Frank Clifford’s Good News

I ran into Frank last month at a friend’s birthday party. It was then he told me about his bladder cancer and the inability of Yale’s Smilow Cancer Center to get the chemo drug he needs.

I wrote about Frank Clifford last year. He works in the basement under the Sterling Library at Yale. Frank’s job is making sure the remembrances of Holocaust survivors are properly digitized.

I ran into Frank last month at a friend’s birthday party. It was then he told me about his bladder cancer and the inability of Yale’s Smilow Cancer Center to get the chemo drug he needs.

Isn’t that a kick in the pants? No one is making the drug, probably because there isn’t enough profit. There’s your death panel!

I asked Frank if there was anything I could do? He told me he was asking all his friends with connections to get the word out. I went to Bill Weir, a few rows down in the Courant newsroom.

This story was the result. Frank was pleased. Me too.

Frank’s story was also publicized in other papers and on TV.

Today he posted this on Facebook.

The “squeaky wheel” will get treatment!

I want to thank everyone for writing in to their Congressmen and Senators. I received a phone call tonight from Senator Dick Blumenthal (D-CT) this evening, telling me that he has successfully resolved the issue in getting the pharmaceutical companies to resume manufacturing mitomycin (the chemo drug that’s been unavailable for me and others). He has agreed to work together with the Smilow Cancer Center in New Haven to resolve the problems with shortages with other vital chemo drugs.

I can’t thank Senator Blumenthal and his staff enough. His aide, Grady Keefe spent a great deal of time trying to resolve this problem. We spoke quite a bit on the phone discussing the particulars of my case.

I also want to thank Jocelyn Maminta from channel 8, and Bill Weir from the Hartford Courant, who both featured stories about my plight. A special round of applause goes to Geoff Fox, who has been incredibly supportive to me.

I was getting a bit leery of Facebook lately, but I must say, that my friends online came to the plate and made a difference. I am forever grateful to a great many people.

The problem is not over, but there are tools we can use to change things. I will try to keep on top of this situation for the many people out there who are in a similar situation.

WE can change things!

Thank you everyone,
Frank

Frank’s a good guy. This is a break he deserves. I couldn’t be happier.

Richard Blumenthal’s Vietnam

Tall, thin, each remaining hair strand placed for maximum effect, he seems the consummate nerd–a guy too straight to be corrupted by politics.

My Facebook friends are incensed. After I posted a link they commented in droves. I am incensed too after tonight’s New York Times revelation about senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal:

[W]hat is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar.

I know Dick Blumenthal a little because he shows up at so many public events I’m at… certainly more than any other politician in Connecticut. No one else even comes close. If there’s such a thing as a ‘retail politician’ it is Richard Blumenthal.

Tall, thin, each remaining hair strand placed for maximum effect, he seems the consummate nerd–a guy too straight to be corrupted by politics. He avoided running for higher office until Chris Dodd announced he’d vacate his seat.

Let’s cut to the quick. We all exaggerate from time-to-time. Blumenthal is accused of lying. There’s no other way to interpret what he said versus what the Times uncovered.

It’s not just the lying. It’s that he lied about service in Vietnam.

Unless you were around you may not realize the level of anger Vietnam produced. Hawks and doves regularly fought it out. Usually it was verbal. Sometimes it was worse.

Returning Viet Vets were harangued and vilified. It must have been difficult for a soldier returning from ‘Nam to admit where he’d been.

When the hate and mistrust diminished and things cooled down it became obvious the soldiers in Vietnam, though the most visible symbol of the war, were not the cause or guilty party. They shouldn’t have been the target of scorn. Many of the soldiers were draftees and in Southeast Asia against their will.

Back then I tried very hard to keep my upset focused on the government. Was I successful in doing that 100% of the time? Hopefully, but I can’t say for sure.

By claiming to be a Vietnam Vet Blumenthal traded on the guilt many of us still feel about that era.

Tonight I feel hurt and cheated. I am disappointed in a man I thought I could trust.

Is Dodd Done?

To me it has always seemed Connecticut is an address of convenience for Senator Dodd. He’s from Connecticut the way ships are registered in Liberia and Panama or businesses are incorporated in Delaware and the Cayman’s.

Christopher_Dodd_official_portrait_2-cropped.jpgJust as I was getting set for bed the Twitterverse started going a little nuts with word Senator Christopher Dodd will announce he’s not running for reelection to his Senate seat. The announcement, if true, is a shocker even though I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen he was unelectable.

Unelectable candidates run all the time. They lose. I assume he figured that out.

He’s run and won six times. Thirty years in the Senate. Quite a record. Alas, here in Connecticut the bloom is off the rose.

Every time a sleazy rock is turned over concerning banking or finances there seems to be signs Chris Dodd has been there. His mortgage deal with Countrywide, sweetheart or not, never seemed like the kind of deal I’d get.

In the NY Times Gail Collins wrote of his opportunism and Connecticut’s skepticism:

The trouble began with Dodd’s presidential campaign when he famously attempted to win over the voters in the Iowa caucus by moving his entire family to the state and enrolling his daughter in an Iowa kindergarten. Iowa, you may remember, responded enthusiastically and awarded him nearly 1 percent of the vote. Connecticut was mortified.

Mortified. Exactly.

I’ve only met Chris Dodd three of four times in my 25 years here. At a UCONN basketball victory parade I jumped on the back of a flatbed truck and interviewed Dodd and Joe Lieberman on live TV.

The truck began to move as I was clumsily climbing on. Senator Dodd leaned over and reached out to help. He has the softest hands I have ever felt on a man!

A few years ago I walked into the conference room as Ann Nyberg was getting set to interview him. I looked at the Senator and said, “I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town.”

Nyberg was confused. She flashed a quizzical look. Too young to understand.

Dodd smiled and continued, “I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down.”

We were doing lines from Phil Ochs’ “Draft Dodger Rag.” The Senator Dodd in the song was Chris Dodd’s dad, Tom. Being in the Senate was like being in a family business.

To me it has always seemed Connecticut is an address of convenience for Senator Dodd. He’s from Connecticut the way ships are registered in Liberia and Panama or businesses are incorporated in Delaware and the Cayman’s.

427px-Richard_Blumenthal_at_West_Hartford_library_opening.jpgMore than likely this opens the door for Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to run.

For Republicans this is a worst case scenario. Dodd was weak. Blumenthal is strong and well liked. It will be tough to muddy this consumer oriented former Marine.

Dick Blumenthal is a retail politician appearing and pressing the flesh at more events than any three other pols in Connecticut. I suspect more Connecticut residents have had personal contact with the AG than any other elected official. That kind of stuff pays off.

Now I can go to sleep.