• In mathematics, the word “identity” refers to two expressions that produce the same value. The most obvious example I can think of is x + 0 = x. No matter what you put as x, the two expressions on either side of the equals sign will have the same value. As with all English words that have found themselves…

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  • Holiday Update 2023

    It’s December, which is about as good a time as any to reflect on the year gone by and preflect on the year to come. As we did last year, I will separate out the myriad activities/productions that make up the Balckwell Online Entity, and for each one, tell you what’s been going on, as…

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  • The other day as I was walking around the park, admiring the mist rising from the lake in the early sunlight, I sent a text to my friend that read, “the only truly meaningful activity in life is just walking around.” A few minutes later, I received a reply in which he said that he…

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  • I got a part-time job recently. When I applied for the job, I wasn’t sure what sort of job it was. When I got hired, I still wasn’t entirely sure what it was I’d be doing. I’ve been doing this job for two months now. I would like to tell you three things about my…

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  • Gaza Writes Back

    Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine, was edited by Refaat Alareer, and published by Just World Books, a publisher that has put out a great deal of books about the Middle East and about Palestine and Israel, including history books, biographies, works of fiction like this one, and even a…

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  • People are often bewildered by my ability to let things slip my mind. For several months last year, I was planning to take a few odds-and-ends to the recycling depot. Every time someone came to my house and pointed at the pile, I would say, “Oh yeah, I’m going to take them to the recycling…

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  • Riker’s Stasis

    I would like to talk to you today about an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I watched recently. In the episode, the crew of the USS Enterprise are investigating a scientific base that was abandoned eight years prior due to something called a “disruption field,” that prevented anyone from being beamed on or…

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  • Smoke & Mirrors

    Twister is a 1996 blockbuster film directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Michael Crichton, which information tells you essentially all you need to know about the movie Twister. It’s a 90s blockbuster, which means its about natural disasters. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg, so you know it features two characters with a complicated relationship that becomes…

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  • I don’t really have anything to say at the moment. A few ideas have been circulating about in my head recently, but I don’t feel particularly compelled to share them in their current state. They’re all a little thin, and not yet fully thought out. With all the smoke and the heat, combined with the…

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