THE NAME
To name this news-following blog, I’ve borrowed a term (rhyming with hollow, not polo) which journos use for “a follow-up to or expansion of the original story.” I’m not doing reporters’ work here, so I hope they forgive me for bumming their wonderful word.
If any show up, it might also stand for “friends of lotus online.” 
THE BLOGGERS
Online, I go by “lotus,” offline, by Jan Goodrich. Once I professed English, then I defended the (felonious) public, but nowadays I’m a flowah on a Florida pond, watching the world with a raised eyebrow-petal. Contact me at lotusflowahATwidoutaDOTnet.
My co-blogger is “NMC” (Tom Freeland) at nmisscommentorATgmailDOTcom.
THE LEGALITIES
This blog is published by folo LLC. Content on the “Front,” “About,” and “Pith & Vinegar” pages may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified.
The “As I recall …” and “Flowahy Cookin’” pages are © 2007 folo LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The content of individual comments on folo is the sole responsibility of their authors. While I urge accuracy, completeness, veracity, (etc., etc., even courtesy and good humor) upon folo’s commenters — and usually find these qualities in abundance … I do not guarantee same.
THE ETIQUETTE
Because I’d like as many people as possible to feel comfortable reading and commenting here, I make the “folo”ing requests (okay, 2 -5 are demands):
1. Your first — and only your first — comment here will automatically go into moderation, from which I will free it as soon as possible. Please be patient: ’tis only me here to mind this store (which isn’t my whole life). When commenting, please help me fight spammers by disguising words that tend to attract them — such as “Vi*gra,” etc.
2. Argue with me or other commenters if you must, but please do so civilly — no abusing or vilifying your conversation-partners, y’hear? If you get into such a heated exchange with someone that it begins to disrupt a thread, I ask that you exchange email addresses and take your dispute off-blog. Repeated cases of same will merit your banning from the site.
3. Minor profanity doesn’t bother me, but racial, ethnic, homophobic, and misogynistic slurs do.
I will not have “the c-word” — or anyone who uses it even once — on this blog.
4. Calling for the assassination or physical harming of anyone will get you immediately and permanently banned from this site.
5. If you’d like to quote from some other online source in a comment, please observe “fair use” — i.e., use as little of the source as possible, credit its author, and provide a link to it if possible.
6. Though my socio-political orientation is liberal, conservatives are welcome here. I don’t talk about rightwing bloggers and shouters much because they bore me to tears; if you want to talk about them, you’re apt to bore me too (Glenn Greenwald, for one, talks about them frequently, so why don’t you try there?).
