Merlin’s favorite times of the year are the fall and spring, simply because that’s when windows can be open and he can watch (and smell) the birds and squirrels that he’d like to be outside chasing. Here, he peers intently at the back yard through the open window right next to my desk earlier this week. Merlin is the one who disappeared for a couple of days after an escape through a screen about two years ago. He doesn’t seem to eager to leave the comforts of home behind after that adventure.

Ethicists argue for killing newborns, say it’s just as moral as abortion
Opinions without fact or reason leave us believing in nonsense
If you’re driven to create beauty, you’re an artist — like it or not
New command from the French state: ‘Thou shalt not say Facebook or Twitter on TV or radio’
If the state didn’t wither away for Marx and Engels, is there really a post-statist era ahead now?
Inflated expectations make good people act like entitled children