Kickass and 4th of July, 2024

Attribution: CindyAbout/T/P/C/, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is with the keeper and Phyllis on this 2024 Fourth-of-July as they embrace the day’s fireworks vocabulary and invite everyone to join them in wondering where they might self-identify among the various terms: Here’s a partial list for you to choose …
Read

Independence Day

(Originally published July 8th, 2021, but–unfortunately, and with the addition of the new SCOTUS, still as timely now as it was then) Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Our nation is celebrating The Fourth of July today. Any American can—hopefully—tell you what this holiday is all about. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental …
Read

Talking Points

Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “The sky is falling!”  “We’re doomed!!”  “It’s the end of the world as we know it!!”  And so forth and so on. Such was the fallout from the Democratic Party after the first presidential debate last week. First, former president Donald Trump sauntered out from stage left, smirking …
Read

Kickass and Larry’s Birthday

Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting that the keeper is more than familiar with the sons-out-of-control circumstance, adds that he is pretty much unable to assist in the latest problem whereby the keeper’s eldest son Larry very publicly celebrated a birthday marking him as old as the Pyramids. The …
Read

Kickass and Bird Photos

Photos by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper today in promoting him as a unique “minimalist” bird photographer with the shot of a hummingbird at the feeder which shows only the very tip of the hummingbird’s wing and requires that a viewer take the keeper’s word for it that …
Read

The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Wicked Little Letters”

Illustration by Michael DiMilo Poison Pen Pals: Review of Wicked Little Letters ★★★★☆ By Geoff Carter If you take a mystery, wrap it in a comedy, sprinkle in some feminist trappings, and then top off with a pinch of clownish but mean-hearted patriarchal mulishness, you end up with the wonderfully amusing but deceptively intricate film Wicked …
Read