Last two weeks

These last two weeks have been a doozy.  First off, I succumbed to an old addiction.  The campaign of Scott Brown was just too delicious for this reformed political junkie and I fell off the wagon.  In my lifetime I've been involved in twenty, maybe more, campaigns and I've never seen one as well run and well-executed as Scott Brown's.   

One example is how well the campaign was prepared to deal with a close election. A whole cadre of volunteer attorneys from Massachusetts and around the country who flew in on their own dimes were employed on election day as polling observers in the major cities to make sure that every vote was counted and counted only once.  I spent 13 hours at a polling place in Boston in a cold and drafty gymnasium to watch everything that was going on.  I was told that I was the first observer they had ever seen.  Beating a political machine takes organization and planning and Brown had both. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in Massachusetts thought they could never make their voices heard in such a one-party state.  Furious at the condescension and sense of entitlement of politicians in both Massachusetts and Washington, discouraged voters were galvanized and electrified by Scott Brown's inspiration and common sense and turned out in droves.  The Scott heard round the world, indeed. 

A day to relish all the reports of his amazing victory and then I was off to Washington on a bus from my parish  for the March for Life.  Before my reconversion back to the Catholic Church after 40 years, I had heard little about the March because no mainstream media ever reported on it.  I was astonished at the size of the crowd -300-400 thousand on a cold winter day,  the overwhelming majority young, under 30.

The cluelessness of the mainstream media was evidenced by CNN Rick Sanchez's report who asked "Which side is represented the most? Do we know?" and the Newsweek reporter, Krista Gesaman who asked "Where are the young women?"  My friend Gil Bailie did yeoman's work in reporting on the march as opposed to what he calls the Lame Street Media.  Embedded there is a 7 minute video on the Media Malpractice at the March for Life that is well worth watching if only to hear from the young, vibrant women themselves.

Back home, early Saturday morning,  I came down with the flu the next day.  I thought it would be over in a day or two because I had my flu shot though I didn't get the swine flu shot, then in short supply and available for only the most vulnerable groups.    Now, of course, there's an over supply and you get the vaccine at any drug store.  I didn't and the flu I had was the swine flu and it kept me in bed, miserable, exhausted and achey for a week.

I've lots of posts to catch up, some of which  may be a bit dated, but I had to write them anyway.