Sorry my dear liberal brothers and sisters, I respectfully sit this one out. Women first.

Further, as an alcoholic, I will not mourn a rich drunk allowed to make a deadly mistake and carry on as if nothing had happened.

I will mourn the working woman who was forgotten, as the actual circumstances of her death were covered up by a powerful family, who then arbitrarily assigned her slut status.

Imagine slowly, slowly drowning, water enveloping you inch by inch as you drown, waiting for the person to rescue you that never arrives.

Sorry, folks. Some things, I do not excuse.

Mary Jo represents all the nobody-women killed (or allowed to die, if you want to quibble over my terms) by all the powerful, rich men, because they were "evidence"--because they got in the way.

During this orgy of remembrance and sentimentality, of course, we won't be hearing about her...once again, it will be considered somehow "rude" to mention Mary Jo Kopechne's suspicious and untimely death. Well, let me be RUDE, then, and remind everyone that she existed.

It is beyond sad that Edward M. Kennedy has died. It is deeper, bigger, connected to something far more profound in the cosmos and the lives of people in my generation than just sadness.

I remember Walter Cronkite announcing the death of John F. Kennedy on television in 1963. I remember the headline on some New York paper in 1968 ... "Now Bobby..." Two of the worst memories in my life.

I don't think our culture has ever fully recovered from those losses. But Ted Kennedy tried. I regretted that he couldn't make it to the Presidency in 1980. But he made a difference. Perhaps most importantly in his endorsement of Barack Obama in that razor close primary with Hillary Clinton. It made a difference. It helped change America and the world.

At least Ted Kennedy died of natural causes. But death is never good. He could have lived a few more years, even a few more decades.

But we're fortunate that he lived and worked for the best instincts in America as long as he did. Although he won't be able to help directly in the great battle of our time, the battle for universal health care in America, his spirit won't be very far. Rest in peace. Your dream, our dream, will never die.