RERUM # 14
Reuben appears to be emerging from the long-standing jealousy that began with Rosie’s birth. Initially, he ignored her completely, assuming that when the novelty wore off we would return her to Toys R Us. Then he spent long periods sitting in corners watching her balefully, as if hoping that long exposure to the evil eye would cause her to wither away. Next came the militant phase: Reuben would wander over to the recumbent Rosie, either feeding with Emma or fast asleep on my lap, &, with no apparent emotion informing the deed, he would slap her very hard.
However, ever since she began to emerge as a social being a few months ago, ready & able to interact, his perception of her seems to have altered. Now, when she blows raspberries, waves her arms like a football supporter, barks out “Arro” in her strange husky voice, he’s delighted & settles back to watch & listen. More recently Reuben has become much more proactive. He has taken to watching Rosie with an indulgent half-smile on his face as she sits on the duvet on the floor. Then he bustles over to her & with the words, “Dummy OUT!” he removes it from her mouth, bends over & kisses her tenderly on the lips &, with the words “Dummy IN!” he plunges it back into place.
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Here are some interesting statistics to mull over when you slip that new t-shirt over your head. This from the front page of Saturday’s Independent, inscribed onto an illustration of a t-shirt …
This T-shirt costs £1.19 in Britain.
It is made with cotton grown in the US.
This sells for 48c a pound – 30c less than it costs to
produce, thanks to subsidies worth $3.9 billion a year.
This is more than three times the level of US aid to Africa. The biggest subsidies go to farmers in Texas – home state of George Bush – where one farmer receives $17 million a year.
The cotton is turned into T-shirts in China by workers
paid less than $1 a day.
In Benin, which relies on cotton for 60% of its exports, farmers are going out of business. There were 80,000 five years ago; today there are 26,000. As a result, the world’s 16th poorest nation is losing 1.4 of its GDP a year. No wonder 33%of the population live in poverty and have a life expectancy of 48 years.
In Britain, the price of clothing has fallen 14.7% over the past five years.
11:23:47 PM 
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