I suppose Emory won't be joining these ranks anytime soon...

The university [University of Michigan], which has 50,000 students on three campuses, on Thursday became the 10th college to stop selling Coca-Cola products because of concerns arising from accusations about the company's treatment of workers in bottling plants in Colombia and environmental problems in India.

-snip-

Labor activists have said that Coca-Cola, through its Latin American bottlers, has been complicit in the deaths of eight union leaders and in continued harassment of unionized employees.

In India, a different group of activists have accused Coke of polluting the soil and groundwater near several bottling plants, of severely reducing groundwater levels in drought-prone areas and of failing to install adequate filtration systems that would remove pesticides from the water used to make its products.

-snip-

Coke has denied all of the accusations. In April, the company announced the findings of a report by CSCC, a consulting firm in Los Angeles. The report, which was paid for by Coke, addressed current conditions, not the deaths, which occurred from 1989 to 2002. It found no violations or abuses of labor or human rights in Coke's bottling plants in Colombia.

Unsatisfied, the University of Michigan and five universities that still sell Coke products have called for an independent investigation of both the Colombia and India situations.

A puppy fix and a Jennings fix, all in one conveniently packaged evening! Because I suck, and my friends don't, and I'm too lazy to stick around and drive up to Pitts for New Years*, and it's been over a year, Jennings drove into Chas just for me tonight (only to turn around and drive back to Pitts for work tomorrow afternoon**). Like anything else, we started out feeling a little rusty at the whole best friends thing, but sure enough, two rum-and-cokes later and we were discussing things that matter and things that don't, with his little mutt Guinness curled up between us. I couldn't ask for much more...well, I s'pose I could ask for more time, but I'll take what I can get.

*for those keeping track of such things, this means I'll be headed south in time for new year's.

**this might be one of those reasons why his girlfriends never like me...which I can sort of understand...but I love the kid, and we're friends, and that's not going to change, but nevertheless, I am not a 'threat' or whatever lame thing they think I am, so it's time to get over it.

Home and Such

in general, has been awesome (ok, so I had some trouble falling asleep last night, but after this past summer and fall, making it nearly 7 days at home before starting to feel claustrophobic and anxious is really quite an accomplishment). Much of that has been due to the sheer number of people in town, coupled with the fact that it's been 6 years since I was home for any useful period of time over the holidays, so it's been fun seeing people for the first time in ages. I even ran into my best friend from first grade (she's engaged, of course), and a kid I used to play soccer with during elementary school.

Part of it is weird though...mostly because I'm trying to say goodbye, in a sense. I mean, there's no way to know, but chances are better than average that I won't be back, like this, again. No one else in the family really wanted to spend Christmas here, so we will most likely go back to doing the Grandparent thing, which is fine, and nice, and all...and eventually Mom and Dad will move...and I probably won't have the luxury of a week or more of vacation after this year...so I guess I'm just trying to suck it all up - spending days at home baking with Mom, afternoons like this at Taylor Books, nights drinking in friends' basements...and in between the nostalgia-riddled task of packing up my room.