Like Living in Orwell's Freakin' "1984"

I swear to God...

A long day of work has come to a merciful conclusion; and I stand shivering on a cold subway platform, watching the rats scurry in half-frozen puddles amongst the filth in the track-bed.

The "E" train (or "the crazy train", as some have dubbed it) slowly, with an agonizing metal-on-metal shriek, pulls into the station. I enter the car, ablaze with light (at least compared to the damp murkiness of the NYC underground), and am suddenly thrust into an Orwellian nightmare. For what greets my eyes is so disturbing I recoil with visceral disgust, and yet everywhere I attempt to set my eyes I am assaulted by the same surreal imagery:

In blind terror, I wheeled around to face my fellow passengers in what had rapidly evolved into a Twilight Zone episode on fast forward - their faces, their faces, what would I see? Bland, unemotional smiles like those of lobotomized mental patients? Or the blank, lifeless faces of those humans who fell prey to the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"?

Relief. It was still a NYC subway train, and smiles were interwoven with expressions of boredom, exhaustion, and (only occasionally) rage.

Still...it concerns me that Pepsi thinks the best way to sell soft drinks is by using fascist-like sloganeering embossed with the imprintuer of a President 58 million people did not vote for (with good cause?), a President that has been accused, even by his supporters, of allowing an unprecedented cult of personality to surround him.

"Hoo-Ray"? How about "F*ck You!"? That's a slogan I'll think of any time I have a choice between a Coke and a Pepsi...