MOTHER. FUCK.

All the local stations are calling it. Coakley conceded. Somehow Massachusetts elected a forced-birth advocating, birth-certificate denying, Kennedy-hating teabagger.

I am deeply ashamed of my state right now. Congratulations, fellow voters. If you’re a wealthy, straight, white, able-bodied, Christian man between 35 and 60 who has a recession-proof job, high-quality, low-cost health insurance, and a small enough heart to only care about people just like you, Scott Brown might not be that bad for you.

Anyone know of any expatriate newspapers looking for a good editor?

Goodbye, Teddy

I hope to have coherent thoughts on the death of Senator Kennedy in a few days, but I’m having trouble pulling them together right now.

I will miss him. And although our standard-bearer may have fallen, the best way to heal ourselves and pay tribute to him is to keep fighting. Not in his name, but for his causes. As my boyfriend said, Teddy would probably rather the health care bill be called the “Ted Kennedy Was A Drunken Schmuck Health Care Act” and include a robust public option than have it lionize him but be toothless itself.

Those interested in paying tribute to the late senior Senator from Massachusetts should head to the memorial website his family has set up, TedKennedy.org, and those in the area who are thinking of attending one of the public mourning events in his honor can find information about the arrangements here.

Mourning Rachel and Lilly

I don’t know how big a story Neil Entwistle‘s conviction and sentencing is outside of New England, but here it’s on all the front pages. Two-and-a-half years ago, British-born Neil Entwistle murdered his 27-year-old wife, Rachel, and their 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, in the family’s Hopkington, Massachusetts, home. Supposedly, he meant to commit a murder-suicide, but chickened out after shooting his wife in the head and his infant child in the stomach. Entwistle was trying to avoid facing the consequences of his impending financial ruin.

Maybe these murders aren’t really any more or less horrible than hundreds of others, but I find the story deeply personally affecting. Rachel Souza (it seems wrong to refer to her by her married name) grew up in Kingston, Massachusetts, one town north of Plymouth, where I grew up. She was only five years older than me. Her daughter’s baptism was performed in Plymouth. Seven weeks later, her funeral Mass was held in Plymouth. For all I know, I sat next to her at a football game, passed her in a supermarket, or served her coffee during my years at Dunkin’ Donuts in high school.

At the time Rachel and Lillian were killed, I was working for a company that put out many of the area’s community newspapers. Carver, where Rachel’s parents live, was one of my papers. For nearly a year, I edited every story about the investigation. I heard all the newsroom chatter about things reporters learned in off-the-record conversations with local police. I laid out every front page chronicling new developments. I still use one of those covers among my clips. Rachel and Lilly’s story has become part of mine.

When the news first broke, two things were immediately clear: Neil Entwistle was plainly guilty, and he might get off anyway. He was nearly bankrupt, but his family was rich. He was inept at covering his tracks, but he was a foreign citizen and had fled to England hours after the murders. Extradition was by no means guaranteed. He’d have the best lawyers. He might get away with it.

Every hour that the jury was out earlier this week, I worried that despite everything—the DNA, the ridiculous cover story full of holes, the pathetic defense—the jury might not convict. Then, when he was found guilty, I worried that he’d somehow manage to sell his story and profit off his own cruelty. Now that neither of those things has come to pass, I’m starting to miss the worry. The worry had a focus. The worry, I knew, would at some point resolve into either relief or frustration. The worry concealed the aching melancholy at the pointless waste.

The only way Neil Entwistle will ever leave prison is in a coffin. It’s the best anyone could have hoped for. Now we have to face the reality that it means nothing, fixes nothing. It just starts the grieving process all over again and adds another family to the mourners.

Mitt Romney: Annoying the crap out of me since 2003

Here in Boston, we don’t get too many presidential campaign ads — Massachusetts isn’t worth spending money on as it’s already guaranteed to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is regardless of who campaigns here, it only has 12 electoral votes, and it is one of two dozen states to hold its primary on Super Tuesday. We do, however, get some spillover New Hampshire ads because of the way station coverage overlaps, and I find them endlessly fascinating, both for their novelty and for how clear it often is that Bostonians are not among their target audience.  

A new one features my very own despised former governor reciting the words, “No one votes for yesterday! We vote for tomorrow.” Translation: “Don’t look at my record! It’s irrelevant to how I will behave in office!” Which, in Mitt’s case, may actually be true.