Democracy for Vancouver

Sometimes to find hope for the future we have to look to the past. In the excellent book Jewish Travellers, you can read the travelogue of Rabbi Benjamin ben Jonah of Tudela in Navarre, the most famous of Jewish travellers in the late Middle Ages. He finished the travels he describes in 1173:

[The Caliph of Baghdad] built, on the other side of the river, on the banks of an arm of the Euphrates which there borders the city, a hospital consisting of blocks of houses and hospices for the sick poor who come to be healed. Here there are about sixty physicians’ stores which are provided from the Caliph’s house with drugs and whatever else may be required. Every sick man who comes is maintained at the Caliph’s expense and is medically treated. Here is a building which is called Dar-al-Maristan, where they keep charge of the demented people… Whilst they abide there, they are provided with food from the house of the Caliph, and when their reason is restored they are dismissed and each one of them goes to his house and his home. Money is given to those that have stayed in the hospices on their return to their homes. Every month the officers of the Caliph inquire and investigate whether they have regained their reason, in which case they are discharged. All this the Caliph does out of charity to those that come to the city of Baghdad, whether they be sick or insane. The Caliph is a righteous man, and all his actions are for good.

FUCK BUSH.