alcohol

The E85 fuel that we use in the US contains 85% ethanol made from corn. Because of the increased demand for corn to make ethanol, the cost of corn has gone up. This is good for farmers, but bad for hungry people. Some friends of mine in Guatemala told me that the price of corn has doubled at the local markets over the last few years. And yesterday I read an article that said that US Food Aid is at an all time low because the money doesn't go as far, and a big part of this is due to corn being more expensive.
I support renewable energy, but corn isn't the way to go. Brazil seems to have it figured out: they make ethanol from sugarcane, and are almost self-sufficient when it comes to energy. It is considerably more efficient to make ethanol from sugar than corn, and if the price of sugar goes up, it's not the poor starving people who get hit. So why don't we use sugar in the US? The US has placed high tariffs on sugar imports, so it wouldn't be cost-effective to make ethanol from sugar in the US. I imagine that these tariffs are in place to encourage companies to use high-fructose corn syrup in their products instead of sugar, and since the farm lobby is so powerful, these tariffs probably won't get dropped anytime soon.

organic

I stopped at "Harvest Health", the organic foods store on my way home from work the other day to pick up groceries. I definitely had a bit of sticker shock at the check-out. Just as I rationalized the cost and told myself that I would get used to it quick enough, this argument came into my mind: Should I spend extra money on groceries to do my part to take care of the earth? Or should I use that extra money to help people get food that aren't getting enough?
I think that buying organic food is great...it makes sure the earth is being taken food care of, it's healthier, it ensures that people who work harvesting the good don't have to be exposed to damaging chemicals, and it tastes great! But are those things worth the extra money when so many people are going without food?
I don't know what to do with this. I need some insight.
Oh, and remember to check out The Hunger Site everyday

I should blog more

Throughout the day I often have ideas of things I'd like to blog about, and as you can see, most of them never make it this far. I need to figure out a way to remedy this.

One thing that came to mind the other day: the average American drives about 25 minutes to and from work everyday. This is kind of hypocritical of me to talk about right now, since my commute is temporarily longer than that, but that won't last for long. This seems quite ridiculous.

That's 208 hours a year spent commuting for the average person. What I could do with 208 extra hours....

That's over $1000 spent on fuel (depending on the vehicle you drive, a Prius would use about half that). I could go for an extra grand right now.

Since we can't rearrange the whole country to set things up a little better, we should build better public transportation. It's much easier to utilize your time while on public transportation than while driving, it is a lot friendlier to the environment, and it would save money in the long run.

habitat

Had you asked me a couple of years ago what I thought about Habitat for Humanity, I would have told you that it's a great organization doing great things. Now I'm starting to wonder if things could be done a little differently. Why build houses when there are so many houses sitting empty right now? Wouldn't buying some of the empty houses on the market do more for the economy? I understand that Habitat doesn't really pay for labor because of volunteers, and therefore can build houses pretty cheaply, but it just doesn't seem quite right to use up a whole bunch of resources to build new houses for the homeless (or people with less than adequate housing), when so many houses are sitting empty. What do you think?

wall

The US is building a wall. In Baghdad. Between a Sunni neighborhood and a Shi'ite neighborhood. Bad idea.

thank you Time

Time magazine publishes some really good stuff. Here's something I liked, from a web piece on the worst cars of all time.

Uh-oh. Here comes trouble. Let's stipulate that the Model T did everything that the history books say: It put America on wheels, supercharged the nation's economy and transformed the landscape in ways unimagined when the first Tin Lizzy rolled out of the factory. Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? The Model T — whose mass production technique was the work of engineer William C. Klann, who had visited a slaughterhouse's "disassembly line" — conferred to Americans the notion of automobility as something akin to natural law, a right endowed by our Creator. A century later, the consequences of putting every living soul on gas-powered wheels are piling up, from the air over our cities to the sand under our soldiers' boots. And by the way, with its blacksmithed body panels and crude instruments, the Model T was a piece of junk, the Yugo of its day.

:)