April 20, 2008 10:48 a.m.

Dear Diary:
As the moment nears and we have Sean safely back in the family fold I become more circumspect. The economy of oil just got really personal for our family. I know that there are many families all over the world for whom it is terribly personal--and destructive--but now it has come home to a family who is as far removed from the oil fields as we can get. My son was put through this trauma because of the economy of oil. That is all. He was there as a journalist to record the impacts of oil production in the Niger Delta--impacts to everyone. They have interviewed folks on all sides: government, industry, military, militant, resident. Oil production affects them all in some way--some needless to say more negatively than others. But it affects them--and us--all. We have allowed the oil economy to supersede our humanity. Just as with all elements of life, power and money become more important than people. They are the world's gods. Look what the oil economy has done in our own country: 9/11, terrorists at home and abroad, war and the sacrifice of our young men and women in the military and the people of middle eastern countries; deeper poverty for our own population...the list goes on. It makes me sick to fill up my car, to buy medications and plastics that require petroleum for production, to purchase anything especially if it required shipping to get here. We in America like to pretend that since we only see the final outcome--the fuel we need available at all times when we need it--we can conveniently turn a blind eye to where it came from and what trouble, pain and terror it causes in the parts of the world unlucky enough to produce it. Enough said...