Source: The List

In a short op-ed article in The New York Times by Garry Wills, the emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University, he wrote on point 5:

5. Do not fear political activism. I was once at an event where a student asked Jimmy Carter how he, formerly the guardian of American law, felt years earlier when his freshman daughter was arrested at a protest against apartheid. He answered: “I cannot tell you how proud I was. If you young people cannot express your conscience now, when will you? Later you will have duties, jobs, families that make that harder. You will never be freer than now.” Also, among the activists, you are more likely to meet the intellectually adventurous people mentioned in the last item.

Sorry to disappoint those of you who wanted to know some profound secrets of being an economist. But I just have to put up this comic strip:

A while ago, I posted up short write up of the trip made by Sean Lau, my photographer good friend to Smokey Mountain in Manila, the Philippines.

Yesterday, the Straits Times feature his cause in the section known as “home.causes” on Page B11, 29 August 2009.

USING PHOTOS TO HELP MANILA SLUM DWELLERS

Lensman posts snaps of Smokey Mountain on website and raises $5k

By Wee Jun Kai

PROFESSIONAL baby photographer Sean Lau is more accustomed to having happy young couples and their precious bundles of joy in front of his camera.

So the 27-year-old was little prepared for the horrific scenes of hardship he witnessed when he visited the slums of Smokey mountain in Manila on a photography trip

It was his way of getting into missionary work: His photographs, posted on his website at www.seanlau.com, have so far raised $5,716 for The Philippines Community Fund (PCF), a British-based charity that provides free medical treatment, food and education to those living on SMokey Mountain.

Mr Lau was “at a loss for words” when he saw the living conditions in the slums there last October.

Smokey Mountain is a 25ha dumpsite, home to about 20,000 Filipinos who scavenge through the enormous scrap heap for recyclable items to sell. It is notorious as a symbol of poverty in the Philippines, but the slum dwellers have resisted efforts by the government and other groups to improve the living conditions there.

Huts are built from salvaged material, and the roads, from mud and decomposing trash. The many children there wander the streets, aimless and hungry, many too young to help their parents scavenge among the garbage.

Mr Lau, inspired to do his bit by a church pastor who had carried out missionary work overseas, said: “Photography is powerful and wonderful in many ways. It is my way of communication with the world, relating to them places and people that they will probably never go to or meet in their lifetimes.

“Compared with reading about it in the newspaper, being down there in person made me feel I was involved. I could not ignore the situation with a clear conscience.”

His website now has a short journal of his trip alongside the photographs he tool. Since APril 1, the website has doubled as a fund-raising platform for the PCF, representatives of which were Mr Lau’s guides during his trip there.

He counts getting to know the PCF representatives as the most rewarding part of his visit: “I saw how a small group of people could make such huge personal sacrifices to bring love and hope to a community that was discarded and unwanted by many.”

Donations can be made via the PCF website, for which there is a link on Mr Lau’s site. The PCF website address is www.p-c-f.org

To see his journal on this trip, just visit here.

Michael Jackson special:

1. How Michael Jackson Became a Pop God
2. The last global entertainer
3. Michael Jackson: Beyond Great

A forum letter in the Straits Times:

What’s free, exactly?

THE reply by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday (‘It’s free but not all fees’) to Forum letters asking why Influenza A (H1N1) testing was so costly and for clarity in fee charges must surely leave others like me still puzzled.

First, why was there an $85 charge at the Communicable Disease Centre referred to by Ms Mee Mee Degani last Saturday (‘People asked to take the H1N1 test are charged $85 each. Shouldn’t they be told upfront?’) when the ministry’s reply stated that the test is free? Is the $85 charge by Tan Tock Seng Hospital an entrance fee?

Second, why was it necessary for Ms Daphne Teo (‘Why should being responsible cost $214?’, last Saturday) to be hospitalised while waiting for the H1N1 test result?

The ministry should state clearly what one must expect to be the minimum cost of an H1NI test at the Communicable Disease Centre, because it cannot be free if there is an $85 charge.

It is also unhelpful for the reply to state that those who need to be hospitalised are heavily subsidised up to 80 per cent of their ‘medical costs’, without clarifying exactly what such ‘medical costs’ include.

If Ms Teo had been subsidised 80 per cent of her $214.05 bill, it would have been unlikely that she would have raised the matter in public.

‘Up to 80 per cent’ does not mean everyone is ‘heavily’ subsidised.

The ministry should also publicise effectively that H1N1 tests are carried out at the Communicable Disease Centre and not in the A&E departments of hospitals, if such were the case.

Denis Distant

Being ‘responsible’ by getting yourself tested  for H1N1 costs you at least S$85. If you turn out to have the common flu, it means you just wasted about S$50. Why aren’t the hospital subsidising the full costs of getting yourself tested for H1N1? Are the government hospitals making money off the citizens by exploiting their fear of the H1N1 pandemic?

By being ‘proactive’ in repeating ad nauseum to be responsible and call for an ambulance if you have symptoms of H1N1 which are similar to the seasonal flu (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/key_facts.htm), they are overloading the hospitals and making people spend unnecessary medical expenses amidst the economic gloom.

Note: The H1N1 test itself is free. But the emergency dept fees and hospitalisation charges at the hospital still apply.