Attribution: H. A. Brendekilde , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting the abuse suffered by those who have the audacity to mention that they walked to a country school through thick and thin and winter blizzards. Just as these ancients get no respect for having …
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Month:November 2023
Kickass and the Unacceptable
Attribution: Al Jazeera, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper’s dilemma of waking up each day to a growing list of things that he and Phyllis must accept as members of the human race: Here it is for Nov. 13, 2023! *Dead kids under the rubble …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies : Film Review of “Big Eyes”
Attribution: Fernando de Sousa from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter The Art of the Deal: Film Review of Big Eyes The film Big Eyes opens with a daring escape. The year is 1958. Margaret Ulbricht (Amy Adams) is—for reasons unknown to the audience—leaving a bad marriage, the irony of which soon becomes …
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Kickass and Gerrymandered Geese
Attribution: Jocelyn Anderson, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s observation that during the close-to-a-century that he has been alive his relationship with the Canada geese has gone from farm-boy fascination with the high-flying V formations that signaled distant other-worlds of romantic wildness and mystery, to …
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Kickass and Veterans Day
Attribution: Archangel12, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s status as a veteran has always been a complication for him, on the one hand the recognition and reward it garners from a grateful public and on the other, marking the keeper as having been duped by …
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Kickass and Defining Scum
Attribution: Scum on Lake near Palm House, Kew Gardens, London by Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper considers the aspiring POTUS Repub candidates comparable to the line waiting in front of a port-a-potty at the country fair—their need is not for relief but for …
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Kickass and Artificial Intelligence
Attribution: IITU Pictures from Geneva, Switzerland, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has more or less given up on deciding just where the much-ballyhooed threat of artificial intelligence fits into his and Phyllis’s “fight-or-flee” existence. It would seem to him that AI with its firm …
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Reason to Believe
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter Not so long ago, we lived a completely rational, science-based society. Some of us still think that way. Granted, there have always been crackpots, conspiracy theorists, and cult members (and yes, there seem to be a lot more than there used to be), but there is still a …
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Kickass and Parking Justice
Attribution: howtostartablogonline.net, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, with current attention concentrated on the courts, remembers a court incident back in his student days when he got a ticket for parking too close to a crosswalk. The ticket was for $10, not an insignificant sum …
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Kickass and Wisconsin State Cocktail
Attribution:Steven Miller, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper may have to revise his assessment of the current Repub minority-representation Wisconsin legislature as a narcissistic do-nothing-except-for-the-rich bunch of self-serving revisionist gerrymandered obstructionists. With a record of contrary disregard for populace needs and desires and basic decency, …
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Kickass and Beer Bird Feeder
Attribution: Cat Lee Ball, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, says the keeper, in his efforts to fit into the natural community and seasonal cycles, will be removing the sweet water from the hummingbird feeder on his balcony and filling it with beer, Spotted Cow of course. It is …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Reptile”
Attribution: Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash Less is More: Movie Review of Reptile By Geoff Carter There have been a spate of movie mysteries making the rounds of theaters and streaming TV during the past year or so. Kenneth Branagh’s remakes of the Agatha Christie classics Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and A Haunting in Venice (based …
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