I was going to write a follow-up column to my last one about lying and stuff like that. Events of the past week or so (as I write this) make me feel differently about whining about how my life was injured by gossip and lies, and how you can't assume you're immune to the things that pass for fact on-line.

Then, Columbine happened. It's an interesting name, Columbine. It stands for a flower, usually. In the east, this flower has blood-red petals. In the Rockies, though, the columbine has blue and white petals (thus, the school colors).

But Columbine has another, slightly more sinister definition. She is the consort to the Harlequin, the buffoon of painted face and shaved head and odd clothing.

The Parents Report Card
Adults Get a "D+" on Stopping Teens From Smoking,Drinking and Using Drugs.

What Teens Have To Say
"We give all the money to help people in foreign countries, but we don't take care of our own poor people. We should start at home."

Poetry

Blood by Scott Holstad

Gary "Pig" Gold
"A DAY IN THE LIFE ON THE ROAD AGAIN"

Duke Daniels
As the creative alias for singer-songwriter Dan Clark, the name Duke Daniels represents memories, dreams, ideas and perceptions. To the five musicians who perform and record as Duke Daniels, the title signifies a creative whole greater than its individual parts.

Shellmen
Jon Lewis' ambitious, enchanting new Alternative Comics series, SHELLMEN, takes place in a decaying city populated by intelligent talking animals and inarticulate, apelike humans.

Stories

Washing Windows in the Rain by Kathryn Lewis
Michel began to talk of all of the places he had traveled, the things he had seen and felt, the women he had seen and felt, the pain that he had swallowed, the Strings and Mirrors theory, the emotional evolution of mankind, and finally, of how David could do the same. Live. David then proceeded to tell the Frenchman everything that he could never say to anyone. The wine was poured again and again harder than the rain that drenched his mother while she washed the windows.

Test of Time by Vasilis Afxentiou
Victoria Hall wanted to break loose from her second marriage as well. She was an archaeologist, resilient in stamina but restless in her moods. She resided in a house near the University where she taught when she was not away digging up relics.

Little Dark Breeze by Maryann

Angstrom by Robert Ingles