THE LIBERAL LION'S MIGHTY ROAR MAY NOW FALL SILENT, BUT HIS DREAM SHALL NEVER DIE

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, longtime Democratic senator and the patriarch of the Kennedy political family, has died after a lengthy battle with brain cancer.

The Kennedy family released a statement early Wednesday morning saying, "Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it's hard to imagine any of them without him."
Related: Edward Kennedy Tributes: The President, Former Presidents, Biggies of Both Political Parties in Their Own Words
In recent weeks, Kennedy had received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, and his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died. News came last week that the senator had sent a letter to the governor of Massachusetts, asking that he work to change the state's laws of succession to fill his Senate seat quickly through a direct appointment, rather than through a lengthier special election process. Kennedy's letter, as well as his absence from the White House Medal of Free

Democrats and Republicans alike had voiced their regret this year that Sen. Kennedy had not been in Washington to shepherd health care reform through the Senate. Before he died, Kennedy called health care reform the cause of his life. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) called Kennedy "the consummate legislator," while Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) described him as a reliable partner on important issues. "He always kept his word, and that is far less common around here than a lot of people think," McCain told Politics Daily earlier this summer, speaking of Kennedy's legislative style. "We just sat down together and worked out a proposal. He didn't start it; I didn't start it. We just sat down and said OK, here's what we want to achieve -- what do we have to do?" McCain said.

Public figures from across the political spectrum reacted with sadness to the senator's passing. Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), one of Kennedy's closest friends, said, "Today America lost a great elder statesman, a committed public servant and a leader in the Senate, and I lost a treasured friend." Former First Lady Nancy Reagan released a statement calling Kennedy "a dear friend," while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "It was the thrill of my lifetime to work with Ted Kennedy." Reid called Kennedy "a friend, the model of public service and an American icon," and added, "The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die."

President Obama released a statement at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, saying in part, "Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy," he said. "I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency. And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I've profited as President from his encouragement and wisdom."

Kennedy served in the United States Senate for 47 years after filling the seat of his older brother, John F. Kennedy, after JFK was elected president. Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his large family after the untimely deaths of his three brothers Joe, Jack and Robert Kennedy.

Delivering the eulogy for Robert Kennedy in 1968, Kennedy said, "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. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world."

Sen. Edward Kennedy was 77.


President Barack Obama: "For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name( SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY) and resulted from his efforts."

Edward Kennedy's Cause - Health Care Reform

ENGLAND'S FIRST BLACK MISS ENGLAND

Jamaica does it again! Jamaican parentage, born in England .

History was made last night in London .

Great Britain crowned 20-year-old Rachel Christie as Miss England during the country's annual pageant at London's Metropole Hilton Hotel

Competing as Miss London City, Christie edged out her rivals to claim the title and will now compete for the Miss World crown in Johannesburg in December.

But competition is nothing new for this London-born beauty.

Christie specializes in the heptathlon and the 400 meters and is hoping to join the ranks of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Her uncle is British Olympic gold medalist Linford Christie, who stands as the most decorated British athlete. He is also regarded as the second fastest European in history and even has a stadium in West London named in his honor.

"My ambition in life is to compete and win gold in the 2012 Olympics," Christie told reporters. "I would also love to do well in Miss England . I want to be successful in whatever I choose to do in life."

THE NINE LIVES OF MARION BARRY JR.

Marion Barry is the subject of a documentary on HBO
DAVID CARR Published: August 9, 2009

View Video - THE NINE LIVES OF MARION BARRY JR.
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Marion S. Barry Jr.
The Washington Post

Marion Barry in front of the White House during a parade in an undated photo. He now serves on the Washington City Council.

A career that has spanned five decades and included four terms as mayor of Washington, a trip to federal prison for possession of cocaine, and his current position as a City Council member in the capital. Throughout it all he has displayed an almost feral gift for retail politics: a quiet sidebar conversation here, a big-clap hug there and always, always, even now at 73, lavishing attention on the women in the room.

After a youth of extreme poverty (which included picking cotton) in Itta Bena, Miss. — “dirt, dirt, dirt poor” he says in the documentary — Mr. Barry became an Eagle Scout and earned a master’s degree in chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville. But his head was turned by the civil rights movement after he got involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and he quit a doctoral program in chemistry at the University of Tennessee. In 1965 he moved to Washington and commenced an enduring affair with a city that was then a ward of the federal government.

Mr. Barry has the reputation of being a less than scintillating interview, and a conversation on Thursday evening did little to change that view. He tends to lean on platitudes and civil rights movement aphorisms to describe his “50 years of public service that served as a blueprint for those who came later” while continuing to blame most of his legal problems on his opponents.

The news media have generally not been friends to Mr. Barry, nor has the federal government, a persistent antagonist throughout his career. He maintains that the United States Attorney’s Office, in enticing him to a hotel room where drugs were present back in 1990, was trying to kill him.

In the documentary directed and produced by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer, it is clear that age has caught up to Mr. Barry. Afflicted with high blood pressure and diabetes, and having had his prostate removed, he often moves slowly and cat-naps between appearances. Watching him in the documentary is a little like witnessing Willie Mays no longer able to run down a fly ball, but he was completely on his game for the premiere.

Mr. Barry has never been especially enlightening on the subject of himself or his contretemps, and the documentary reflects his absence of self-awareness. But Mr. Barry’s ex-wife, Effi Barry, an elegant and eloquent woman who divorced him in 1993, is a steady and telling presence throughout the documentary. (Effi Barry, who died in 2007, was his third wife. He has been married four times.)Mr. Barry initially had little interest in the project. “He wasn’t friendly, he wasn’t receptive, but eventually, I wore him down.” (Mr. Barry said, “I figured it would be the one time when the whole story could be told.”)
Mr. Oppenheimer, whose credits include co-producing “Devil’s Playground” (about Amish teenagers), said there were protests and counter-protests at the film’s premiere in June at the Silverdocs festival in Washington, with people shouting and arguing about whether Mr. Barry was worthy of a film.“We both watched and said to each other, ‘This is what our film is about,’ ” he said. “The passions that this man’s career has generated continue to this day.”

Mr. Barry’s credentials as an early and effective warrior in the civil rights movement receive significant attention in the 78-minute documentary. A leader of the Free D.C. Movement, Mr. Barry founded a jobs program called Pride Inc. for unemployed black men. He was elected to the school board in 1972 and when the city achieved home rule in 1974 was elected as an at-large council member. He was shot when Hanafi Muslims took over the District Building in 1977 but survived, cementing a reputation for both fearlessness and durability.

With the sought-after endorsement of The Washington Post in 1978, he became the city’s second mayor and was re-elected twice. During the third term rumors began to circulate that he was using cocaine even as the city he ran was tipping over under the weight of a crack epidemic. On Jan. 18, 1990, Mr. Barry went to the Vista Hotel to visit a former girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore, who was working as a government informant. He was caught on tape by the F.B.I. and city police using crack cocaine.

Most political careers would have ended there, but Mr. Barry is not any politician, and Washington’s voters and juries have a complicated relationship with authority. The jury deadlocked on the multiple felony counts stemming from the Vista arrest; Mr. Barry was convicted on a single count of possession for an earlier incident. After serving a six-month sentence he ran for City Council using the slogan “He may not be perfect, but he’s perfect for D.C.” In 1994 he ran for a fourth term as mayor and won.

His successful campaign to return to the City Council in 2004 on behalf of Ward 8 — one of the city’s chronically impoverished areas — serves as a centerpiece of the documentary. Mr. Barry’s public life continued to suffer from steady brushes with the law, including failed drug tests, a conviction for failure to pay taxes, probation violation, traffic offenses and, last month, a charge that he was stalking an ex-girlfriend. (That charge has since been dropped.)“Those are all just distractions, efforts by the government and the media to distract me, to discombobulate me and separate me from the community,” he said. “I was re-elected with more than 90 percent of the vote in 2008, so that stuff isn’t going to keep me down. They know who I am.”