The barbershop conversation

My barber has set his hours of operation to meet the needs of his primary market-farmers and retirees. That means that people like me who work an 8-5 type schedule have to get up at an unholy hour to get a haircut. This morning I got there 10 minutes after the shop opened and there were three farmers ahead of me in line. I usually enjoy the conversations, although I keep my mouth shut on controversial topics unless I know that I'm in line with the opinions of the guy in control of the quality of my haircut. This morning pained me, though. The conversation was about how wonderful ethanol is. The only negative they could come up with was the loss of fuel efficiency in blended fuels. Of course, the corn farmers are loving ethanol. They are making better money this year and there was talk of growing corn in more fields next year. I wanted so badly to discuss the drawbacks and the possible consequences down the road for them, but it was definitely unfriendly territory for that this morning.