always said he was a smart boy.)

Too much sugar is a national plague. If a soda tax will help contain our enlarging population and its rush toward Type 2 Diabetes, we would do well to see this as a necessary incursion of government into our private lives, much the same way we tax cigarettes or require people to wear seat belts. The argument that individuals should be allowed to do as they please fails to appreciate that everyone suffers from our obesity epidemic. Insurance rates are higher for all of us. On a more mundane level, it’s not comfortable sitting next to someone oozing onto your space in a movie theater or airplane.

Diet sodas, sugar free drinks and candies have come a long way in the last 20 years. They may not yet taste the same as the real thing, but they won’t kill you or at the very least curtail your life style or make you a burden on society.