james curtin (aka james morena)

he was again there sitting on the gutter raising his hands to greet us. this is another morning for a miracle, he shouts. i asked why. he says it is always so whenever we visit him.
he is quite glib.
he reached for what he called his "most precious possessions" from his plastic grocery bag and showed me this picture with a list of songs he used to sing. he used to be a club singer until mt. pinatubo and, i suspect, old age displaced him. but his manners are still stellar.
i told him that i have been blogging him on internet. he responded, "sorry, i don't have internet to see it."

welcome breaks from the routine

melvin, my suki audiophile dealer, had it delivered last monday. i installed it yesterday and i was pleased with the full-bodied sound of this entry level product. i can again play LP music in my clinic! music from a needle for patients stuck with needles!




and this sustains me, too -- needles with burning common mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Joy thought it is high time i get my acupuncture with moxibustion in our "refugee center."

and this morning, i met james again at the end of my morning brisk walk. he was quite jovial when we saw him. the homeless senior ciitizen will be seen on PTV4 on friday, may 2, at 1 PM. there will be a concert at the circle and he will be singing a song. he had two songs to choose from for friday. and he sang them both while joy and i patiently stood and listened. his diction was not only good, he can actually sing well! he asked which one he should sing. the first was an english love song "boulevard" and the second was a tagalog "bawal na gamot". i thought the love song was better but he said he preferred the socially relevant tagalog song. and, the man reminded us to watch him on tv as we headed back to our temporary (yet more fit to be) home.

today, he said that his father comes from phoenix, arizona and that his family perished in the mt. pinatubo eruption. there is a pack of philip morris cigarettes in his pocket and his left leg remains swollen. he called quezon circle his "home".

in the midst of the food crisis

a genuine agrarian reform program is key to industrialization. that is my cherished conviction. taiwan did it. south korea did it, too, at the point of park chung hee's guns. and so i asked a patient of mine, a finance expert and former government official if we can still do it. he answers, "that would be an inefficient route."
true to his technocratic form, he was thinking industrialized agriculture. he further adds, "and we need to control population."
by this time, i regret asking the question.
these are photos i took some 20 years ago. my friends went to lucban last saturday to take photos of the rice harvest quite aptly with the ongoing rice crisis. i look forward to seeing those photos and see how much has changed.