Must we in the backwaters of the former British empire still wait until London tells us its okay to mark the 100th anniversary* of the day that the news of nurse Edith Cavell's execution flashed around the world ?
And what if they forget and they don't - what then - must it go un-noted ?
And must we wait until New York tells us in the rest of the grateful world that it is okay to celebrate the 75th anniversary* of the birth of the Age of Antibiotics in their city ?
And what if New York forgets , like London , and does nothing - what then ?
Nova Scotia's glory days were actually during the cringing days when it was still a British colony - its rapidly aging and declining population ensures it is ever faster becoming a global backwater.
But if I in backwater Nova Scotia want to join with other global backwaters to start the ball to mark Cavell's and Penicillin's big anniversaries , nothing should stop me.
And it won't !
* In both cases , the exact same day ---- October 16th 2015
(The British have just announced Cavell will appear on a five pound coin)
On Oct 16th 1940, Gotham's concrete jungle rescued the NATURAL penicillin stone its (British) builders had rejected and gave the world's first antibiotic shot. Alexander Fleming's ARTIFICIAL penicillin (ironically from leafy green Oxford !) won a Nobel but failed morally and technically. Instead Manhattan Natural radiated hope to a world tired, huddled and wretched. On its 75th, let's remind terrorist Ramzi Yousef about a Manhattan project that saved far more lives than the A-Bomb ever killed.
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