Senator Kennedy. Beyond the man’s unusual life is the rhythmic dactylic pattern of his title and name. It makes his life’s work seem like fate the way the two words go together.

You might think that a man whose life and death meant so much to the people of Massachusetts, not to mention the nation, would have dramatic and immediate influence over a lowly Speaker of the House and a Senate President with few accomplishments of their own in his home state. But you’d be wrong.

Robert DeLeo and Therese Murray have found it perfectly plausible to dilly-dally about whether to change a law passed in 2004 that took away the Massachusetts governor’s ability to appoint a successor to an empty Senate seat. They said, after he had died, that they wanted time to honor his death.

Never mind that they didn’t respond to his request while he was alive.

And there was good reason to.

Having a good Democrat in the United States Senate at this time would help move forward several initiatives, the most important of which was Senator Kennedy’s favorite, the overhaul of health care. The timid and passive DeLeo and Murray appear not to care much about these goals, which motivate most Massachusetts Democrats.

The law in question was passed by a Democratic legislature to prevent Mitt Romney, a Republican governor, from appointing a Republican to take John Kerry’s seat, had Kerry been elected president.

Some people say it’s hypocrisy to change a 2004 law that was passed solely to keep one governor from being able to appoint a successor of his own party. But the word hypocrisy connotes a pretense of some kind, and there was no pretense the Democrats displayed when they perpetrated the 2004 act. They were doing exactly what Karl Rove taught us how to do. Of course, it was naked opportunism at its worst.

Let’s hear it for naked opportunism. There’s no need to apologize for playing politics. Let’s get it done.

Clicks and kudos

While you’re walking around the neighborhood listen for clicks that sound somewhat like your computer’s mouse. It seems to come from trees along the street or from the ivy crawling up buildings.

It’s not Massachusetts Democrats “tsk-tsking” while they wag their fingers at DeLeo and Murray. Instead it is most likely to be, according to my conversations with Chris Leahy of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the greater angle-winged katydid, an insect that takes us from summer into fall. This katydid is two inches or more in length and green. While it is most often found in rural areas in the southern states, this katydid has been recorded in New York City, so it must adapt well to urban living. With global warming, it appears to be moving north.

The other indicator of summer’s end is last week’s incredible array of trash along the sidewalk. A guy moving out nearby threw away all his silverware, many cereal-encrusted bowls, a perfectly good wastebasket, several mattresses and all kinds of personal unmentionables. Even though trash pickers had poked holes in most of the bags and gone through them, not even they wanted kitchen supplies that clearly hadn’t been washed for a long time and were strewn all over the sidewalk.

But sometime in mid-afternoon, the trash truck lumbered down the street and, afterward, 90 percent of all the stuff was gone. I picked up a few leftovers and ran them down to the corner where the trash truck was stalled. A neighbor up the street cleaned up a mess of pudding and yogurt that had spilled out. By the end of the day, things were beginning to look better.

One way to look at the disarray is to realize with horror that at least some of our neighbors live in the kind of chaos and squalor one typically associates with extreme poverty or mental illness.

Another way to look at it is to realize what a fine job the sanitation workers do on what must be an endless, smelly and exhausting day for them. Folks in many communities have to take their trash to a central “transfer station” or have to pay extra for trash collection. It’s all part of what we get for our taxes. Quite remarkable, actually.