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" Let&amp;#039;s consider this soda ban ordeal. But for the time being, let&amp;#039;s do it outside of the legal arguments over whether the ban comes from a dictatorial Board of Health trying to control people&amp;#039;s\u2026 health, or if it&amp;#039;s an unfair policy for local bodegas, or even about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg&amp;#039;s argument that, &amp;quot;People are dying every day. This is not a joke.&amp;quot; The question is: Why, despite all of those very real arguments and ramifications, does this ban still feel so childish and silly? Every talking point seems to have a kernel of humor, from the prominence of the word nanny \u2014 including the full-page Times advertisement of Bloomberg photoshopped into a Mrs. Doubtfire-esque dress and the mayor&amp;#039;s response, &amp;quot;Would I wear a dress like that? No! It was one of the more unflattering dresses.&amp;quot; \u2014 to the relatively uninspired tabloid headlines rejoicing Judge Milton Tingling&amp;#039;s decision (that name!). It all feels so laughable. It has to be something about the product itself. Because even Coca-Cola&amp;#039;s history of butting heads with the federal powers at be reads like something of a humor column. As a recent Lapham&amp;#039;s Quarterly story details, the company, in the last century, has seen the government seize barrels of it (for its caffeine), compel it to lower its cocaine content (to satisfy the Pure Food and Drugs Act), ban it from the Army (though it was available worldwide to WWII soldiers, according to an NPR story; and in 2011, it got a $8.5M contract with the Defense Department). Coke has been accused in at least one paper of tempting boys into masturbating. And eventually a battle that went through the Supreme Court and ended in something of a slightly less caffeinated armistice. (This all within the first couple decades of the twentieth century.) It&amp;#039;s all serious, with policy and health implications. But somehow imagining barrels of bubbling cola being whisked away for evaluation by government white-coats just feels like a farce \u2014 as does sending out health inspectors with 17 oz. measuring cups. Maybe it&amp;#039;s that the marketing battle is being waged over how best to anthropomorphize a family of polar bears&amp;#039; cola drinking habits. Or that not so long ago we were brainwashed by Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson, as this AP story says, to drink more soda than water for decades. Or maybe it&amp;#039;s just too deep in our psyche at this point to fish out. Whatever the reason, it feels strange to take soda this seriously. But hey, sometimes a man has to be a man. So let&amp;#039;s all have that sugar-high inner-child pipe down a little, and talk it out like mature gentlemen. Then we can get this over with and go back to our beer. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a20490/big-soda-and-big-laughs/>