Diet Coke with Splenda Blues

I just spent several minutes on the phone. First, with the regional Coca-Cola bottler, then my local distributor.

I was trying to find out where I might find Diet Coke with Splenda, which seems to be a fool's errand of late. Having successfully driven the superior Diet RC with Splenda off the market, by virtue of their greater marketing muscle, Coca Cola now seems quite content to marginalize the Splenda market.

Sort of like when Wal Mart moves into an area, drops its gas and convenience store competition prices to the point that all the local Mom and Pop gas stations and convenience stations go out of business, then raise their prices again.

It sucks, but it is part of the bully power of large corporations, where quality and invention is back seat to marketing and muscle. Right not making might, but might making right. Which is probably why technology has not advanced at the clip anyone would have foreseen thirty, forty, fifty years ago...technology is now in the hands of those with marketing degrees and market share to protect.

And we? Well, we Americans get stuck with liver damage and brain lesions from Aspartame.

More on this topic? Check out the book "Fast Food Nation" or the movie of the same name, coming out in the immediate future, to see a vivid depiction of mass market corruption.