By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper in establishing a commission to investigate the seasonal insurrection of the spring of 2021, when the human species continued its destructive ways as the rest of the natural world went on about the business of propagation and existence with a glorious display of blossoms, exuberance …
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Month:May 2021
The High Road
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Sometimes we find our greatest strengths in the strangest places. One of our most fierce advocates for fighting climate change is an eighteen-year-old Swedish high school student. An outspoken advocate for woman’s rights is a twenty-three-year-old Pakistani who nearly died in an assassination attempt. That didn’t frighten her; …
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Kickass and McViewitis
TapTheForwardAssist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s recent preoccupation with vision issues may have been misguided in that he apparently didn’t see what he saw. In comparing notes with others who did not see what they saw, the keeper refers to an apparent new affliction …
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Kickass and Preserving Vision
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that among the things keeping the keeper in the game is the outstanding work done by the VA eye clinic to preserve his vision in the face of hereditary and aging based challenges. Pro-active measures include periodic macular degeneration shots in one eye, and there has been cataract …
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Kickass and Rants to Howls
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports some progress with the keeper’s efforts to transform his rants into howls, particularly as another summer approaches when Wisconsin will again be the ONLY STATE allowing bear hunters to train their hounds by running them through the woods at the height of family rearing by countless wild …
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Kickass and Renewal
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis joined the mass exodus to the gloriously blossoming natural world Sunday with a patrol of the Driftless area where Phyllis photographed trilliums and other wildflowers, and the keeper finally caught a breakfast trout. Increasingly aware of age-related limitations, the keeper did not …
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The Couch Potato’s Guide to Saturday Mornings
By Geoff Carter Last January, the MeTV Network, which unabashedly calls itself “America’s #1 classic television network” announced a new morning show, Toon in With Me, which airs Saturday mornings and features classic cartoons. It’s sort of a variety show featuring special guests, comedy sketches, and interviews designed to lead into Saturday Morning Cartoons, a three-hour collection …
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Kickass Does a Recount
Foley, Mark T., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, using the technique of the know-nothing Arizona vote counters, is pawing through cultural records in search of evolutionary advances. So far, he has found: *Money in politics carries the day in white male millionaire briefcases. *If a …
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Kickass and the Disappointed Starling
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s day began with a 5 a.m. wake-up call from a robin, got a snooze signal from a crow 15 minutes later, and shortly thereafter got a get-the-hell-out-of-bed scolding from a persistent cardinal. While the keeper finds it more reassuring to document birds’ activities over human …
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Kickass Peeks Behind the Mask
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports several unmasking events in the keeper’s life at the independent living quarters he shares with Phyllis. He, the keeper, was more than gratified by the unmasking to learn that it was indeed Phyllis who has been enriching his life in a thousand ways since even way before the …
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Too Far Gone
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Perseverance is usually a virtue. The determination to keep going—no matter what the odds—until a goal is reached, a task completed, or a dream attained is usually a noble aspiration. But when determination swells into blind ambition or becomes nothing more than a single-minded fixation, it can result …
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Kickass Ponders a Dandelion
By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper identifies with the dandelions that have gone to seed, and thanks Mary Bellis Williams for posting the letter from a dandelion, which says many of the things the keeper agrees with. If you blow on the keeper’s fuzzy head, and make a wish, he …
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