Edward Kennedy

I'm sure most of you are aware that Edward "Ted" Kennedy passed away this week, succumbing to brain cancer. Regardless of how you felt about his politics, he was the last of the influential Kennedys, a true Democratic icon who served in office for nearly 47 years, and one of the few Senators who would work vigorously *with* his opponents to accomplish legislation he felt was important to America.

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THE WIT and WISDOM OF EDWARD KENNEDY

"Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is."

"Don't sacrifice your political convictions for the convenience of the hour."

"There is no morality in the mushroom cloud. The black rain of nuclear ashes will fall alike on the just and the unjust. And then it will be too late to wish that we had done the real work of this atomic age -- which is to seek a world that is neither red nor dead."

"Well, here I don't go again." (said upon his decision to not run for President in 1988)

"One of the few positive results of the Vietnam War is the irresistible momentum it gave Congress ... to pass legislation lowering the voting age to 18."

"What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system."

"I won't yield to anyone about guns in our society. I know enough about it."

"I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity."

(eulogizing his brother, Bobby, after he was assassinated) "My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

(John McCain, on Ted Kennedy) "My friend, Ted Kennedy, was famous before he was accomplished. But by the end of his life he had become irreplaceable in the institution he loved and in the affections of its members. He grew up in the long shadow of his brothers, but found a way to be useful to his country in ways that will outlast their accomplishments."

[selected from websites and resources all over the Internet by Mark Raymond]

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I'll see you on Monday.

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: Some time ago I wrote about "Bing," Microsoft's upgrade to their Live Search engine. But is it better than Google? Kim Komando points the way to a website that will run side-by-side comparisons of the two using the same search term at http://bingle.pwnij.com/. I love the name: Bingle.

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "We've all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it's more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors." (Norman Vincent Peale)