O give me a home...

where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play,
where seldom is heard a discouraging word.... (Traditional)

If you've been praying for Chloe, she's talking!! She's still in the hospital, but "recovering at a fast rate." Her dad said "I've never been so glad to hear the word 'Cinderella.'"

The news, it is good.

My dad went up to New York today. Tomorrow he'll have breakfast with an old college friend. Today he was there to support my Aunt's college roommate who has been recovering from breast cancer. Building bridges, that man does.

So I will remember October 16, 2006 as a day of good news. A long road stretches before us, but a breakthrough has occurred.

Harry is weaker and I am grateful. (Um, Harry is the cold.)

*************

My aunt died about six years ago, suddenly. She and her roommate never were close, but from what I gather, they lived in a suite, the three of them. The other roommate (Betty) has kept in touch with both my father and the family of the roommate my dad visited today (Minnie). Betty sees my dad as a little brother--I gleaned this from an email my mom forwarded to her pastor about Minnie. So Betty has built the bridge, I guess, and my dad is a co-builder with her in support of Minnie. I don't think I've ever met any of these women that knew my aunt when she was a college student some 40 years ago. But reading about them, I feel closer to my aunt. And I feel protective of Minnie, even if she and my aunt didn't see eye to eye.

For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for thee. (John Donne, No man is an island.)

Someone asked me why I was upset about bit-bit-bit. Did they steal your stuff? No. They didn't need to. "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

I can't do anything for Minnie. That is in my dad's sphere. But intellectual property and in particular to blogging, that is in my sphere.

I'll just keep posting on this. I don't know if you'll get a full blown rant from me, but I will do my own bit to bite away, bit by bit.

Here is the url for the main site that is working to stop the denigration and piracy of bloggers across the blogosphere. Just visit it. And tell everyone you know. It's how I'm trying to build a bridge. It's the decent thing to do.

********************
thanks to Wikipedia for the full text of this poem:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

--Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)