Attribution: Infopablo00, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is working with the keeper and Phyllis to determine the effects of their recent five-day runaway that included NO television watching. The question goes beyond simple survival in the absence of a huge blaring screen, and gets more specific, asking can …
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Category:Social Commentary
Kickass and Noise of Living
Attribution: David Benbennick, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, welcomes the keeper and Phyllis back from their five-day runaway to the tiny central Wisconsin lake, and poses the question: If you do not have a job can you legitimately take a vacation? So, it wasn’t a vacation, but rather …
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Little Murders
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We have become an inhuman and cruel people almost without realizing it. We witness atrocities and killings daily but simply shrug and turn away. We value profit over the sanctity of human life. And worse, we have become indifferent, apathetic—even actively antithetical—to the welfare of our children. On …
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Kickass and Being an Old Fool
Attribution: Anderson Mancini from Sao Paulo, Brazil, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, does his best to help the keeper maintain his standing as “old fool” since that is an identity that he seems to wear most comfortably, and most often. And an incident yesterday so demonstrated the keeper’s …
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Goodbye, Robbie, and Thank You…
Robbie Robertson: 1943-2023 Capitol Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robbie_Robertson_(1971).png “The Weight” from The Last Waltz https://youtu.be/Z2eTW8qZBtk
No More Pencils, No More Books, No More Teachers…
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Summer is drawing to a close. School will be starting soon. It’s the time of year that parents usually welcome and kids usually dread. We’ve already started to see the avalanche of back-to-school ads from Target, Walmart, Old Navy, and the other big box stores. This is usually …
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Dialogues on Hazed and Confused: Lost in the Woods
Attribution: elisfkc from Orlando, FL, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark O., Mark M., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Several stories caught my eye lately. Here’s a sampling: Hope you’re all doing well, getting outdoors half as much as Mamerow and keeping sunscreen on your …
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Kickass and Packaging
Attribution: Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting the keeper’s never-ending efforts to make the world a better place and to remain relevant in that world, continues to ignore global conflagration, multiple wars, mass shootings and the political clown show while trying to be helpful with such critical things as retaining …
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Cycling Through
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Every year during the last week of July, the Milwaukee Riverwest neighborhood, an eclectic enclave of artists, musicians, families, and working folks, hosts the Riverwest 24, a twenty-four-hour bicycle race that runs along the neighborhood streets. According to the Riverwest 24 website, the event came about because of efforts by …
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The Human Touch
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Revelations about the latest advances in artificial intelligence is causing widespread concern across the entire spectrum of the creative community. For example, the AI-GPT writing generator, which mimics human writing well enough to fool some teachers and college instructors, is one of the bones of contention in the …
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Time Enough at Last
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”, mild-mannered and bespectacled bank teller Henry Bemis, constantly bullied by his boss, henpecked by his wife, and belittled by everyone else, can never find time enough to pursue his love of reading—until a nuclear holocaust annihilates the rest …
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Faded Glory
Photo by Alex Martinez on Unsplash By Geoff Carter A couple of weeks ago, we went up to the family cabin in Northern Wisconsin for a short vacation. Our family has had the place there for years, since I was a boy. It’s an area that has been slowly changing, turning older and more politically conservative as more …
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