Condolences

Well, oddly good news about Elizabeth Edwards this morning. The Edwards' announcement is part of what seems to be a new medical paradigm in which diseases are treated and (with luck) rendered asymptomatic rather than aggressively --- and as anyone who has seen the effects of substantial radiation or chemotherapy can attest, poisonously --- attacked. If we could have a direct election for first lady, Mrs. Edwards would surely win in a landslide. I'd vote for her for president if she were running.

In considerably sadder news, Cathy Seipp, an indy journalist and very smart and all-around charming woman whom I met when I was working in LA a couple of years ago, has succumbed to lung cancer after surviving it four or five years longer than she was supposed to. RIP.

UPDATE: Just to clarify what I meant by "oddly good news," the story the slightly-more-reliable-than Drudge Report Politico unfurled early in the morning was that the illness was bad enough to compel Edwards to drop out. As George Burns is supposed to have said when asked how he felt on the occasion of his 90th birthday, "Considering the alternative...."