By Bill Stokes United States Army, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Kickass, the doorstop dog, joined the keeper and Phyllis to stay up much past their bedtime to watch the MSNBC documentary “Oppenheimer” which showed the life of the man responsible for the atom bomb and how it was subsequently used to kill thousands of …
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Category:Social Commentary
All Too Real
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I’ve never had the experience of attending a Comic-Con, and I’ve never—except maybe for Halloween—engaged in cosplay, dressing up like a character from a movie or novel, but it is amazing to see the detail and craftmanship that goes into some of the cosplay costumes and accessories at …
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Kickass Talks to Blackhawk
Charles Bird King , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that as the keeper and Phyllis drove across the beautiful rolling hills and river valleys of southwest Wisconsin on the 4th of July on their way to a unique and pricey tourist lunch in Galena, the keeper felt compelled to …
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Independence Day
(Originally published July 8th, 2021, but–unfortunately, still as timely now as it was then) Artwork by Michael DiMilo Article by Geoff Carter Our nation just celebrated The Fourth of July. Any American can—hopefully—tell you what this holiday is all about. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing all …
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Kickass and Rules to Live By
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, worked with the keeper in formulating the following rules to live by: *Being a billionaire is immoral: turn yourself in. *Millionaires require permits to be issued by the homeless and the hungry. *Those running for POTUS on the Repub ticket need to join the scarecrow …
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Another Breath of Fresh Air
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Life seems more hectic, frantic, and stressful than ever before. Not only do we have the usual worries about money, health, and our kids, but we also have additional anxieties concerning climate change, political extremism, mass shootings, raging pandemics, government dysfunction (maybe not such a new problem) plus …
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Get Well Soon, Phyllis Stokes…
Photo by Bill Stokes Best Wishes from The Pen in Hand Blog…
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Magic Under the Stars
RoyBuchanan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:112_Drive-In.jpg By Geoff Carter Whenever I’m near my hometown, I go past the site of the old Starlite Drive-in, which they torn down a while ago. I still miss the sight of the titanic blue structure towering on the horizon, and always remember the place where I spent a …
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Kickass Says Something Nice
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, tries to stay out of the way as the keeper sorts through the childhood advice that he has tried to live by, and hereby eliminates the following: “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.” Most …
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Kickass and Talk Replacement
Attribution: Eric Afyouni, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, delights in engaging the keeper in “what-if” situations and has posed the question of “what-if” the keeper and his ilk were denied the ability to talk–since so much talk does not rise above the sheer BS level–and were limited to …
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Fool Me Once….
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The United States has an impressive legacy of leadership, boasting war leaders like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and FDR, and nation builders like Jack Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We have also elected notable scholars like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, ferocious defenders of democracy like John Adams …
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Dialogues on the Redder the Better: The Ron and Don Show
The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Bots, Now that perfect weather is secure here in the upper Midwest…and… Mark M. is busy doing field work–his longitudinal cross-section study of Americana, I thought I’d …
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