A User's Guide to PTSD

If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend rachelmanija's three part essay on her own experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder. Fascinating and insightful:

Part I: What I Did In The War. (Introduction; background; what happens during trauma; what happened to me.)

Part II: What Does A Flashback Feel Like? (My history with PTSD, what it felt like to me, and dealing with other people who have it.)

Part III: I Don't Have To Do That Any More (On recovery; lingering effects; book, film, and TV recommendations.)

Thanks to rachelmanija.

The Cinnamon Bear: A Christmas Tradition

This may be of interest to parents of young kids. I got it off the feed get_rich_slowly:

Holiday traditions don’t have to be expensive. Some of the best traditions don’t cost anything at all.

When I was a boy, Christmas meant The Cinnamon Bear. During the weeks before Christmas, a Portland radio station (KEX) would broadcast a fifteen minute episode of this story every night. The Cinnamon Bear chronicles the adventures of Judy and Jimmy, and their fantastic trip through Maybeland as they search for the missing Silver Star that belongs atop their Christmas tree.

I loved the cast of characters and the exotic locales: the Root Beer Ocean and the Inkaboos, the Wintergreen Witch, the Looking Glass Valley, the Crazy Quilt Dragon. And, of course, I loved Santa Claus and the North Pole. I believe that The Cinnamon Bear sparked within me a lifelong love of fantasy and science fiction.

Because of the vagaries of copyright law, most old-time radio broadcasts are now in the Public Domain. The Cinnamon Bear is freely distributable. Some radio stations still broadcast the show every year. But don’t worry about hunting for it: Get Rich Slowly is here to help. Every night between now and Christmas Eve, I will post a new episode in this spot.

Go here and you can download all twenty-six episodes. This might be a nice change for your kids who'd be open to something different than the standard Christmas movies.