bird song
lost
in bird song
mother-daughter
small-talk
snap beans
witnessing his will
the frost-hatched
pane
……………………………………………………. Peggy Lyles, from To Hear the Rain (Brooks Books, 2002) 
sunshine
finds a prism –
forgotten paperweight……………………………………………… dagosan
Monica Bay scolds lawyers who rail against lawyer jokes. (as have we)
Stroke Awareness: the 3 Simple Questions — not an urgan legend! Most email health alerts forwarded by well-meaning friends are bogus and I have complained about them more than once. However, even my main hoax-sniffer Snopes.com acknowledges that Three Simple Questions can help the layman recognize a stroke — and get the immediate help that can greatly minimize disability after a stroke.
When you think someone might have suffered a stroke, ask him or her:
- to smile.
- to raise both arms
- to speak a simple sentence.
If the person can’t do any of the above tasks, call 911 and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
local schmocal: are you counting on local government to solve the economic development problems in your town? Your humble pundit is not holding his breath.
Tim Sandefur has a thoughtful piece about states as “local laboratories” in which he points out that they don’t have unlimited powers to experiment with the lives of their citizens. Freedom of the citizen is both the goal and the limit of State power. Tim quotes Madison: “[A]s far as the sovereignty of the States cannot be reconciled to the happiness of the people, the voice of every good citizen must be, Let the former be sacrificed to the latter.”