Wednesday, February 25, 2009

at long last

I was pleasantly surprised to read this news a day or so ago. After having written more than one's fair share on Filipino Americans, including if i remember correctly one whole chapter on the veterans' fight for proper recognition of their efforts in WWII, it was heartening to see that whoever still is around got what they deserved. Almost makes me want to write a follow-up paper (just kidding!). Pity the more than sixty years it took for this to happen and thus also the tens of thousands of veterans already dead and therefore unable to claim these very belated benefits (and of course relatives of the deceased aren't eligible...). US$9000/15000 isn't exactly a real big amount of $, though maybe when factoring in inflation it may differ, i dunno...

And while initially i was not too thrilled with the fact that this distinctly non-economy-boosting measure somehow figured in the so-called stimulus package that was just signed into law, on the other hand i suppose this provision simply needed to be tucked within this much larger package, where many of the lawmakers would not have been afforded the time to look through each and every of its constituent components, if it were to have any hope of being signed into law in the first case. Well i suppose those who will benefit will take it whatever way it comes, even if the way in which it did come really screams for lots more articles to be written...

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