An important news and business story, and a good news story if you are a corn farmer, is the rising price of corn. Ethanol plants such as one in rural Lena, Illinois, are devouring bushels and bushels or corn to create ethanol, which is added to gasoline so less petroleum is needed to create fuel for automobiles. The market place doesn't ignore such trends, which is why the most acreage in 63 years will used to plant the 2007 corn crop.
Lessening our dependence on foreign oil is the motivation driving the ethanol boom, it's hardly a clean fuel, and no environmentalist is touting ethanol as a miracle medicine for our planet.
Yesterday it was revealed that Sheryl Crow, a pop-rock performer of declining popularity, is touting her toilet paper policy of one sheet per visit to the toilet, with two or three acceptable for "pesky occasions."
Eeww!
Before rolled toilet paper was invented, people still "took care of their business" after using the outhouse. In pre-industrial America, corn husks, that is, corn ear leaves, were used for privy visits. Historians are deeply divided on the subject, but it's believed that more than one corn husk was typically used in outhouse sitdowns during that era.
Now that brings us back to ethanol and all of that corn being planted this year. Corn husks aren't used for the making of ethanol.
And I know what to do with all of those corn husks.
I just saved the planet. But each solution creates a new problem. What will tamales be wrapped in?
Pam Meister has a different take on the TP crisis, suggesting she needs to be our toilet paper czar.
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