Or does anyone else find the involvement of the Muppets and Sesame Street Characters in the culture war disturbing?

  Editor Mike Allen is over at  SF Signal discussing why he chose Kickstart to finance the fourth volume of his excellent Clockwork Phoenix Anthology series.   Read all about it here.  

Last night, I was chatting with the princess about movies she had seen, when she asked if stars were really the spirits of the dead. She was serious. I had tried to explain about stars once before. This time I had John do it with videos from the internet. Still not sure she understood most…

I am on vacation this week. Instead of writing, I am praying and reading books…though today I played LIFE with the talking boys.   The Cherubim asked to go back to Boy Scouts this morning. I had to tell him we couldn't do that. He just walked by carrying for large dinosaurs and smiling.

From All Girls Allowed…some good news:   Dear Friend,   Big news! This week, the One-Child Policy saw two major challenges in wake of public outrage over Feng Jianmei's forced abortion. We are praying that this signals the end of the One-Child Policy! You can do something about it, too.   Yesterday, the European Parliament…

I just sat down to do some summer reading with my eldest, as I have for many summers now. He picked up Dr. Seuss's I Had Trouble Getting To Solla Sollew, which is not one of the easier Seuss's, and just read about 20 pages. Just read it. Stumbled over one word. Downright miraculous!  …

So, I was actually writing this morning and son number three came to say that he was bored. I said, "Why don't you play with some of your toys." And he made the mistake of saying, "I don't have any toys." … Folks, I'd like to say I kept my temper, but… while I did…

Last night we were watching the new Avatar series, and the princess exclaimed in delight: "Look, my name is on the computer." It was a scene of a guy in a mask talking on a stage. To either side was a huge Chinese character in black on red. It was the character for Ping (peace)…

In light of the contentious political subjects among us today, I thought it might be helpful to someone if I shared a few thoughts on what to do if you want to talk about the issues and you would prefer a discussion instead of an argument The key is to remember this one, hard-bought secret:…