Letters to the Editor
shuvalkin
Published Letters: 49 Editor's Choice: 3
-
And finally: corn, ethanol, and the 6:1 ratio
[Read the article: The omnivore's new dilemma]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Anyway!
Corn consumption isn’t just a problem in terms of its role in North American diets and the economic ramifications of increasing global demand for corn. Its consumption is also a problem in terms of its increasing role in ethanol production and various political and ecological issues associated with that activity.
The often mentioned ratio is that producing one unit of energy as ethanol derived from corn requires six units of energy in terms of inputs into the agricultural, processing, and distribution systems necessary for consuming the ethanol. I have seen that figure (and others) mentioned a number of times, but I honestly don’t know where they come from (and I hope somebody can provide me with a way to confirm or disconfirm this).
I suppose this ratio is likely to be accurate given the intensive requirements necessary to grow, fertilize, harvest, and process corn. And, of course, the fertilizer is the big irony there since most commercial fertilizers are petroleum by-products. So it’s not exactly the case that we dump a bunch of gasoline (or even refineable petroleum) on fields of corn and then burn up the corn for energy, but, especially as a metaphor, this isn’t far from being an accurate description of the process of ethanol production and consumption and its "efficiencies."
In any case, I have also heard recently that switch grass/prairie grass is a much more sustainable/efficient (often those words indicate contradictory intentions, so I use them here with some qualms) resource for purposes of ethanol production but that because there are now already so many plants for processing corn (plants that can’t be converted to processing switch-grass), that we are likely presented with a fait accompli with regard to the future sources of ethanol in this country.
Has anyone out there kept tabs on this? Maybe Salon could get a reporter go do some research on this since that’s, ostensibly, why I pay a subscription rather than get paid by them to do the research myself? I know I’m asking a lot here.
-
Our zombie lives
[Read the article: Zombies eat YouTube!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]O'Hehir's analysis of the zombie genre's demise would seem to be correct, especially if the genre's inventor now provides only the limpest of fare. However, as with most genres, exceptional movies are in fact quite rare anyway, so the paucity of zombie films of the quality of Night of the Living Dead should not be a surprise and may not signal the end of zombie art.
To the contrary:
1) Of all the genres that might die, I think we must wonder about the notion that a ZOMBIE genre could? Actually, though, since genre itself may be understood as zombiehood, a zombie genre is, unsurprisingly, a strange animal to begin with.
2) On the other hand, if one were to look for signs of the death of an undead genre: I can only agree that there are good moments in the Dawn of the Dead remake, but on the whole the film isn't very good if we are measuring it by its social/political insightfulness. I did enjoy watching it, but it certainly didn't encourage any kind of thinking. That movie will eat your brain just as ruthlessly as any zombie.
3) Although Shaun of the Dead parodies the genre, it is not merely a tombstone erected over the genre. Rather Shaun more effectively than any other zombie movie I have seen, exposes the simple point that, yes, in fact, we are all already zombies and that fighting zombification requires something more intellectually pressing than a wide distribution of guns 'n' ammo (a point lost on the Dawn of the Dead remake).
4) 28 Days Later and Weeks Later are, OF COURSE, zombie films. I have seen the contrary argument made before, and it seems both pedantic and simply to miss the point about what defines the zombie genre (not merely a question of what [undead] physiological process defines a zombie, which really would be a rather silly thing to worry about and ignores the genre's pre-Romero conventions with respect to such questions). Still, I have always regarded 28 Days Later as a peculiar film... it seems to me that it's really two different movies struggling with each other. Still, an interesting, thoughtful movie, I think--and by this, i also mean, it is a film that encourages its audience to do some thinking. I also quite liked 28 Weeks Later, and very much for the reasons mentioned by an earlier poster. In fact, I found it to be superior to it's progenitor as both a political and a social commentary.