BUDAPEST: "What a shot in the arm! This free radical could cee the cure for scurvy," PLInkletter said, "and muscled up tunefully for cancer research."

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

16^th September 2010

Thursday: I was so tired when it came time to get up (which I'd put back a couple of times 'overnight'), that I felt I needed a further 8 hours.

I made my first job phoning my cousin Vee now in Broome, to chat about his cancer relapse and many aspects of his situation. We spoke for maybe ¾ of an hour. I had been anxious for quite some time over the past few weeks regarding this call, simply because such subjects involving mortality are rarely easy in the stage of the world we still find ourselves in, where death is a taboo subject, religion is fraught, given its million one-and-only dogmatic variants, and such things.

However, I needn't have had my concerns, as Vee was most obliging, generous, and a gracious listener. He is only 47, and the throat cancer for which he was operated on early last year has spread now to his lung and spine. He has two children around 10, and a wife. Vee's attitude struck me as realistic, positive, hopeful, and pragmatic. There were some tears at times, and that is a good thing. Men of our generation and nationality were not taught that it was proper, healthy, and appropriate to cry at times.

We agreed that the medical profession often get their prognoses wrong; my mother was sent home to die, palliative care nurse and all, ten years ago from an aggressive form of lung cancer, and she is lung cancer free, still alive, and still smoking. Mum's story is a bit more involved than that, but it just goes to show…

I will email Vee the link to my web page on cancer tonight, which he does recall I emailed last year, but it all got lost in the turmoil of treatment.

And for anyone who might wonder, the cryptic title of this post (as almost all of my post titles are), with its cancer reference, is entirely coincidental; I often choose the birthday or departure day of some notable person in history and set myself the challenge of quickly composing a cryptic statement in 150 characters including spaces pertaining to their life, which is exactly the case with today's post title.

By now it was around 4 in the arvo, and I was very keen to get outside for some weeding and fresh air, and sunshine, which I rarely ever get nowadays. And yet, I broke down and hoed into some Father's Day chocolates and additionals while watching some Deutsche Welle on SBS and some of The Drum on ABC24, all washed down with a maté tea: another almost hour went west. (If it helps lift my estimation in the eyes of healthy living adherents, I had an orange before that binge! Oh, and there was that maté tea.)

And so, the hour and a bit outside weeding and watering was good for the fresh air, but light on the sunshine (pun not noticed at first!) – I got next to none, much to my vitamin D level's dismay.

Cadbury graced my lap for almost an hour watching Aunty's early evening lineup, and then it was to the pooter to write and attend to emails and whatnot.

Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Filling in for Tony Jones, who took a sickie, Leigh Sales looked stunning, if that's not too strong a description, in a grey and blue themed outfit, set off with that magical hairstyle. Her blouse worked all the better for its echo of grey on its upper edge hem. Subtle-effect makeup rounding the whole presentation off perfectly:

Professionally turned out, consonant with Leigh Sales increasingly professional interviewing standards

Her long interview tonight was on-screen with Henry Olsen, the Director of the Washington, D.C. based American Enterprise Institute's National Research Initiative, who also was finely packaged, rather non-conservatively in shades of yellow, gold, and blue:

Handsomely turned out, Henry Olsen explained the current trends in American politics to LATELINE's audience via Leigh Sales

Ms Sales' main subject covered with Mr Olsen was the Tea Party's growing ascendancy in North American politics. Mr Olsen answered every question with focus and depth, despite an initial hiccup with a near stutter or two. If he ever was a stutterer, he has overcome the condition wonderfully. Maybe it was a flutter of nerves only.

Ms Sales showed yet again how her research and general knowledge leverages her interviews, for her questions and comments were illuminating and invitations for Mr Olsen to shed his light on the topics covered.

The question Ms Sales posed regarding the projected incredible $8.5 trillion deficit over the coming years and the fantasy of responsible tax cut delivery was a good one, to which Mr Olsen could not, understandably, give a watertight answer, except that it would be batted around between the power brokers of Capitol Hill, and the President who holds the veto power. Compromise from all sides was his prediction. History and human nature suggest that the deficit will not be tackled until something drastic forces the nation to do it.

Henry Olsen gave unstinted, intelligent, and direct anwers to all of Leigh Sales' questions on LATELINE; politicians take note: try this 'radical' approach, why don't you?

*

No surprise, Blogger has thrown another arbitrary fit, capricious sod that it is, and won't allow my target=_blank HTML coding to work for my pictures today if they include a caption. It's worked every other time, but not this time, causing me to waste another hour of my life trying to do this simple thing. I have resorted to copying code from captioned pictures in earlier posts, and laboriously altering their addresses to the current picture. Blogger, I still hate your guts, you whimsical piece of coding shyte, having lost countless hours of my life trying to get you to do the most reasonable and basic of things. What long successfully employed procedure will fail to work next?

I planned to take a late overnight walk, but on one of her overnight tinkles Missus Inkletter reminded me that I had to take Mum to the skin specialist in the morning for surgery, and it would be wise to skip the walk and try to get some sleep. Tail between my legs, I dutifully obeyed, for I saw the wisdom in her advice. Quinceconscely, I forgot to put out The Dear Leader's rubbish bin, which I've been doing on my Thursday night walks since we cleaned up his house and garden, adding from the pile of bagged trash into the bin, making it too heavy for the hoary gentleman to manage. Oh for perfection of memory!

+paytontedwithlove+