Walmart Corporate from Bentonville, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s observation that Walmart is apparently having difficulty recruiting pallbearers for its own retail funeral, judging from the lack of staffing at a store where the keeper stood in a long line to buy some …
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Category:Culture
The Lost Generations
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Traditional wisdom used to have it that every generation should be better off than that of their parents. On the surface, that idea seems to make perfect sense. Historically, advances in technology, medicine, communication, and transportation have translated into healthier and more prosperous lifestyles for subsequent generations. This …
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Kickass and Birds Aren’t Real
Ismael Olea, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, does not often get an opportunity to report that the keeper is put into a state of euphoria by something on TV, but it happened with the “Birds aren’t real” piece on 60-Minutes Sunday: THERE IS HOPE! Young people have taken the …
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Solitude
Art by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was thinking about my grandma the other day, about how she used to leave her TV on all the time, whether she was in the room or not. When I was in college, I had a standing invitation to come to her house for dinner. I’d arrive …
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Kickass and Full Service
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper renews his membership in the club of old guys who once worked in a “filling” station, by joining the chorus of “five—or was it six, gallons of gas for a dollar;” and asking for the gas order only after having washed …
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Dialogues on Sleeping In: The Counterpoint Letters
Photo by Russ Ward on Unsplash By Dave S., Mark Mamerow, Dennis Curley, and Geoff Carter (Recent Dialogue) I’ll spare you my take, other than the subject line….as, in counterbalance to our recent, dialogue (as seen above). New York Times: McWhorter –Dave McWhorter pulls a fast one in his column. The thesis is that we are all being forced …
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Kickass and the Snowy Owl
Alan D. Wilson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has spent much of his long life trying to make amends for his early farm-boy years when his thoughtless marauding with his .22 rifle made no bird or animal safe. Etched deeply into the keeper’s guilt …
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Blackish Friday
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Black Friday, that orgy of rabid consumerism—a stampede sometimes as dangerous as the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona—was a bit of a disappointment this year. A number of stores did not open at four a.m. for shoppers to rampage through their aisles like a legion of Vikings; …
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Kickass and Watching Football
Evert F. Baumgardner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass , the doorstop dog, is trying to assist the keeper in filling the entertainment void that occurred some years ago when he—the keeper stopped watching TV football games, his thinking at the time being that late in the 4th quarter of his life there …
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Kickass Does the Milking
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes the keeper’s observation that Wisconsin numbers work out to mean that for every dairy cow in the state there are five people; and none of those five will have anything to do with milking the cow. As it now stands, while there is some movement …
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Kickass and Indigenous People Day
James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this Indigenous People Day to dwell on the special thrill of finding a stone artifact from a previous civilization. There is a field in central Wisconsin where the keeper has enjoyed this experience a number of …
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Kickass and Love a Dummy
Becker1999 from Grove City, OH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper takes a journalistic handoff from the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson who wonders how stupid America can get and still survive, and runs with it by suggesting not only an answer to Eugene’s question, but …
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