Attribution: Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash By Geoff Carter When I was in elementary school back in the early 1960s, St. Valentine’s Day was the day that brought life and color—and candy—to the gray slushy doldrums of grade-school winter. Everyone would attach manila envelopes with our little names block-printed on the front —our “mailboxes”—to the fronts of …
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Category:Social Commentary
Kickass and Real Super Bowl
Attribution: daSupremo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in insisting that a Super Bowl is one full of something good to eat, like Alpo or Phyllis’s “refrigerator” soup; and it is not a bunch of millionaires owned by billionaires banging against each other to possess an …
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Unbalanced
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter There’s an old adage that the balance of power in American politics swings like a pendulum, and that as times and the needs of the electorate change the pendulum will swing from left to right—or right to left, as the case may be, implying there is a balance …
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The Pen in Hand Presents “The Writer’s Corner”
Attribution:Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash Featuring the Latest Publications, News, and Commentary for Authors and Readers Today’s New Book: “From Hardship to Hope: Crossing the Great Divides of age, race, wealth, equity and health” by Judith Gwinn Adrian and Jaylin Steuber Photo by Judith Adrian Book Description From Hardship to Hope: Crossing the great divides of age, …
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The Joey’s Song Concert 2024: A Night to Remember
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was recently invited to go to the recent Joey’s Song concert in Madison, Wisconsin, by my brother-in-law Michael DiMilo (also a gifted artistic contributor to the Pen in Hand). Michael had been asked to create some of his signature animations for the show, which is an annual …
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Catch-45
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We live in perplexing times when an ex-president, presently under indictment for over ninety felony charges, is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. And—even more strangely, when his alleged crimes include (but are not exclusive to) instigating an insurrection against the very government he ruled and seeks …
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Kickass and Ejection Recliner
Attribution: DelmerViramontes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has established that he and Phyllis will be dealing with all future severe winter weather issues from their control recliners and adds that the keeper is hard at work designing an “ejection-recliner” which uses sound activation to forcefully eject …
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Kickass and Flat Earth
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in their efforts to live on the same planet with those who are convinced that the Earth is flat, and truth is the end product of a cultural digestive system out of whack from a diet of green apples …
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Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. …
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Dialogues on Blood Money: Selling Short and Selling Out
Attribution: SensexTodays, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Mark O., Dave S., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Below is speculation, but there are some facts in the attached chart. It says Hamas made $1-2M off of the attack by selling short in an Israeli ETF fund. (Chart is …
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The Possibilities Book
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter Christmas is a time that, for most of us, evokes fond childhood memories. Who doesn’t sit around the tree on Christmas morning, watching their adorable children tear violent swaths through reams of wrapping paper, and remember their own visions of sugarplums, bikes, road race sets, Barbie dolls, board …
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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from The Pen in Hand Blog!!
Artwork by Michael DiMilo