Attribution: Hmcarreiro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, allows the keeper yet one more opportunity to use a personal experience to make a Labor Day related point: the occasion was when the keeper quit his student dish-washing job after the proprietor of a small Madison eatery chased the chef …
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Happy Labor Day from the Pen in Hand Blog
Attribution: Richard Hurd from Green Bay, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Support Our Unions!! King Harvest Has Surely Come by The Band “I work for the Union/’Cause She’s So Good to Me/ –Robbie Robertson
Kickass Marks Labor Day
Attribution: Roadside Wildflowers, Droveway Lane by Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, aware that the keeper and Phyllis descend from the laboring class, will honor them today with extra napping on this Labor Day Monday. He suggests the same for everyone. Since 1894, Labor Day has marked a …
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Working Class Blues
Illustrated by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally published September 7, 2025) We marched in the Labor Day parade last year. I fell in with my old union, the MTEA, as we lined up with firefighters, machinists, ironworkers, electricians, plumbers, and hospitality workers. Thousands participated. It can be argued that what truly made America great was …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “The Drama”
Or For Worse: Movie Review of The Drama ★★★1/2 Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In the film Michael Clayton, Richard Bach—as played by Sydney Pollack—one of the partners in the law firm Michael works for, responds to Michael’s question about why another lawyer committed suicide with “Why? Because people are fucking incomprehensible.” He’s right. No …
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Kickass Kicks the Hornet’s Nest
Attribution: Lucio Eastman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, just gave the keeper a demonstration of what it means to “kick the hornet nest” as yesterday’s “Kickass” used an across-the-street shooting incident to comment on the sad state of cultural gun affairs. The sadness is in the tenacious hold of …
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Kickass and Nearby Shots
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper commenting to Phyllis that he probably would have heard the gunshots if the balcony door had been open. As it was, he watched as the fire department vehicles parked over on Tree Lane to wait for the police squads to deal with …
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Kickass and Gloria Steinem
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in honoring another great woman–Gloria Steinem who died earlier this week at 92 after a lifetime of helping lead her collective gender out of the male dominate historical weeds. Among the many things Gloria said was that there would …
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Kickass Goes Beyond Howling
Attribution: Henry Edward Knobel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, still working to teach the keeper how to howl effectively, tries to ignore the brutal truth that the required reaction to the POTUS narcissistic cruelty has progressed beyond howling to demand snarling, mad-dog attacks complete with abject resistance and …
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Scorched Earth
Attribution: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using GEOS data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Adam Voiland., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter As malignant, cruel, narcissistic, greedy, criminal, vindictive, juvenile, misogynistic, incompetent, racist, destructive, deceitful, power-hungry, stupid, and un-American he is, Donald Trump is …
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Kickass and the Log-Walk to School
Attribution: Joshua Mayer from Madison, WI, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper coming late to the competition for the toughest walk to school–uphill and into the wind both ways, amends his entry to include the log walk into time. This did not involve just …
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Kickass and the Cherry Trees
Attribution: Андрей Романенко, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, in utilizing trees for territorial marking purposes, recognizes their importance in meaningful communication. It is therefore easy for him to understand just how upset the keeper and Phyllis are over the news of a hundred or so 60-year-old cherry trees …
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