Archive for July 23rd, 2005

Doctors in the Plague Time

We all have strong opinions, or we wouldn’t be here.

From time to time I indulge myself in arguing about religious opinions or history. I have a certain nostalgia for the time when we could have afforded to fight out our particular views out with each other.

Doctors can fight each other over their particular theories of treatment, but when the plague comes, they are all there working day and night, side by side. Every doctor is welcome and it is a huge relief to see another doctor, no matter how you disagree with him on important medical issues, there beside you.

Some of us are hard-core Catholics, some Calvinists, some evangelicals, some athiests, and some whateverthehell I am. Some of us are pro-capitalist, some of us are socialists of the nationalist kind. When I looked years ago the largest political party in Jordan was called the National Socialists, but they are hardly Nazis, they were socialists of a nationalist kind.

So I am glad to have you here, your stance on evolution or anything else be damned.

To us today World War I is bewildering. All those countries in 1914 had monarchies, they were white, the were all empires, and yet they were destroying everything over issues that were trivial in the world picture.

If we save our people the time may come when we can take our differences seriously again. My hope is that by then we will be able to enjoy that luxury while at the same time keeping our eyes firmly on the importance of what we are all here to protect.

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