Kickass Goes Beyond Howling by Bill Stokes «

Attribution: Henry Edward Knobel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By Bill Stokes

Kickass, the doorstop dog, still working to teach the keeper how to howl effectively, tries to ignore the brutal truth that the required reaction to the POTUS narcissistic cruelty has progressed beyond howling to demand snarling, mad-dog attacks complete with abject resistance and jaw-snapping bites to vulnerable parts of the MAGA anatomy.

As usual, the keeper searches his past for parallels that might be helpful as he struggles to “do good.” In relation to the problem of the military members reacting to an “unlawful” order, the keeper recalls the order he got during basic training while on KP duty. The order was from the mess hall sergeant and it directed the keeper to peel about a thousand potatoes waiting in a huge metal garbage can.

With his “farm-boy” relationship to potatoes, the keeper had no adverse feelings about them remaining in their natural “jacketed” state but it did not occur to him at the time that peeling the potatoes might constitute an “unlawful” order as he saw things.

In long term retrospect, of course, the possibility is that an order for a soldier who enlisted to defend the country and is then ordered to peel potatoes, that order could be construed as “illegal” on several grounds.

Applying the verity that the past is prolog; the keeper will be more forceful in acting on possible illegal orders, and should Phyllis ask him to peel some potatoes he just might question the legality of her request.

With illegal orders jamming up the system on an hourly basis, it is this kind of nonsensical thinking that the keeper and Phyllis suggest as a survival tactic.