More on the Coke business: "Coke: The New Nike" by Michael Blanding at The Nation. There's also "India: soft drinks, hard cases" at Le Monde diplomatique by Vandana Shiva, which deals with Coke's--and Pepsi's as well--factories in India, and which may have a relation to what Blanding mentions in his article. (Note that Le Monde requires a paid subscription to read the entire article.)

Killer Coke. And you thought Starbucks and Wal-Mart were bad. (Doing without Coke is small loss to me--I've always prefered Pepsi.)

Lilac-bestrewn April approaches, and among other things it will once again be National Poetry Month. To the end of promoting poetry, the Academy of American Poets will be starting a Poem-a-Day e-mail thing; you can sign up for it now here. (I don't know if it will continue beyond the month of April, but right now it's bound to be more reliable than getting a "Poem of the Day" from me here.)

"MORE THAN 500 HISTORIANS PROTEST C-SPAN BROADCAST OF HOLOCAUST-DENIER" at HNN.

"More than 500 prominent historians and other scholars have now signed the petition protesting C-SPAN's plan to broadcast a lecture by Holocaust-denier David Irving on its program 'Book TV.'" Among whom are Alan Dershowitz and Harold Bloom. From the article:

"C-SPAN officials claimed earlier this month that the broadcast of Irving would be needed to 'balance' its planned broadcast of a speech by Holocaust historian Prof. Deborah Lipstadt. (Lipstadt subsequently withdrew her permission for C-SPAN to broadcast her lecture, to protest C-SPAN's plan to give Irving a platform. As a matter of principle, Lipstadt refuses to debate Holocaust-deniers.) C-SPAN's Book TV executive producer Connie Doebele said: 'You know how important fairness and balance is at C-SPAN. We work very, very hard at this. We ask ourselves, "Is there an opposing view of this?" ' (Washington Post, March 15, 2005)

"Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff strongly disagreed with Doebele, saying: 'The Holocaust is not a topic with "opposing views." It is a historical fact. Giving a platform to a Holocaust-denier to "balance" a Holocaust historian is as outrageous as giving a platform to the Flat Earth Society to balance a speech by an astronomer. Like any responsible news outlet, C-SPAN should not broadcast speeches or statements it knows to be false.'"

Napoleon's soldiers shot off the nose of the Sphinx, Taliban troops blew up ancient Buddhist monuments, and now . . .

"Halliburton Destroys Babylon" by Katrina vanden Heuvel, at AlterNet (originally in The Nation).

"Bush approval slips to 45%, lowest of his presidency" at USA Today's website.