Friend Jennifer just left with Jinni for The Cancer Center.  They're headed over for her bi-weekly infusion of chemothrerapy.  She completed three sessions of Epirubicin a fortnight ago and today gets her first infusion of Taxol.

Jinni has accumulated several dozen hats, caps and other head coverings but wanted to make a statement today with a new addition to her collection.  I thought I'd let you in on the very latest in chemowear via my handy-dandy picture phone.

I'll be joining her at the clinic right after lunch.  Today's session will take about four hours.

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I think it's interesting that no one has yet blogged anything about yesterday's Yes! Weekly.  The start-up alt-weekly included a feature called "The blogging of Yes! Weekly" in which they transcribed this post by Ed Cone and all of the comments that followed.  I thought it was pretty cool stuff, but just figured that one of the bloggers mentioned in the post and comments would up the story and it would be all over the place by the time I got home last night.  But, noooo.

Is the local blogoshere getting jaded to the point that mentions in the local media are just getting too routine to warrant a post?  Just months ago, such a mention in the print media would have generated eight related posts within minutes of the paper hitting the stands.

Kudos to Yes! Weekly.  I hope they make discussions found in the local blogs a regular feature.

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The Inside Scoop reports that City Manager Ed Kitchen has modified the staff's recommendations (pdf) about offering health insurance benefits to our City Council.  The manager's previous proposal (also pdf) gave a nod to the Council's lagging compensation package and suggested to the Council that the benefit is "warranted".

Mr. Kitchen modified the staff's recommendation to reflect Councilman Tom Phillips' suggestion that actual cash should be offered to those members of Council who already have health insurance.  According to the initial manager's memo, the benefit they will be considering for themselves will be around $37,000 in the aggregate, or just over $4,100 for the mayor and each member of council raising their stipends to $16,600 and  $13,100 respectively.

This past Sunday, I opined that this might be an opportune time for the Council to widen the discussion.  They should instigate a study to determine not only where our Council's compensation stacks up to other cities our size, but also determine how their roles might have changed since 1979, and adjust.  It just might be time for a re-think - including, perhaps, considering whether or not we need a full-time mayor, and maybe even create some discussion about re-evaluating terms of office and (gasp) term limits.

I'll take my opinion a bit further.  Not performing periodic self-examinations is wrong-headed.  By not subjecting their offices to periodic check-ups since President Carter's administration, our mayor and city council are saying that everything is fine and no changes are needed... well others (Greensboro101.com poll) might disagree.  Let's find out.

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