the face is significantly less swollen and i bought some vitamin e cream to help with the recovery of my face... and yes, nobody wants to marry me by now (even amos swears he doesn't)... the scabs from my face is coming off. the knee scrapes somehow refuse to dry up.

Anyways, I realised why healthcare isn't so wonderful around these parts. I found a pharmacy that carries modern bandages that we use back in Singapore. It had this small Opsite patch that comes with a non-stick gauze. Guess how much it is.... 25 baht, which is around 1.01SGD. Its too costly for them to even bandage people like this... So how on earth can they afford to up their healthcare standards?

The annoying thing is how there is actually an increase in medical tourism. There are now 3 good international hospitals running in Bangkok itself. Yet the people in the other parts out of the big city cannot access good medical healthcare. Its ok to help fight for survival, but its not ok when you realise that your new skin is stuck onto some gauze pad that is 10 days old! I do hope that these big hot-shot international hospital has a charity arm to help out these poorer states. The doctors in the poorer states are by no means worse doctors, but they are handicapped by their equipment.

Nearly a week ago when we were at the Human Development Foundation (run by Father Joe Maier and his team), Father Joe declared that he should have gone to march against the American trade agreement. If this trade agreement goes thru, it would mean that a lot of medications made by all that big US pharmacetical firms would go up in pricing. Its not good for a lot of the AIDs/HIV patients at all. They can't even afford it in the first place. The drug cocktails are paid for by the government and the government in turn passes it to the citizens thru tax. How on earth can it even dig its way out of this vicious cycle?

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to get involved into public health and learn how I might actually help to circumvent such events. Its all about political strategy. The poorest countries are those who need such medications the most, yet they are the ones who truly cannot afford it. They get deeper into debts, which would require writing off by who? The G8 and other big regional groups. But we don't have to go thru that... Only if there are people who are willing to create drugs at a lesser cost. Less inflation, less mark-up. Sell it to the people without a profit. It would take a lot of Warren Buffets to do so.

Many big corporations are already posting high profits year upon year. It seems like all they need to do is to be answerable to their stockholders. What about making the stockholders of their firms some charity group? Dividends that feed straight to the charities, funding them and financing them. Of course, it will need to be accounted for. But it sure beats having good charities go into the red and closing just because of funding. Or even for the simple fact to just allow more people who deserve to live.

Jason thinks that humans are parasites on earth. We DO take up a lot more resources than we need to at times. But here's the thing... Much as there are those criminal kinds who don't deserve to live, there are a lot more people who deserve the chance to live.

There is so much frivolity going around. There is even a Thai channel dedicated to just nothing but FASHION. If the profits from this channel is going to save some poor child's life, its good. It just sickens me to watch the rich socialites hob nob around on television with the fortunes that they can't finish in the next lifetime even. Do they even need to look so glitzy? I think something needs to be done to straighten these people's thoughts out.

anyways, that aside, thank you all for the concern. i found that having my laptop is good. cos i get to watch cars (the newest pixar flick) again and again... replaying the parts of luigi the italian car go crazy about the ferrari visiting his tyre store! its just hilarious... and also, i found time to figure out how to play spider solitare! i never had this much time to while away usually...