We iz live bloggin' teh pootiez Olympicks!

You, whose forebodings have been all fulfilled,
You who have heard the bell, seen the boy stand
Holding the flimsy message in his hand
While through your heart the fiery question thrilled
"Wounded or killed, which, which?"--and it was "Killed--"
And in a kind of trance have read it, numb
But conscious that the dreaded hour was come,
No dream this dream wherewith your blood was chilled--
Oh brothers in calamity, unknown
Companions in the order of black loss,
Lift up your hearts, for your are not alone.

~ Henry Christopher Bradby
 April 1918

Hey! Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and more importantly through nominations made at TopComments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. Include your username so we can credit you, and send 'em in by 9:45pm Eastern to ensure they make the final diary.

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But we hope they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home...

There are perhaps 15 or 20 moments in anyone’s life that are memorably perfect.  This is about one of mine, which was made possible by a young woman I only knew for four weeks and whose name is Christine.

The college I was lucky enough to attend divided the academic year 4-1-4.  We took four courses in the fall, and exams before Christmas break.  After the holdays, we came back for four weeks for an intensive course in something in which we (and the professor who taught it) were really interested.  The alternative (which we were strongly encouraged to do at least once) was to spend those four weeks doing volunteer work.  During my junior year, I traveled to South Texas to spend those four weeks volunteering at a state home for children and adults with significant to profound mental disabilities.

Cross-posted at Street Prophets

Cross-posted on Docudharma

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

~ Rupert Brooke
 The Dead, 1921

We are sitting in our cozy rooms and this is happening:

The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward full-scale war on Saturday, as Russia sent warships to land ground troops in the disputed territory of Abkhazia and broadened its bombing campaign across Georgia.

The fighting that had sharply escalated when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that won de facto autonomy from Georgia in the early 1990s, appeared to be developing into the worst clashes between Russia and a foreign military since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Source ~ The New York Times

While the Traditional Media explores and debates the important question of who played the "race card" and/or whether Paris Hilton’s mother disapproves of the egregiously disgusting ad put out by McBush last week, our military (and the innocent citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan) continue to die.  And today, although I have seen nothing about this here, the Pentagon announced that many of our Marines serving in Afghanistan will have their tours of duty extended.

Welcome to Top Comments: Possum 4-Day Fundraiser Edition!

h/t nonnie9999

Why is Jerry Northington running for Congress from Delaware?  As he beautifully put it this morning:

I do this for the people of our nation and not for any personal gain or recognition. I have already lived a life beyond most people's wildest dreams. Today I have an opportunity to pay back some of what the nation has so freely given to me.

Let’s help him:

Please donate to Possum securely at his campaign website, or at Energy Smart Act Blue page or at his Act Blue link provided at NION.

If you should die, think only this of me
In that still quietness where is space for thought,
Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be,
And men may rest themselves and dream of nought:
That in some place a mystic mile away
One whom you loved has drained the bitter cup
Till there is nought to drink; has faced the day
Once more, and now, has raised the standard up.
And think, my son, with eyes grown clear and dry
She lives as though for ever in your sight,
Loving the things you loved, with heart aglow
For country, honour, truth, traditions high,
--Proud that you paid their price. (And if some night
Her heart should break--well, lad, you will not know.

The Mother
by May Herschel-Clarke

A poll taken earlier this month on the on-line site for Military Industry Today (a news service for military industry professionals) had some startling results.  Or maybe not.

The question was this:

Regardless of your general preferences, which U.S. presidential candidate's Iraq policy do you support?

The results below the fold.

There are only 16 houses on the street on which I live.  All of them are modest houses, built in the early 1960s.  The houses on the right side of the road (on which I live) back onto a park -- or what used to be a park, back when there was money to maintain it, which the county in which I live can no longer afford to do.  The park now is a tangle of aged, unmaintained trees -- lovely, dense, enlivened by owls and foxes and an occasional deer.  All of which is charming unless, as a result of too much rain and too much warming, one of them falls on your house.

There was a sudden and violent storm in Fairfax County, Virginia last night.  We lost power at about 8:30 pm.  My Mom and I are lucky ~ we could go to Old Town and get dinner and just grouse about the power outage.  Our neighbors -- just on the other side of our next-door-neighbor -- were not so lucky.

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.

*  *  *

They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.

~ Archibald MacLeish

Oh hai, Austin!

Boo-hoo for the insurance weasels.
Boo-hoo for the Prince of Petulance.

Go House!  (Override was by larger measure than original passage.)
Go Senate!

FINAL VOTE: 70-26 in the Senate!!!  

Update: Senate Roll Call (h/t histopresto)

House Roll Call (h/t Llarian)

From the comments:

Why this is important for our veterans and their families.

Why this is important for people suffering from mental illness.

From blue jersey mom in Brothers and Sisters tonight:

And a short prayer for an end of the diaries that pit one "generation" against another. We are going to need everyone's help to turn this country around.

I am so amazingly sick and tired of the generational warfare diaries here on Daily Kos.  Not only do I see no purpose to them, but I also feel that they feed into the Karl Rove-driven divide-everyone-into-categories and market to those categories meme that has reduced our country into Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, cat-owing Liberals vs. oh, whatever -- and encouraged us to fight amongst ourselves because of them.    I am not a category.  And neither are you.  And I refuse to fight other progressives on the basis of the year of their birth. How incredibly unproductive this sort of fight is.

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

~ Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

There is one cardinal rule in my family: You mess with one of us, and you have messed with all of us.  Period.

We are all glib wordsmiths and naturally snarky, and intra-family ribbing is not only tolerated but celebrated -- as it was, happily, this past Fourth of July weekend in Vermont, where we were lucky enough to be together.  We can rib each other with impunity, but no outsider, not anyone, may rib one of us without having the others join in universal condemnation.  We are loyal to each other, to a fault.  

And that’s a good thing.

Yo! Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and more importantly through nominations made at TopComments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. Include your username so we can credit you, and send 'em in by 9:45pm Eastern to ensure they make the final diary.

These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But we hope they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.

Please come in and make yourself at home...