Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nostalgia and the Typewriter

Posted on May 22, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

Nostalgia is tricky. You can bath in it or just feel it as a gentle rain. It can hold you and put lead in your shoes or awaken you and set you running out the door. As with any memory, … Continue reading →

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When Your Heroes Die

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

As a kid, I didn’t read comic books.  I loved words and all those pictures meant there were fewer words.  That also meant I didn’t have any connection to the heroes and superheroes that today roar though our popular culture … Continue reading →

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Mozy is Blind

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

“She’s so beautiful.”  That is how every conversation begins when someone meets our 8 year-old Collie/Sheppard mix Mozy.  From the first time we took her to the vet to every person who stops to talk with us on the street, … Continue reading →

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The Starbucks Incident — What Do You Want?

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

I will readily admit I don’t know a ton about what happened in that Starbucks in Philadelphia.  I’ve seen the videos of the incident and the Police Chief.  I saw some television reports and an article or two.  Seen some … Continue reading →

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The Commissioner and The Baseball

Posted on April 11, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

  What is the strangest relationship you have ever had? Was it in your family, so you had no choice? Did you have a lover whose very existence in your live now baffles you? Did you have a boss who you are now … Continue reading →

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Signifiers — Thoughts From the Coast

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

Signifier: a symbol, sound, or image (such as a word) that represents an underlying concept or meaning. Admittedly, this is a damn strange word to have stuck in my head for months. When I obsess over a word the bubble … Continue reading →

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Portland’s Jefferson High — Why the Name is Essential

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

  Over the years, the nascent movement to rename Portland’s Thomas Jefferson High School has bubbled just under the surface. Sometimes the heat gets turned up and the discussion breaks out again. We are, once again, in one of those … Continue reading →

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Who Are These Kids? #neveragain

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

  After the Parkland Valentine’s Day massacre, the first time I knew this was going to be different was when I saw those kids on television. I kept saying out loud, “Who are these kids?” Poised. Articulate. Smart. Grieving and … Continue reading →

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Are you a White Supremacist too?

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

The big, heavy blunt instrument feels so good. Anyone who has swung a sledgehammer knows how productive it feels. But that same person knows that the sledgehammer is indiscriminate. It destroys and often misses the mark. To build and finish … Continue reading →

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Coward? You May Never Know

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Jim Blackwood Jr

I can’t stop thinking about the case of Scott Peterson, the school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas High School. For 5 minutes, as shots rang out in a school building, he chose to wait outside. After 33 years as a … Continue reading →

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