Attribution: Photo by Pete Godfrey on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting the keeper’s reference to an old Kickass post, advises the bald eagle that its days as the national bird are as much as over and it should look for a new job, perhaps in recycling. The historical item is from July 24, 2018 …
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Month:July 2026
Midterm Exams
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter A big test is coming up for America, a test that could determine the course of our democracy (or lack of it) for generations. The midterms. During the last election, we were gullible enough to be fooled twice (shame on us), and, as a result, we are now …
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Kickass and the Britannicas
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting the keeper’s inclination to dig things up that might better remain buried, reviews the long saga of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a symbol of knowing everything the Encyclopedia Britannica was “it”, in the keeper’s early adult years and when he scored a complete …
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Kickass and Cooking a Shore Lunch
Attribution: Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the colorful air wafting down from Canada reminds the keeper of one of his more embarrassing–nay, “humiliating” moments, when on a Canadian fishing trip, he took it upon himself to cook the fish shore lunch for his father, Uncle Duffy and their …
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Kickass and Mom’s Coughing Genes
Attribution: Zephyris at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper having the low class to be critical of his mother for passing on to him a cough-trigger mechanism that has him barking “treed” until he is unfit company at weddings and funerals unless the ceremony …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “How to Make a Killing”
No Mystery: Film Review of How to Make a Killing ★★1/2 Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The definition of film noir found in the dictionary probably has a picture of Humphrey Bogart smoking a cigarette and holding a revolver next to it. Look up femme fatale and you’ll find a black and white …
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Kickass and Canadian Smoke Signals
Attribution: NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, tries in vain to calm the keeper in his frantic insistence that unless the US accurately reads the smoke signals being sent down by a compassionate Canada a fate worse than death is likely to befall the US citizenry. The failure …
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Kickass and National Mother
Attribution: Jack Dykinga, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that it has been a reoccurring dream of the keeper’s that a national no-nonsense mother explodes onto the political scene as if she were returning home early and surprising a gang of house-partying teenage bums, whereupon she starts swinging …
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Kickass and the Keeper’s Summer Cold
Attribution: Harry Pot for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, can now report that the keeper insists that the bad air from the Canadian wildfires is part of the plot to cause him maximum misery with a summer cold. It has always been the case that the keeper considered …
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Kickass and the Bad Air
Attribution: Bureau of Land Management California, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, will be barking his alarm to help the keeper and Phyllis spread the word that the polluted gray atmosphere is the result of Pete Hegseth’s efforts to adjust the testosterone levels of the military, which as he …
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The American Gestapo
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Minnesota Governor Tim Walz created a major controversy when he compared ICE agents in Minneapolis to the Gestapo. In a commencement address to the University of Minnesota Law School in May 2025, he said, “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They’re in unmarked …
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Kickass Edits the Shooting Statement
Attribution: DonkeyHotey, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper, in his fumbling attempt to organize political information to make it as useful as possible, revisits the file that begins with the quotation, “I could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and it …..” In his assertion that he is …
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