Attribution: U.S. News & World Report photographer Thomas J. O’Halloran, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper toying with a new way of measuring his long life as he counts how many TV news anchors he has gone through as Lester Holt hung it up last night …
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Month:May 2025
Kickass Milks the Cows
Attribution: Jonathan Wilkins, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, as a former farm boy who knew the experience of hand-milking cows, laments the progression of the twice daily task to “milking parlors” and rotating stalls and the hand-over to immigrant farm workers. With that last …
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Kickass and Rude Drivers
Attribution: Spaynton, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in wondering what pattern of reasoning youthful drivers —usually but not always male, use when they come roaring out of nowhere to cut off other drivers in dangerous, near-miss traffic situations. Some obvious “reasoning” on the part of …
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Join us at the Book Launch for Geoff Carter’s Newest Novel on June 26th
at The Art Bar 722 E. Burleigh St., Milwaukee, WI Thursday, June 26, 2025, at 7:00 pm In Bad Faith A gripping mystery that takes you from elite financial boardrooms of Chicago to the wild jungles of Mexico… Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help …
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Unschooled
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was a public-school teacher for over thirty years. I mainly taught high school English, but because I was at one point assigned to the Home and Hospital Program, which serviced students at home who were too sick to go to school, I had occasion to teach all …
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Kickass Puts on Shoes and Socks
Attribution: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, encourages the keeper in his efforts to extract something useful from the verity that putting on your shoes and socks becomes a vastly different undertaking over the course of a lifetime. From a hurried minute when your youthful mind is on other things—you know …
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Kickass and Demonstrators
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper tries to lend a hand here and there as Phyllis and others mount a “Protection Rally” to proclaim the injustice of depriving seniors of necessary benefits and services as prescribed by a haunted and a contaminated White House. In an …
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Kickass and Memorial Day 2025
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper is still around on this Memorial Day to get his usual note off to the two I & R platoon mates who are NOT around and haven’t been since the artillery shell took them out the day after their squad …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Sinners”
Illustration by Michael DiMilo Immortal Sins: Movie Review of Sinners ★★★★☆ By Geoff Carter Movies can be larger than life which is—of course—a great part of their appeal. It always has been. Spectacles like D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, the 1963 Twentieth Century-Fox version of Cleopatra, or the more recent Babylon, movies featuring “a cast of thousands”, lavish sets, and …
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Kickass and the Green Curtain
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis peeking under the lush green curtain that recently fell to hide the greatest show on earth. They see big gawky birds laying eggs in ragged treetop rookeries, thousands of exquisite warblers warbling to each other, fresh dirt from countless …
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Full Measure
Artwork by Michael DiMilo (Originally posted on May 31, 2019 in Honor of our Veterans. Addendum posted on May 25, 2025.) By Geoff Carter Ah, Memorial Day: the harbinger of summer, the first family picnic, and the grill master’s opening day. Memorial Day also happens to be the holiday recognizing and honoring those who have …
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Kickass and a Day Off
Attribution: It is unclear as to whether the press-materials were distributed by a personal publicity agency representing the subject, or if they were distributed by an agency employed to publicize the film, and/or the first CBS television broadcast of the film, which aired on November 3, 1956., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes …
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