“Oscar the Elf” Photo by Geoff Carter
Category:Michael DiMilo
Nightmare on Main Street
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter As I get older, I occasionally catch myself repeating things. Maybe a story, maybe a joke, maybe a memory, maybe a point. That’s just part of aging—one of its inevitabilities. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about gun violence titled What’s It Going to Take? inspired by …
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“Just Like the Ones I Used to Know”: The Pen in Hand’s Guide to Vintage Christmas Movies
Photo by Geoffrey Carter (Originally published, December 10, 2021) By Geoff Carter Well, the Christmas season is upon us in full force. The commercials are everywhere. We’ve seen that ad for the car—or Energizer Bunny, wrapped in a bow and sitting in the driveway on Christmas morning at least one hundred times. Getting ready for this holiday season, …
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The Slow Grind
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine” –Ecclesiastes 8:10 Last week, nearly two years after the attack on the Capitol Building, a jury found Stewart Rhodes, leader of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers militia, guilty of seditious conspiracy, obstructing certification of the election, and destroying …
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Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
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What’s It Going to Take?
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter What’s it Going to Take? On November 19th, a 22-year-old gunman killed five and wounded seventeen at Club Q, an LGBTQ in Colorado Springs using a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, both so-called “ghost guns” with no serial numbers. What’s it going to take? How many more must …
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American Shingles
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter One of many stealthy threats to the health of older Americans is shingles, a painful condition in which a painful rash of raised blisters erupts over the body. It can last for weeks. Some patients cannot bear to wear clothes over the afflicted area. Shingles is caused by …
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Back to Basics
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter One of the main purposes of public education is to help mold conscientious, thoughtful, and responsible citizens. While most public-school curriculum emphasizes the core curriculum subjects of Math, Science, Social Studies, and English, our schools are mainly taxed with producing good and decent people—and they are still doing …
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Make-Believe
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We live in strange times. In an era with nearly unlimited access to knowledge available anywhere or at any time, an era of fantastic leaps in science and technology, and an era of unparalleled artistic accomplishment; in this era, today, a significant portion of our population is still …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Yesterday is Here
Mathieu Kappler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Film Review of Call Jane By Geoff Carter The movie Call Jane starts off with a long tracking shot following an immaculately dressed woman as she descends the staircase of a ritzy hotel on her way to a dinner with members of her husband’s upscale law firm. The woman pauses …
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The War on Terror 2.0
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter America knows how to deal with terrorists. Or we think we do. After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush declared a war on terror. He warned the government of Afghanistan that harboring terrorist groups would result in severe consequences, and then on October 7th, when they refused to act, …
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