Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter I’m a Wisconsinite, born and raised. I’m usually pretty proud of that. Not always, but usually. We’ve had our missteps and our black sheep, but generally Wisconsin does the right thing. I’m especially proud of the progressive traditions and stubborn idealism evident in our state. Just last week, in …
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Category:Politics
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Civil War”
Illustration by Michael DiMilo Life During Wartime: Review of Civil War ★★★☆☆ By Geoff Carter Civil War is a hard film—although not as hard as some—to pigeonhole. It’s a war movie, it’s a road movie, it’s a political thriller, it’s a journalism movie, and a (sort of) post-apocalyptic film. It also might be argued that it …
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Kickass and POTUS Eviction
Photo by Geoff Carter By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes, along with the keeper, Phyllis and thousands of Sunday’s “Hands Off” demonstrators, that having made their feelings known they will now demand that the most recent POTUS election be declared null and void on the grounds of illegal vote buying, easily proven by …
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Kickass and No First Dog
Attribution: Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis and the entire citizenry on this April 5, 2025 to message the demented chief herding mutt that he is not qualified to take the herd down the road to greener pastures and he needs to turn himself in to the …
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Kickass and Tariffs
Attribution: Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, bypasses the keeper and Phyllis in offering his own canine explanation of just how the orange poodle’s tariff system works: “First, consider the world to be a big tree which all of the male dogs have been …
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A Man of Little Consequence
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We watch Law and Order reruns a lot at our house. It’s kind of the default viewing choice when nothing else is on. It’s a great show; the writing, acting, and direction are top-notch. It’s realistic—or as realistic as TV can get (how can so many beautiful Assistant DAs could …
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Kickass Thanks Elon
Attribution: DonkeyHotey, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, having forever marked Wisconsin as his territory, joins the keeper and Phyllis in sending a thank-you note to Elon for his generous participation in the recent state supreme court election won by Susan Crawford: “Elon: “Thank you so much for helping …
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Kickass and the April Fool
Attribution: Osmar Schindler (German, 1869–1927), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns this April Fools Day over to the keeper: THE APRIL FOOL “Who’s the biggest April fool? “Not me, not you, we’re cool. “Is it Elon Musk as the loan arranger “Buying votes as the foreign stranger? “Is …
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Kickass and Mr. Whipple
Attribution: Photo by Colourblind Kevin on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the word that if you are old enough to know that Mr. Whipple was a TV celebrity as a result of his “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” toilet tissue ads, then you might remember when he visited the Green Bay area and …
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Kickass and the Hodag
Attribution: The Wide World Magazine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in celebrating the capture of what was first thought to be the Rhinelander Hodag but turns out to be Elon Musk who was nabbed while trying to stuff currency into the personal body …
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Kickass and ICE
Attribution: Cgoodall, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper that it is only a matter of time until he and Phyllis are accosted by black clad masked young men who demand that they come along peacefully as the deportation process has advanced to their category—that being “elderly …
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Altered States
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In the late 1970s, when I was still in college, a movie named King of Hearts was the popular midnight movie (before it was preempted by Eraserhead and the ubiquitous The Rocky Horror Picture Show). The film was about a French town taken over by inmates of an insane asylum during World War I. The …
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