Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in cheering on Ava the beagle who is obviously not content to accept her traditional dog identity, and is making a bold move to pattern dog-walking more as it might be designed by cats. Following a temporary mobility …
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Month:April 2022
Kickass and Bird Migration
Antonio, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in his fascination with the fact that, according to ornithologists, 340 million birds will migrate across the skies of the US tonight. The incredible timeless night migration of birds is now being negatively affected by human …
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Kickass and Attenborough
David AttenboroughDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – www.dfat.gov.au, CC BY 3.0 AU, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s assessment that watching the PBS “Climate Change” program hosted by David Attenborough produced the sensation of being aboard a doomed airliner. The program’s take-away for the keeper was …
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Solitude
Art by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was thinking about my grandma the other day, about how she used to leave her TV on all the time, whether she was in the room or not. When I was in college, I had a standing invitation to come to her house for dinner. I’d arrive …
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Kickass and Elon Musk
Pablo Carlos Budassi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s confusion in noting the simultaneity of Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter’s BS megaphone, and the local PBS begathon’s pleas for a few dollars to keep disseminating the truth and consequences of daily …
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Kickass and the Trees
Maud Newton, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting the trees, huddled now in late April on the hills in skeletal nudity, but beginning to offer tender buds to buy the leafy/lace green gowns to take them dancing extravagantly through the long …
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Kickass and Boating Woes
A.F. Bradley, New York, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that based on the keeper’s life-long experience, he advises the Russian oligarchs who own the billion- dollar yachts, that killing themselves, as several have reportedly done, is an overreaction to a boating problem. From the …
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New Wave Cinema 2.0: The Films of Spike Lee
By Geoff Carter In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be considering the work of today’s best and most influential filmmakers, artists whose singular visual styles and visionary senses have stretched the boundaries of cinema. Drawing upon Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, these pieces will be looking at writer/directors whose …
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Kickass and Sunny’s Baby Bump
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, endorses the keeper’s comment that the outstanding feature at the river-side clan gathering, hosted Saturday by Ohm and Andy, was Sunny’s baby bump which has taken on the proportions of the giant pumpkin. Everyone had a comment, and little girls came to gently poke at …
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Kickass and Disney Characters
Photo by Guillermo GR on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, in his eagerness to be helpful, is pointing out Wisconsin job opportunities to the Disney characters who are losing their Florida jobs for saying certain words, like “stupid, dumb, outrageous, unbelievable, racist, homophobic and constipated.” GOOFY: You are …
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Kickass and Earth Day 2022
NASA images by Reto Stöckli, based on data from NASA and NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this Earth Day to lament the physical and mental “dung ball” condition of the planet; and to remember Earth Day 1966 when the keeper was among the …
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Triumph of the Will
Photo: Harry Wad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter The now infamous moment when Will Smith lost his cool and slapped Chris Rock in front of half the world (or more) at the Academy Awards has already been etched into the bedrock of our cultural mythology. Smith has been painted as everything from a …
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