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Opinion

Drink your Coca-Cola and die thirsty

Henry Darragh
Opinion Columnist 

As a student on the campus of the University of Houston, I want choices. As I look around campus, there are choices that need to be made for me, I suppose, but if I were to pick up a soda water, I would have a lack of choice. Personally, I try to keep the unhealthy choice of super-sugar drinks away from my lips, but from time to time, I have enjoyed a nice, refreshing soda pop. 

After logging onto www.killercoke.org, I read an article about the fight in India for water rights, which said, "Some say the wells dried up three years ago after the Coke bottling plant came to town. This woman says the plant pulled so much water out of the ground, there was nothing left to cook, drink or wash with." 

Now should I believe this or question why, according to the campaign resource packet for campus organizers put out by United Students Against Sweatshops, www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org, "since 1986, roughly 4000 Columbian trade unionists have been murdered"?

My question is, why do we have Coke on our campus? What do they do for us? 

I noticed the shirts of the marching band have the Coca-Cola emblem on their backs. Are they supporting the band department, or is it just that all those students love Coke and want to show that love to everyone? Now, I don't want to see the marching band go topless, but why the advertising? Is this just another symbol of the need for funding in public schools?

Without community support of our lower-level schools, corporate funding has taken the initiative to come inside that wide-open door and recruit lifelong customers. Do we really need Taco Bell in our high schools? What purpose does McDonald's serve to our youngsters? Are they giving them life-giving food? 

Now, don't get me wrong: I am not one of those silly, tree-hugging, leftwing nuts who eat fruit and berries and sing Kumbaya, but when I eat food, I like to know it is food and not something made up in a laboratory. Artificial flavors -- oh dear, I feel myself getting wound up. Sometimes information is a burden. Am I the only one who has some dark habit of looking on the list of ingredients when I eat something? What is in a soda? What good is high-fructose corn syrup for the human mind? 

Then again, it is hot out today and my mouth waters at the thought of a scoop of vanilla swimming in a toxic, liquid, sugary concoction. Maybe I'll just drink some tap water. My kidneys can take it.

Darragh, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at hadarragh@uh.edu.