Letter from Brazil to Barack Obama

Dear Barack Obama,
Though your hands be as soft as a baby's bottom from many years of laboring with the mind, the honeymoon is over. The faux carioca still loves your sparkling eyes and admires your optimism, but she's disappointed with your position on corn-based ethanol. Who doesn't want to help out the Midwestern farmer? How could we deny assistance to friendly folks who get their kicks from building sculptures out of butter at the state fair? The rub, golden boy, is that these same nice people are growing a food staple that provides a good portion of the world's diet. Fine. Subsidize the growth of these crops. But does it really make sense to give farmers support to turn that same food staple into fuel that will feed the American gas guzzler?

You have also proposed maintaining the tariffs on Brazilian sugar cane ethanol. The energy ratio of sugar cane ethanol to corn is 8 to 1. The math here is simple. Moreover, unless you're Chrystal F. (and there can be only one Chrystal), sugar cane is not essential to anyone's diet.

We need to find other solutions to the high cost of fuel. At the risk of sounding like an idealist, the faux carioca suggests that in addition to the use of more energy efficient sugar cane ethanol, we consider alternatives to the car. Why not provide subsidies for increased bus service, for example? Or perhaps provide municipal bicycles as the Parisians have done?

Stay in touch and please try to do the right thing,
Faux Carioca