Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Just when it seemed as if current events and political discourse could not become any more surreal or absurd, a story broke that independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. revealed that at one point he had a parasitic worm that consumed part of his brain. He did not …
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Category:Social Commentary
Kickass and Species at War
Attribution: Kaleiteen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, tries to help the keeper remember how humans in their grand conceit think of themselves as the most advanced species as they devote their greatest energies and resources to killing each other with unimaginable weaponry and viciousness, and have been doing so …
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Kickass and the “Meme” Rays
Attribution: Brunoresende29, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, allows the keeper this opportunity to warn those who exposed themselves to the current northern lights display that they may have inadvertently absorbed “meme” rays which causes them to boast insufferably about their spectacular view of the aurora borealis while flashing …
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Malpractice
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter A close family member is finishing up her first year of medical residency, and I am simply amazed at the sheer volume of knowledge and skills she has had to absorb in order to complete the process of being a doctor. She had to endure four years of …
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Not One of Us
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” –(The Declaration of Independence) Right. These words were written by a slave owner …
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Kickass and Student Demonstrations
Attribution: uwdigitalcollections, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, indulges the keeper as he recalls a bit of his experiences with student demonstrations, the first being when Willard Gonske climbed up into the country school’s lone pine tree and refused to come down. At issue was Willard’s pending discipline for …
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Kickass and Human Rental
Attribution: LMU Library, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is attempting to curb the keeper’s enthusiasm for his adoption of the Denmark plan of renting a human to hear 30 minutes of their life story. The keeper sees the plan as a modification of his lifelong newspaper column writing …
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Contempt of Court
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter America has always been fascinated with our justice system (observing it that is, not being enmeshed in it). Our popular culture media machine has produced everything from TV lawyers like Perry Mason to Matlock to Jack McCoy to courtroom reality series like Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Judge Hatchett, or Texas …
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The Winding Road
Attribution: http://www.ForestWander.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 US, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter I happened to be running an errand in my old hometown, the village I grew up in the other day, and I barely recognized the place. My middle school was gone; they’d razed it. Most of the businesses, including Falls Music, Sergeant Pepper’s Record …
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Kickass and the Rapture
Attribution: Jan Luyken , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, as curious as the keeper is in religious matters, was surprised to learn that the “Rapture” was a concept of evangelical men formulated sometime in the 1880’s, which may explain some of the “Rapture” no-shows as predicted by subsequent religious …
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Kickass and the Morning Start
Attribution: National Archives at College Park , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, along with the keeper and Phyllis, receives a reminder each morning of the miraculous process whereby everyone hurries to get where they are going and another day gets underway. The view of the Gammon Rd/Tree La. Intersection, …
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Kickass and National Library Week
Attribution: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis and everyone else in pausing to honor the librarians on this special day. With grandson Bud Andrews a librarian in LaCrosse and with memories of his librarian mother in Barron where he grew up, the keeper has these …
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