Attribution: Robbiework, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joined the keeper and Phyllis in watching the parade of old country music stars celebrate Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday on Sunday night TV, and proclaimed the time well spent considering the age group involved and alternative entertainment options. As a symbol of …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: An Embarrassment of Scrooges
Attribution: MGM, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally published December 18, 2022) By Geoff Carter It’s only about a week until Christmas, and we’re into the full swing of the holiday season. Shopping, decorating, traveling, baking, wrapping, entertaining, and all the other painfully joyous activities are part of the annual hustle and bustle of the …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Film Review of “The Wonder”
Attribution: Fernando de Sousa from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Little Girl Lost: Movie Review of The Wonder By Geoff Carter The beginning of Sebastian Lelio’s The Wonder, an historical drama based in post-famine Ireland, is—strangely—framed with a shot of the movie set on which it is being made. A female narrator speaks directly …
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Kickass and Roger’s Dream
Attribution: Robert William Buss , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in asking, what are friends for if not to admire and envy, and such was the case with him and Phyllis in a post dinner conversation with Sandra and Roger about dreams and dreaming in which …
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Dialogues on Getting Schooled: The High in Higher Education
Attribution: Tichnor Brothers, Publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Found this insightful, if not entertaining. Gail and Brett…and others have been espousing the value of the 3 year college degree—fits like a glove with this Economist value centric …
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Blue Christmas
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted December 2020) As we were trimming the tree last weekend, my wife asked me to bring in the laptop so we could listen to Christmas music. I complied—as any trained husband will—and set up the sound system in our dining room. And so we trimmed the …
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Kickass and Sister’s Birthday
Picture by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in wishing the keeper’s younger—by only 15 months, sister Norma a very happy birthday as she greets this day and every day with typical independence, alone in her Cherry Valley house with family nearby ready to celebrate with a …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
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Kickass and Lovesick Elk
Attribution: Photo by David J. Stang, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in drawing useful lessons from the love-sick Wisconsin elk that left its comfortable Black River Forest home, stopped briefly in McFarland and then crossed over into Illinois only to be struck and …
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The Miseducation of America
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The 1983 study, “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” sounded major alarms about the American public education system. It maintained that our schools were failing because that, among other things, that SAT scores had dropped drastically, students could no longer write coherent essays, draw inferences, …
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Kickass and Iditarod Dogs
Attribution: Frank Kovalchek from USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, allows the keeper to revisit good memories under the heading of why not? It is mid-December 1987 and southern Wis is getting a 17-inch snowfall. But the keeper, on the Chicago Tribune payroll at the time, is not …
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Kickass and New Watch Band
Attribution: hypo.physe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s experience of applying his peasant mentality to shopping for a band for the wristwatch somebody gave him years ago. First he was conditioned by ads in the NYT that neighbor Jim hands off on a daily basis, …
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