Celtics Pick Up Knicks Trash

The Celtics have signed the loathesome Stephon Marbury. Hide the interns and up the insurance policies. This will not end well.

Boston Globe: Marbury signs with Celtics, likely to play

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently serving on the Supreme Court, and only the second woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

She is one of my favorite Supreme Court Justices, the only one currently serving to have had a significant impact on American jurisprudence before her appointment. She argued the first six sex discrimination cases ever heard by the all-male Court, and won five of them. She was the chief litigator for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project. It was her idea to bring sex discrimination cases where the injured party was male and cases where the discrimination hurt the family. The most famous example of this approach is the case where a widower received a smaller Social Security benefit than a widow. This the Supreme Court could see as disrimination, and a precedent was set that has benefitted all victims of sex discrimination (most of them female) ever since.

Best wishes to Justice Ginsburg in her second cancer battle. She intends to be on the bench when the Court resumes in three weeks.

NPR: Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Cancer Surgery

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently serving on the nation's highest court, underwent surgery Thursday for removal of a cancerous tumor from her pancreas.

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Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer was discovered early, in the course of a routine annual screening, but medical literature says even in this circumstance, a patient's five-year survival chances range from 10 to 30 percent.

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The five-year survival rate is 5 percent, with most patients living less than a year. Doctors say this poor survival rate is due in significant part to the fact that cancers of the pancreas are discovered late, when the cancer is very advanced.

Because Ginsburg previously underwent radiation treatment after her colon surgery, she likely will not be able to have radiation treatment a second time. Chemotherapy has not proved to be curative for pancreatic cancer.

RIP Kay Yow (Updated)

Kay Yow died today. She was 66 and had fought breast cancer for 22 years.

I met Kay Yow once, at the Women's Final Four in Los Angeles in 1992. She was there for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association convention. We rode in an elevator down to the lobby with her. They were glassed in elevators that made a lot of people nervous. She was tall and lean, rangy and a little stooped over. (I didn't know she was a cancer survivor already). She had a rough, husky voice and an electric presence. She told some joke that had a slightly bawdy punchline, laughed uproariously at her own joke, said goodbye to everyone on the elevator and strode off when the doors opened.

That's the way I'll remember Kay Yow, the force of nature I met that day.

RIP Kay Yow.


NewsObserver.com: Yow's story touched players, fans

Mechelle Voepel, ESPN.com: Yow's considerable efforts will live on

AP: Kay Yow, Basketball Coach, Dies at 66

NewsObserver.com: A Chronology of Kay Yow's Life

Photo Gallery, Kay Yow, 1942-2009

UPDATE: Go to this link for a wide-ranging interview with Kay Yow (did you know her first name was Sandra?) as part of the University of North Carolina's Southern Oral History Program Collection. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript of the interview.

Uncle Ted Is Back

Ted Kennedy returned to the Senate today.

Reading List

Crooks & Liars: Blue America’s Steny Hoyer FISA ad

Whatever happened to Jimmy Carter's solar panels?

Retired 24-year military veteran has to beg for cancer treatments. Sicko.

Read about the media's slobbering affair with John McBush: Loving John McCain

Newsweek sez Obama has a 15 point lead over McCain. Don't get excited; it's still June.

Profiles of Michelle Obama, from high-brow to low: New York Times, Guardian (uk), Telegraph (uk), US Weekly, Wall Street Journal (I put this next to US Weekly for a reason).

And now for something completely different: A 5-minute interview with English striker Kelly Smith.

Prayers For Ted

(Susan Walsh/AP)
Kennedy at work in the Senate earlier this month.
NYTimes: Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor

Mr. Kennedy said in the statement that he and his wife Vicki, “along with my outstanding team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, have consulted with experts from around the country and have decided that the best course of action for my brain tumor is targeted surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation.”

He said that, “after completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president.”

I am glad to hear that he is having surgery: operable is always better than inoperable.

Hang in there, Senator Kennedy.

Sign Get Well E-Card to Senator Kennedy

moveon.org: Get Well Soon, Senator Kennedy

Gotta Love Ted

Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his wife, Victoria, stood yesterday at the helm of the schooner Mya at the Hyannis Port Yacht Club. "It's really nice to see him out there doing what he loves . . . I'm sure it's good tonic," Senator John F. Kerry remarked. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Boston Globe: Showing resolve to fight, a family takes to the sea
In hospital bed, senator talked about sailing

Senator Kennedy Diagnosed with Malignant Brain Tumor

(Bill Greene/Globe Staff)
Senator Kennedy was joined in a Mass. General solarium today by his son Patrick; stepson Curran Raclin; son Edward M. Kennedy Jr.; daughter Kara Kennedy; and wife, Victoria.
Fuck.

Boston Globe: Sen. Edward Kennedy diagnosed with brain tumor; prognosis seen as poor

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the veteran lawmaker from Massachusetts who is the last surviving brother in the legendary Kennedy family, has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, his doctors said today.

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The usual course of treatment for the tumor -- a malignant glioma -- includes combinations of various forms of radiation and chemotherapy, Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of the neurology department at the hospital, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary care physician, said in a statement.

The doctors said decisions regarding the best course of treatment for the 76-year-old senator would be determined after further testing and analysis.

But other specialists said that the diagnostic details released by the hospital indicated that Kennedy has terminal brain cancer and most likely less than three years to live -- perhaps much less.

"Unfortunately, it's a really serious tumor," said Dr. Patrick Wen, clinical director for neuro-oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Mass. General's description of the tumor as a malignant glioma probably means the tumor is at stage 3 or 4 on a four-point scale of severity, with 4 the most serious, Wen said.

"The average survival for a Grade 4 tumor is 14 or 15 months," he said. "For a Grade 3 tumor, it's two to three years. Unfortunately, the older you are, the worse it is. The biology of the tumor is worse, it's more aggressive."

Mass. General did not mention any plan to operate to remove the tumor, and specialists say that is probably because it is located in an area of the brain, the left parietal lobe, with many important functions, including speech and language. Tumors in this region can affect the ability to understand spoken and written words.

Chemicals and Cancer

The LATimes reports on a new study linking breast cancer to many chemicals common to our environment.

LATimes: Common chemicals are linked to breast cancer
Of the 216 compounds, many in the air, food or everyday items.

LATimes: Chemical carcinogens (list)