This morning, Virginia–well, at least a big chunk of the Richmond-oriented folks–woke up adrift. There were no Whipple Clips in our inboxes.

Each morning, like clockwork, Arlingtonian Tom Whipple (yes, he is married to Senator Mary Margaret Whipple) gets up at some ungodly hour and begins to read newspapers from around the Commonwealth. He carefully assembles them into a lengthy email, with a summary at the front and then the complete story later in the email. By 7 a.m., they’re delivered to inboxes across the state.

It’s a true act of friendship. There’s no charge for the service. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and anyone else who has an interest in Virginia politics all subscribe. Want to know what they’re saying about the Governor’s race in Bristol? Wonder how the House race in the 99th is progressing? If it’s in a daily newspaper, it’s in the Whipple Clips.

Most conversations I have about Virginia politics on any given morning begin with, “Have you read the clips yet?” Today, the answer will be “no.”

On the rare occasions that Tom takes a break, my Co-Blogger takes the helm. There is a running battle between the two — Whipple’s clips are out earlier. Brink’s are longer. Most of us don’t engage in the fight. We are just grateful that they assemble them for us.

This week, Tom was assembling the clips from his cabin in Canada. In an email to his readers, he explained the problem: “This morning Verizon technical support, while trying to be helpful, managed to deactivate my air card that gave high speed access to the internet via cell phone towers. The only way this card can be reactivated is to make a 600-mile round trip to the nearest Verizon cell phone tower in the United States.”

So this is a good time to thank Tom and Bob publicly for a great job. And now, could we all wish for a quick reactivation of the air card so we can get our clips again?