Mother, baby found dead in Millvale apartment (Mom OD, Baby Died of Dehydration)

[Divernan]

30. It speaks to the lack of community in our country.

Just as when DUers posts about their personal health, employment, financial, etc., issues - there's really only a single degree of separation of such posts from the "polity", which is defined as:

Polity Definition
dictionary.search.yahoo.com

n. noun

1. The form of government of a nation, state, church, or organization.
2. An organized society, such as a nation, having a specific form of government.

For those of us who have been on DU from the beginning, there is a sense of personal connection between and among many of the posters. We are not a sterile, academic discussion board. The fact that someone has died unnoticed for a week (and in an apartment building, not some remote cabin in the woods), speaks to the dysfunctional isolation in our "modern" world and is a topic worthy of discussion. Certainly of value.

For whom the bell tolls
(No man is an island) by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem - the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose.