Half-full glass

In keeping with advice I get frequently to remain optimistic, I offer this glass-half-full look at 2009:

- Barack Obama is still healthy and still President; the war in Afghanistan is not yet lost and members of Congress are not yet beating each other over the head with canes;

- I'm still here, which was by no means guaranteed six months ago;

- New York State has yet to default on paying any of its bills. Many members of the Legislature have yet to be indicted for any serious crime;

- Most banks are still open, the stock market is functioning, and the Chinese and the rest of our creditors are still willing to let us borrow more money;

- While scores of newspapers have gone out of business, most are still publishing daily, and although 40,000 newspaper jobs were eliminated, hundreds of thousands of other people are still drawing paychecks from publishers;

- Social Security is not yet bankrupt, allowing people like me to collect disability payments;

- The Red Sox and Patriots both made the playoffs;

- There are not yet any restrictions on who publishes what on the Internet, meaning an old newspaper guy can post his daily musings that some people actually read.

Now that I've fulfilled my "optimistic'' duties, may I fervently wish you a Happy New Year that is better than the 12 months that are about to elapse.

Oncologist doesn't follow script

The oncologist in Boston today didn't quite follow the script we hoped he would. He thinks I will need chemo for as long as I live (or it's effective) and emphasized there really is no cure for pancreatic cancer.

Still, he said the SC-Scan results are encouraging since there is no sign of the cancer spreading.

The decision I'm likely to have to make a couple of months down the road is how much discomfort to withstand from the chemo versus the protection it provides against the spread of the cancer. The problem is my body is tolerating the chemo less well (it is getting harder to find veins for the infusions and my thighs ache) the more often I have it.

He and the oncologist here will confer, and decide how to alter the chemo regime to try to take care of these problems. Meanwhile, I plan to be too involved in getting ready for our cruise and then being in the Caribbean to think too much about it right away.

Confirmation

The radiologist in Boston today confirmed the good news that we got last week in Albany: the recent CT scan shows shrinkage of the tumor in the pancreas, and no spread of the cancer to any other organ.

He also agreed that I should have two more rounds of chemo, and after that should be followed with CT scans every few months. Although we expected him to say what he did today, it was still comforting to hear him say it.

We hope and expect the same thing will happen when we visit our oncologist in Boston tomorrow.

All this gives me reason to hope that 2010 will be a better year than 2009.

Much more to learn

Part of the deal is being married to a psychotherapist is she is likely to have colleagues who are also friends, and many of them have become my friends as well. We entertained a trio of them yesterday, and they more or less took turns trying to enlighten me.

All three, plus Emily, put a lot of stock in alternative-healing strategies, like energy medicine, acupuncture, massage and some other Eastern-religions approaches. I have tried such things on occasion, and have found them in general to be not particularly helpful.

Some of you may recall that I had a conversation with an Indian mystic named Sai Maa this fall that I found very moving, and led to me carrying around a tissue box for several weeks as a virtual repository for all of my bad karma. But I was disappointed she never got back in touch with me, as she had promised to to.

At any rate, I am certainly not willing to dismiss any healing ideas out of hand, any more than I am speculation about what happens after we die. There is nothing like having a life-threatening illness to concentrate one's attention on such matters.

In the end, I agreed yestgerday to look at some books on the subject our friends recommended and also consider visiting a woman who seems to have good luck at looking into past lives, under the category of always being willing to learn more.

No Electric Football This Year

This year marked the fiftieth anniversary of my most memorable Christmas. The issue that year, when I was 12, was whether I would get a new ping-pong table or an electric football game. Getting both seemed impossible because my parents, although they regularly saved for the holiday through a Christmas Club, never had much extra money to throw around. But in 1959, my dad got a great last minute deal on an electric football game and so when I came down from my bedroom that morning, both the table and the football game were waiting for me. I'll never forget that.

This year, frankly, the presents were not quite as exciting. Maybe the most noteworthy was a T-shirt which reads "I'm here just to meet nurses," which I might wear next time I have chemotherapy.

More important, our family was all together in the house, built by my grandfather, where I have spent every Christmas but two since I was born. At one time I was the youngest person in our gathering and this year I was the second oldest. There's something deeply comforting about carrying on this tradition.

Back row, l-r: nephew Tim, nephew Patrick, brother Neil, nephew-in-law George

Middle row: daughter-in-law Allyson

Front row: daughter Janice, wife Emily, daughter Ellen, the author himself, sister-in-law Wendy, niece Julie

A great Christmas present

As usual, we were running behind today. As usual, a frazzled Emily needed some help in getting us out the door.

And surprisingly, this year as usual, I loaded the car and despaired that I wouldn't have enough room to pack all the Christmas presents we wanted to bring to Massachusetts. Finally, as usual, I was able to cram everything in that we wanted to bring.

What made all this unusual though, was that probably a week ago I would have begged off packing the car, saying I needed to rest. But the favorable test results I got yesterday seemed to have provided me with a boost, as more prosaic and familiar concerns about Christmas dominated over immediate health issues.

My family and others keep asking me how I feel about the good news we received yesterday, and I find that giving a definitive answer is hard. What I do know, however, is that my condition is less at the front of my mind than it has been for the past six months.

It's hard to imagine a much better Christmas present than that. Merry Christmas.

Good Christmas news

The doc gave us some good news today: my tumor has shrunk a little since the last time I was tested in September and there's no sign that the cancer has spread anywhere else. The radiation and/or chemo treatments I have been getting are apparently working, at least for now.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

What is not known at this point is how much of the tumor is still active, and therefore dangerous, and how much is scar tissue of cells killed by treatments. A new kind of test called a Pet-scan might resolve that issue, and I might have that done in a couple of more months after some additional chemo.

Meanwhile, I can exhale at least a little. I'm far from out of the woods, but some positive results is a nice way to end the year and gives us some basis for optimism.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Something new to hate

What Christmas tree wouldn't be complete without a little baseball ornament with a Yankees icon on it?

I no longer have to worry about such things, since the alwsys-thoughtful reporters at the Capitol today gave me this Symbol of Evil as part of ceremonies marking their typical end-of-the-year work frenzy. It's always nice to have a focus of one's hatred. The cornucopia of gifts also included always-popular Super Hero boxer shorts.

It was my first time back at the Capitol since June, and I was impressed that despite media business woes, there still are reporters working there and the press room is not a ghost town, albeit not exactly a hub of activity either. Even though there are fewer reporters at the Capitol than at any time in the last several decades, there has seldom been a time with more news coming out of state government.

The reporters were their usual charming selves.

"Is the key to looking pretty good is looking so bad before?'' one asked, in something I think almost started as a compliment.

They didn't need to rouse themselves much today to cover the big news of the day - Rudy Giuliani saying he's not running for anything next year - because most had reported it earlier in the week. Although they did note drolly that New York's new Hamlet, last elected to office 12 years ago and rumored to be interested in several offices since, did not rule out running for something in the future.

Someone who has been away for a while would also notice an uptick in press room alcohol consumption, although it is still almost literally a drop in the bucket compared to what it was when I arrived at the Capitol 25 years ago.

But along with the recent spike in scandals, it does suggest a certain long-wave rhythm to the place.

He's a boy and he's not going to Holy Cross

Janice and Charlie got home last night, which means that Christmas has started early.

Janice took me to my always-fun CT-SCAN appointment today, while Charlie, her 110-pound Old English Sheepdog, stayed in the car, which is what he loves doing more than anything else.

Then his mistress and I took a crack at moving my memoirs forward, which have been stuck on my prep-school years for a while.

I think I live in the wrong era. Writing is easiest for me when I can dictate it, in part to get an immediate reaction. My experience with my memoirs so far as been if Ellen or Janice thinks a story is good, then it's usually worth including. The converse is also true.

There is also something liberating about writing things that happened so long ago. For example, I can now tell the truth that the biggest influence on my going to Colby College was a trip our prep-school football team took there (our coach was an athletically prominent alum) the fall before. Our alert team noticed two main things as we strolled around campus: it seemed to be overpopulated with pretty girls and the beer-delivery trucks were swarming around the fraternity houses.

I can now admit that when I tried to explain to my mother why I didn't want to go to Holy Cross ("He's a boy and he's going to Holy Cross!" she exclaimed at almost the moment I was born) those factors didn't come up. I think I talked about the strength of the Colby's Government Department and the study-abroad program, or some such fabrications. (To her everlasting credit, despite her strong opposition, she devoted about half of her teaching salary for four years to paying for me to go to Colby, despite the presence of co-eds and the absence of a requirement to attend Mass daily.)

An old college roommate called today while I was in the middle of dictating a passage about this decision to Janice. He asked, in a wise-guy way he has that hasn't changed much in more than 40 years, if I wanted him to edit the Colby parts, so that there might be a little truth in some of what I write.

But what fun would that be?

Force, revenge and grace

Who says leadership doesn't matter? I bet no one who has seen "Invictus,'' the new Clint-Eastwood-directed movie we saw last night about rugby and the end of apartheid in South Africa.

The leader here is Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), the then-newly elected South African president who decides that championing the national rugby team could be an important tool in healing his country's profound racial divide. He hatches an improbable alliance with the captain of the team (Matt Damon), which makes a surprising run to the World Cup championship game in 1995 against New Zealand. (Guess who wins?)

Freeman carries the movie, capturing Mandela's familiar clipped speech and physical gestures perfectly.

Mandela is such a transcendent figure because while he was imprisoned for 27 years by the white-supremacist apartheid regime, he emerged from prison to be elected president with an agenda of racial conciliation rather than hate.

One reviewer described the film as a "spare, plain-spoken lesson about the brutality of force, the foolishness of revenge and the surprising power of grace.''

Certainly in this holiday season especially those lessons are all worth taking to heart.

The warmth of Christmas

We've gone a little crazy with Christmas cards and letters this year, finally getting a big batch of them into the mail today.

We had so many to send because so many people have been helpful to us this year, and contact with them has never seemed more important. The best part of Christmas from where I sit is having an excuse to keep in touch.

Let me be not the first to decry the over-commercialization of the holiday, and urge a return to the roots of the occasion and using it for connecting with loved ones and friends and celebrating what we have.

Not many things make me feel colder than reading in the paper about homeless people who had to sit in chairs last night and try to sleep since beds were generally full at shelters in the area as temperatures plummeted. Seems like that's the kind of story that could ignite a lot of giving and bring more warmth to the holiday.

We've gone a little crazy with Christmas cards and letters this year, finally getting a big batch of thank-you cards and letters into the mail today.

We had so many because so many people have been helpful to us this year, and contact with them has never seemed more important.

Let me be not the first to decry the over-commercialization of the holiday, and urge a return to the roots of the day of connecting with loved ones and celebrating what we have. Not many things make me feel warmer than reading in the paper about homeless people who had to sit in chairs last night and try to sleep since beds were generally full at shelters in the area.

Patient as pin cushion

I was feeling a bit like a pin cushion today as nurses had trouble finding a vein that would hold up for the latest chemo treatment.

Finally on the 6th try a vein near the inside of my elbow was strong enough to take the needle successfully, and the gemcydabine began to flow and do its work on the tumor (as well as the rest of me). It seems that veins get less tolerance for such intrusions over time. This was my 12th chemo treatment. Don't understand how junkies inject themselves every day.

Fortunately my typical three-weeks-on, one-week-off schedule has me taking a break next week, which means I should be (relatively) fit for Christmas. That day will also be the six-month anniversary of my abdominal surgery. With our cruise coming up shortly, it could be that the break from chemo turns out to be longer than a week.

On the medical front for the next couple of weeks: a CT-SCAN next Monday here to gauge the effect of last month's radiation treatments, and then consultation with our Albany oncologist Wed., which means he will have a chance to give me a really nice Christmas present. Then the following week, we go back to Boston for a couple of days to see what those guys think.

Soar like an eagle

A friend sent me a story today about the power we all have to improve our lives, which I took to be especially significant for me since maintaining a positive attitude is so important in my chances of recovery. Here it is:

"A man named Harvey was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.' Taken aback, Harvey read the card.

It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment...

This blew Harvey away, especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab was also spotlessly clean. As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.'

Harvey said jokingly, 'No, I’d prefer a soft drink.'

Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, ’I’ll take a Diet Coke.' Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.'

As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or to leave him with his own thoughts...

'Tell me, Wally,' Harvey asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?'

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror... 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.''

That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'

Wally was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab."

Head-shaking time near the Capitol

I had lunch today with a couple of former journalist friends who are also long-time PR people, and we spent some of our time shaking our heads about a new poll finding.

The Siena College poll reported today that fewer than a third of voters like the current system where state lawmakers are part-time and can have other jobs. But there is no agreement on what system should take its place.

The poll question was sparked by last week's guilty verdict in the trial of former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who was charged with using his public office to help enrich himself. He pocketed more than $3.2 million over a decade from private sources, testimony and evidence at the trial showed. He got about $120,000 a year from taxpayers for his legislative duties.

One of my dining partners angrily pointed out that most lawmakers already don't have enough to do, and that making them work full-time at it would just lead to more mischief-making.

Some of those polled by Siena thought that having stricter disclosure requirements (lawmakers now don't have to say how much money they make from other jobs, or where the money comes from) might be the answer. Others just want to ban all outside income.

That got us to talking about the most-asked question in Albany these days: how much money does Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver get from the trial-lawyer firm he is associated with in Manhattan?

Silver, who has been the leader of the Assembly since 1994, won't say, but speculation around the Capitol puts it in the tens of thousands of dollars per month. (Nice part of a blog over a newspaper is being able to use unsubstantiated numbers like that.) Measures to curb personal-injury lawsuits and other proposals the trial lawyers don't like regularly die in the chamber Silver controls.

Meanwhile, chances of lawmakers, judges and state commissioners getting raises is nil, even though they haven't had an increase in 11 years. Legislators make a base salary of $79,500, with every senator, every Republican member of the Assembly and about two-thirds of the Democrats getting "leadership'' stipends that puts the average up over $90,000 a year.

By political tradition, the pay of judges and commissioners is linked to that of lawmakers. Trial-level state judges have made $136,700 a year since 1999. They have been screaming less loudly lately about this bad deal as the state's fiscal situation has grown more dire.

Thus goes gossip near the Capitol. Things promise to get even more interesting next year when lawmakers have to figure out a way to come up with multiple billions of dollars to close a budget gap.





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Collins and the "Antichrist''

Can someone who earlier this fall compared a leading New York Democrat to Adolph Hitler be seriously considered as a Republican candidate for governor of New York?

That's a question facing Republicans as Erie County Executive Chris Collins edges closer to jumping in the race.

Collins told Fred Dicker today on Talk-1300-AM in Albany that he'll decide in January whether to seek the GOP nomination for governor.He sounded like he was already running.

Collins, 59, has been chief executive of the largest upstate county (home of Buffalo) for two years. His potential candidacy might look a little better to Republicans today after a new poll showed that Gov. David Paterson would defeat the only Republican to announce so far, former Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio, who lost the Senate election to Hillary Clinton in 2000. (Of course, most people expect Paterson to drop our and that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will be the Democratic candidate.) Still, Lazio doesn't look like a winner.

Collins was more of a potentially hot statewide commodity before October, when he told a GOP fund-raiser crowd in Buffalo that he was "pretty sure" that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, an Orthodox Jew, is an "Antichrist" like Napoleon and Hitler.

His profuse apologies and claims he's simply made a "poor joke'' since haven't done much to quiet criticism that his words made him a political pariah, especially downstate, where 12 million of the state's 19 million people live.

Yet he has a strong anti-tax, anti-government message that might be just what Republicans will be looking for next year, especially if the economic slide and trend to higher taxes continue (good bet).

Trouble is, once you insert a foot into your mouth, it is often difficult to get it out.

I Need a Little Christmas Now

Six months ago today a surgeon at St. Peter's Hospital told me the mass that a CT scan had detected on my pancreas was probably cancerous. He said the mortality rate after five years was 80%. That diagnosis would be formally confirmed by a biopsy four days later.

Today I was sitting at a Christmas choral concert, listening to "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" and "Silent Night'" and thinking how lucky I was to enjoy the music. As my doctor told me Friday, "worst case, you're holding your own." A couple of people we ran into at the concert told me told me that I looked strong and healthy, which is always good to hear - especially this week when the chemotherapy knocked me for a loop more than it had before.

I also have a new found respect for the potential of Christmas to lift my mood. As the Albany Pro Musica singers put it in "We Need a Little Christmas:"

For I've grown a little leaner,

Grown a little colder,

Grown a little sadder,

Grown a little older.

And I need a little angel

Sitting on my shoulder,

Need a little Christmas now.

Baseball through the ages

In the midst of hot-stove-league transactions, I am reading a terrific book called "The Housekeeper and the Professor'' about a forgetful Japanese math professor (his memory lasts only 80 minutes) and his doting housekeeper.

Baseball plays a key role in the book, as it is an important way that the prof and the housekeeper's 10-year-old son connect.

When the three of them finally go to a game together in Hiroshima, they had a reaction that reminded me of my first trip to a Red Sox game more than 56 years ago..

"As we reached the top of the stairs that led to the seats above third base, all three of us let out a cry,'' the housekeeper-narrator writes. "The diamond in all of its grandeur was laid out before us - the soft, dark earth of the infield, the spotless bases, the straight white lines, the manicured grass. The evening sky seemed so close you could touch it, and at that moment, as if they had been waiting for our arrival, the lights came on. The stadium looked like a spaceship descended from the heavens.''

No one ever compared Fenway Park in Boston to a space ship - more like a rickety old barn. But, as I recount in my memoirs (anticipated completion date at this rate: 2020) I had a similar reaction the first time I saw the field.

"If I ever get to heaven, my arrival could be no sweeter than that moment I saw Fenway Park,'' I wrote.

"We loaded up into our ’41 Buick, and drove to the Salem railroad station. On the trip to North Station in Boston, I looked out wide-eyed at the passing factories, apartments and triple-deckers, as they got denser and denser as we approached what even then everybody called the Hub of the Universe.

When we got off the train, I intently held my Dad’s hand as thick crowds of tall strangers surrounded us as we squeezed into a Green Line car for the 15-minute subway trip to Kenmore Square. We made the short walk to the ballpark, and then started walking up the ramp towards nirvana.

"And there is was: the scene burst upon me. The bright sunlight reflecting off the emerald grass that I had before seen only as a shade of gray on our black and white TV. And there were my heroes: Ted Williams, Jimmy Piersall, Jackie Jensen, Sammy White, Ted Lepcio, in brilliant white uniforms with red trim.

"In a later item for his paper about our trip, (for a column that reads much like a modern blog, by the way) my Dad reported that his normally shy son ate and talked his way through all nine innings, until the Kansas City Athletics were deservedly vanquished.

"It was as perfect a day as I've ever had in my life.''

Hard to be grumpy

We were getting a briefing from our travel agent on our upcoming cruise today and discovered a disturbing fact: no newspapers are available on our ship.

This is on a vessel that advertises "onboard, each day unfolds with countless ways to play,'' but apparently not so many ways for its 3,000 guests to stay informed.

I mean, how am I supposed to settle in without knowing what names Gov. Paterson called legislative leaders the day before, or who has been indicted at the Capitol and how much the state deficit has grown, much less how many in a row the Celtics have won or the latest big-name player the Yankees have purchased?

I know, I know, there is always the Internet. But the on-board charge for a connection is 75 cents a minute, so the dollars would pile up pretty quickly and the reception is iffy, considering there are few relay towers in the ocean. It would probably cost a few bucks just to read Fred LeBrun in the Albany Times Union, so there is a definite cost-benefit analysis needed here.

That brings to mind a conversation I had last night with a self-described former political hack who spends his winters in Florida. He was marveling that with a few mouse clicks he could read all about the verdict in the Joe Bruno trial and not spend a penny.

"What kind of business model do newspapers have that lets them think they can give stuff like that away?'' he asked.

Good question. Maybe he'll look at an on-line ad and remember to buy something when he returns home in the spring? Not likely.

It is of course difficult to feel truly grumpy about the prospects of floating around the Caribbean Sea for a week in January when the temperature is likely to be in the 70s and 80s most of the time on a ship designed to meet your every whim. We even will have a balcony off our state room to sit on and watch the sun rise (on the first half of the trip) and set (on the homeward-bound leg.)

But I'm trying my best.

Christmas '09

We have been sending out a letter with Christmas cards for about 15 years ever since we figured out the word-processor capabilities of computers and the efficiency, if lack of personal touch, a standard letter provides.

Early on, I wrote them as sort of a spoof, since we started getting inane ones from people we hardly knew. Our favorite was from a couple who told us about replacing the linoleum in their kitchen. Talk about too much information.

Then of course there was the incessant bragging about children. It's a wonder that by now world peace hasn't been established, cancer cured and global warming reversed considering what brilliant, talented kids they were back in the '90s. My way of coping was to write about our perfect, talented, brilliant, well behaved-but-with-just-a-touch-of-mischief children in an over-the-top way.

But at some point, I started writing them differently and found it a useful exercise to try to sum up a year, with Emily, Ellen and Janice all providing editing, whether I wanted it or not.

The challenge this year, of course, is that the news hasn't been good. But writing it will give me a chance to concentrate on the positive, which of course is what I should be doing anyway.

Here, exclusively on JayGallagher.blogspot.com, is the first draft of this year's letter:

The dominant event for us this year was Jay’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in June. He had surgery in Boston on June 25 and since has had both radiation and chemotherapy treatments. He’s not in any pain but is tired most of the time.

The diagnosis was grim, but he has done his best to remain upbeat during this fight. Best thing to come out of it has been the rallying of Emily, Janice and Ellen, as well as Emily’s sister Judi and other relatives and friends, to help Jay cope.

Although the experience has been a trial, another positive to come out of it has been a greater appreciation on Jay’s part to the parts of life that are important - mostly human relationships - and more acceptance of minor irritants that before seemed more important than they actually are. He has become a big hugger.

He sorely misses the world of the Capitol, but writing a daily blog with his musings on politics, life and other subjects, as well as news in the cancer fight, provides him with an important writing outlet. The address is http://Jaygallagher.blogspot.com.

Emily has cut back on her practice, but still works about three days a week and has managed to fit in some hikes, canoe trips and other fun as she copes with having an ill spouse.

Janice, who spent a good chunk of the summer at home helping to care for Jay, is back for her second year of graduate work at Cornell and is especially enjoying being a teaching assistant. She has done a great job in fixing up the old house she bought in downtown Ithaca last year into a cozy, warm home.

Ellen has changed jobs, and is now helping to coordinate a national campaign to help immigrants feel more welcome. She is on the road a lot preaching her inclusive message, while at home she and Allyson are hoping the housing market dips enough in the Boston area so they can buy a house.

We’re all taking a cruise together next month in the Caribbean. We once thought such a trip would be too sedentary, but now view it as a chance to be together while having lots of options for things to do.

We hope the holiday season finds you healthy and happy.

Will Bruno verdict change Albany? Don't count on it

Reactions I've heard over ex-Sen. Joe Bruno's conviction on corruption charges have ranged from "it's about time'' to "there's no way this will hold up.''

Bruno, 80, the leader of the New York state Senate from 1994 until last year, was convicted yesterday on two counts of illegally using his public office for private gain. A federal jury determined that he did essentially no work for $200,000 he received from someone with business before the state and that he was also failed to disclose another $80,000 he got for a worthless race horse from the same source.

Those were the two of eight corruption charges the jury convicted him of. The jury said he was innocent of charges he illegally got almost $3 million more over a decade from other sources he did business with who had issues before the state. An appeal is likely.

Bruno backers point out that the U.S. Supreme Court this week heard arguments that might result in the law the conviction was based on being thrown out. The "honest-services'' statute, which says that it's a crime to used interstate communications to deprive the public of the right to have public officials work honestly on their behalf, is considered by some to be so vague as to be unconstitutional.

Many of those not on the side of the charming, silver-maned former lawmaker think it's that's unlikely the court will throw the law out.

Either way, it's hard to imagine Albany ever being the same. In the course of the trial, witnesses and documents showed that Bruno used state facilities and employees to essentially run his private business, which was so intertwined with his official duties it was hard to tell where one ended and the other started. Yet no one has proved he violated any state laws or ethics rules.

As Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group has been saying for years, "there is no cop walking the beat'' to enforce ethical behavior in the state Legislature.

It seems like a slam-dunk that lawmakers will have to adopt some stricter ethics guidelines so that it won't take a three-year FBI investigation to stop the next scandal. And yet the Senate has failed to act up until now on common-sense disclosure requirements.

An unrelated scandal might give a hint of potential problems. A Senate panel is now probing whether to oust Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted last month of assaulting his girlfriend.

A colleague, Ruben Diaz of the Bronx, protested yesterday that the Senate shouldn't go after his Latino colleague unless it also pursued Sen. Kevin Parker of the Bronx, an African-American who also has a history of assaults.

"I must question your initiative in creating a committee to investigate Senator Hiram Monserrate when you have not done the same for Senator Kevin Parker," Diaz said in a letter to Senate leaders.

This seems like an attempt to tie any reform initiatives up in ethnic-political knots. That's the kind of mindset that will have to be overcome before the Legislature takes any steps to reform itself.

In praise of junk literature

One might think that someone in my situation would use the time I have now to catch up on some great literature and become an even more erudite person.

One would be wrong.

I am now hip-deep in popular literature, which seems to have no redeeming social value other than it is fun.

We watched "Angels and Demons'' on TV the other night. I am also listening to "Lost Symbols'' on an I-pod (bet you never would have guessed I could figure out how to do that) and am reading David Baldacci's "True Blue'' in the old-fashioned print format.

For those of you totally out of touch with pop culture, "Angels and Demons and "Lost Symbols'' were both written by Dan Brown, of "The DeVinci Code'' fame. Both are the same types of stories: fantastic evil plots based on medieval secret rites where the characters seem to spend much of their time running through what look and sound like Roman catacombs, although "Symbols'' is set in Washington, D.C.

The hero is the same in both cases - a smart, determined prof who has a knack for attracting attractive women to his side and has incredible luck in sniffing out the bad guys and avoiding physical harm.

"True Blue'' is a slightly different but related genre, with a female ex-cop who talks tough, acts rashly but, you guessed it, has a heart of gold. She is being pursued by some mysterious people at the Pentagon even as she tries to solve a murder - a colleague of her new boyfriend was the victim. Baldacci has had 17 straight NY Times best-sellers, according to a blurb on the book jacket.

Shakespeare none of it is, and it often perplexes Emily that this is how I choose to spend my time rather than on more spiritual pursuits. But I answer that if vicarious adventure is the only kind available, it beats the alternative.

New York wins one

We had dinner last night with a retired couple that has made an unusual decision: they recently moved back from North Carolina to the Albany area.

And so far, even the news that the state Senate voted down same-sex marriage and that the state is facing a huge budget gap has not persuaded them they may have made a mistake.
,
For those who used to read my column, this is the same couple I wrote about in May after we visited them at their home in Flat Rock (near Asheville, in the southwest corner of North Carolina) after we discovered that while our houses were worth about the same, they were paying less than one-seventh (about $1,000) of the property taxes we pay.

I pointed out at the time that despite the disparity in taxes, schools were open in North Carolina, the roads paved and the police seemed to be managing to keep the peace.

Some things however, have proven more important to our friends even than money - chiefly the relatively close proximity of family and the presence of a large number of old friends in the area.

They're also more of MSNBC watchers than Fox News, so they also appreciate the "progressive'' nature of the state and the area.

So far the crowds and the traffic have proven to be a little startling to them after the few years spent in the Tarheel State, but they're quickly getting up to speed.

For once, North Carolina's loss is New York's gain. Now if we could just do something about that tax disparity...

Democracy in action

On the surface, this may not look like the greatest week the New York legislature has ever had, but it did accomplish something of significance.

Sure, it adopted a joke of a deficit-reduction plan that merely puts off hard decisions for a few months, in essence digging the state's fiscal hole even deeper than it was. The action reinforced the notion that when the going gets tough, most lawmakers just want to duck.

Even the "reform'' of higher pension contributions that was part of the package was marred by enough giveaways to unions to make those worried about the long-term fiscal health of the state whether it was worth it.

The more significant action, though, was the defeat by the state Senate of a bill to legalize same-sex marriages, which failed 38-26.

While obviously a setback for the cause of marriage equality, the vote was a rare instance of lawmakers going on record on an issue that didn't pass.

More typically, leaders count heads and not make their members make a "tough'' vote if the issue was likely to voted down.

But this time, because of intense pressure from supporters of the idea and some arm-twisting by (he admittedly weak) Gov. Paterson, the issue was brought to a vote and many lawmakers who had been firmly on the fence had to come down on one side or the other.

Unfortunately there was little debate, with only one lawmaker on the prevailing side bothering to explain his position.

The supporters have vowed to work to unseat those who voted no and replace them with people who share their views. The opponents say they'll work on the other side.

That's how the system is supposed to work, but rarely does at the Capitol.

Back to ol' chemo routine

It was back to the ol' chemo routine today after almost a month away from it. As usual it wasn't a bad experience, but I have to brace for the effects that usually hit the next day. I expect to be more tired than my (now) normal semi-exhausted state.

The stuff (technically, gemcitabine) burned a little more than usual going in, but a hot pack and the diversion provided by Emily's cousin, David Jacobowitz, who stopped in for a visit, brought relief.

I was also hit again by the routine of it all. There must have been more than 20 people in the room all getting "infusions'' of various types - most of whom looked normal in most respects. If you saw them the street wouldn't guess they're cancer patients, except for the ones who have lost their hair and choose not to wear wigs. Of course, it makes one wonder about the problems and hidden heartaches of so many people walking around out there.

It's two more weeks of the same cycle, then a week off that happens to fall on Christmas week. Then I have tests and doctor visits planned to gauge what happened as a result of the cyberknife treatments that I had three weeks ago. Then we'll plot a strategy from there, which will most likely include continuing chemo in some form.

Guest missed already

We took my sister-in-law Judi to the airport today, and she is now winging her way back to California after spending the last two weeks here.

This is the second time since I was diagnosed in June that she has traveled across the country to see us, and I miss her already.

She has provided not only invaluable help with chores like food preparation (especially Thanksgiving) cleaning up and shopping, she has been an amiable companion for me and someone on whose shoulder I can (and do) literally cry.

For Emily, who needed a break from putting up with not-always-cheery me, she also provided welcome company, and her nieces had an all-too-infrequent chance to connect with her.

Even though she has lived in California for almost as long as I have known Emily, we have stayed closely connected over the years. As a long-time corporate human-resources executive who retired about eight years ago, she has always made time for family - and especially for fabulous cruises and other trips she's taken the girls on.

When she was struck down by an unusual arm disorder last year, Emily went out to California to help out her only sister (a brother died as an infant).

The relationship is different now, with me most in need of comfort, and she once again has come through. I'm already looking forward to her returning later this winter.

For everything there is a season

We walked this morning in the midst of a snow flurry - the first flakes of the year and the best indication, along with flipping the calendar page, that winter is on the way.

The main excitement about snow has always been that skiing will soon be possible. I'm hoping this year to still to be able to do some cross-country trails.

But of course winter will mean different things to us this year than it has in the past. First off, we're planning to take a cruise in January - something we have both long resisted because it seemed like too sedentary a way to spend a vacation, but now seems to fit our needs better. Best part is if I need to just sit or lie down, I can do that while the rest of the party can go have fun.

I also have a heightened sense of coziness this season. One of my real delights now is coming in from the cold and sitting or lying with a blanket on me, snug and warm. The best part of the day for me is feeling that coziness when I wake up, and knowing I don't have to leave the cocoon immediately to go out and face the world.

Christmas will also be a far different holiday as well this year. I hope I can use the opportunity to reflect on the joys that remain in life and not on what has been lost. Certainly I will appreciate another excuse to gather with family.

In praise of public works

From left, Emily, Ellen, Judi, Janice and Jay at Lucifer Falls

There's a story in yesterday's NY Times about the end of the era of big public-works projects, and a column today about the need for a national WPA-type jobs project to get the unemployment rate down.

Both stories took on added relevance because of a hike we took yesterday at a place called Lucifer Falls in Ithaca, a spectacular natural attraction made accessible by a WPA project that built trails and stairs on either side of the natural cascade more than 70 years ago.

Those government workers, hired with taxpayer money when the unemployment rate was two or three times more than the current (10 percent-plus) rate, cut footholds into the rock that enclosed the falls so that generations present and future could get the sense of wonder that falling water seems to inspire.

The point of the Sunday Times story was that large-scale public-works projects seem to have ended for the time being with the completion of Boston's Big Dig two years ago, just as the recession was starting to hit. And yet, the story pointed out, big projects like bridges, dams and highways have often spurred economic growth and generated far more wealth than they cost to produce. The Erie Canal and the state Thruway are two often-cited examples.

The federal government has of course been spreading hundreds of billions of dollars around as part of its stimulus package to get the economy rolling, but most of it is targeted for small-bore projects that can be started quickly.

It's no small irony in New York that even as the government was searching for projects to spend money on, a key bridge across Lake Champlain was nearing the end of its useful life, and is now closed, disrupting life for thousands in Vermont and the Crowne Point area of New York. It's not clear where the money is gong to come from to replace it, and for now travelers are being asked to make do with a ferry.

After our spectacular hike, it's easier to understand the importance of public investments, even in down times, and how there are some things government can do that need to be done, even if the private sector can't be harnessed to do them.

Now, does anyone have a few billion dollars lying around for a new Tappan-Zee bridge across the Hudson? That will surely pay off in the long run. It's the short run that's the problem.

Road Trip

Today we took our first trip out of town unrelated to cancer since I was diagnosed in June. We drove about three hours here to Ithaca this afternoon.

Ithaca prides itself on being "centrally isolated," with almost no divided highways in all of Tompkins County, where it is located. The world's longest driveway, I-88, which runs between Binghamton and Schenectady, ostensibly built to aid the commute of former Senate Majority Leader Warren Anderson of Binghamton, gets you only about half way here. Then it's all back roads through hard-scrabble looking countryside until you emerge in what some people refer to as the "People's Republic of Ithaca" for its liberal politics.

We made that trip so that we could all see the miracles Janice has wrought with the 140-year-old house she bought last year. With the help of my carpenter brother, a handyman tenant and various tax credits, she has turned what appeared to be a crumbling structure into a cozy and lovely home. The roof, windows, hardwood floors, furnace and a hot water heater have all been replaced or refinished.

It's on a "transitional block" near downtown and her house is helping to tip the neighborhood in a positive direction.

This being New York, the taxes, of course, are outrageous. But the STAR program as well as a couple of tenants are helping Janice, who makes a modest living as a graduate student, keep her head above water financially. That's one more thing to be thankful for.

Laverne & Shirley

My sister-in-law Judi's best friend is named Shirley. So while doing a charade trying to get people to guess the title of the TV show "Laverne and Shirley," I merely pointed at her and then pointed to the empty space beside her. For some reason, that didn't work.

So next thing I went for was lavatory, figuring "lav" was the first syllable of Laverne. But the closest response I got was "peeing all over the world."

I actually solved the dilemma by aping the explosion of a volcano with lava flowing down the side. From there, it was a short jump to title of the 70's comedy.

Yesterday's charades game may be the beginning of a new tradition. We had Thanksgiving at our house for the first time in memory with Judi, my brother Neil, his wife Wendy, Ellen, Allyson, Janice and Charlie the dog all travelling hundreds of miles to be here.

Previous Thanksgiving traditions have been very important and meaningful to me but traditions evolve as situations change. It's nice to have a potentially new tradition to look forward to.

Here's a video of my charades triumph:

Happy Thanksgiving

It's easy to be cynical about what New Yorkers have to be thankful for in 2009. The state's finances are a mess, its governor ineffective, the legislature a joke, infrastructure crumbling, health care system teetering, economy stagnant and education system hugely expensive.

On the other hand, as we like to say in editorial pages, I took a walk today in an idyllic state park only two miles from our house. The birds were singing, the deer cavorting and streams gurgling on a piece of publicly owned land less than ten miles from the Capitol. New York has recently expanded this park to help hold back the suburban sprawl which had seen McMansions proliferate in the area before the recession stalled their advance.

Overall, you have to give New York credit for having a great system of parks, including the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, the largest public reserve in the lower 48 states.

More importantly of course, most New Yorkers are healthy and won't be hungry tomorrow. Millions will have loved ones to share a meal with. Those are joys even a dysfunctional government usually can't screw up.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Is there a connection here?

In an important sense, it doesn't make any difference whether a federal jury finds former New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno guilty of cheating taxpayers out of the "honest services'' they're entitled to.

The reason is if what he did isn't against the law, it should be.

Testimony and evidence admitted at his trial, the most closely watched political story in Albany since Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal last year, show that he violated the public trust even if it's unclear whether his conduct rises to the level of crimes.

Information disclosed at the trial shows that he:
-- Used state facilities and employees in his private consulting business that brought him $3.2 million;
-- Failed to disclose the source of his income;
-- Took money from investment firms for introductions to labor unions who were looking for advice about where to invest their pension money at the same time those unions had business before the Senate. Guess what? They took his advice and he made a 10 percent commission.
-- He took tens of thousands of dollars from a friend who had an interest in a firm that got $500,000 in grants from the state.

Federal prosecutors were able to dig out information that reporters, local and state officials apparently missed for years. It almost makes those citizens who believe that state officials should work exclusively for their benefit look like saps.

Meanwhile, Bruno's successors in the Senate are carrying on in the grand tradition of irresponsibility, refusing to make spending cuts that would hurt education and health care to balance the budget. By failing to act they are placing the state's financial stability at risk, according to the governor.

And while Bruno's financial dealings have been bared, one of the biggest unanswered questions at the Capitol is, how much money does Bruno's former counterpart in the Assembly, Speaker Sheldon Silver, get from the trial-lawyer firm he is associated with? Silver, who has been the top Assemlly official since 1994, has steadfastly refused to disclose how much he gets or who it comes from and he doesn't have to.

Like Bruno used to, Silver makes about $125,000 for his part-time government work.

Not counting Bruno, about 20 lawmakers have been removed from office for fraud-related crimes over the past few years.

... All of this news, and fewer reporters than ever to write about it, and fewer newspaper subscribers than ever to read about it... Is there a connection here?

The grass shouldn't always be greener

My sister-in-law Judi and I were sitting in a popular lunch place today, leisurely attacking our grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches, as dozens of well dressed people buzzed by us. They seemed intent on getting their food, eating it and getting back to work, even sometimes checking their blackberries while they waited in line or ate.

As is often the case when I'm in such places these days, I was thinking how much I envied those people, with firm schedules, deadlines and a sense of accomplishment likely on their daily agendas while a largely empty afternoon loomed before me.

But later Judi, a former corporate human-resources manager who has been retired for eight years, said her attitude is to enjoy such moments and not have to worry about rushing back to work. While staying active with volunteer work, hobbies and friends, she has adjusted to a slower pace of life.

Savor it, she suggested, and I did manage to recall all of the rushed meals, hurried trips to the Capitol, editors needing stories minutes after a news event, spokesmen who didn't return calls, politicians who wouldn't give me a straight answer and the other daily frustrations of my former life.

I am sure back in those days the sudden lifting of the burden of producing blogs and news stories daily would have seemed like a great relief sometimes. And
since that is my situation now, of course it makes the most sense to enjoy what ever hand you're dealt.

So I'm trying. There are obviously worse things in life than sleeping in, taking long walks, lingering over meals, reading my fill of novels and catching up on e-mails.

Albany isn't Wyoming

We learned this weekend that Albany is not Wyoming and that it is closer to Broadway than one might think.

A local state lawmaker, Jack McEneny, made the point about Albany and Wyoming after a performance of "The Laramie Project'' at Albany High School today. The play is about the 1998 hate-crime murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was gay.

During a discussion after the performance, McEneny responded to a suggestion that Albany has similar intolerance problems by pointing out that New York has a hate-crime law that adds penalties onto infractions that have an aspect of bias to them.

He also took the opportunity to point out that the fault lines on homosexual rights in New York now is on the gay-marriage issue. The Assembly has passed a bill legalizing the unions, but whether the Senate will pass the measure, which Gov. David Paterson has promised to sign, remains unclear.

On the other geographical question concerning Albany, it seemed closer than 150 miles (the actual distance) to Broadway yesterday when we saw a local production of "My Fair Lady,'' where the leads could have given Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn a run for their money.

It was also a good way to ease into the more serious issues of bias and prejudice in the "Laramie'' show.

Finally, a last word about volcanoes. Buffalo friend Peter Reese corrected me about the cause of the year with no summer.

"Hey dude, Krakatoa blew its top in 1883,'' he told me. "The year with no summer was the result of the eruption of Tambora in 1815, the largest of the modern era. (The nineteenth century was a bad time to live next to a volcano.)''

Shouldn't "Nineteenth Century'' be capitalized?

No more chemo 'til December

Good news on the chemo front: none 'til December.

Our oncologist told us today that it's a good idea to take a little break from chemo after the radiation treatments I had last week. And since next week is Thanksgiving, it seems to make sense to hold off until after that so that my head doesn't crash into the mashed potatoes and gravy next Thursday.

That also sets up a three-week round of treatments before taking Christmas week off, and it would be nice not to feel too crappy that week.

We will get our first indication of what effect if any the cyberknife procedure had that week - I'm scheduled for another CT-Scan on the 21st that will examine the tumor and then will talk to the doc about it on the 23rd.

Our Albany doc told us today that I am his first patient who has had the procedure, so we're in unchartered waters here.

One more word on the end of the world I wrote about yesterday: friend Peter Slcoum points out that in 1816 NY experienced "the year of no summer,'' when it snowed in the Adirondacks in June, July and August.

The reason was the eruption of Mt. Krakatoa (sp?) in Indonesia, which spewed enough ash into the atmosphere to block out the sun in parts of the world for months. That gave a real boost to those who thought then that the end was near.

They were wrong then and let's hope they're wrong this time too!

How close is doomsday?

The media presents such a blizzard of conflicting information these days anyone with his or her eyes and ears open has to wonder about whom to believe.

This week I happened to catch the movie "2012,'' the premise of which is the world is doomed because of a confluence of cosmic events on the winter solstice in three years. Buttressing this doomsday scenario is the ancient Mayan calendar, which shows time running out on that date, and a 50-year-old theory about how the earth's crust could become displaced.

This gives the moviemakers an excuse to use all sorts of neat special effects to show Los Angeles falling into the Pacific Ocean, a tsunami drowning the Himalayas, an aircraft carrier crashing into the White House and all sorts of other fun scenes. As one review said, people do love seeing things get blown up.

Yet earlier in the week The NY Times said, essentially, not to worry. The world may end "soon,'' a story in the paper's weekly Science section said, but "soon'' in a geologic sense could mean tens of millions of years, so there's no reason to stop buying unripe bananas quite yet. There's no particular threat looming in 2012, the story said.

The Times was in part quoting NASA, which has actually been getting mail from people scared by the movie and felt it necessary to respond.

Scaring the heck out of people is of course a time-tested way to make money, and most people seem able to just shrug off the implications, of any, if fantastic movies like this.

Nevertheless, it is sobering to realize that many more people will see the movie, which will probably make a profit of 10s or 100s of millions, than will see story in The Times, which is struggling to stay in the black. And energy wasted worrying out such a thing detracts from more realistic threats, like global warming or the demise of newspapers.

One last nit to pick (2 actually)

I promise this is my last grammar nit-pick post for a while, but I can't resist this one.

Yesterday I went to the Siena-Northeastern basketball game. The ticket said it started at "12:00 p.m.'' This confused me, because there is no such time as 12 p.m. By definition, 12:00 is neither a.m. nor p.m.

OK, so it didn't really confuse me. I knew that by 12:00 p.m. they meant noon. (Why they were playing at noon on a Tuesday is another story - suffice it to say it was a chance to get on national TV as part of a 24-hour ESPN marathon to mark the beginning of the college-basketball season.)

I also know that by 12:00 a.m. people usually mean midnight. And I have no idea why people say "12 noon,'' since "11 noon'' or "1 noon'' make no sense.

Also have to mention the comma splice on the back of the ticket. "No refund or exchanges, the ticket is nontransferable,'' it declares, avoiding at all costs the simple period that would properly have separated two distinct thoughts into two sentences.

OK, you can now stop sending me examples of errors I have made in pointing out other people's mistakes, and I'll go back to silently stewing about such issues.

The institute for writers

The New York State Writers Institute has hosted hundreds of distinguished authors at SUNY Albany over the last 25 years. While Hunter S. Thompson, Frank McCourt, Saul Bellow and Richard Russo have been among them, Lynne Truss has not.

Truss, regular readers may recall, is the author of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves,'' a book about the deterioration punctuation use and, therefore, the decline of the English language.

I have no inside information about this, but I suspect that were she to be invited, one of the first things Truss would have mentioned is that the name of the organization should be the "New York State Writers' Institute." How can "writers'' be anything but possessive, and therefore how can the title not include that all-important apostrophe?

This was brought to mind last night when we attended the institute's 25th-anniversary celebration. The ceremony was pretty thoroughly botched, with malfunctioning microphones and too-long speeches by the people who run the institute and not enough time for the two stars of the evening, Mario Cuomo and Doris Kearns Goodwin (a Colby College graduate as well as a Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer).

Both were still worth listening to in the limited time they were allotted. Cuomo, New York governor from 1983 to 1994, pulled the classic stunt to those who are familiar with him of discarding a question he didn't want to answer (why weren't you president?) substituting one of his own (how should Barack Obama handle Afghanistan?) and answering it (make Congress either declare war and get the country behind the endeavor, or leave if Congress won't do it, since the war is unwinnable without the support of the country.)

Goodwin had the best answer I've heard on why Congress doesn't work any more: most members now go home weekends to raise money for TV ads to get re-elected and don't develop across-the-aisle friendships like they used to. Plus the splintered media encourages extreme positions.

What's been lost: the ability of politicians like Lyndon Johnson to get Republicans to cross party lines to pass important bills like the voting-rights act in 1965.

Even if it is punctuation-challenged, the institute has brought lots of interesting people to the area. Maybe its name will be fixed and Truss will come next year.

World is going to hell

I'm surprised that in the more than five months I've been absent from work, our papers haven't been flooded with complaints from readers upset that stories from Albany don't have enough hyphens in them, or have them in the wrong places.

My biggest grammatical tick is assuring that compound adjectives ("deficit-reduction plan, last-minute victory, public-health assessment,'' etc) are connected by hyphens, while adverbs and the adjectives they modify ("newly painted store, highly decorated veteran, deeply troubled project'') are not.

I have tortured generations of correspondents and interns with these basic grammatical lessons. I am used to watching them roll their eyes.

This issue came to mind again because I just finished a fun book called "Eats, Shoots and Leaves'' about the deterioration of punctuation and how that is causing problems with understanding language, especially in the instant-communication age.

Author Lynne Truss, tongue in cheek, dedicated the book "to the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St. Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution."

The title refers to a joke about a panda bear who went into a restaurant, had a meal, shot the place up and then walked out. He explained that that's what pandas do, according to a guide book. The problem is there should be no comma after "eats.'' Then the phrase merely describes the panda's diet of shoots and leaves.

The other reason I thought of picky grammar was a recent Maureen Dowd column in the NY Times about greedy bankers.

"Goldmine Sachs, as its known, is out for itself,'' she wrote, in a sentence that presumably went through multiple layers of editors and I'm sure she was proud of as a clever turn of phrase on the name of the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Truss dedicated several pages of her book to the idiocy of not including an apostrophe in "it's'' when it is meant to read "it is'' and not the possessive.

And yet this simple mistake found its way into the story of one of the best known columnists in the country on arguably the most influential page of any newspaper. Yet there was no outcry the next day.

I can almost feel myself growing into a curmudgeon, which I think will suit me.

In praise of pen and ink

Many years ago, a thoroughly love-besotted college sophomore kept his Dad and brother-in-law, who had made a three-hour trip to Maine to pick him up for summer vacation, waiting for a couple of hours in his dorm room.

He was busy helping his girlfriend pack and doing his best to charm her parents and sister.

The Dad was a mild-mannered man, but steam was almost coming out of his ears when his distracted offspring finally showed up and started to pack his own stuff.

I know about this because the guy was me, the girl was Emily, and we wrote about this day, humorous only in retrospect, in letters that we have retained all of these years.

This weekend we dusted off a few of the hundreds of letters we wrote back and forth over a summer she was away being a camp counselor and the two years she spent at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst after transferring from Colby. (That move was, she now says, her last-ditch attempt to find a nice Jewish boy. Oh well, can't win 'em all.)

One thing we both noticed immediately while reading the letters was how much clearer our handwriting was back in the '60s. Funny what you can do when there aren't any keyboards around.

What will be the equivalent in another 40 years of the old bags into which we jammed these letters, and will there be an electronic version of the back of a closet where they have sat since we moved here in 1984?

Much is gained by blogs, e-mails, twitters, etc., but much can be lost by the passing of more prosaic technology as well. Hopefully devices to save such seemingly prosaic but eventually precious communications are being developed even as I write this.

Flash: Insurance company does the right thing

Forget what I have said before about health-insurance companies. We got word today that Empire Blue Cross-Blue Shield will pay for the cyberknife treatments I had this week. We don't have an exact amount on the cost, but it runs into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Initially the company said no, claiming that the procedure is experimental, but we went ahead with the treatment anyway. We gathered strong opinions from docs that we sent to the insurance company, pointing out that the treatment is now widely accepted, and that it is one of the few viable options for someone in my situation. The company rep was extremely helpful in directing us through the appeals process.

Such rationality, apparently, paid off, as the company took a serious second look at its decision and reversed its position.

The decision might even get me to stop complaining, even if only briefly, about the soaring cost of health insurance.

Why medical costs are so high

I got to talking this week with one of the cyberknife nurses about the unusual shirt I had to wear for the radiation treatments.

It was made from a rough, clingy material with no sleeves but lots of elasticity and some wire connections that lit up when plugged in. It looked something like a football referee's jersey.

Its main task was to measure my breathing rhythm, which helped to direct the robot delivering the radiation. That's needed because every time I breathe, the tumor moves.

The nurse was complaining that the shirts have to be thrown out each time a patient is through with it - the wiring precludes washing and dry cleaning doesn't get it clean enough.

That brought me up short. How much do they cost, I asked. What it costs to make or what we have to pay for it? she shot back. Answer: the hospital pays about $500 apiece.

Which may or may not be part of the reason that health care now accounts for a fifth of our economy and why it may cost us nearly as much as we paid for our first house to have had this procedure done.

For those who missed it, the link to get to my radio interview with Alan Chartock that aired today is:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/3566/0/1576435/WAMC.Speakers.Corner/Alan.Chartock...In.Conversation.with.Jay.Gallagher

Reminder

The radio interview with Alan Chartock I taped last month is due to be broadcast on WAMC at 1pm tomorrow, Thursday November 12 on the "In Conversation With..." program.

Those who can't catch it should look for it on WAMC.org and Ellen will post a link (most likely from this site) if there is one available.

Cyberknife Fini

Cyberknife Fini

I finished my third and last cyberknife treatment today, managng to lie still for another couple of hours while a device that looks like an old tv camera attached to a robotic arm moved around my body, zapping the tumor in my pancreas from various angles. Or at least that's what they tell me, I couldn't feel, see or hear a thing.

We should know the results in about a month when I have a CT scan that is supposed to show whether the tumor has shrunk.

It's kind of a giddy feeling not to have any immediate event to dread.

Those of you who warned that "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown might not be too distracting were right. But an impending murder helped the last half hour or so go by more quickly.

We're about to hit the road to Albany where we plan to thankfully stay ensconced for at least the next few weeks. We've been told to expect even more fatigue than usual which I'm learning to cope with.

The big event now on our calendars is the same as for most people: Thanksgiving.

Over the cyberknife hump

We're now over the hump on cyberknife - two two-hour treatments down and one to go.

Today's was a little shorter than yesterday's since I did a better job keeping still (the machine shuts down when you move) and the nurse taped my feet together to end my unfortunate habit of crossing and uncrossing my ankles.

The Dan Brown book was also a little better- someone's severed hand was discovered on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC, giving hope for more action and gore to come to distract me. It still ain't easy lying there for so long, though.

The very charming spokeswoman from Blue Cross just called to say our appeal of their decision not to pay for the treatment has been denied. We're taking it to the next appeal level.

We are enjoying staying with Ellen and Allyson, although I made the shocking discovery (when I went looking for Monday Night Football to watch) they do not have ESPN on their cable system. I thought that was as essential to a home as running water, but found out otherwise. They offered to find the game for me on-line but it would not have been the same. Thank God they have TiVo or I would dispair for the coming generation.

Emily is adjusting well to the big city. Since I can't drive the seven or so miles through thick urban traffic betweeen the apartment and the hospital because of the drugs in me, she is returning to her Mass.-driving roots and acclimated quickly to the lunatics who get behind car steering wheels here. Not even a dent yet.

We plan to head home tomorrow afternoon after the last treatment is over and are looking forward to being home. We won't know the results of this treatment for several weeks.

Cyberknife one-third over

Cyberknife is now one-third done with two-thirds to go. The first session today at Beth Israel-Deaconness Hospital in Boston was long - two and a half hours - but not very stressful, especially with a couple of Ativans in me.

The most important thing is that the room where I laid on a table was wide open and the radiation machine,which flits back and forth over me for most of the time, doesn't come within a couple of feet of my body - so no claustrophobia.

I brought along a CD of Dan Brown's new book about Masons and Washington DC that although it's gotten terrible reviews sounded highly distracting. But I was too spacey to listen to it closely.

The nurses told me to on the lookout for nausea and (even more) tiredness, but they haven't kicked in yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Also a development on the cat front: Maya, Ellen and Allyson's cat, seems glad to see me and has even jumped up in my lap a couple of times and purred while I stroked her. Still no final decision to get one of our own though.

Cyberknife time

Off to hit the Mass. Turnpike again today to travel to Boston. Too bad you can't rack up frequent-driver and toll-payer points. At least it gives us a chance to buy that (relatively) cheap Mass. gas.

My first cyberknife appointment is scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow at Beth-Israel Deaconess Hospital, with additional two-hour sessions at 10 a.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday. It is hard to imagine how I am going to lie still that whole time, but lots of other people have done it so I guess I can too.

Still up in the air is who will pay for it. Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield promised us an answer by tomorrow. Of course, we're going ahead with it either way and are prepared to wrestle with them more later.

This treatment is actually one of the major payoffs for going to Boston for treatment, since there is nothing similar offered in Albany. And this is offered as a replacement for six weeks of radiation (for an hour a day, five days a week) that is the standard of care here. That sounds grim.

We had a scare this weekend when the day after the last round of chemo I got a fever that spiked at 101.9 degrees. I was afraid that would throw off the cyberknife timing. However, with the help of a little Tylenol, it quickly receded.

Anyway, I'm bringing the new Dan Brown book to listen to on CDs to help pass the time. I will be glad when it's over. We won't know how successful the treatment has been in shrinking the tumor for a month or so.

another cx

I apologize to Janice for the slight misinterpretation of what she told me today about academics and pressing political problems.

My interpretation of what she's saying now are that academics will study an issue to death and at such great length that by the time they reach a conclusion the issue is likely to be moot anyway.

But what do I know? I am just one of those first drafts of history guys.

cx on Dad's Blog

As typical for a journalist, my father didn't get quite right what I was saying about academia's interest in solving political problems today over lunch.

It's not so much that academics don't want to get their hands dirty dealing with contemporary issues, but that academics have a lot of theories about what causes big problems. Once they have their theories, they take a long time to gather careful data supporting that theory, and often find that there are many different interpretations of the data and subsequent policy implications.

More clearly, my hunch is that academics who study this stuff know enough to know there is no easy solution.

That said, I do agree with my dad that academics, and political scientists especially, need to be "more normatively focused" - meaning, they need to be careful that there painstaking, exhaustive work teaches us something about how things should work, and how to get there.

Thinking too much is a dangerous thing

The day after chemo is typically a lay-low day and gives me time to think, which I know is a dangerous thing.

The tendency was compounded today by having a budding political scientist (Janice) home for a visit.

We of course have been talking about the elections, and the Republican gains in suburbs around the state and country. It's only a year since a Dem sweep of almost everything but now things seem to be swinging back to the Repubs. It seems possible that the GOP will take back Congress next year.

Just what do voters want?

The NY Times wasn't much help today. On the op-ed page, one columnist (Paul Krugman) said Obama's economic-stimulus plan didn't go far enough, while on the same page another (David Brooks) argued that independents want less government involvement in the economy and in their lives.

Then on the front page of the local paper was a story about how the government extending unemployment benefits for up to 20 weeks is an important lifeline for millions of chronically unemployed people. I suspect many of these people decry "big government.''

That got me thinking about the essentially false choices our system tends to offer - whoever is out of power tends to look better in bad economic times, while incumbents seldom have trouble when times are good - and how making tough decisions (raising taxes or cutting spending) always seems to be a political death sentence.

Take New York, for example. State Senate Dems don't like the cuts that Gov. Paterson is proposing, but offer nothing of their own to deal with the deficit. Paterson's payoff for being the more responsible party is record-low poll ratings.

In New Jersey, Gov-elect Chris Christie promises to cut property taxes, even though state government is facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit, and offers no specifics on how to save money.

The system seems broken. What do those in academia think about such problems? Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer, Janice warned. Those in ivory towers seldom want to get their hands dirty dealing with such real-world issues.

Congratulations to Yankees? Sure

This is a copy of a note sent over my name today to a friend who is a Yankee fan:

Dear Tom:

A warm congratulations on the Yankees World Series Win. I do believe that is number 27 -- now 20 more than the Red Sox. Now, I know much has been made of the team "buying'' its championship, so I was heartened to see the likes of Jeter, Posada, Rivera and Pettitte play such important roles in the series. And, yes, I certainly noticed that the clinching game for the Yankees came at the hands of Pedro Martinez.

So, again, I'm happy for you, and the Yankees.

Sincerely,

Jay Gallagher

No, of course I didn't write this, which is why signature issues on the Internet are such a mess. It was a figment of the imagination of a Capitol reporter who knew I would be snarly at best today and so took it upon himself to express my sentiments over last night's win. Makes me wonder about the credibility of the stories he writes about the supposedly "dysfunctional'' state government.

My congratulations to Yankee fans (who won the World Series last night) have been more of the snide variety, like, "you finally got your money's worth,'' or "it couldn't happen to a more obnoxious group of fans'' (Phillies are a close second on that race too, especially compared to the dignified academics who tend to populate Fenway Park - The "Jeter sucks, and A-Rod swallows'' signs you see occasionally there notwithstanding.)

It's time to move on, to revel in the collapse of New York's professional football teams (actually Jersey-based) as well as the ongoing struggles of its hockey and basketball teams, while the Patriots and Celtics sweep all before them. (It's too early to worry about the Bruins.)

Spring training is a mere four months away. Which reminds me, if a team can't clinch the title until November, it shouldn't count.

Is all politics local?

I got invited to a party to watch the returns in our town's elections last night - the first time I have ever attended such an event other than as a reporter.

At first, it showed all the excitement of a wake. These were Republicans in a town with 9,300 enrolled Democrats, 6,500 unenrolled and only 6,000 members of the the GOP. The Dems held every town office, to say nothing of control of our county, state and federal governments.

Thirty or 40 people gathered at a pizza joint to watch as the results were called in from polling places.

Shortly after the polls closed, the GOP candidate for the top town job of supervisor, Sam Messina, was talking about how the election wasn't the most important thing in his life, how it had been a great experience meeting people, etc., and all of the other things candidates expecting to lose say.

But from the beginning, something peculiar was happening. While all of the other local GOP candidates were taking their expected drubbing, Sam was hanging close to his Democratic incumbent opponent in early returns.

"We're at least going to give him a race,'' he said about 45 minutes after the polls closed and he was only slightly behind.

At the end, he pulled narrowly ahead, by about 130 votes out of about 9,000 cast. The final tally will be decided after about 400 absentees are counted, but typically absentees break about the same way votes cast on election day do, making it likely that Messina will be the next supervisor.

As the crowd erupted at the news, Messina climbed up on a chair, urging caution about the final results and thanking those who had helped him and pledging to work with his (apparently) vanquished foe. It was good he had something planned to say in case he won as well as the expected concession speech.

What happened? There were no exit polls to provide a clue. Maybe it's a tiny signal that the bloom is off the Barack Obama rose, as the results of the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races also seemed to indicate last night? Or did people pay enough attention so that his calls for lower spending and less partisanship actually resonated with enough voters to make the difference?

The unpredictability of politics is part of the fun. Sometimes voters are smarter than the pros give them credit for.

Feline fantasy?

Those who read this blog closely will recall the fiasco when Emily and I cared for Charlie, Janice's English sheepdog, a few weeks ago. We don't seem to have the patience or aptitude to be pet owners.

That experience would seem to have bolted the already closed door on the chances of us ever having a pet. But a crack has appeared.

While at Ellen's this week, her cat, Maya, jumped up on my lap and then purred contently while I stroked her back. I liked that. I'm home a lot. Anyone would like to have an affectionate critter around, especially one who doesn't demand much.

I used to be allergic to cats but that is one aspect of my health that seems to have improved over the years. No more itchy eyes, sniffling and sneezing when a cat is around.

The big advantage cats have over dogs is there is no need to walk them or pick up after them. The only chores appear to be buying and putting out food and cleaning out the litter box.

We had a dog only briefly when I was a kid I remember my mother complaining a lot about the care it took (my sister had sprung it on them without warning one summer when a couple she knew split up.) But we all loved him for the few years he was around.

As parents we favored goldfish and other low-maintenance creatures for our kids. Janice demanded a dog when we moved here from Rochester in exchange for her acquiescence - she was 7) but we bargained her down to a gerbil. The animal bit her a few weeks after we moved here, ending that experiment.

The odds are still against any change, but we plan to spend three nights with Ellen and Allyson next week during my cyberknife treatments. Maybe Maya will be cute and cuddly enough to open the crack a little wider.

Ready for Cyberknife

I was injected with dye, had a body mold made of myself, had a CT scan and received a couple of pep talks in Boston today in preparation for my cyberknife treatments next week.

All were to make sure they know exactly where the tumor is and therefore zap the right place in a series of three, two-hour treatments of hyper concentrated radiation. The task is made easier by the operation I had back in June which, among other things, placed markers in the tumor to help guide the radiation. Both the doc and the nurses assured me that the procedure is painless and mostly comfortable even though I have to remain relatively still the whole time. Drugs will help.

Also the procedure will be in an open room with nothing over my head and therefore none of the dread of an MRI exam for me. Our biggest task this week would seem to be to find a good book on tape to listen to during the procedure.

Our doc said the results won't be obvious for a month or so since it takes that long for the effects of the radiation to show up on the tumor. It would be a lie to say I'm still not anxious about undergoing the procedure. But I do feel better about it than I did yesterday. This will be the first time we've really directly attacked the tumor.

The big outstanding issue of course is getting the insurance company to pay for it. So far they're taking the unreasonable position that this is an experimental procedure. But it's been used successfully hundreds of times. We have to figure out a way to make Empire Blue Cross see the light.

What's the deal with Halloween?

We're in the midst of our annual assault by juvenile ghosts, goblins and witches (and even one kid dressed as a tax collector!) and worry both that we'll run out of candy and also that we will have too much left (and thus be tempted to eat it).

Halloween has never been a favorite holiday of mine, since I've failed to look into the medieval origins and the cathartic, nervous jokes about death and dying that seem to be at the center of it. Seems like there's plenty of talk and evidence of such things without a holiday to focus on it.

On the other hand, as they say on editorial pages, dressing up can be fun and it's a chance to have neighbors visit and see how much kids have grown.

At a party last night, I showed zero originality by putting on much of my Red Sox paraphernalia and being a Sox fan. Yawn. My favorite costume was a worn by a blind friend who came as "blind justice." Best conversation starter was a woman who came in medieval garb and got talking about her reenactment activities.

Wish I had also thought of a clever-low-cost costume a friend came up with that featured several pictures of chickens taped onto his shirt and a magnet worn around his neck - a chick magnet, of course.

Off to Boston tomorrow in preparation for Monday "mapping'' to get ready for the cyberknife procedure the following week.