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We have a wide range of links for you today, like why being “nice” isn’t being Christlike or helpful, how to help bees with bombs, why we get food cravings when we’re stressed, and some writing and designing advice from TED speakers.

Did you know a ninth century eye balm recipe from Bald’s Leechbook (now that’s a name for a recipe book!) is being talked about in medical journals? As half the world is warming into Spring and eventual Summer, don’t forget to apply sunscreen – because while a cure for melanoma may be possible, prevention is still better than a future cure. Also, if you like your warmer weather with some barbecue, here’s a different way to cook your steak.

If you’d like some meatier fare to begin your week, what about this most honest, beautifully important question? Or a reflection, forty years on, on the babies sent out of Saigon in shoeboxes? Then for dessert, maybe 51 beautiful sentences in literature, and a group of pyjama-wearing women simply being friends for a friend.

This week’s First Draft Poetry, titled “Dirt and all”  is in combined response to two pieces – the very first article on niceness, and the last piece on women friends.

I took a catalogue of my friends recently

to see what they had in common.

They aren’t nice, that’s for sure

They are themselves magnificently.

Women with brains, with vinegar and fire

some with cuddly hearts, or bellies,

others with warrior tendencies.

Every one ready to help when I’m stuck in the mire -

(once they stop laughing,

teasing,

praying for my wild, rebellious self,

obviously…)

- by hauling me out, or making mud-angels beside me.

Just like I do,

try to, want to,

braless or well dressed, for with beside them.


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