Tuesday, September 27, 2005

it's hard to be honest if noone cares: being another half-assed stab at advocating consumer awareness.

dalhousie has some kind of exclusive distribution deal with pepsico (vending machines & whatnot) -- & as destroying any lingering warm-&-fuzzy feelings i have left regarding The Gradual Monopolization of Everything seems to have become my new hobby, i present to you, dear reader, links to the "brands" section of some corporations that own practically every single thing you've heard of & a whole bunch you have not -- i'll throw in some of the more inexplicable ones for your amusement.

at present, nearly all the links are related to food in some way because i figure 'food' is universal & therefore ought to disturb y'all the most...i'll probably do 'music' next.

(for convenience's sake, i'll just keep adding more links to this post as i find them instead of starting up separate sub-rants: this way it'll be easier to skip over for all you readers out there in search of simple lighthearted, wholesome family fun.)

-- pepsico: doritos, tropicana, cheetos shots, radical fruit
-- the coca-cola company: chinotto, evian, bacardi mixers, guarana jesus, water salad, bimbo break [the mascot's some kind of cartoon-bear]
-- general mills: betty crocker, lucky charms, pilsbury, diablitos underwood [it's a "meat spread"]
-- texas pacific group ventures has "investments" in: burger king, adobe, amazon, motorola, tivo
-- nestle: smarties, lean cuisine, purina, perrier, nestle babymilk, galderma [a joint venture between nestle & l'oreal that does dermatological pharmaceuticals. ever wonder what's in your chocolate bar?]
-- kellogg: froot loops, keebler cookies, kashi [a health food line that i always thought was independently owned, & of course the kellogg company is not mentioned anywhere on the kashi page -- not even in the 'privacy policy' page, because marketing says the average health nut cares about stupid things like rights & privacy (whereas the average drunkard doesn't, apparently.)]
-- diageo: red stripe, dom perignon, johnnie walker, captain morgan, bertrams vo, pimm's,
-- conagra: chef boyardee, jiffy pop, orville redenbacher's, hunt's, libby's, manwich, big mama sausage, culturelle [a diet supplement/aid]
-- kraft: kool-aid, oscar meyer, grey poupon, grape nuts, jell-o, vegemite, tombstone pizza, mallomars, milk-bone [what the hell is it with people-food companies making pet foods?], athenos hummus
-- altria: kraft's parent company which also just happens to own phillip morris: "the world's leading international cigarette business" according to their own website & the makers of marlboro, virginia slims, benson & hedges, alpine, & other portable sources of cancer. ( yeah i know i'm being a hypocrite here by denigrating tobacco & not alcohol, but you'd look better if i was drunk & who doesn't want to be pretty?)
-- mcdonald's: though not a conglomerate, i'm including it here for its sheer craptacularity -- the food is bad enough, but who the fuck wants to buy a mcdonald's basketball jersey?


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