a big "get well" and many prayers for Tom Oliphant

liberal columnist and pundit who is recovering from a hospital procedure for a brain aneurysm. The procedure went well, and he is resting comfortably in a hospital in Virginia.

It's too early to tell about his recovery--this sort of attack often requires a lengthy recovery period. Best wishes to him and his family.

(I can't tell you how I know--but thought many of his fans visit here and would like to hear about their favorite columnist)

He's been an eloquent but tough government watchdog since Vietnam.

Both Tom and Mark Sheilds do yeoman's service on PBS's Newshour fighting for the common man.

Robert Service's "The Ordinary Man" should cheer him up if someone would read it to him. (Also "The Men Who Don't Fit In" and "Yellow" ...)

"If you and I should chance to meet,
I guess you wouldn't care;
I'm sure you'd pass me in the street
As if I wasn't there;
You'd never look me in the face,
My modest mug to scan,
Because I'm just a commonplace
And Ordinary Man.

But then, it may be, you are too
A guy of every day,
Who does the job he's told to do
And takes the wife his pay;
Who makes a home and kids his care,
And works with pick or pen. . . .
Why, Pal, I guess we're just a pair
Of Ordinary Men.

We plug away and make no fuss,
Our feats are never crowned;
And yet it's common coves like us
Who make the world go round.
And as we steer a steady course
By God's predestined plan,
Hats off to that almighty Force:
THE ORDINARY MAN."

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Robert_William_Service/5405

:kick:

He's been on there quite a few times.

I'm just surprised, there was nothing about it
in the Globe.

He is one of the good guys. I always like it
when he's on The NewsHour on Fridays. He runs
rings around Brooksie.

Aneurysm clipping is one of the easiest and safest procedures out there. Recovery time is minimal if they catch it before it starts to leak.

He will have some very bad hair days, though, depending on where they had to put the incision.

they have great hopes for this less invasive but (still) rare technique of aneurysm repair.

We need ya.

Speedy recovery, Tom.



Tom's most recent piece:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/03/on_death_penalty_scalias_consistency_shines/

On death penalty, Scalia's consistency shines
By Thomas Oliphant | March 3, 2005

WASHINGTON -- FEELING FRISKY, I found myself this week respecting Antonin Scalia's dissenting position on whether the government should kill people for what they did as kids. And I found myself scratching my head over the tiny, five-justice majority's view on why that's now wrong.

Scalia has consistency and clarity on his side. The majority failed on both counts, unable to deal with the basic question of whether the death penalty itself or its application to the acts of adolescents is inherently cruel. Instead, it used to a great extent the other leg in the Eighth Amendment's standard, that this kind of killing is unusual. It was the flip side of a famously poor argument: Everybody does it. The best the majority could muster was the observation that virtually nobody does it anymore.

What's still lost in all this is a position I've long believed can unite left and right - that the death penalty is a government program and as such is by definition arbitrary, capricious, and illogical in its application. It's bad enough that the government does stuff like regulate dangerous drugs to serve the interests of the people who manufacture them as opposed to the people who use them. It's intolerable if this kind of Catch-22 madness is the daily routine in killing by government.

Scalia is not in favor of killing adolescent killers — or if he is that has nothing to do with his views as a Supreme Court justice about the issue the court decided this week. Scalia is conservative, as in very, very conservative. His dissent cogently attacks the majority's reliance on its own notions of what is cruel or unusual as well as its reliance on the evolving trend in the rest of the world.

more.......

Anyone who loves his daughter like Oliphant does is tops.

I love Tom Oliphant. He is wonderful, witty and wise.

All my good thoughts are with you and your family, Mr. Oliphant.
Take care of yourself and come back to us soon.

Or is this going to turn into another Granny D post with no updates?