Attribution: Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash By Geoff Carter America has always had a love-hate relationship with its immigrants. On the one hand, we need them. We couldn’t have built the country without them. They raised our skyscrapers, worked our sweatshops, labored in our fields, and harvested our crops. Today they care for the elderly, teach …
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Kickass and the Country’s Birthdays
Attribution: Emanuel Leutze, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, in this time of celebrating the USA’s birthday, honors the keeper’s claim for the stage to reflect on the 200th birthday back in 1976 when he spent several weeks on a fascinating tour of meaningful historic sites for a series of …
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Kickass and the Honeymoon Trees
Attribution: usfs_Eastern_Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, accepts the following from the keeper and Phyllis: It is the honeymoon of the trees–these torrid days of early summer. Lush in their new green-leaf finery, the trees sway against each other in a biological passion that dominates all other such …
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Kickass Goes to the Fair
Attribution:Rhode Island Collection, Providence Public Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper honors the season of summer fairs by recalling the Barron County Fair in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, when he and his cousin Rob watched a young woman catch a bullet in her teeth. He …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”
★★★1/2 Deja Vu All Over Again: Film Review of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die Image by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Even during a time when genre films have been stretching the envelope of their traditional tropes (cliches?) and norms, there is no easy way to describe Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die. It’s part …
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Kickass and Libraries
Attribution: Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper wallowing one more time in the wonderful world of librarians as word comes that grandson Bud is in the librarian ranks with an official certifying document that says as much as he works at his library job in the Fox River …
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Kickass and Haircut Memories
Attribution: F. Holland Day, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has been patronizing the school across the parking lot for his haircuts, enjoying the attention of a young ambitious student who snips at him gently under an instructor’s instructions. Like all things in the keeper’s …
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Kickass and Canada Fishing
Attribution: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archivesvia Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_of_the_Woods_Sunset_(Klamath_County,Oregon_scenic_images)(klaDA0246).jpg By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper misses the summer fishing trips to Canada and is prone to wallowing in selective memory exercise, like the one about Antoine the seriously hung-over guide who clung to the back of the boat on a …
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Kickass and Cousin Ed’s Reflecting Pool
Attribution: Photo by Johann Noby on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper unable to move on from the reflecting pool fiasco because it allows him to wallow in one of his favorite older-cousin memories. It was when cousin Ed bought the “go anywhere” surplus Army Jeep just after WWII and offered the keeper …
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Bad Sportsmanship
Attribution: The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter The United States of America is approaching its semiquincentennial—its two hundred and fiftieth birthday. This is going to be quite the celebration—parts of it have already begun. The reflecting pool in Washington, D.C. has been inadvertently dyed a gangrenous shade of green—not on …
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Kickass and Eye Shots
Attribution: Adam Cuerden, modified by Greg A L, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns the complaining couch over to the keeper this morning to see if there is any sympathy out there for him concerning the long-term shots-in-the-eye treatment procedure used by the VA Eye Clinic to treat …
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Kickass and Mills in the Reflecting Pool
Attribution: SWinxy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s connection with the beleaguered Washington reflection pool is remote and comes via the night of Oct. 4,1974 when Argentine stripper Fanne Foxe jumped out of Congressman Wilbur Mills’s limo and dove into the pool as an intoxicated Mills …
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