Cannibalism For A Ride

Over a billion people world-wide are threatened with starvation. The cause: Many fingers are pointing at bio-fuel production to wean folks off of oil to run their automobiles. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL03622524

The issue arose at a United Nations food conference or summit which opened this week in Rome, Italy. Food is becoming too expensive. The increase in the price of food stuffs is apparent to all of us in this country. To observe it, you simply walk through the grocery stores on a periodic basis.

Yet, the leadership of the greatest country in the world sits quietly with hands folded as this crisis unfolds. Well, you could say that a solution cannot be found, but this is different. We are not talking about just anything. We are talking about a moral imperative that we do not engage in cannibalism. It is no more and no less than just that when we choose to put food in the form of ethanol in our gas tanks while the bellies of children stay empty and lead to their slow and agonizing death.

If urging food for the innocent and sacrifice by the more fortunate leads to my designation as a quack or a screaming liberal, then, although I am neither of those things, I shall wear the label if a solution to that problem can be found.

If humankind is determined to be nothing more than a species of animal, as a lot of folks believe, then we do not have to worry about the future. We have plenty of people, probably too many, and we may just turn to that resource eventually in a classic struggle of the strongest to survive. On the other hand, we can choose to be something greater than ourselves and dedicate our lives again to what our recent commenter Rube Cretin has termed "the greatest vanity." We can dedicate ourselves to making the world a better place and maybe, just maybe, save it.