The previous post was written last night. I still don't know much about the bombings in London, because I was running around taking care of patients all day, but I'm horrified that it happened. Thankfully my close friend, who is finishing up grad school there, is safe. I'm not sure what to make of this, and how our government will spin it. Are they still claiming that the world is a safer place after they invaded Iraq?

I discovered the news while in a patient's room this morning. His wife was shaking her head at the TV, which was playing CNN's report of the event. She's a warm Southern lady with a smoker's raspy voice adding a gritty texture to her honeyed, elongated vowels. When I previously asked her if her husband had any allergies to meds, her response was, "Well, now, there's that Demerol...it makes him all itchy and flushed and red and miserable. I always remember that one, because it makes me think of Democrats!" Boy did I have to bite my tongue there. Anyway, this morning she was saying, "It's so sad over there. They have all those bad people who hate us, and who are teaching their kids to hate us. We've got to teach them that life can be much better. America is a great country, with a great way of life, and they should have that too. I want everyone to have that." It's not my place to argue with patients and their families about politics, but this made me sad. Do many Americans truly think that Middle Easterners don't know anything about love or goodness, and we need to export decency and morals, like we export MacDonald's and Britney Spears CD's, to those poor heathens who don't know any better? How are we going to convince them that we're good, and that they should follow our way of life, when we've killed so many of them, often without good reason? Of course they hate us! The invasion has just added gasoline to the fire.