Apostate OED

Apostate
A sb.
1 One who abjures or forsakes his religious faith, or abandons is moral allegiances; a pervert.
2 One who deserts his party or forsakes his allegiance or troth; a turncoat, a renegade.
B adj.
1 Unfaithful to religious principles or creed, or to moral allegiance; renegade, infidel; rebellious.
2 gen. Deserting principles or party; perverted.

From the Greek word meaning to stand-off or withdrawal. Through Latin and French to English unadulterated (apostasy is the real base).

For Christmas I did receive one older and beaten copy of The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in two parts. It is awesome. I hope I'm not breaking any copyrights to bring you my cullings of the important bits.
I found the word reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Which is awesome, almost of the level of Sci-Fi goodyness as Ender's Game. (And of the sequels tacked on, almost as rancid.)

Wise Up.

Driving home from dropping Haley off in Mesopotamia, OH after Easter dinner, my mom had me stop at the Ashland exit GOasis on 71. Gas is always cheapest in NE Ohio at this particular gas station. It was about 20cents cheaper than anywhere else we had seen in about 6 hours of driving.

The sign on the pump said all the gas was 10% Ethanol. After refueling, I got in and told my mom not to waste her effort trying to get to this gas station.
Ethanol is bad.
I am no peak-oil denying, oil company invested, promoter of petroleum's choke-hold. Big Oil is a corporate hellhole of war instigating profit seekers.
But ethanol is not one iota improved.

The main source of power for ethanol might be the sun, true, but then maybe not.
The seeds are shipped - gas
The seeds are planted - gas
The seeds grow - sun
The corn plant is sprayed with herbicides - gas and gas
The corn plant is sprayed with pesticides - gas and gas
The corn plant makes corn kernels - sun
The corn is harvested - gas
The harvested corn is shipped to an ethanol plant - gas
The plant alcohol is recovered - electricity (gas)
The fuel is shipped - gas

The only way that growing this corn for fuel can possibly make sense financially for the farmers who do, is that the Federal Gov't subsidizes these farmers. I personally don't believe a free market can solve all ills, but this, this is something else entirely. Subsidies for sustainable fuel sources? Fuck yes. But we're talking corn here. Corn is food. Corn is all food at this point. All the food we eat, corn.
Cornland, other crop land, farmers time and money, taxpayers time and money, oil, all these things going to create a fuel source that is the most temporary plug in the rush for the energy the world craves.
Ethanol is bad.

Bleak.

Back in the Arms of Unhappy.

It's hard to write a blog about unexpectedly running the family farm when: I'm not. He's dead. It's someone else's problem now. Ever since I couldn't find it in myself to write anymore at I Fling Poo, I've been wondering what reason I could come up with for starting a different blog. What angle. What would provide cohesion to the posts.

I didn't think of anything. Or, more to the point, nothing fell in my lap and made itself interesting. So, now, this. It's going to be a mish-mash. I am sorry. Maybe a definite thread will appear in the posts. Don't count on it.