This is an excellent article. The gall of celebrity pundits and journalists asking the Edwardses why they aren't making the kinds of choices they would approve of is pretty incredible.

Of course,if we're going to permit ourselves the "right" to question the most basic existential choices that others make, how about questioning the gall of the bigshot journalists, who color and shape the national political narrative as they do?

They snidely reduce the issues and hard political choices we all face to just so much background chatter that apparently has to give way to the primacy of (false) sentimentality, preselected for us by our presumptive betters. Couric asks the Edwardses why they don't hang it up, dripping with phoney-baloney concern.

Wouldn't it be a little more honest if she just came out and said, "I make millions of dollars and I'm on tv, so I get to tell you how you should respond to your cancer, how you should experience it, even how you should feel about yourself?"

Of course, she wouldn't be on tv and make millions of dollars if she started doing stuff like that, and I guess that would be horrible.

(Remember the Phyllis George thing from a few years ago, when she talked to a man who spent several years in jail because of a false rape conviction, along with the woman who had falsely accused him then recanted her testimony, and how she asked them to hug each other on camera at the end of the interview? How come people roundly denounced George for that, but today Couric is supposedly doing real journalism? Have we gotten that much stupider as a nation, in so few years? )

I have no idea what the letter writer should do, insofar as I don't know nearly enough about her circumstances.

(Parenthetically, I note that often people are a little too ready to offer advice to the LW's in Cary's columns, without reallly knowing if they're in a position to assess the situation described. And I include myself in that group, as I think I've chimed in a little too intemperately in the past. )

Nevertheless: I'd like to note that, as I write this, none of the previous commenters have specifically discussed the magnitude of the potential debt the LW and her spouse might accrue in the next 10 years or so, when they will presumably have to finance 3 educations: hers, and those of their 2 kids. (Are your kids already through with school? It doesn't say in the letter, and I'm guessing the answer is no.)

I hope the LW seeks out an objective third party, like a financial planner or an accountant, whom she trusts to assess the likely financial burden that the couple will be assuming, including the projected costs of the kids' educations. The therapist doesn't sound like an objective third party in this regard--

("She...says I should just forge ahead and figure out the logistics later."??)

Try seeing her for a few months without paying, and explain that you have to save up for school, and see if her enthusiam and supportiveness is affected.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you shouldn't go to the school of your dreams, just that you should try to figure out if it's really doable. It may still be possible-- for one thing, a school that offers a program specifically designed for older students may have a lot of access to financial aid tailored for persons in your situation.

But in the final analysis, whatever you end up doing, I doubt you would want to find yourself in the bitterly ironic situation of having to significantly curtail the amount of support you can offer to your kids, as a consequence of having finally finished your education at an expensive private school.

Can I call you Blob?

you wrote:

"Nevertheless: I'd like to note that, as I write this, none of the previous commenters have specifically discussed the magnitude of the potential debt the LW and her spouse might accrue in the next 10 years or so, when they will presumably have to finance 3 educations: hers, and those of their 2 kids. (Are your kids already through with school? It doesn't say in the letter, and I'm guessing the answer is no.)"

---You've chimed in too early once again, I'm afraid. Two letters have mentioned debt already.

You are correct. I should have changed 1 word, "none", to "most"

Otherwise, I'd say I wrote a pretty darn good comment, and I deserve lavish praise, and maybe doughnuts and hookers. I could blame you for your correction preventing me from getting that vaunted red star, but since

a. it's pretty childish to be concerned with that sort of thing, and

b. a red star won't get me doughnuts and hookers,

so I guess I'll let it go.

I note that several persons, noteably C.S., have also mentioned their misgivings about our counselor feelgood. I still think my strategy, of continuing to attend without paying, would test the therapist's sincerity far more meaningfully than an MMPI or other fancy pants psycho logical instrument. And it might even be empowering.

"You cost too much, and I'm not going to pay you anymore."

"Way to go standing up to me! You're cured!"