Attribution: Paul Goyette from Chicago, USA, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter There is a crime wave, an epidemic of violence that has erupted in the streets of our cities. Armed gangs are randomly accosting and brutalizing innocent citizens in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and other cities. These masked thugs are ramming their victims’ …
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Kickass and the Snowy Owl
Attribution: Petr Kratochvil, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assures the keeper that it is never too late to try to clean up the record so long as the final tally has not been inked in. So, here are the basic facts on a matter that has been haunting the …
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Kickass and Killing
Attribution: Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, pauses with the keeper and Phyllis to review some obvious verities and obfuscation concerning the killing of fellow human beings. Since being in over his head has never been a hindrance, the keeper plows ahead with the obvious: To needlessly …
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Kickass Talks to his Boots
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper with a message for his heavy old sheepskin-lined hunting boots as they come out of the back of the closet to do service on Phyllis’s feet. Listen up, boots, in your long deer hunting and ice fishing history you have never been …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Song Sung Blue”
Play it Again: Film Review of Song Sung Blue ★★★☆ Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Part of a pleasant cinematic experience is the comfort of familiarity, knowing what to expect, when to expect it, and who to expect it from. The average viewer can walk into a theater, got some snacks, sit down …
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Kickass Divorces POTUS
Attribution: onaeg news agency, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is working with the keeper and Phyllis to draft a divorce petition from the POTUS, with custody of the kids going to their nearest Culvers restaurant. Where does it say—even in the comically convoluted law books, that the divorce …
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Kickass and Winter Memories
Attribution: Photo by Brooke S. on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that over the keeper and Phyllis’s lives of many winters there are memories of very special places of shelter from the cold and snow. One such place, very early in the keeper’s winters, was a home-made box-like cab on a horse-drawn bobsled with …
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Kickass and the Coldest Day
Attribution: Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s plans for this coldest day in years requires very little special equipment beyond a recliner and maybe the hand-knit lap robe from granddaughter Jessie and possibly coffee refills from Phyllis, but not too many so that bathroom trips interfere with the main …
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Kickass and Wind Chill Factor
Attribution: Photo by iuliu illes on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, shivers with the keeper and Phyllis and everyone else as the winter of 2026 uses the irritating “wind chill factor” to report flexing its cold muscle. Prior to the 1960’s when the “wind chill factor” became the mainstay of winter weather reporting, cold weather …
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The Problem
Attribution: Photo by Andriy Miyusov on Unsplash By Geoff Carter Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” rearticulating the Republican dogma that governmental regulation inhibited American independence and freedom. He also stated, in his 1981 Inaugural Address, “It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to …
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Kickass and Volunteers
Attribution: Photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in saluting the countless people out there everywhere who really define what it means to be a human being, and specifically an American human–a decent, thoughtful, generous, multiethnic American who wears the “VOLUNTEER” label. The VOLUNTEERS are everywhere, quietly …
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Kickass Sues Himself
Attribution: Alchemist-hp (talk) (www.pse-mendelejew.de), FAL, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper following Phyllis’s lead in doing some ancestry work and finding that he may be eligible for a “return-to-sender” trip to Norway. It seems that when Great-grandpa Helgeland stepped off the boat from Norway he signed an agreement …
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