Kickass and Demonstrators

Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper lending a hand as Phyllis and her Vista West cohorts join the May Day crowd of “IMPEACH-CONVICT-REMOVE” demonstrators across the country. Fresh from a previous practice session earlier at the Capitol there was a serious sign making endeavor—Phyllis’s sign reads “I’M …
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Glimmers of Hope

Attribution: Stiller Beobachter from Ansbach, Germany, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” –Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto Admiral Yamamoto said this after the Japanese sneak attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor—the strike he himself had planned. The …
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Kickass and Old Protests

Attribution: uwdigitalcollections, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, tries not to get in the way as Phyllis and friends work out an introduction to the city bus system so they can get to the Capitol for such things as political demonstrations. The keeper, in the meantime retreats to a …
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The Fourth Wall

Attribution: Photo by Ilmi Amali Q.A on Unsplash By Geoff Carter I’m sick of politics. The last six weeks—four months—have been exhausting. We’ve gone from shock to disappointment to denial to acceptance (pretty much the stages of grief) to greater shock, disbelief, fear, and anger. Of course, to be fair, this is only one side of the argument.  …
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Kickass and Wine-Tasting Tea Parties

Lou Stejskal, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in observing that while the taverns, and their predominantly male occupants, have historically been the main places of both outrageousness and mayhem in the area of social imbibing, there has been a shift from taverns to wineries, with …
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Helping Hands

Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Since the recent—but not unexpected—Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe -v- Wade, American citizens have been scrambling to come to terms with the consequences and implications of this new and deeply disturbing ruling. The nation is reeling in shock. After all, it’s the first time that the highest …
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Better than What?

Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter             Earlier this month, in the course of one twenty-four period, thirty-three people were killed during two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. According to CBS News, as of August 5th, there have been over two hundred fifty-five deaths resulting mass shootings in this country since …
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Giant Steps

Giant Steps             Toni Morrison, one of America’s great visionary authors, passed away last week. We lost not only a supremely talented writer, but also a woman of profound courage, incisive vision, and sublime sensibilities. As an African-American woman, her writing enveloped and embraced the marginalized in our society—her society. Novels like Sula, Beloved, The Bluest …
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