I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

~ Walt Whitman
 Song of Myself

There is a terrible disease that runs in my family.  It has to do with genetics.  We do not know on what gene it rests, and it is so rare that members of my family are part of a study group to identify it.  And because I know that insurance companies read blogs to find personal information like this, I have no intention of saying at which university the gene is being studied -- and I would never identify which members of my family have been identified as possibly carrying it.  

How sad this all is, that my family cannot use the internet to help us find a cure.  But the risks are too great.  This is one more legacy of the Bush Administration.

But what I wanted to write about is getting the diagnosis, as Senator Kennedy has received in the past few days.

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)

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded--a permanent--national life.

~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

The stern performance of duty by old and young alike.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress can be made, no leadership becomes effective.

~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugrual Address, March 4, 1933

We cannot merely take but we must give as well.

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of You.

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.

Perhaps
By Vera Brittain

I am 51 years old.

When I graduated from college, I could count the number of my fellow female graduates at the academically challenging college from which we were graduating and who were going on to law school on one hand.

The college we attended had a history of sending its graduates to any graduate school they wished to attend, but, as I remember it, only one or two women from my class went from college directly to law school.

At that time, (1978) the law school I would eventually attend some seven years later was composed of perhaps 80 percent men.  Even when I went (class of ‘88), men made up more than 60 percent of the class. And though I know that this sentiment was less universal then, I was told (by more than one of my male classmates) that I had no business being at the law school, because I was taking up a "seat" that rightfully belonged to someone who would be "supporting a family" -- that is, a male student.

I am sure that Hillary Clinton heard worse when she attended Yale Law School more than a decade earlier.  And she was at the top of her class.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post attended the funeral of a senior officer of the United States military the other day. He did so at the family's request.  But he had to do so at a distance, because although the family of Lt. Col. Billy Hall had requested the presence of the press at his funeral at Arlington Cemetery, the government that ordered Lt. Col. Hall into war refused his family’s last request, and kept the press away.

Source ~ Washington Post

This is wrong.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

* * *
. . . so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

~ T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland (1922)

Tonight, we stand in silent tribute to four more young men, gone much too soon, whose deaths have left so many so proud -- but also so undone.

On Easter Sunday, I posted a diary straight from my heart: You are not alone.

In it, I wrote about the heartbreaking email I had received from the sister of Sgt. Philip Anderson, a soldier I had profiled on IGTNT, about  Sylvia Wise, an elderly woman who had been forced to give up her beloved dog when her home had been foreclosed, about fayeforcure, whose son had been paralyzed from the nose down after a freak childhood soccer accident, about our own Zwoof, whose beautiful daughter, Alicia, had been murdered by her boyfriend. I gave thanks for the support and action and comfort provided by this community. I said:

This, to me, is the greatest part of Daily Kos: We are not alone; none of us is alone.

There is so much to be broken-hearted about.  And I would be in despair about all of it were it not for this wonderful community, which, every day, reminds me that I am not alone.

There are diaries you look forward to writing.  And then there are those you don’t.  This is one of the latter.

Madison the German Shepherd
May 22, 1994 - April 3, 2008

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

To An Athlete Dying Young
~ A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

Tonight we stand in silent vigil with the family and friends of a young soldier, missing since April 2004, who is finally coming home.

Until Tuesday night, I was not sure of the provenance of this horrifying photograph.  I knew that it must have come from some official source -- surely no one without the highest of security clearances could have been present at this most disgusting of spectacles.  And thus having been shot by someone in my employ -- in yours -- it was ours to repost.  

On Tuesday, while watching the first half of PBS’s incredible documentary, Bush’s War, I saw several similar photographs -- no doubt shot on the same flight.  And then I knew.  This photo was taken during one of the first (or perhaps the very first) of the flights transporting supposed terrorists to Guantanamo Bay.

Another young American man or woman was killed today in Iraq.  

So were (at least) another 50 Iraqis:

Fighting between Iraqi security forces and supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr left 50 dead in the southern city of Basra and spread to several Baghdad districts Tuesday, Iraqi officials said.

Source ~ CNN (This story appeared under the following Orwellian headline: Peaceful Iraq protests spark clashes; 50 reported dead)

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 you are not alone.

~ Henry Christopher Bradby

Cross-posted at Street Prophets

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: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
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.

by Archibald MacLeish

I am certainly not on strike. I consider it a privilege to be able to post a diary here.  I am so grateful for the opportunity Daily Kos provides to me to write, test my opinions, express my anguish and anger, or say thanks to the people for whom I am grateful.

And tonight, I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to some of the many soldiers, sailors, Marines, Airmen and National Guard I have profiled here since January 1, 2008.  These are only some of the 4,474 American men and women who have lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush Administration.  And I am only one of the many diarists who work on the IGTNT series. And these are only some of the young men and women I have had the honor and solemn duty to profile just since this year began.

But I am reposting their pictures here tonight because we owe them (and their families, friends and communites) our gratitude and thanks.  Beyond that, we owe them an end to our internal squabbling
-- and a beginning to our renewed allegiance to ending the wars that killed them.  

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 you are not alone.

~ Henry Christopher Bradby
 April 1918

Tonight we stand in silent vigil for four more valiant young men who were killed in Iraq.  Let us use compassionate words to remind their grieving families, friends and fellow soldiers that they are not alone.

With pressure mounting on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign over a call-girl scandal, investigators said Tuesday he was clearly a repeat customer who spent tens of thousands of dollars — perhaps as much as $80,000 — with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time.

(snip)

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a law enforcement official said Tuesday that Spitzer, in fact, had spent tens of thousands of dollars with the Emperors Club. Another official said the amount could be as high as $80,000. But it was not clear over what period of time that was spent.

(snip)

Still another law enforcement official said investigators found that during the tryst with Kristen on the night before Valentine's Day, Spitzer used two rooms at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington — one for himself, the other for the prostitute. Sometime around 10 p.m., Spitzer sneaked away from his security detail and made his way to the room where she was waiting, the official said. The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Source ~ International Herald Tribune