As you get older in life, you begin to appreciate the importance of being a well rounded individual. Though it may sound counter intuitive, a well rounded individual won’t slide down a slope covered with marketing spin (a.k.a. bullshit.)
Take the “marketing spin” being hurled by all sides in the current ethanol debate. I’ve been watching it for a while and the only real difference I see is the size of the shovel being used. First we have the fraudulent claim being spouted by both the oil companies and the livestock producers known as food vs. fuel. The simple truth is the smart livestock producers are feeding the DDGs (Dried Distillers’ Grains) and I doubt it will be long before products made from processed corn (like cornflakes, Doritos, taco shells, etc.) will catch onto the fact there is a 40+% protein corn product out there with less fat than what they are using now.
Possibly the next biggest shovel hurling “marketing spin” into the air is by those unfortunate researchers on the unemployment line. This camp seems to have a lot of followers wanting the government to spend billions of dollars researching better yeast. Why? Because alcohol kills yeast. Ethanol plants have to keep adding it. The claim is that if researchers could develop a strain of yeast which didn’t drink itself to death in the vat, ethanol plants would have greater yields and lower costs.
On the surface, the simple truth about longer living, tea-totaling yeast increasing yield and lowering costs is hard to argue with. My main argument is that the multi-billion dollar Ag companies who own many of the ethanol plants should be funding any such research. Tax dollars should only fund research for medical cures and “new” markets with the occasional project to help an industry which cannot be made profitable without a God-like leap in technology.
Now, now, now, you mega-million dollar bonus-stock-option-trust-fund babies that head up the massive Ag corporations, we know there are ethanol plants which have made money. Your ethanol plants don’t make money only after you apportion “their contribution” to your bonus-stock-options-and-trust-funds, so don’t go making a false claim, fund the research yourself.
Actually, you need to be a well rounded individual and tune into NPR (something we would have lost had Mitt Romney been elected.) Once in a blue moon you need to listen to a show like “The Splendid Table.” Why? Because a butterfly flapping its wings in South Africa really does cause a hurricane to hit New York.
Recently this show had an interview with an wine maker whose vintages are famous for achieving fuller bodies with less yeast and shorter aging periods than any other vintner. Do they use some super-secret family secret yeast? Nope. It’s not the grapes either. It’s the music.
You read that correctly. It’s the music. They experimented for years with different types and volumes of music until they proved a dirty little secret many dairy farmers already know. Living things like music. Yeast may not have ears, but it is alive. When certain frequencies pass through yeast, it becomes energized or “more alive”. Just like a room full of “tween” girls lounging, when the right tune comes on, they get up and dance.
There is no need for tax dollars to fund yeast research until after every ethanol plant in America “listens to the music.”
