I’m sure it’s been mentioned in “books” threads, but it would take too long to do a search. All I’m saying is, I’m reading it and it is knocking me sideways. I just finished chapter 2, which is mostly about advertising and sales.
Among the things that are making me whisper, “That’s disgusting!” as I read on: A school district in Colorado had a contract with Coca-Cola. In exchange for money for enough books on enough desks, the school was obligated to move 27,000 cases of CC products, or “face reduced payments.” Well, they only moved 21,000 cases, so they were urged to let kids bring Coke products into the classroom, and move the vending machines to where they would be accessible all day. It’s not hard enough to teach kids; they have to be jacked up on caffeine.
The Montgomery Burns of the advertising agency that negotiated this contract brags that in another school district in Kansas City, he brought the per-student allowance up from 67 cents to $27. I don’t know which is worse: taxes giving a school district 67 cents a kid (if that part is true), or school funds being held hostage by a soft-drink company.
Anyway, read it, or please discuss it with me if you already have. My cow-orkers are politely listening to me read passages, but they have their own stuff to do.
[hijacking my own thread]My high school dismissed the idea of selling soft drinks, whether from a machine or a cooler, on the theory that an aluminum can could be transformed into a weapon, and a vending machine was vandalism waiting to happen. Maybe that’s the key: if a school is already corrupt, it’s unappealing to corporate vultures.[/hijacking my own thread]