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1. about 21 hours ago on Crankshaft

   I always like to put a positive spin on things — thank you for your encouraging words and support.

2. 1 day ago on Crankshaft

   Rawlings sat back, his chair creaking softly beneath him as he studied Emily, her face buried in her hands. He could see the weight she was carrying, a storm inside her she didn’t yet know how to weather. He reached out, his hand steady, and placed it gently on her shoulder.

   “Emily,” he said, his voice low and calm, “you’re tying yourself into knots over something you don’t even know is true yet. Life’s got enough battles without you borrowing trouble from shadows.”

   She looked up, her eyes red and raw, the fear plain on her face. “But what if it is true? What if I am… and everything changes?”

   Rawlings leaned forward, his gaze steady, the kind that cut through noise and found the truth. “And what if it isn’t? What if you’ve spent all this time worrying, imagining the worst, only to find it wasn’t there? You’re letting your mind run a race that hasn’t even started, and it’s wearing you out before you’ve taken a single step.”

   Emily wiped her face, her breathing uneven. “I just… I can’t stop thinking about it. What if it ruins everything? My plans, my life…”

   Rawlings sighed, his voice softening. “Life doesn’t ruin, Emily. It bends, it shifts, it takes turns you didn’t plan for. And yes, sometimes it’s hard. But you’re stronger than you think. Right now, what you’re doing isn’t helping. You’re spinning yourself into a web of fear over something you don’t even know yet.”

   He paused, letting his words settle. “You don’t know the truth yet, so don’t waste your strength fighting ghosts. Take one step at a time. Find out what’s real first. And then? Then you decide how to walk the path that’s in front of you.”

   Emily nodded slowly, her shoulders relaxing for the first time. Rawlings leaned back, his hand still on her shoulder. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid. Don’t let it get weighed down with things you can’t control. Whatever the truth is, you’ll face it. And you’ll come out stronger for it.”

   For the first time, she smiled faintly. “Thanks, Mr. Rawlings

3. 2 days ago on Crankshaft

   Emily stood with her notebook open, the pen still in her hand. Mr. Rawlings walked the newsroom, his voice rising and falling like an old sermon, full of conviction about truth, integrity, and the death of the newspaper business. But Emily’s mind wasn’t there. It was somewhere else—somewhere darker, quieter, and filled with questions she didn’t have the answers to.

   She had missed her period. It was a thought she couldn’t shake, no matter how much she tried to focus on Rawlings’ words. The memory of the college party came back to her in flashes: the music too loud, the room too hot, and his face, blurred and distant now, but still there. She had been careless, and now the weight of that night pressed on her like a stone.

   What if she was pregnant? The question circled her mind, relentless and cruel. She thought of her future, the career she wanted, the places she dreamed of going. A baby would change all of that. It would pull her out of school, tie her down, turn her dreams into something distant and unreachable. Her stomach twisted at the thought.

   But then, another thought crept in—a small, fragile thing that she didn’t want to admit. A child was more than a consequence. It was hope. It was life. She thought of her mother, how she had always been there, always supportive, always kind. Emily thought, maybe, she could be like her. Maybe she could do it. But then the fear came again, stronger this time. How would she tell her mother? How could she face her family, her professors, her friends?

   Rawlings kept talking, his voice a steady drone in the background, something about algorithms and clown-show news stations. She wished she could listen, wished she could focus. But the truth—the raw, undeniable truth—was that she was terrified. And in that moment, all the talk of integrity and journalism felt far away, as distant as the dreams she feared she might lose.

4. 3 days ago on Crankshaft

   The small newsroom smelled faintly of old paper and ink, though the presses had long since gone quiet. Mr. Rawlings leaned back in his chair, his suspenders slack against his chest. He watched Emily as she scrawled in her notebook, her youthful determination sparking something inside him—something almost forgotten.

   “You’re sharp,” he said. “That’s good. Sharp gets you in the door, but it’s curiosity and grit that keep you there. Journalism isn’t about clever headlines, Emily. It’s about the truth.”

   He gestured around the room, his hand sweeping toward the few empty desks and the aging filing cabinets. “This place—this paper—wasn’t built on speed or spectacle. It was built on asking questions. Who, what, when, where, how, and why? People trusted us to tell them what was real, not what was loudest.”

   Emily looked up from her notes. “But does it matter anymore? I mean, with everything online, everything so instant—does the truth even have a chance?”

   Rawlings nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing as if he were looking into a far-off storm. “That’s the fight, isn’t it? The paper doesn’t matter, Emily. The ink, the presses—they’re just tools. The truth is what matters. And the truth is under attack. It always has been. But now? It’s worse. People don’t want the truth—they want the story that makes them feel right, makes them feel comfortable. And there’s a lot of money in feeding them what they want.”

   He leaned forward, his voice low but firm. “But here’s the thing: The truth doesn’t care what people want. It just is. And it’s our job—your job—to dig it up, hold it high, and make them see it. Even when they don’t want to.”

   The room fell silent except for the faint hum of a fluorescent light. Emily felt the weight of his words, the responsibility they carried. She nodded, her pencil poised over her notebook, ready to carry forward the work of a world that still needed the truth, no matter where or how it was told.

5. 4 days ago on Crankshaft

   What a sad life you must live if your only reason for doing something is based on receiving praise or acknowledgment and not just for the joy of doing it. Or what joy can be derived from criticizing or tearing down someone just to make yourself feel more important? It makes you very small in what is a very large world.

6. 4 days ago on Crankshaft

   Are you sad or happy about that?

7. 4 days ago on Crankshaft

   Emily sat quietly, her notebook balanced on her knee, listening to Mr. Rawlings talk about the town, the newspaper, and the joke he delivered with a crooked smile. “In Centerville,” he said, “everyone already knows what everyone else is doing. The job of the newspaper is to let them know if anyone gets caught.” He chuckled softly, but Emily saw the glint of something deeper in his eyes. Experience. Wisdom. Maybe a touch of sadness.

   She scribbled the line down, not because it was funny, but because it captured something raw about this place and maybe even the world. Centerville was small, but the stories here weren’t. They were human stories—of people and the things they did when they thought no one was watching. Stories of truth and lies, of heartbreak and triumph, of the choices that shaped lives in ways big and small.

   As Mr. Rawlings spoke, Emily began to understand the weight of the work he had done for decades. This wasn’t just about reporting facts; it was about finding the thread of meaning in a tangle of events and weaving it into something that mattered. Something that made people stop and think, maybe even feel.

   “You know,” Rawlings said, leaning back in his chair, “this job—it’s not about the headlines. It’s not about getting your name in print or chasing fame. It’s about looking at the world as it is, with all its flaws and beauty, and telling the truth about it. Not everyone wants the truth. But the ones who do? They’re worth writing for.”

   Emily nodded, her pen hovering over the page. She could feel it now, the calling she hadn’t fully realized before. The urge to write not just for herself, but for something larger. To capture the stories that mattered, the ones that revealed what it meant to be human.

   As the afternoon light slanted through the window, Emily made a decision. She would do this. She would write. Because in a world filled with noise, someone had to find the meaning and give it voice. And maybe, just maybe, that someone could be her.

8. 5 days ago on Crankshaft

   Mr. Rawlings leaned back in his chair, the sunlight filtering through the dusty blinds of the Centerville Sentinel office. His voice was steady, measured, like the ticking of a clock that knew its time was almost up.

   “There was a time,” he said, “when this place hummed with life. The newsroom was loud—typewriters clattering, phones ringing, people shouting over one another. Stories came in fast, sometimes too fast, and we chased them down like wild dogs. The urgency, the weight of it. Every word mattered.”

   He paused, looking at the empty desks, their surfaces long cleared of the clutter that once defined them. “Now, it’s quiet. Too quiet. News doesn’t have to be chased anymore; it’s shoveled in front of you by an algorithm, regurgitated for clicks and outrage. And here we are, a handful of us still clinging to the old ways, thinking maybe there’s a place for paper in a world that’s moved on.”

   Emily listened, notebook in hand, her eyes wide. He could see the questions she wanted to ask but didn’t, the hunger to understand.

   “This business,” he continued, “used to be about digging deep, finding the truth, and printing it for the world to see. Not for clicks, not for ratings, but because it mattered. Now it feels like a relic, doesn’t it? A newspaper. Ink on paper. Words that don’t vanish with a swipe of your finger.”

   Rawlings looked out the window, watching the slow drift of a few autumn leaves. “I guess we’re still here for the people who want to hold something real in their hands, who want to sit at their kitchen table with a cup of coffee and read something that doesn’t blink or scroll or refresh itself.”

   He turned back to Emily. “I don’t know how much longer this place will last. But as long as it does, I’ll keep writing. Because there’s still a story to tell. And I think maybe you’re the one who’ll tell the next one.”

   It was quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that wasn’t empty but full, heavy with meaning. Then Emily nodded, and Rawlings smiled.

9. 6 days ago on Crankshaft

   Mr. Rawlings was taken aback when Emily Reynolds walked through the door of the Centerville Sentinel with a notebook in hand and determination in her eyes. She wasn’t there to chase likes or clicks; she wanted to shadow him, to learn the craft of journalism from a man who still believed in its soul. It surprised him—this day and age of blaring headlines and instant outrage wasn’t built for reporters like him, relics of a slower, more deliberate time.

   He thought back to his life after the war, to the day he left his arm behind in Europe. He’d learned something on that battlefield: truth was often buried deep, hidden beneath rubble, blood, and fear. That lesson carried him through the decades as a war correspondent, from the war-torn streets of Korea to the jungles of Vietnam, and now, here in Centerville, through a world that seemed to spin faster than ever. The horrors of war had shaped him, but they hadn’t broken him. Instead, they forged a man who understood that freedom wasn’t a gift—it was a fight. And the front line of that fight was the truth.

   As Emily stood before him, Rawlings couldn’t help but think of the world she was inheriting. Nations teetered on the brink of conflict, democracy itself seemed under siege, and the clamor of biased media drowned out voices of reason. He wondered if she realized the weight of what she was asking to learn—not just the art of reporting, but the responsibility of it.

   “Yes,” he said finally, his voice gravelly but steady. “I’ll teach you. But there’s one thing you need to understand: Integrity isn’t given, and it can’t be bought. You earn it with every word you write.”

   Emily nodded, her young face serious. He saw in her the glimmer of hope, the kind that refuses to die even in the darkest times. And as he welcomed her into the newsroom, he knew this was his last great story to write—not on paper, but in the heart and mind of the next generation.

10. 10 days ago on Doonesbury

    Here’s a little secret about life: the struggle between Good and Evil is actually an inner struggle we all face. It’s not some grand battle between deities but a deeply human challenge within each of us. The Book of Revelation, with its talk of the Apocalypse, was written by a person who was trying to make sense of signs and endings. And while some believe we’re living in those “end times” right now, shaped by chaos and flawed leaders, the truth is, we can’t know when—or if—that final end will come. What matters is what we do here and now: the actions we take, the karma we build. It’s our responsibility to shape our own soul because those choices will echo for all eternity.