A Petroleum Parable

Once upon a time, last week in fact, a meeting was held in the august headquarters of the U.N. to hear the grievance of an Arab diplomat. He reportedly pleaded: "We ask for gasoline to be allocated for diplomats because they are in a terrible situation." Said his loyal assistant: "We are using a lot of gas. We have to stand in line, and this is affecting our work."

How true this tale was. And how initially refreshing. The gasoline lines in New York City indeed snake to the horizon. Even the natives may purchase gas only on an odd day here, an even there. Lo, how it heartened them to know that the inconvenienced diplomat was Salah Omar al-Ali, the ambassador from Iraq, he whose land has helped make oil dear as gold.

Alas, his plight may have fallen upon sympathetic ears. A U.N. committee will discuss letting the diplomats use a pump in the building's basement so that they will be spared the gas-line woes of the natives.

Moral: the squeaky wheel can get the oil.

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