Kickass and Eating In

Gordon Cragg, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting how the dinner hour has changed from a quiet time when everybody was “eating in” and the only restaurant customers were the resident bachelor mechanic and a lonesome schoolteacher, to now resembling the INDY 500 with …
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Kickass and Pinocchio Day Fallout

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper in handling the fallout from his establishment of “Pinocchio Day” to mark the indictment last Tuesday of the former pretender to the throne.  As Pinocchio Day gets on the calendar with other noteworthy days–Father’s Day and April Fools Day come to mind, …
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Fall of a Sparrow

Photo by Carlos Quintero on Unsplash By Geoff Carter “We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.” –William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene ii I was sitting in my kitchen the other day, doing some writing and looking out our picture window at the backyard occasionally. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. The …
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Kickass and School is Out

Attribution: Rasheedhrasheed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Kickass, the doorstop dog, assures the keeper that there is no way for him to replicate the joyous feelings he once knew when school days ended and the glorious summer laid out there like the yellow brick road. If there is another individual transitional experience of such magnitude, …
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Freedom from Thought

Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In the latest in a series of educational innovations from the far-right extremist Republicans—the MAGAs—executing their regressive agenda, a new round of book-banning has been sweeping the nation over the past three years. Along with old favorites like To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit …
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Full Measure

Artwork by Michael DiMilo (Originally posted on May 31, 2019 in Honor of our Veterans) By Geoff Carter Ah, Memorial Day: the harbinger of summer, the first family picnic, and the grill master’s opening day. Memorial Day also happens to be the holiday recognizing and honoring those who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending our …
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Scratching the Surface: Day Tripping at Meow Wolf

Weldon Kennedy from London, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Alternate realities existing on an invisible plane is a commonly recurring theme in modern science (and literary) fiction. Everything from Harry Potter to The Matrix to The Butterfly Effect to Pan’s Labyrinth to Everything Everywhere All at Once features parallel universes just beyond the reach of human senses—or sensibilities.  This idea, cojoined …
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