For one thing I got reactions to MINDMISTRES.

I got several compliments on the Mindmistress storyline and storytelling, some on the art--- they liked the bright coloring but thought at places I was sloppier than I should have been--- and several hated, hated, hated the font.

I have to agree with the last two, and I'll work to improve it. Any suggestions would be welcome on that...

Well, Bush wants to ban all human cloning.

Why?

Aren't we overreacting...just a tad? Ohhhh, let's keep the big scary clones from attacking us.

If we called them "artificially grown twins" there would probably be a lot less resistance.

This isn't the next episode of STAR WARS, people. The clones are not attacking. They will just be babies. Personally, I see nothing wrong with the idea, if a couple has trouble conceiving, of one of the parents being cloned and implanted in the womb. Or a sibling being cloned similarly.

What I really fear is that clones will be formed anyway...and in our overreaction, we will deny them basic civil rights. Let us never, ever forget that clones would be human beings.

Nothing more. Yet nothing less, either.

I love the universe. Everytime we think we have a handle how things are arranged, it throws us a new curve.

We thought that the smallest form of "normal" matter---stretching the definition of normal just a bit---would be neutron stars. Anything smaller than that would be a black hole.

But in "Two Stars Defy Current Theories" we find "quark stars".

How delightful! The whole universe is made to constantly surprise and amaze one, you might think...

Speaking of things that are delighful, I found "Superbaby's Babysitter" on the Net today, from a message board that Scott McCloud was posting on, and I'm still laughing.

"Wild Horses couldn't hurt that child! A tractor couldn't hurt that child..."

Poor Ma and Pa Kent.

A lovely, ironic look at one of my favorite myths/legends/pop icons...and how some parenting jobs are harder than others....and full of surprises.

Brian startled me the other morning. He had gone to bed at ten the previous night---that was amazing enough...but when I went to wake him up, he was wide awake, reading from one of his textbooks.

He said he had just woken up at four-thirty and couldn't go back to sleep.

If you knew Brian, who can sleep till two in the afternoon, and whom I have to wake up at least twice to get up, you would know how extraordinary--almost unprecedented--that was. If Orson Welles or Richard Nixon had been awake and in that room, I couldn't have been more startled.

Well, now to soon wish my middle son a happy sixteenth birthday. Sixteen years of the "normal" kid---who by most standards, is very, very extraordinary indeed.

I'm extremely proud of him.

I hope it shows.