Thursday, 27 September 2007

Friday 28th September 2007 - The Price of Oil

The Price of Oil and Plastic Bags

On 19th March 2003 hostilities commenced as an absolute requirement for the spread of “democracy” to the Iranian people

1953 At six years of age I planted seeds in my very own “patch”. This was the nearest piece of land to the fence before “the field” fell into the river. The picture on the seed packet showed a cottage garden with tall pastel pink and blue flowers surrounded by tiny stars of riotous colour. All spring and summer I watched them grow. Alongside my patch grew beetroot, lettuce, spring onions, shallots, potatoes, turnips, parsnips and carrots, up to the edge of the sties where pigs grunted and slurped the mashed boiled peelings, from vegetables that we got to eat first.
August 2004. The Iraq war continues to be a drain on the American taxpayers’ pocket books. So far, the war has cost the United States 144.4 billion dollars.

1954 Harvest rolled over that year into the Indian Summer of September. We collected blackberries in tin buckets. The Victoria plums were laid amongst straw in hooped barrels, then the apples in September got the same treatment. Jars were scalded on the open fire in heavy copper bottomed saucepans then filled with whole fruit and seedless jams to stock up the shelves in the shed alongside redcurrants, whitecurrants and gooseberries. Apples were collected in hessian sacks. When the pig was killed the sacks made aprons for the men to stop the blood spurting onto their clothes. Mushrooms were picked, huge brown domes that fairies and elves had spent all night pushing up. That is why we had to get up early to catch them before they disappeared back down. That harvest year was special, I handed mammy the biggest bouquet of flowers she had ever received, there were night scented stocks; asters, brighter colours than I had ever before encountered, and tumbling nasturtiums, the colour of the sunset.

A surge in car bombings, bomb explosions and shootings: Iraq ministries put the civilian death toll for May at 672, up from 364 in April.

1954-1955 It was Christmas, Michael had a sheriffs outfit; trousers with fringes and a gun in a holster slung low on his leg. The waistcoat sported a silver star. Mammy told us years later how she had finished the outfit at midnight on Christmas Eve and when she ironed it, with the heavy metal iron placed on the hob to heat, she had burned a hole right through it. Daddy found a piece of tin and quietly shaped it into a star with pliers, filing down the edges to made five hooks, one in each point of the star so mammy could sew it in to the waistcoat. They went to bed at dawn that Christmas day. Michael never minded the hole, no one else had a star like his. I had a doll called Bubbles, who took second place all her life to the box she arrived in on Christmas Day.

Explosives packed in vehicles tore through crowds gathered in Iraq's two most sacred Shiite cities Sunday, killing at least 64 people and wounding scores more.

1955 Winter brought darkness. Candles were costly, we were not allowed up until daylight. We would hear the stoking of the fire to get heat for a warm drink before Daddy walked the three miles to the pit, then snuggle back down under the rough woollen blankets separated from us by a warm flannelette sheet which stopped the itching. Next time we would open our eyes, invariably the light would peek in to greet us and we could get up to look at what Jack Frost had left on our window in the night. The winter was hard the day we tried to reach school up the steep slope out of our little hamlet. I looked over the edge of the bridge at the spectacular icicles reaching down into the frozen river and worried if the trout would survive. Come summer we would tickle their bellies, making them jump out onto the banks so we could smack their heads against a stone and proudly carry them home to eat. Hard packed ice made our journey impossible that day and as we climbed up, we slid back, making us tumble and laugh until we were escorted back home. No school that day which made it a milestone in my life. My first day off, ever, that was not a holiday. Mammy made us hot blackcurrants from the glass jars and custard out of the eggs I brought from the hen house. This treat was for her birthday and because we had got so cold. We laughed when daddy got home and huddled in front of the fire to warm his posterior, which he said was freezing from the long walk home. Summer would soon be here he said that day.

Because of the Iraqi war, the Madrid bombings of March 2004 took place, as did the London underground bombings of July 2005. In July and August 2005 a total of 6,599 Iraqis were killed.

1956 I was old enough to knead the dough. I helped to flatten it, pummel it and push it into the square metal tins which were shoved into the black iron oven at the side of the red glowing bars of the coal fire. When the loaves came out they were covered with a clean piece of cotton, this was one of my tasks, to hem squares of material. Hankies were my speciality, square ones were Daddy’s for best and the small three cornered ones, or thin strips, for Michael and myself.
‘Will the milk’ came each morning, invariably grinning. His red cheeks look like miniature mountains each side of a lake of white teeth. The long handled metal ladle would disappear down into the churn and bring you up the exact amount you had asked for, a pint, a half pint or a third of a pint. Your milk would be poured into the awaiting jug and the ladle swished in a bucket of creamy water and replaced back on its hook, next to the other sizes, ready for the next place on his rounds. He would then take the reins and guide Benjie around the sharp turning at the edge of the cottages. Rare occasions afforded us a ride on the milk cart and this became a highlight of the milk delivery. At the age of eight years a ride on the milk cart was the only transport I had experienced. I had my first motorised vehicle ride at the age of nine, when oil entered my life.
For their part, major multinational oil companies have made no secret of their desire to gain access to Iraq’s reserves. Shortly before the invasion Archie Dunham, chairman of US oil major ConocoPhillips, explained that “ We know where the best {Iraqi} reserves are {and} we covet the opportunity to get those some day” Shell has stated that it aims to “establish a material and enduring presence in the country.”
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