Early yesterday morning, three men used crowbar to break loose the deadbolt locking the front door to Premium T.'s home. Her sons were asleep. They blindfolded, bound, and gagged one of them and demanded the location of "the safe." There is no safe. They then ransacked the house -- including the crawl space -- strewing it with trash, empty drawers, sofa cushions, and unwanted goods. They took with them laptops, wallets, car keys, passports, credit cards, prescription drugs, and sentimental items the value of which to them remains unclear. All told, they occupied the house for nearly two hours. Mercifully, they harmed no one physically, but inevitably left behind a profound sense of personal invasion.

T., a sister, and a friend cleaned up the debris and reorganized the house. A neighbor came over and reinstalled new, stronger deadbolts on the front and back doors. Neighbors trooped in and out to offer their condolences. I spent most of the morning on the phone to AAA, the bank, and pharmacies. In a gesture of defiance, R. -- the son who had been restrained -- decided to keep a scheduled job interview. I drove him there. (Pssst, Odd Fellows Cafe: You can really use him.)

T. and I spent the afternoon replacing cell phones and obtaining new SIM cards. I must say that the staff at Target and T-Mobile -- like the people I talked with from the bank and AAA -- were helpful and sympathetic. (One girl at T-Mobile nearly cried when she heard the story.) When there was confusion about one of the new car keys, the locksmith sent out by AAA offered to come right back out.

The anger has yet to set in. Yesterday was about putting Humpty Dumpty back together, and the combined efforts of all involved were effective. Although three people's lives have been changed, there is at least the balm of the kindnesses of strangers, friends, family, and neighbors to ease the searing pain of home invasion and the violence of assault.

BREAKING NEWS: President Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court...The Nation reviews the choice here and describes her judicial style here...The smear campaign begins...Rush Limbaugh claims that Sotomayor is a racist. A quick application of the filter of reality reveals that this actually means that she is a paragon of color-blindness...Sotmayor speaks in May 2003 as commencement speaker for the Pace University School of Law: