Category / observations

The Ultimate Arrogance

I’ve long thought that taking a basic food staple and turning it into fuel for our cars was the ultimate arrogance. The nose-thumbing equivalent, say, of turning down a friend needing a $4 loan and then using that $4 to buy a venti vanilla latte.

“Yes, I know you’re hungry,” we seem to be saying, “and I know you have kids to feed, too. But if I turn all of this corn into ethanol, there’s a chance I could save ten cents a gallon.”

The good news, I guess, is that we’re developing new ways to create ethanol from the solid walls of plants that will be more efficient than the current method, which only uses about 50% of the dry kernel mass of corn. The bad news, which goes largely ignored, is that mileage decreases fairly significantly with E85, thus causing us to burn more in the first place. The rest of the bad news is that the “demand” for ethanol is driving food prices up and creating a food shortage.

You may have already noticed rising rice prices. Some retails stores in the US have begun rationing the amount of rice you can buy. Why? We’re consuming (both eating and burning for fuel) more rice than we’re producing. “For the first time, it’s been clear that we are consuming more rice than we are producing globally,” said Robert Zeigler, head of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute.

Honestly, it all makes me just want to ride my bike.

I can't make sense of this math…

Last week, while they were on Spring Break, Char piled up all the kids and took them to the YMCA to play in the morning. Then they went to an early showing of “Horton Hears a Who.” After the movie, they went out to lunch. When they came home, got out of the car and were walking up to the door, Lily said, “Mom, I’m bored.”

Char and I got married ten years ago in January, 1999. Lily was born almost two years later in September. So here’s the thing: If she was born seven-and-a-half years ago, where did this teenager come from?

"It is finished."

“It is finished.”
And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

On this Good Friday morning, I’m struck by the simplicity of this moment and the tension created by what followed. Jesus uttered, “It is finished” and then gave His spirit over, and it truly was the end of many things… the torture, the crucifixion, his suffering. But it was also the beginning of so much! The true beginning of the Church that would rise from the tragedy, the beginning of so many new lives in Christ, the beginning of our living with the knowledge that all he endured he had endured for us. And yet…

And yet, there is still so much suffering. The suffering of the sick, the down trodden, the oppressed. The helpless, the hopeless, the depressed. The lonely, the broken hearted, the lost. The poor, the hungry, and even the rich and well-fed. We are all suffering in so many ways, all waiting (hoping?) for the time when we might finally bow our own heads and give over our own spirits.

“It is finished,” He said. And it was. And yet…

Moonvertising: Brilliant Idea or Gullible Consumers?

Man, we’re gullible. I don’t mean you, of course. I mean the collective “we”, as in the “we” who are still forwarding email messages that Bill Gates is running an experiment to give away cash. While it hasn’t happened yet, I expect my InBox to begin filling with messages decrying the use of the moon as advertising space and attempting to organize a boycott of Rolling Rock beer.

By now you’ve likely seen one of the billboards or TV spots instructing you to gaze thoughtfully at the next full moon (March 21) to see a gigantic Rolling Rock icon emblazoned there. (You can stay inside watching reruns of “I Love Lucy”… It’s not going to happen. First, we simply haven’t harnessed the power necessary to fire the laser that far that cleanly to make it work. Next, the FAA isn’t going to allow it. Finally, imagined how irritated people would be when the moon becomes a billboard.)

[Disclaimer: Those crafty Russians may have figured out a way to build this laser and would likely sell their grandmother’s derriere for advertising space, so that’s about the only conceivable possibility that this might come to pass. But I’d put the odds at about twice as unlikely as winning the Powerball.]

What Rolling Rock is hoping to gain is buzz. And that makes me feel a little dirty for even writing about it, as every mention of the campaign will be scraped, wrapped up, tied with a bow and called a success. Please don’t misunderstand me: this might get noticed, it might generate buzz, and you (they) might call it a success. But I will be astonished if sales of Rolling Rock go up an appreciable degree outside of the normal spike they might see after a large, expensive, national advertising campaign.

[Disclaimer Two: You know, Hugo Chavez has a lot of money. I could see him trying to do this just to thumb his nose at our pesky FAA regulations. “Oil for lasers” or something like that.]

We might be dumb enough to look up at the moon next week, whether out of idle curiosity or misguided intentions, but I just don’t see that translating into “Gosh, looks like the laser failed. I think I’ll head to the liquor store and grab a six pack of Rolling Rock.”

Every new author of a best-seller can demonstrate that “buzz” is good. Eliot Spitzer can demonstrate that buzz can be very, very bad. Be careful that you’re cultivating the right kind with the right strategy, or you might end up trying to shoot the moon… and miss.