(Update: Michael Jackson died today also; strange day.)

I’m not quite up to writing anything substantive today, but I want to point out what’s been going on while everyone has been talking about Mark Sanford.

President Obama’s health care “television special” struggled for viewers, and in part thanks to the Sanford circus doesn’t seem to be getting much buzz now. And I missed it, too.

One health question asked of the President that is getting a little buzz is futile care. That is, what measures do you take for people who are unquestionably terminal? The President said something about families getting better information so that dying people aren’t subjected to “additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care.” Naturally the Right is distorting this as one of the Evils of Obamacare. But of course at least one state has a futile care provision already, signed into law by a Republican governor in 1999, that allows “hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient or guardian ten days after giving written notice if the continuation of life-sustaining treatment is considered medically inappropriate by the treating medical team,” per Wikipedia.

Steve M. has a post on health care that’s worth reading.

Farrah Fawcett died today. On the other hand, reports of Walter Cronkite’s imminent demise are exaggerated, his family says.

It’s not clear to me what’s going on in Iran, so I’m not sure what to link to for latest news. This backgrounder in Salon is informative, however.