parallel port setup in this brave new udev world?

[Michael Wiktowy]

I have a parallel port scanner that has traditionally been pointed
at /dev/parport0 (call me a savage if you want ... but it hasn't died
yet so I haven't bought a newfangled usb one)

However, that device is nowhere to be found so I cannot use the udev
permissions file to set the permissions on the device so that regular
users can use xsane (and avoid the scolding for using xsane as root)

Oddly enough, root can run xsane fine eventhough there is no device for
it to find ...

Three questions that I hope someone can enlighten me on:

1) Is there a missing
KERNEL="parport*", NAME="%n", SYMLINK="parport%e"
line in the rules file for udev?

2) Why is it that root can find the parport device fine eventhough it
does not seem to exist? i.e. the scanner is detected and runs fine while
regular users can't find the scanner.

3) How does one cause udevd to reread and reapply the rules/permissions
in the etc files other than rebooting? "service udevd restart", "udevd",
"udevstart" all give me no joy.

Thanks.
/Mike