Speaking of processed crap, I can only guess at the obscene amounts of cash being funneled into rescuing high-fructose corn syrup’s reputation. Not only are producers running full-page ads in the highest-priced newspapers. But the sweetener realm’s equivalent of what Christopher Buckley called the MOD Squad (Merchants of Death) is now hounding me over an online piece that ran so long ago I don’t even remember what it said. And I wrote it. Naturally, they want to have it both ways, denying there’s any problem with the stuff while pointing out that many foods contain very little of it. It all pretty much proves the awful truth of eating in America: One of the cheapest “foods” has the most money to throw around, and your tax dollars help. We’re a country too strapped to pay for Medicare Part E (for Everybody), but corn subsidies will continue until all Americans have diabetes. Then we underwrite the insulin — if we aren’t already. Have a Coke and a coma.