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Michael Tams at American Federalist Blog, one of my always-reads, has done me the honor of choosing Reflecting Light for one of his Excellent Blog Awards.

"The rules: By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, you have to award it to 10 more people whose blogs you find Excellent Award worthy. You can give it to as many people as you want but please award at least 10. Thank you out there for having such great blogs and being such great friends! You deserve this! Feel free to award people who have already been awarded."

I feel I can do no better than to cite the blogs among the names listed in the column to the right. (Not all the sites qualify as blogs.)

This is perhaps a good time to say something about my blogroll policy.I've noticed that many bloggers don't appear to update their blogrolls very often, but I would encourage them to do so. Otherwise they offer only an old snapshot and unfairly penalize newer blogs or ones discovered more recently. I've set out to revise my list a couple of times. but ended making only minor changes; the best tend to be consistently good. At the same time, there are many others that could reasonably be added.

This is a dilemma. I know many bloggers have no hesitation about adding names, sometimes running into the hundreds. But my take is that as the list lengthens, less attention is called to each link, and the blogroll begins to resemble the list of donors in tiny type at the back of an arts performance program booklet.

I'd like to emphasize again what I say in the disclaimer: I don't endorse everything said in the sites I've linked to. Sometimes I disagree outright. Now and then two bloggers on my list bash one another; fine. I like to think I don't have a rigid ideological position. My choices for the blogroll generally include authors who repeatedly demonstrate an ability to view subjects in such a light as they are not commonly seen in, stimulate my own thoughts, and write with style.

One more thing — I would give Michael Tams one of my Excellent Blog Awards, except it would look like a quid pro quo. I expect to add him to the blogroll after a suitable time has passed.