Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I recently had occasion to take a long cross-country road trip, spanning the Midwest, Colorado, and New Mexico. It’s a grueling ride, taking over twenty hours, but the pain is worth it. Driving through the plains and rolling hills and sometimes bleak plains offers the opportunity to get …
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Month:March 2022
Kickass and Weather Phrases
Brian0918 at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, in assisting the keeper as he tries to see something good in everything, including the Wisconsin winter that refuses to yield to spring, points out that the incredibly stupid political events of the immediate past have produced a plethora …
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Kickass and the Brooder House
Photo by Zoe Schaeffer on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, suggests to the keeper that it may be time to reinsert into his chaotic life a “brooder house,” like the one he remembers from his boyhood farm days where he was wont to spend time in the small, Quonset hut-shaped structure soaking up the warmth …
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Kickass and Repub Breakfast
Varghese K James, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is in one of his dilemmas of despair as he attempts to adjust his life to accommodate the guidance of Repub deep thinkers who, under a proposed Perdue Poultry Act, are drafting protection for chicken eggs …
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You Can’t Go Home Again
Kenneth BranaghGiorgia Meschini, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Film Review of Belfast By Geoff Carter As a medium, narrative film is a palimpsest that draws the best from other art forms; like literature, it can convey the impression of a time and place through dialogue, characterization, and setting. Like two-dimensional art, it can frame an …
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Kickass and Divisiveness
DonkeyHotey, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is having difficulty getting into step with the current movement to address political divisiveness by sitting down with and listening to those who hold opposing views. The hard facts are that he—the keeper, does not have the reasoned restraint …
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Kickass and Mike’s Birthday
Selena N. B. H. from Fayetteville, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper as he—the keeper, suffers from “time” contortions as he attempts to deal with the fact of his youngest child—Mike, celebrating a 65th birthday. The math would make the keeper’s age…….oh, never mind! Suffice to say …
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Kickass Tackles the Weather
Liz Sales, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has decided to defy the old saw that everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. His plan of “doing something,” has its base in the human capacity for enduring outright, wholesale stupidity as it …
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Kickass and the Catalytic Converter
Photo by Kevin Bidwell: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-working-under-his-car-1388278/ By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that in the interests of retaining a semblance of relevance, the keeper now has a job which he created for himself after the bus at Vista West, where he and Phyllis live, was temporarily out of service because some jerk crawled under …
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Peace Corps 2.0
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter As the world watched horrified—once again—one sovereign nation invaded another without provocation, slaughtering thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands of innocent civilians, as we stood by helplessly, unable to stop the bloodshed without getting enmeshed in the carnage ourselves. No one—except maybe Russia—wants World War III. Civilized nations …
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Kickass Goes to the Dentist
See page for author, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports on the keeper’s talent for so easily slipping from the sublime to the ridiculous, exemplified today in the wake of Phyllis’s great health report and moving on to the keeper’s trip to the dentist. There is, on the …
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Kickass and Good Cancer News
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, does not often get the opportunity to pass along the kind of great news that dominates this day for the keeper and Phyllis as they absorb yesterday’s report from the UW Carbone Cancer center’s Dr. Bradley that after two years of various treatment regimens, …
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