First: Good news from Duke, where Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) underwent what his doctors are calling “successful” surgery today on a malignant brain tumor. While the initial announcement of Kennedy’s condition and potential treatment a couple of weeks ago did not include surgery as a likely option for the 76-year-old senator, Kennedy went forward with the aggressive procedure this morning. It has yet to be revealed exactly how much of the tumor surgeons were able to remove from Kennedy’s brain, but surgery of this kind is meant to improve a patient’s chances to have successful radiation treatment. A Kennedy family spokesperson told reporters that the senator was doing well, even telling his wife shortly after that he felt “like a million bucks.”

Second: Isn’t the graphic accompanying the Washington Post story on Kennedy’s surgery kind of … specific? They couldn’t have just shown us a human brain without placing it inside Ted’s head?

UPDATE: The graphic design Posties have since changed the image to just be a gray silhouette of the shape of Kennedy’s head instead of an actual photo of the senator’s noggin. It’s much less creepy now.