As America mourns the passing of Massachusetts Senator Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy on August 25, 2009 – one question lingers and will forever be left unanswered: What really happened that fateful night on July 18, 1969 in Chappaquiddick, Martha’s Vineyard? The victim of the incident, 28-year old Mary Jo Kopechne couldn’t speak for herself, she drowned that night. Ted Kennedy, who could have had the opportunity to re-tell the whole story truthfully in the remaining days of his life- opted to carry the truth to his grave. Hence, one of the biggest mysteries and unexplained stories in US politics lives on.

In brief: Senator Ted Kennedy then 38 years old, after an evening of partying and drinking drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. He had one passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Somehow, he managed to escape and swam to safety. He went back to his hotel and never called authorities until after Kopechne’s body was discovered the following day. Two fishermen found the submerged overturned car and notified a resident living nearby who then called the police.

The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne’s body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that

“Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim’s side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.”

Farrar believed that Kopechne “lived for at least two hours down there.”

Dyke (Dike) Bridge. Chappaquiddick, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

At 10 am Kennedy entered the police station in Edgartown, made a couple of phone calls, then dictated a statement to his aide Paul Markham, which was then given to the police. The statement ran as follows:

“On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 p.m. in Chappaquiddick, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge. The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary [Kopechne], a former secretary of my brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom. I attempted to open the door and the window of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the backseat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police.”

At 7:30 pm that evening Kennedy made a lengthy prepared statement about the incident which was broadcast live by the television networks.

Ted Kennedy was not charged of murder or manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury; he received a suspended sentence.

This incident has yet added another flavor to the already colorful if somewhat tragic life of the Kennedy Royalty and has haunted the Senator for years. Many believed he could have easily won the US presidency had the Chappaquiddick story never happened. Instead,

After that night, the word Chappaquiddick became synonymous with deception and abuse of power, and for decades until this day, each major anniversary was dredged up in newspapers around the country.

This story sparked about fifteen books relating to the event and hundreds and hundreds of articles spanning four decades. Mary Jo Kopechne would have been 69 years old today. She is remembered most especially this year as 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of her death.

Ted Kennedy is the youngest of nine children. His elder brothers are US President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy (both assassinated). In May 2008, the Senator was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. He died at the age of 77.

He worked all his political life to achieve greatness and become the ‘people’s champion.’ He was beloved by his constituents, serving 9 terms as Massachusetts Senator making him the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. He was an ‘icon’, a strong leader and dubbed as the “liberal lion.” Is it years of altruism or undoing?

“By telling the truth early on he might have won his bid for the presidency in the 1980 campaign. By telling it now, he can remove a stain from his own legacy as well as from his family’s.” Yet, we will never know. The true and real story rests along with the Senator and Mary Jo (RIP) and the mystery lives forever.

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to “bury” our favorite appliances that have indeed served us through the years? That first TV we bought from our first paycheck. The old coffeemaker where we get our daily caffeine boost for years that has stopped working.  That old radio our grand father gave us from way back when that’s not playing anymore. How about that noisy cheap hairdryer with good memories from siblings fighting over whose going to use it first?!

When we visit its grave, do we bring flowers? Do we talk to them too? That would be weird.

Had a kick reading this ‘fake ad’ from the community paper I just had to share it.

Since our recent move, we have been getting The Homesteader. It is a publication for new and established homeowners throughout New England that we receive monthly for free in our mail.

One of the things I have enjoyed doing is tying to find its “fake ad” of the month. Hidden among its pages and real ads is one fake ad that is usually original, creative and often funny. It is also a contest which makes it more fun to find! A $50 monthly and $500 quarterly prizes isn’t so bad! I haven’t won yet though.

But that’s just me- always unlucky in contests and prizes…

What’s in your local paper?

Simply answer the question: Who is your favorite Entrecard blogger or What is your favorite Entrecard blog and why? That’s it! Let them know you joined and you’re entered to win! First prize is $40.00 Paypal cash, second is $30.00 and 3 $10.00 will be given as consolation prize!

If you want to help promote the contest, they’re also giving away 3 $10.00 to random promoters of the contest.

On top of that, they’re giving away 100 Entrecard credits to the first 20 bloggers joining or promoting the contest! That’s a total of 2,000 credits up for grabs and the total cash prize at $130.00!

Contest ends on February 10. Winners will be announced on February 15. Plenty of time to join but don’t wait too long… Entrecard credits are almost gone! Here is the contest link. Good luck!

As a last note: they’ve made use of this Google apps that acts and looks like a widget! I’d love to make use of that some time. Anyone can embed it to their own site! Cool!

If you are a frequent visitor to this site, you would have noticed that the site’s look have changed three times since I moved to Wordpress a year ago. The changes aren’t drastic and huge- just small things here and there hopefully to make it more appealing and user-friendly.

The beauty and magic of  Wordpress selfhosting is the countless possibilities of what you can do and what is available since everything is open source (free to change and do whatever for personal usage). There are plenty of FREE premium quality themes just sitting around, you just know how to search for it. I don’t have a favorite source for themes but usually just scouring the web with the right keywords would bring great finds. Try “free premium themes WP,” “wordpress free themes,” “quality WP templates,” etc. just mix and match!

I had several choices but the Purple Fever theme won it for me. It’s what I am looking for now, a structured and blocked layout. How can you go wrong with what was once a $49.00 theme now given away for free? The question is how long am I going to keep it? I can’t say because while changing themes keeps your site fresh and dynamic- boy, they take a huge amount of time to set up! For this theme, I had to redo and add several things that were not there before like putting thumbnail images on posts via custom fields, new plugins and changing the stylesheet (css) to the look and colors I wanted. Moving into a new theme requires different set ups which can be minor or major but doable nonetheless- just takes time.

Image Rotator

One of the things I incorporated with the new theme is the image rotator for my header. Everytime you refresh the page or go to the inner pages, the header image changes randomly. There are several plugins available for it at the WP site but none as simple, fast and easy to maintain as that from the brains of Wordpress himself, Matt Mullenweg. He calls it simply The Photo Matt Random Image Script.

The downside of Wordpress plugins sometimes is it is heavy on your site and the loading time is long or slow. I’ve uninstalled plugins because of that no matter how good they are. With this simple image script, you just create a php file, place the unlimited photos you want and call it like you would a normal image to where you want the images to appear and you have an  instant image rotator! It is such a no brainer script that I was able to create it without running into issues. If you want to try this on your site, check out his full article about it first and read the entire comment section for advice and fixes on images not rotating- because of caching issues in IE and Firefox. If you’re still having trouble, let me know I might be able to help or you can always try commenting on Matt’s site- you might get support from there too.

UPDATED: Contact Page

A contact page is a must have on any blog. It is a way for readers to directly contact a blogger for private messaging without broadcasting the message as a comment that may appear on the comments page when automatically approved! I am not sure WHY I am unable to install them on my site correctly since all these Wordpress upgrades! I have been using the most popular contact form plugin, CformsII for the longest time until it stopped working on the site during WP 2.6 upgrade! I’ve tried similar plugins to no avail and I really couldn’t pinpoint what’s wrong.

The solution? Contact form widgets!! I didn’t even know they existed until I was desperate enough to search for it. I just found the best contact form so far!! Check it out on my contact page. It’s simple, not flashy but just what I need and it was such a breeze to create! Thank you to Wufoo.com- another great web find!

I’m placing the contact forms that I initially tried here for posterity. They are still working and you can still send me a mail via this forms.

I am currently trying two contact forms which I found on widgetbox.com. One is from a site called Contactify.com which requires a simple registration that was fast and easy. And the other a Thunderbird Contact form promoting Mozilla Thunderbird. What the hey, I love Firefox so I’m using the form!! Contactify though still in beta is the highest rated/tested widget under its category so it’s worth the try. I can’t decide which one I like to keep so I’m placing the two for the time being. I’ve tried and tested both and got the mails quick! See both of them live on my contact page! When there, send me a note saying which one you like better!

Continue on next page...