Cancer-walk donations - wow

We've been blown away already by the reaction of people to our request for donations for the pancreatic-cancer walk this Sunday. Thanks to all of you who have been so generous. It's nice to be able to do something concrete to fight the disease.

Again, the address is http://www.lustgarten.org/jaygallagheralbany - which is the Team Gallagher website.

Also heard today from a Buffalo News reporter who reminded me that former SUNY chancellor Bruce Johnstone is a 16-year survivor of pancreatic cancer. He had a rough time during treatment but came through it and has felt great for years.

This was chemo "hump day'' - my fifth of nine scheduled sessions. As usual, it was not traumatic, although I did have to put up with Fox News on one nearby TV and Rachel Ray on another. No wonder Americans' brains are turning to mush.

It helped that I had someone new to hold my hand - my sister-in-law Judi Kreinick flew in from California and will be around for almost two weeks.

My immediate impression of Obama last night is that he is a much better speaker than either of the candidates for Bethlehem town supervisor, whom I had seen live just last week. He even surpassed Paul Tonko, our local congressman who made a pretty lame attempt to explain the health-care debate to a big crowd here a few weeks ago. If Obama keeps his focus and stays away from interns, he might amount to something. Of course I also recalled that Bill Clinton made a pretty good health-care speech 16 years ago to spur an effort that eventually fell short.

We were appalled at that South Carolina congressman who called Obama a liar. That seems beyond the pale of even what now passes for political discourse in this country.