Our newspaper has a story about the Republican candidate for governor, who wanted to destroy his house and build a better one. Instead of paying folk with big hammers and machines to whack at it, he hired an appraiser to decide that the structure was worth three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and then had the fire brigade come around to burn it down. The full "value" then came off his taxes. Thus the next most urgent question for you appraisers must be: how much of a deduction would this twofer be worth, were I to become careless with matches? an iffy bit with three quick things in one a squirrel the other a small cat named jeeves neither has seen the bird of prey a hawk probably which has halted in our douglas fir David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html