[Magdalen] A Busy Day Plus

[Jim Guthrie]

After a great lecture on Schumpeterian Growth Models at University of Scranton
Thursday night, we spent the full day yesterday on a trip to NYC for Chemo
treatment #7, and then made it to St Mary's for "Eve of All Saints" complete
with organ concert by Dr. David Hurd at 5:30 PM (one of the GTS 7 <g>). We 
exchanged pleasantries at the reception afterwards, but I thought it perhaps 
gauche to ask about the GTS situation. I don’t think anyone else did. The 
Preacher was Bishop Jenkins, retired from the Diocese of Louisiana. Hi Mic was 
not set right, so he was difficult to understand most of the time.

Our bus left Scranton at 7:20 AM, and we didn’t get home until 11:30 PM -- but
it was a nice day over all.

The disappointment was that the CT Scan -- the disk of which was supposed to be
sent from the hospital in Scranton to MSK, did not arrive until Thursday, so the
radiologist in the Cancer Unit where I'm being treated had not reported on it
yet. This was the CT Scan that landed me in the Hospital with Pulmonary
Embolisms last Friday night.

The Oncologist was amused by my description of the staff and doctors here in
Scranton all seeming very disappointed that I exhibited no symptoms (I tried
pretending to wheeze and have difficulty breathing for one who was particularly
obnoxious about it, but it's had to pull off in the absence of anything going on
<g>. Of course, they were all concerned that I had hiked 4-5 miles
to/through/from Nay Aug Park a few days earlier, walked a miles each way to the
Supermarket, and had walked the mile to the hospital and then home for the CT
Scan etc., with no symptoms.

(Albert gets to inject Lovenox into my belly every day now; the only other
minimalist medications I'm taking are for occasional queasiness and OTC Imodium
in case of diarrhea (usually the Wednesday after Friday treatment).

The oncologist is concerned about the embolisms and says it's a
not uncommon side effect of the treatment I'm getting.

BTW, Scranton Regional Hospital is the first one that ever just let me walk out
on my own. The discharge nurse told me I was free to go, so Albert and I packed
up the stack of reading material (I got through nearly two inches of the stack
of six inches of newsletters and magazine piled next to my bed at home! -- Got
way behind in the move). So I said good bye and thanks to the nurses at the 
floor desk, and we headed down the elevator and walked out. Every other hospital 
I've ever been in insisted on a wheelchair out the door. Is that New?

The lecture at University of Scranton is the annual Henry George Lecture -- not
too many universities honor Henry George any more, but UofS (a Jesuit run
school) does, and attracts Nobel Laureates or economists who will soon win a
Nobel in Economics (7 out of 29, so far). Prof Philippe  Aghion of Harvard U
gave a fine lecture, but it was the first time in 40 years I sat through an hour 
of
listening to someone with an extremely strong French Accent -- no -- more than
that -- English words were all pronounced in French as spelled in English.

It was nice to get some modem thinking on this -- moving from a
manufacturing/imitative state to an innovation state. I had studied Schumpeter
back in grad school -- even wrote a term paper on his theories, so it brought
back a lot of the kinds of thinking (and why it's changed) from 40 years ago.

One (of several) takeaway of particular interest was his contention that
unemployment benefits in most cases should be far more generous for people who
need to go back to school and update their skills. Leaving people on their own
with just a check (and no matter how long the benefit) in an economically
changing world is terrible policy and guarantees further destruction of the
middle class and income inequality.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie