chaos…

Posted on Thursday 3 February 2011

Like everyone else in the world, I’ve been watching the happenings in Egypt on television. I don’t have much to say about the things at the top, or what it all means for American foreign policy. That hardly seems to be the point right now. From our visit, neither of us is surprised at all. The real story of Egypt in on a map – this map…

It’s a population density map. Here in the US, we have 310 Million people. In Egypt, they have 80 Million [that dark line near the upper right in Africa], but all of them live almost within walking distance of the Nile River. Habitable Egypt is a few miles wide, and everything else is desert. Cairo is teeming with people crammed into small apartments in high-rises. The chaos they are describing in the demonstrations is not remarkably different from the everyday afternoon traffic. I saw only a couple of undented cars in my whole three weeks there. I don’t know what a new government will do to help, but I hope population control is number one on their list. I wish the best for them. They are a vibrant and a pious people…

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