Coca Cola Quotes

What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.

The difference between short-term benefits and long-term benefits are like building a nice office versus building a brand like Coca Cola.

...Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.

Livin' is like pourin' water out of a tumbler into a dang Coca-Cola bottle. If'n you skeered you can't do it, you cain't. If'n you say to yourself, "By dang, I can do it!" then, by dang, you won't slosh a drop.

Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in the bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles. Economy uber alles. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and riving an entire civilization insane. Don't spill the Coca-Cola, boys, and keep those monthly payments coming.

Maybe she'd been drinking too much of the super-sweet Mexican Coca-Cola they had down here. Or maybe she was just tired, alone, and far from home. Because somewhere in the brittle, concrete center of Azrael's dark heart, something was melting.

Go with polar bears, I say to myself. Polar bears at the North Pole. Baby polar bears scooting along after their mothers in the snow. Polar bears drinking Coca-Cola.

The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it.

The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is sponsored by Coca-Cola.

In a culture that is becoming ever more story-stupid, in which a representative of the Coca-Cola company can, with a straight face, pronounce, as he donates a collection of archival Coca-Cola commercials to the Library of Congress, that 'Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories,' it is perhaps not surprising that people have trouble teaching and receiving a novel as complex and flawed as Huck Finn, but it is even more urgent that we learn to look passionately and technically at stories, if only to protect ourselves from the false and manipulative ones being circulated among us.

One of the problems with all of this is that not all narratives are equal. Imagine, to take a silly example, that someone told you story after story extolling the virtues of eating dog shit. You've been told these stories since you were a child. You believe them. You eat dog shit hotdogs, dog shit ice cream, General Tso's dog shit. Sooner or later, if you are exposed to some other foods, you might figure out that dog shit really doesn't taste good. Or if you cling too tightly to these stories (or if your enculturation is so strong that dog shit actually does taste good to you), the diet might make you sick or kill you. To make this example a little less silly, substitute the word pesticides for dog shit. Or, for that matter, substitute Big Mac, Whopper, or Coca Cola.

Organic Oreos are not a health food. When Coca-Cola begins selling organic Coke, as it surely will, the company will have struck a blow for the environment perhaps, but not for our health. Most consumers automatically assume that the word "organic" is synomymous with health, but it makes no difference to your insulin metabolism if the high-fructose corn syrup in your soda is organic.

You know, we might’ve fucked up the planet, sucking out all the oil, melting the ice caps, allowing ska music to flourish, but we made Coca-Cola, so goddamn it, people weren’t all bad.

The entire principle of a blind taste test was ridiculous. They shouldn't have cared so much that they were losing blind taste tests with old Coke, and we shouldn't at all be surprised that Pepsi's dominance in blind taste tests never translated to much in the real world. Why not? Because in the real world, no one ever drinks Coca-Cola blind.

Taoist chanting, Confucian chanting, Christian chanting, Buddhist chanting don't matter. Chanting Coca Cola, Coca Cola, Coca Cola … can be just as good if you keep a clear mind. But if you don't keep a clear mind, and are only following your thinking as you mouth the words, even the Buddha cannot help you.

A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged. A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music. A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning. —Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997

But eventually, the Elixir of the Soul that had survived wars and the bloody birth of three new countries, was, like most things in the world, trumped by Coca-Cola.

Even Coca-Cola probably tasted medicinal the first time you tried it. Anything addictive is like that.

Her new friends especially liked the southern phrases she recalled from her childhood, such as her father's remark that 'if I hadn't sold that Coca Cola stock I could just sit and pat my foot.

No matter what a person does to cover up and conceal themselves, when we write and lose control, I can spot a person from Alabama, Florida, South Carolina a mile away even if they make no exact reference to location. Their words are lush like the land they come from, filled with nine aunties, people named Bubba. There is something extravagant and wild about what they have to say — snakes on the roof of a car, swamps, a delta, sweat, the smell of sea, buzz of an air conditioner, Coca-Cola — something fertile, with a hidden danger or shame, thick like the humidity, unspoken yet ever-present. Often when a southerner reads, the members of the class look at each other, and you can hear them thinking, gee, I can't write like that. The power and force of the land is heard in the piece. These southerners know the names of what shrubs hang over what creek, what dogwood flowers bloom what color, what kind of soil is under their feet. I tease the class, "Pay no mind. It's the southern writing gene. The rest of us have to toil away.

The Gospels and the Communist Manifesto are on the wane; the world’s future lies in the power of Coca-Cola and pornography.

What (we) wanted more than anything was to be close to each other, washing the dirt and dust from each other’s faces after our train chases, brushing the tangles out of our hair, sharing advice about boys and basketball, learning how to curse, grabbing a bottle of Coca-Cola and a Moon Pie from Mr. Shotts’ grocery store after school, dipping in a pond during the seven steamy months of the year.

Nothing picks me up quicker than a movie, a Coca-Cola, and a box of popcorn. I could walk in feeling like I didn't want to live anymore, and walk out on cloud nine.

And I suspect that Coca-Cola, unpoisoned, is more harmful to our children than vaccination.

1904 was the year the American Food and Drug people took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola, which gave us an alcoholic and death oriented generation of Yanks ideally equipped to fight WW II.

Tko govori o dekolonizaciji? Ništa tako ne kolonizira kao svjetska reklama: u dnu kolibe na kraju svijeta Nike, Coca-Cola, Gap i Calvin Klein zamijenili su Francusku, Englesku, Španjolsku i Belgiju.

I reached for a Coca-Cola. “Want some?” I asked. “I do not drink caffeine,” he said. “Wow, you make me look like a bad girl; that's hard to do.” He cracked a big smile for the first time I'd seen, and a huge dimple appeared in his right cheek. A butterfly wing flapped in my stomach. I turned my attention back to the drinks, fumbling a little for a cup. “Don't let me pressure you,” I said. “I was only kidding. We don't need you all hyped up on caffeine. How about ginger ale instead?" “Is that drink not only for upset stomachs?

It is an intoxicating experience to taste Coca-Cola as if for the first time and to be conveyed to the very brink of orgasm by white bread. Makes all the discomfort worthwhile, if you ask me.

¿Qué decir de la gratitud que América Latina debe a la Coca-Cola, que cobra carísimas licencias industriales para proporcionarles una pasta que se disuelve en agua y se mezcla con azúcar y gas?

But an oft-heard complaint, as companies spread their tentacles around the world and compete on a global playing field, is that globalization is merely a new form of imperialism.

Whereas in 2010 obesity and related illnesses killed about 3 million people, terrorists killed a total of 7,697 people across the globe, most of them in developing countries.25 For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda. How,

Buffett's methodology was straightforward, and in that sense 'simple.' It was not simple in the sense of being easy to execute. Valuing companies such as Coca-Cola took a wisdom forged by years of experience; even then, there was a highly subjective element. A Berkshire stockholder once complained that there were no more franchises like Coca-Cola left. Munger tartly rebuked him. 'Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well two or three times, will make your family rich for life?

…anyway it wasn’t your reading that started this. It was the laugher, the carefree laughter, the three dimensional Coca Cola advertisement that you were, the try-anything-once friends, the imperviousness to all that came before you, the chain phone calls, the in-jokes, the instant success, the beach houses, the white lace underwear, the private dancing, the good-graced acceptance pf part-time shift work, the apparent absence of expectations, the ever-changing disposable cults of the rural, the family, the eastern, the modern, the postmodern, the impoverished, the sleekly deregulated, the orgasm, the feminine, the feminist, and then the way you canceled with the air of one making a salad

Autumn was her happiest season. There was an expectancy about its sounds and shapes: the distant thunk pomp of leather and young bodies on the practice field near her house made her think of bands and cold Coca-Colas, parched peanuts and the sight of people's breath in the air. There was even something to look forward to when school started - renewals of old feuds and friendships, weeks of learning again what one half forgot in the long summer. Fall was hot-supper time with everything to eat one missed in the morning when too sleepy to enjoy it.

most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. Friends giving advice often tell each other, ‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘follow your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths. The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has marketed Diet Coke around the world under the slogan ‘Diet Coke. Do what feels good.’ Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighbouring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. 18. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The kind of thing rich people in ancient Egypt did with their money. Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted. Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.

I took a walk on the cool sand dunes, brittle grass overgrown, and above me, in the night sky, above me, I saw. Bitter taste of unripe peaches and a smell I could not place, nor could I escape. I remembered other times that I could not escape. I remembered other smells. The moon slunk like a wounded animal. The world spun like it had lost control. Concentrate only on breathing and let go of ideas you had about nutrition and alarm clocks. I took a walk on the cool sand dunes, brittle grass overgrown, and above me, in the night sky, above me, I saw. This message brought to you by Coca-Cola.

... It seems to me / the the great bards of the 20th century are in Publicity / those Keatses and Shelleys singing the Colgate smile / Cosmic Coca-Cola, the pause the refreshes, / the make of car that will take us to the land of happiness.

But [Coca-Cola] was also genuinely welcomed by the servicemen in far-flung military bases: Coca-Cola reminded them of home and helped to maintain morale.

Only later did she think with satisfaction: I'm a typist and a virgin, and I like coca-cola.

For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat then al-Qaeda.

In general the churches ... bore for me the same relation to God that billboards did to Coca-Cola: they promoted thirst without quenching it.

Prétendre que quelqu'un ou quelque chose n'existe pas parce qu'on ne l'a pas rencontré personnellement est à peu près aussi intelligent que boire du Coca-Cola avec un couscous berbère.

The Americans are the nature of the future," she would announce in her hearty voice. "Here's to 'em. God bless their gadgets, great and small, God bless Frigidaire, Tampax and Coca-Cola. Yes, even Coca-Cola,darling." (It was generally conceded that Coca-Cola's advertising was ruining the picturesqueness of Morocco.)

Here is an all-too-brief summary of Buffett’s approach: He looks for what he calls “franchise” companies with strong consumer brands, easily understandable businesses, robust financial health, and near-monopolies in their markets, like H & R Block, Gillette, and the Washington Post Co. Buffett likes to snap up a stock when a scandal, big loss, or other bad news passes over it like a storm cloud—as when he bought Coca-Cola soon after its disastrous rollout of “New Coke” and the market crash of 1987. He also wants to see managers who set and meet realistic goals; build their businesses from within rather than through acquisition; allocate capital wisely; and do not pay themselves hundred-million-dollar jackpots of stock options. Buffett insists on steady and sustainable growth in earnings, so the company will be worth more in the future than it is today.

The city throbbed, shimmered. Then, trying to snap himself out of it, he said, “Fuck Coca-Cola.” “Yeah, Sprite for life, fuckers,” I added, not knowing then what I know now: that Coca-Cola and Sprite were made by the same damn company. That no matter who you are or what you love or where you stand, it was always Coca-Cola in the end.

This original version of Coca-Cola contained a small amount of coca extract and therefore a trace of cocaine. (It was eliminated early in the twentieth century, though other extracts derived from coca leaves remain part of the drink to this day.) Its creation was not the accidental concoction of an amateur experimenting in his garden, but the deliberate and painstaking culmination of months of work by an experienced maker of quack remedies.

Fui al Museo de Madame Tussauds a ver mi figura de cera. Bueno, en realidad no soy yo, porque no es la de alguien tendida en la cama viendo viejas películas en la tele, bebiendo una Coca-Cola con una mano y apartando la lengua de su perro Gary con la otra.

He looked like an accountant or a serial-killer type. Definitely one of the service industries.

Stronger! stronger! grow they all, Who for Coca-Cola call. Brighter! brighter! thinkers think, When they Coca-Cola drink. —Coca-Cola advertising slogan, 1896

The British Nutrition Foundation is funded by almost every food company you can think of, including Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Mondelēz, PepsiCo, Mars, Danone, Kerry and Cargill.38

the Coca-Cola Company is the biggest single supplier of such drinks. Globally, the company supplies 3 percent of humanity's total liquid intake.

Altogether about 80 percent of the processed foods we eat contain added sugars. Heinz ketchup is almost one-quarter sugar. It has more sugar per unit of volume than Coca-Cola.

How could they all just casually drink Coca-Cola when one sip, and it tasted like musty trunks? How on earth could anyone eat a hamburger unless they were starving?

Coca-Cola should always be within an arm's reach of desire.

Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It's more than where you were born, it's an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It's more than loving fried chicken, football, beer, and country music. It's being hospitable and devoted to screen porches, magnolias, red velvet cake, coca cola, and each other. We don't become southern--we're born that way.

Each year, globally, Coca-Cola produces 3 million tonnes of plastic waste, and we know that almost none of this is recycled.60 A staggering 91 per cent of all the plastic waste ever produced has not been recycled and has either been burned, put into landfill or is simply in the environment.61

His ability came from being raised in Blackford County, Indiana, where cussing among men was as necessary as church on Sunday. Except, in Wade's case, it was church on Saturday, because Wade's daddy was a religious bigot who hated Jews, Negroes, Catholics, Coca Cola (which represented frivolity and broken dietary laws), F.D.R., city people, country people, and members of his own 7th Day Adventist church.

He nearly called you again last night. Can you imagine that, after all this time? He can. He imagines calling you or running into you by chance. Depending on the weather, he imagines you in one of those cotton dresses of yours with flowers on it or in faded blue jeans and a thick woollen button-up cardigan over a checkered shirt, drinking coffee from a mug, looking through your tortoiseshell glasses at a book of poetry while it rains. He thinks of you with your hair tied back and the characteristic sweet scent on your neck. He imagines you this way when he is on the train, in the supermarket, at his parents' house, at night, alone, and when he is with a woman. He is wrong, though. You didn't read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry, but you didn't. If pressed, he confesses to an imprecise recollection of what it was you read and, anyway, it wasn't your reading that started this. It was the laughter, the carefree laughter, the three-dimensional Coca-Cola advertisement that you were, the try-anything-once friends, the imperviousness to all that came before you, the chain telephone calls, the in-jokes, the instant music, the sunlight you carried with you, the way he felt when you spoke to his parents, the introductory undergraduate courses, the inevitability of your success, the beach houses, ...

Today, Coca-Cola still actually contains coca extract, just without the fun part. Although the exact recipe is a closely guarded trade secret, the company does import coca leaves legally from Peru’s National Coca Company. After the cocaine is extracted and sold for pharmaceutical use by eye, ear, nose, and throat specialists as a topical anesthesia, the remaining flavor of the coca leaves is enveloped into the secret recipe.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them --work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls -- family, health friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life." Brian Dyson, former vice chairman and COO of Coca-Cola.

American?” he asked, with a pained smile. “Yes,” Annabeth said. “And I’d love a pizza,” Percy said. The waiter looked like he was trying to swallow a euro coin. “Of course you would, signor. And let me guess: a Coca-Cola? With ice?” “Awesome,” Percy said. He didn’t understand why the guy was giving him such a sour face. It wasn’t like Percy had asked for a blue Coke.

Brain Juice was a recipe invented by Eve years before, when she had had to stay awake all day to look after Caddy and Indigo and Saffron, and all night to take care of the fragile and impermanent baby Rose. It was Coca-Cola with a great deal of instant coffee stirred into it. It was black and frothy and gritty, and it tasted like a primitive, medieval poison, but it banished sleep like magic.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association), for instance, has a long list of corporate sponsors including General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, PepsiCo, and SoyJoy—and its “official partners” include Hershey’s, the Coca-Cola Company, and the National Dairy Council.15

People keep saying someone should fix the system, the system is corrupt. What they don’t get is; they are the system. It’s just like how people hate McDonald’s and Coca Cola. People say they are evil corporations, terrorists and ruining the health of the future but then, how are these brands live and running all over the world, making billions of dollars of profit every day? People still buy it, that’s how. The majority of the world is people who know something is bad for them but keep consuming it. If it’s so bad for you, why buy it? If the system is so bad, why do they vote for it? It’s the people who need to change not the leaders.

If the p/e of Coca-Cola is 15, you’d expect the company to be growing at about 15 percent a year, etc. But if the p/e ratio is less than the growth rate, you may have found yourself a bargain. A company, say, with a growth rate of 12 percent a year (also known as a “12-percent grower”) and a p/e ratio of 6 is a very attractive prospect.

Always, from the first time he went there to see Eros and the lights, that circus have a magnet for him, that circus represent life, that circus is the beginning and the ending of the world. Every time he go there, he have the same feeling like when he see it the first night, drink coca-cola, any time is guinness time, bovril and the fireworks, a million flashing lights, gay laughter, the wide doors of theatres, the huge posters, everready batteries, rich people going into tall hotels, people going to the theatre, people sitting and standing and walking and talking and laughing and buses and cars and Galahad Esquire, in all this, standing there in the big city, in London. Oh Lord.

goddamn. what is this shit? early times, called j-bone. best little old drink they is. drink that and you wont feel a thing the next mornin. or any morning. whoo lord, give it here. hello early, come to your old daddy. here, pour some of it in this cup and let me cut it with coca-cola. can't do it, bud. why not? we done tried it. it eats the bottom out. watch it suttree. don't spill none on your shoes lord honey i know they make that old splo in the bathtub but this here is made in the toilet. he was looking at the bottle, shaking it. bubbles the size of gooseshot veered greasily up through the smoky fuel it held. the last time i drank some of that shit i like to died. i stunk from the inside out. i laid in a tub of hot water all day and climbed out and dried and you could still smell it. i had to burn my clothes. early times, he called. make your liver quiver. (page 26)

Po Coca-Cola błogo, różowo za parę centów amerykańskich śniliście naszą śmierć atomową, pięć kontynentów amerykańskich. Po Coca-Cola błogo, różowo!

Malé děti poznají lépe Coca-Colu než pórek. Je to tím, že Coca-Cola za marketing ročně utratí dvě miliardy dolarů.

Violence is like Coca-Cola and the Bible. A classic.

You might think that life is not as good as it used to be but the younger generation happens to think that life is wonderful. Maybe they just do not know how great things were, when you were their age. Having said that, when you were young, the older generation complained about life too and reminisced about the good old days. This pattern cannot simply be explained by the tendency of the human psyche to erase all negative memories leaving just the positive ones. The criticism is aimed at the present moment which is supposedly worse than it used to be. If you accept the fact that life is getting worse with every passing year then you would have to agree that the world should have simply fallen to pieces a long time ago. An uncountable number of generations have passed since the beginning of human history and each one believes that life’s colours have faded. Many an old man will tell you with absolute certainty how much better Coca-Cola used to be. Coca-Cola was invented in 1886. Imagine how disgusting coke must be by now if it has been consistently worsening in quality since

Revival time was a time of war: war on sin, Coca-Cola, picture shows, hunting on Sunday; war on the increasing tendency of young women to paint themselves and smoke in public; war on drinking whiskey—in this connection at least fifty children per summer went to the altar and swore they would not drink, smoke, or curse until they were twenty-one; war on something so nebulous Jean Louise never could figure out what it was, except there was nothing to swear concerning it; and war among the town’s ladies over who could set the best table for the evangelist.

You cook the native foods to perfection, Robert Childan thought. What they say is true: your powers of imitation are immense. Apple pie, Coca-Cola, stroll after the movie, Glenn Miller...you could paste together out of tin and rice paper a completely artificial America. Rice-paper Mom in the kitchen, rice-paper Dad reading the newspaper. Rice-paper put at his feet. Everything.

Like so much in Atlanta, Stone Mountain had become a bland and inoffensive consumable: the Confederacy as hood ornament. Not for the first time, though more deeply than ever before, I felt a twinge of affinity for the neo-Confederates I'd met in my travels. Better to remember Dixie and debate its philosophy than to have its largest shrine hijacked for Coca-Cola ads and MTV songs.

Driftglass," I said. "You know all the Coca-Cola bottles and cut-crystal punch bowls and industrial silicon slag that goes into the sea?" I know the Coca-Cola bottles." They break, and the tide pulls the pieces back and forth over the sandy bottom, wearing the edges, changing their shape. Sometimes chemicals in the glass react with chemicals in the ocean to change the color. Sometimes veins work their way through in patterns like snowflakes, regular and geometric; others, irregular and angled like coral. When the pieces dry, they're milky. Put them in water and they become transparent again.

Neither my homeland nor America could ever be described as charming. It was too moderate of an adjective for a country and a people as hot and hot-blooded as mine. We repulsed or seduced, but we never charmed. As for America, just think of Coca-Cola. That elixir is really something, embodying as it does the addictive, teeth-decaying sweetness of a capitalism that was no good for you no matter how it fizzled on the tongue.

Vodafone took India to court for trying to make them pay tax. Vodafone won. US agribusiness giant Cargill/ADM sued Mexico for introducing a sugar tax on soft drinks to fight childhood obesity. Cargill/ADM won. Mexico was sued for daring to put a cap on the price of water, access to which is a basic human right under the UN charter. The manufacturer won and as a result, Coca Cola is now cheaper to drink than bottled water in Mexico.9

Lola’s was not exactly a bar. It was a small beer-and-soda joint. There was a Coca-Cola box full of beer and soda and ice at the left of the door as you came in. A counter with tube-metal stools covered in yellow glazed leather ran down one side of the room as far as the jukebox. Tables were lined along the wall opposite the counter. The stools had long since lost the rubber caps for the legs and made horrible screeching noises when the maid pushed them around to sweep. There was a kitchen in back, where a slovenly cook fried everything in rancid fat. There was neither past nor future in Lola’s. The place was a waiting room, where certain people checked in at certain times.

it is embarrassing for Coca-Cola to be located in a city that refuses to honor its Nobel Prize winner. We are an international business. The Coca-Cola Company does not need Atlanta. You all need to decide whether Atlanta needs the Coca-Cola Company.

Whereas in 2010 obesity and related illnesses killed about 3 million people, terrorists killed a total of 7,697 people across the globe, most of them in developing countries.25 For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda.

Any chance of a beverage?’ asked Ruby. ‘I’ll call for my house servant,’ said Clancy, picking up the phone. ‘Olive,’ he said dramatically, ‘do you want to know how it feels to have twenty cents in your pocket. . .? Very good, well, bring up two iced Coca-colas and the money will be yours.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘Nice going,’ said Ruby, nodding. Five-year-old Olive tottered into the room twenty minutes later with two less than full glasses of Coca-cola. It was clear that she had been sampling the drinks during the long journey to the third floor.

In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburban streetwalkers; music-hall chorus girls who tip creosote into their Roederer when getting drunk... I have even had the awkward androgynes, the unsexed dishes of the day of the *tables d'hote* of Montmartre. Like any vulgar follower of fashion, like any member of the herd, I have made love to bony and improbably slender little girls, frightened and macabre, spiced with carbolic and peppered with chlorotic make-up. Like an imbecile, I have believed in the mouths of prey and sacrificial victims. Like a simpleton, I have believed in the large lewd eyes of a ragged heap of sickly little creatures: alcoholic and cynical shop girls and whores. The profundity of their eyes and the mystery of their mouths... the jewellers of some and the manicurists of others furnish them with *eaux de toilette*, with soaps and rouges. And Fanny the etheromaniac, rising every morning for a measured dose of cola and coca, does not put ether only on her handkerchief. It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers. To think that I also have loved these maleficent and sick little beasts, these fake Primaveras, these discounted Jocondes, the whole hundred-franc stock-in-trade of Leonardos and Botticellis from the workshops of painters and the drinking-dens of aesthetes, these flowers mounted on a brass thread in Montparnasse and Levallois-Perret! And the odious and tiresome travesty - the corsetted torso slapped on top of heron's legs, painful to behold, the ugly features primed by boulevard boxes, the fake Dresden of Nina Grandiere retouched from a medicine bottle, complaining and spectral at the same time - of Mademoiselle Guilbert and her long black gloves!... Have I now had enough of the horror of this nightmare! How have I been able to tolerate it for so long? The fact is that I was then ignorant even of the nature of my sickness. It was latent in me, like a fire smouldering beneath the ashes. I have cherished it since... perhaps since early childhood, for it must always have been in me, although I did not know it!

Things have come a long way in Mississippi. That’s the usual shorthand. Perhaps nowhere else in America has made more progress in its race relations, but then again, nowhere else had so far to go. Mississippi had the most lynchings, the worst Klan violence, the staunchest resistance to the civil rights movement. When the Emmett Till case was tried, the all-white jury found the two defendants not guilty in an hour and eight minutes. One juror said it would have been quicker if they hadn’t taken a break to drink Coca-Colas. Those days are gone now, but inevitably, they bleed through and stain the present.

Glimco was having a problem with a freight hauler that was resisting the union and wouldn’t rehire a shop steward they had fired. It made Joey Glimco look bad to his men, and he wanted me to take care of the matter. I told him nobody needed to paint anybody’s house. I told him to give me a case of Coca-Cola that used to come in those old-fashioned bottles. I said give me one of your men and we’ll handle it. I got on a bridge just down the street from the freight company. When a truck would pull out and drive down to go under the bridge, the man and I dropped bottles of Coke down on the truck. It sounded like bombs going off, and trucks were crashing into the bridge abutment without knowing what was happening. Finally, the drivers refused to take trucks out of the yard, and the freight company came around and rehired the shop steward, but he didn’t get his back pay. Maybe I should have used two cases of Coke. I

Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever - "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -" Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? "For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - " "Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - " "Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - " "Not The Orgasm Death - " "Not the ovens - " Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly. "Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time." Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal - "Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates - Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn? What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open.

The walls, where there was room, were well decorated with calendars and posters showing bright, improbable girls with pumped-up breasts and no hips - blondes, brunettes and redheads, but always with this bust development, so that a visitor of another species might judge from the preoccupation of artist and audience that the seat of procreation lay in the mammaries. Alice Chicoy...who worked among the shining girls, was wide-hipped and sag-chested and she walked well back on her heels...She was not in the least jealous of the calendar girls and the Coca-Cola girls. She had never seen anyone like them, and she didn't think anyone ever had.

racism may wear a new dress, buy a new pair of boots, but neither it nor its succubus twin fascism is new or can make anything new. It can only reproduce the environment that supports its own health: fear, denial, and an atmosphere in which its victims have lost the will to fight. The forces interested in fascist solutions to national problems are not to be found in one political party or another, or in one or another wing of any single political party. Democrats have no unsullied history of egalitarianism. Nor are liberals free of domination agendas. Republicans have housed abolitionists and white supremacists. Conservative, moderate, liberal; right, left, hard left, far right; religious, secular, socialist—we must not be blindsided by these Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola labels because the genius of fascism is that any political structure can host the virus and virtually any developed country can become a suitable home. Fascism talks ideology, but it is really just marketing—marketing for power.

Corey was hanging out down by the port one afternoon with Karl and Jacques when a bus-load of american tourists drove by, and in a moment of clarity Corey suddenly perceived Karl in the light of reality rather than through the kaleidoscope of fashion: the tourists were staring open-mouthed through the bus windows, ice creams held in mid-air, gawping at the apparition that was Karl. Jacques was driving the mobylette and Karl sat behind riding side-saddle dressed in hot pants, long strands of pearls and dark glasses; he was wielding a raw frankfurter straight from the packet in one hand and a bottle of coca-cola in the other. I remember thinking "I am with this total freak," says Corey.

I told her stories. They were only a sentence long, each one of them. That’s all I knew how to find. So I told her broken stories. The little pieces of broken stories I could find. I told her what I could. I told her that the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met. I told her that the Emperor Nero, from Rome, had a giant sea built where he could keep sea monsters and have naval battles staged for him. I told her that there had been rioting in malls all over America, and that no one knew why. I told her that the red-suited Santa Claus we know — the regular one? — was popularized by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. I told her that the White House had not confirmed or denied reports that extensive bombing had started in major cities in South America. I told her, “There’s an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we’re all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there’s nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams.

I also forgot to say that the account that is soon going to have to start -- since I can no longer withstand the pressure of the facts -- the account that soon is going to have to start is written with the sponsorship of the most popular soft drink in the world even though it's not paying me a cent, a soft drink distributed in every country. Moreover it's the same soft drink that sponsored the last earthquake in Guatemala. Even though it tastes like nail polish, Aristolino soap and chewed plastic. None of this keeps everyone from loving it with servility and subservience. Also because -- and now I'm going to say something difficult that only I understand -- because this drink which contains coca is today. It's a way for a person to be up-to-date and in the now.

The marketing techniques were getting refined. There had been a trend away from conventional political consultants and the traditional campaign philosophy of “getting our message out to the people.” Surveys showed the people were allergic to messages and refused to listen, even if the president was on TV saying the water supply was radioactive and giant spiders were running the government. The strategy shifted from “the message” to brand recognition after it was learned that most campaigns were decided during the selection of color scheme, typeface and logo. Campaigns began aggressively headhunting at Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. They spent heavily on focus groups and test markets. Conference rooms full of average citizens ate potato chips and pickle spears while campaign workers auditioned fonts and swatches.

One day, The road came. The road brought with it beer and cigarettes. The road brought Coca-Cola and disposable razors. The road brought all the wonderful things that we westerners know and hold close. But where did the road go? A few of the younger men decided to find out. They rode a buffalo cart along the road until they came to a town and then a train station. They hid in a bunch of rice sacks and took the train to the city, to the lights, to the jobs. There was this thing called money, with it you could buy stuff. You could gamble, drink, and be merry. After a period of two years, one of the young men returned to the village driving a new car. He showed the villagers all the beautiful things that he had bought. He said that there was work for everyone in the cities. He took another young man and two young women with him. They were pretty in a rural way and very hungry for money. Money was good. They liked it. It was a great adventure.

* THE OLD WOMAN remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” *

Justice and honesty and loyalty are not properties of this world, she thought; and then, by God, she rammed her old enemy, her ancient foe, the Coca-Cola truck, which went right on going without noticing. The impact spun her small car around; her headlights dimmed out, horrible noises of fender against tire shrieked, and then she was off the freeway onto the emergency strip, facing the other direction, water pouring from her radiator, with motorists slowing down to gape. Come back, you motherfucker, she said to herself, but the Coca-Cola truck was long gone, probably undented. Maybe a scratch. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, her war, her taking on a symbol and a reality that outweighed her. Now my insurance rates will go up, she realized as she climbed from her car. In this world you pay for tilting with evil in cold, hard cash. A late-model Mustang slowed and the driver, a man, called to her, “You want a ride, miss?” She did not answer. She just kept on going. A small figure on foot facing an infinity of oncoming lights.

For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda. How, then, do terrorists manage to dominate the headlines and change the political situation throughout the world? By provoking their enemies to overreact. In essence, terrorism is a show. Terrorists stage a terrifying spectacle of violence that captures our imagination and makes us feel as if we are sliding back into medieval chaos. Consequently states often feel obliged to react to the theatre of terrorism with a show of security, orchestrating immense displays of force, such as the persecution of entire populations or the invasion of foreign countries. In most cases, this overreaction to terrorism poses a far greater threat to our security than the terrorists themselves. Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot budge even a single teacup. So it finds a bull, gets inside its ear and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop. This is what happened in the Middle East in the last decade.

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat. Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.” But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” And she waited year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.

Chocolate Cola Cupcakes with Fizzy Cola Frosting Makes approx. 12 large cupcakes 200g flour, sifted 250g superfine sugar 1/2 tsp. baking powder pinch salt 1 large free-range egg 125ml buttermilk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 125g unsalted butter 2 tbsp. cocoa powder 175ml Coca-Cola For the frosting 125g unsalted butter, softened 400g confectioners’ sugar 11/2 tbsp. cola syrup (I used Soda Stream) 40ml whole milk Pop Rocks, to taste fizzy cola bottles, candied lemon slices, striped straws or candy canes to decorate Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two 6-cup muffin pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg, buttermilk and vanilla. Melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola in a saucepan over low heat. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, and then add the buttermilk mixture, beating until the batter is well blended. Pour into your prepared pans and bake for 15 minutes, or until risen and a skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool. To make the frosting, beat together the butter and confectioners’ sugar until no lumps are left—I use a free-standing mixer with the paddle attachment, but you could use a hand-held mixer instead. Stir the cola syrup and milk together in a pitcher, then pour into the butter and sugar mixture while beating slowly. Once incorporated, increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Carefully stir in your Pop Rocks to taste. It does lose its pop after a while, so the icing is best done just a few hours before eating. Spoon your icing into a piping bag and pipe over your cooled cupcakes. Decorate with fizzy cola bottles or a slice of candied lemon, a stripy straw or candy cane and an extra sprinkling of popping candy.

The instruments of murder are as manifold as the unlimited human imagination. Apart from the obvious—shotguns, rifles, pistols, knives, hatchets and axes—I have seen meat cleavers, machetes, ice picks, bayonets, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, crowbars, pry bars, two-by-fours, tree limbs, jack handles (which are not “tire irons;” nobody carries tire irons anymore), building blocks, crutches, artificial legs, brass bedposts, pipes, bricks, belts, neckties, pantyhose, ropes, bootlaces, towels and chains—all these things and more, used by human beings to dispatch their fellow human beings into eternity. I have never seen a butler use a candelabrum. I have never seen anyone use a candelabrum! Such recherché elegance is apparently confined to England. I did see a pair of sneakers used to kill a woman, and they left distinctive tread marks where the murderer stepped on her throat and crushed the life from her. I have not seen an icicle used to stab someone, though it is said to be the perfect weapon, because it melts afterward. But I do know of a case in which a man was bludgeoned to death with a frozen ham. Murderers generally do not enjoy heavy lifting—though of course they end up doing quite a bit of it after the fact, when it is necessary to dispose of the body—so the weapons they use tend to be light and maneuverable. You would be surprised how frequently glass bottles are used to beat people to death. Unlike the “candy-glass” props used in the movies, real glass bottles stand up very well to blows. Long-necked beer bottles, along with the heavy old Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles, make formidable weapons, powerful enough to leave a dent in a wooden two-by-four without breaking. I recall one case in which a woman was beaten to death with a Pepsi bottle, and the distinctive spiral fluting of the bottle was still visible on the broken margins of her skull. The proverbial “lead pipe” is a thing of the past, as a murder weapon. Lead is no longer used to make pipes.

Predictable but Contingent: The First ‘Political’ Killing at Karachi University On 25 February 1981, a group of left-wing students from the NSF and PSF was gathered at the Arts Faculty lobby of KU for a demonstration in downtown Karachi when they heard that a military jeep was parked in front of the Administration building. An army major had come to help his daughter get admitted to the university and though he was there for personal reasons, the students were enraged—this was Zia’s Pakistan, a country under military rule, where the left was living its twilight but remained a force to be reckoned with on the campuses, particularly in Karachi. As the organiser of the demonstration, Akram Qaim Khani, recalls, ‘it was a surprise. It was a challenge to us. I was a student leader and the army was in my university…’. At Khani’s instigation, the fifty-odd crowd set off for the Administration building, collected petrol from parked cars, filled a Coca-Cola bottle with it and tried to set fire to the jeep. Khani claims that he saved the driver (‘he ran away, anyway…’), so no one was hurt in the incident, but while the students—unsuccessfully—tried to set the jeep on fire, a group of Thunder Squad militants arrived on the scene and assaulted the agitators. Khani (who contracted polio in his childhood and thus suffered from limited mobility) had been spared from physical assault in the past (‘even the big badmash thought “we cannot touch Akram, otherwise his friends will kill us’”), but this time he was roughed up by Thunder Squad badmashs Farooq and Zarar Khan, and he was eventually captured, detained, and delivered to the army, which arrested him.