Brush with greatness

Gilderoy Lockhart teaches my Globalization class.

No, really. He may look East Indian, and have a slight East Indian/British accent, and always talk about his pivotal and glorious role in globalization instead of magic, but he's Lockhart. He wrote our book and about a dozen others, all of which are best-sellers. He came up with about a dozen international treaties, almost single-handedly. He organized just about every international gathering of powerful and influential world political/financial leaders in the last twenty years. He was crucial to the formation of most worldwide concepts of equality and business, political and environmental ethics, or any other matter of any importance to humanity. Without him, there would probably be no Charter, no G8, no UN - in fact, I doubt anybody would be able to get out of bed in the morning anywhere around the world if he wasn't there as a beacon of hope and promise to the undertrodden of the universe and as a defender of freedom and equality against the forces of greed and corruption and evil.

At least I never fall asleep in his class :)

not good news

So, I've written this twice in the last couple of days, only to have it disappear twice because my "database was read-only."

linaelyn, sorry to do this so close to your Thousand Voices Cried Out entry, but here's my own piece of bummer news. It's not really news, but I was told it was private, and it wasn't my news anyway, so I didn't feel I could talk about it until it wasn't private any more.

Guy has cancer. He's had a couple of "spots" on his lung for a few years, and he was finally told he should probably get them looked at. He did, and was diagnosed in December (I think). He's gone through all sorts of tests, and had a biopsy done on Wednesday. Will find out this Thursday whether he's going to get a lung removed or start chemo. Here's hoping for the lung removal. Not that that's such a cheery prospect, but it sure beats chemo. I'd hate like hell to see him go downhill like my mother did; he's such a healthy and strong person. It's hard to believe, when you're listening to him tell stories about the mill or his kids or grandkids, that you're talking to a 73 year old man with lung cancer.

He seems to be doing pretty well, all things considered, but he's from the 'stiff upper lip' generation and I don't think he'd say much even if he felt like hell. All we can do right now is call and visit and have him over for dinner or drop by ourselves, and hope that helps.

I haven't told the kids yet, and I don't think I will unless it becomes absolutely necessary. It's been hard enough for them to lose their grandmother; losing their grandfather so soon would be a bit much, I think.

Trying really hard not to worry, but it's hard not to sometimes.