“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”

--Mark Twain

Admittedly I have wanted to use the above quotation in relation to Sarah Palin for a long time. But I resisted using it. Yes, her behavior when she ran for vice president epitomized it. And yes, her behavior since then proves only how much she deserves it. But it wasn’t until her new book was published that I felt I could no longer hold back. Honestly, my friends, it is time we all took a deep breath and began in earnest to dismantle any hope this freak of American politics has for running for the highest office in our beloved land in 2012.

Palin’s book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, proves that without a doubt she has moved from sublimely boneheaded to simply ridiculous and deeply dangerous, yet, having said that, I fear more than ever that she may, in fact, be successful. Why would I say that?

Three weeks ago I returned from a academic conference with a belly ache. I thought I had a stomach flu or at worst, the beginnings of a ulcer. I am 58 years old, a white male at the peak of a wonderful and deeply rewarding career, happily married for the past 22 years and proud of our son, who next year—if I am lucky—I will see graduate from the University of Arizona.

You see the word “lucky” in the previous paragraph? Or in the heading? If you noticed it at all it was probably in passing, just a kind of daily talisman we offer to the greater mystery of life in the hope that we will continue our story and the stories that surround us will continue as well.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for me. When I say “lucky” these days, I do so fully armed with the knowledge that my days are numbered, and while I don’t know the exact number I have left, I do know that seeing our son graduate from college is going to take a little bit of luck in addition to the aggressive treatment I am now receiving for stage four pancreatic cancer.

It wasn’t the stomach flu after all.

Yesterday’s trek to the clinic resulted in no chemo treatment, due to the news of another low white blood cell count. No biggie. No sense in worrying about it, either. I am assured that this is fairly routine, and aside from limiting my contact with people outside my house in order to reduce the likelihood of contracting an infection, or a cold, or the flu, or a fever-producing something that would further delay my treatment, there is nothing to do but wait.

I am scheduled for another trip to the clinic on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Nic and San are doing everything they can to make my “home confinement” interesting. San makes sure I go with her on Max’s morning walk, which at least gets me outside for twenty or thirty minutes before our neighbors are up and about.

With Netflix and Apple TV there is always something to watch. Yesterday Nic and I went through three episodes of “Sons of Anarchy” and after dinner everyone enjoyed the last episode of the BBC production of Sherlock Holmes. My inner political junkie gets a daily dose of the Daily Show, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell, with a little Chris Matthews thrown in when he’s not on a tiresome rant. I have books to read and blogs to write, emails and messages to respond to. San has been cooking my favorite foods, Alyssa brings me carrot cake, and Max provides a constant source of doggie entertainment; so all in all, it’s not so bad to be confined to our home.

But the idea of being confined, of knowing I am confined, is something else entirely.

I’m sure you know what I mean. Yada, yada, yada. And yes, this is Bud being a whiney bitch, but there it is. It’s my cancer and I’ll whine if I want to.

But I won’t whine long.

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Today is Monday, Labor Day, and Thursday will be my 59^th birthday, but we won’t be officially celebrating it until this weekend. This delayed birthday celebration is perfectly okay with me because, by Goodall Family Decree, I don’t just have a “birthday,” but instead I have a “birthday week.” I’m here to tell you that having a birthday week is fine, fine thing – every day brings a sweet little surprise. I very much recommend it.

In our family “birthday week” began when Nic was a child and it was a fun excuse for us to spoil him with small treats that always culminated in a party with his friends, complete with a cake baked by San. As Nic got older and his deep sense of justice kicked in, he pointed out that everyone should have a “birthday week,” and hence the beginning of a family tradition. Let us eat cake!

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My usual magical practice is to begin each new month with a personal good luck mantra drawn from British folklore and/or old Nantucket superstitions. I say with my very first breath: “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!” and then prepare myself mentally, physically, and soulfully for a month of hopeful good fortune. Today I repeated that magical practice and imagined with it a white rabbit leading me through this month, this “Big November,” the last month of my chemotherapy.

Full disclosure: I believe in magic. I believe in the persuasive power of words, stories, speeches, prayers, gospels, surra, parables, and poetry to change how we look at and understand the world, how we act in it, and how we use such understandings to promote happiness, peace, prosperity, love, and justice.

Why wouldn’t I? I earned a doctorate in rhetoric. I studied with wizened word wizards who culled their knowledge from ancient and modern texts, practices, and even the occult. I have, myself, studied the spells, er, done research from the ancients to the present on the subject of words and their relationships to what the philosopher Richard McKeon once called “thoughts, passions, and actions.” In fact, my fellow word wizard and dear friend who teaches health communication at Ithaca College, Stew Auyash and I just exchanged email this week about Jacqueline de Romilly’s classic book Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (1975), in which exists a compelling discussion of medicine, rhetoric, and magic. Not is this ancient knowledge lost on contemporary scholars who study the close relationship between diagnosis of disease and doctor-prescribed remedies as persuasive efforts designed to elicit belief as well as agreement.

Socrates may have railed against rhetoric in The Gorgias as being “akin to cookery” in relation to “medicine” but he was wrong. He also opined in The Republic that poets ought to be banned from society. There are a host of other things he was wrong about, including the idea he passed along to Aristotle about farting being responsible for death. He was wrong about that, too. Not all philosophy is truth. But as a rhetorician I would say that, wouldn’t I?  

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