Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
It was a good way to spend an October Saturday in the United States.
And it was all for a good reason.
Jamelle Bouie
In the four months since the last No Kings protests, President Trump has gone even further down the road of claiming plenary authority over the executive branch. He has continued to claim the right to fire anyone he pleases, to cancel or spend federal funds outside congressional appropriations and to launch lethal strikes against foreign civilians without explicit authorization from Congress or evidence of imminent threat to Americans.
The president has tried to leverage the power of the federal government against his political opponents and legal adversaries, sending the Justice Department after James Comey, a former director of the F.B.I.; Attorney General Letitia James of New York; and one of Trump’s former national security advisers, John Bolton. Trump also wants to use the I.R.S. and other agencies to harass liberal donors and left-leaning foundations. He has even tried to revive lèse-majesté, threatening critics of his administration and its allies with legal and political sanctions. With Trump, it’s as if you crossed the bitter paranoia of Richard Nixon with the absolutist ideology of Charles I.
Today’s protesters, in other words, are standing for nothing less than the anti-royal and republican foundations of American democracy. For the leaders of the Republican Party, however, these aren’t citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent but subversives out to undermine the fabric of the nation.
Thank you, fellow patriots.
It’s Satyrda, Oct 18, 2025, also known as No Kings II. This is a day when We the People come together to remind Trump, Project 2025, the GOP, and the rest of the world that the United States rejected kings ruling them twice before, in 1776, and then again when the idea was floated before G. Washington. We didn’t want kings then; we don’t want them in 2025.
My spouse and I spent time last night constructing our signs and finalizing our plans. This morning, my wife came to me. “I screwed up,” she said. “My doctor appointment isn’t 1:30, it’s 11:30.”
Oh. That changed things. Originally, we would hit the rally from 11 to 1, leave at 1 and go to her appointment. Now we’ll go to her appointment and then head to the rally when it’s over.
It’s a brisk fall morning out there. Plentyo sunshine, clear, blue sky, but just 39 F at our place. 75 F will be ours before the night pulls in.
For the record, the Epstein Shutdown continues along on cruise control. Republicans are mostly content to let things slide and refuse to fix healthcare issues for millions of Americans. That’s just how they roll.
Today’s song comes from a convo with my wife last night. I was doing a load of delicates. Did she want to put anything in? Sure. She zipped around doing her collection, then came to me and said, “I can’t find my sports bra.” I found it in the laundry basket. She’d just overlooked it. But meanwhile, The Neurons projected a song variation in my head. They had me singing, “Looking for my bra in all the wrong places,” to the tune of “Lookin’ for Love”. “Lookin’ for Love” by Johnny Lee was a 1980 hit associated with the movie, Urban Cowboy. We were livin’ in San Antonio, Texas, at the time, and you could not escape the song. Anyway, The Neurons kept it going in the morning mental music stream. That’s how it came to be here.
Coffee is flirting with The Neurons. Time to get up and at them. Hope grace and peace find us all today and maybe stick around long enough for us to get to know them. Hope to see you at the protests. Cheers
Another forgotten face
Another forgotten place
Another forgotten time
Another misplaced rhyme
Another greedy scheme
Another waylaid dream
I should have known better.
Backstory to this, Mom’s live-in boyfriend died this week after an accident. Mom has been experiencing multiple health issues, going back more than twenty years. Frank’s death and Mom’s health issues were both marked with a fall down the same set of steps. I worried about that happening for years and kept warning them. Now it’s taken Frank.
Frank’s passing is a big shock to Mom’s way of life. Frank still drove his car, although it could be terrifying at times. He was 95 and almost blind in one eye, so there were some “Yikes!” moments. Well, many “Yikes!” moments. But he shopped for Mom, took her to her appointments, picked up her prescriptions, helped her dress and clean, and so many other things that a spouse does for their other. He also contributed to paying her bills. With Frank gone, who was going to do these things for Mom?
Turns out, even before Frank passed away, sis suggested to Mom that Mom live with sis in her house. Sis has a full house already. Her youngest daughter and boyfriend live with her. So does her hubby. But sis has a finished half basement which they’d set up as an exercise space and lounge. It has its own bathroom. Now sis is cleaning it up and setting it up as Mom’s new permanent residence. The floor is level so she can wheel around with no problem. There’s a refrigerator down there. The aforementioned bathroom. It’s connected to the garage so she can roll right out to the car as needed.
As sis puts it, Mom could also go upstairs with some help, so she can participate in things. Mom will be contributing to electricity, sewer, and water to help defray the increased costs.
Sis has cleaned out Mom’s kitchen cupboards already. She found a can of cocoa in there that she says might have been from a time before manufacturers were required to put expiration dates on cans.
It is so good to have such a capable and energetic little sister. Gotta love her.
Ghost are all around, inhabiting the land.
Offices.
Factories.
Houses.
They’re sometimes noticed.
Most are forgotten.
Except by other ghosts.
The ghosts did many things for us.
Served in the military.
Protected us.
Gave their lives.
Raised food for us. Fed us.
Kept us safe.
Wrote laws with the best intentions.
And tried to lift us up and lead us forward.
They gave us light and security.
Running water.
Safe water.
Safe homes.
Electricity.
Bridges and roads.
Books and paintings, music and rock.
Humor.
Raised us up with hands and ideas.
And now wait.
Until we’re ghosts.
And join them.
To be forgotten.
Remembered only by other ghosts.
I was sitting somewhere, familiar to me in the dream, but unfamiliar to me in real life. Several acquaintances came up and chatted with me. On a white wall to my left were six pieces of art. One woman asked, “What are those.”
I explained that they were books in progress with a smile, that needed to be finished. She selected one, took it down, and started flipping through it. Suddenly she started. “That character has my name.”
Yes, I acknowledged. “You were in mind when I named the character.”
She continued through the pages. “I like this. You should finish it.”
I nodded. “That’s the plan.”
She passed the piece to another person who asked for it. The second person went through it and said, “I like this, too.”
She handed it to me. I flipped it open and began going through it, then stopped. “I know how this ends. It just came to me.”
Both stared at me. “It just came to you?” one asked. “Just like that?”
“Yes. I’m going to finish this now.”
I spent the rest of the dream writing and rewriting that book. It took some weird turns. At one point, I stopped to watch golfers. Green, brown, and orange golf balls were in use, and they were playing on a mountain, hitting the balls down toward greens in valleys far below. After one teed off, the watching gallery emitted a long and low moan of appreciation and then began hitting golf balls down into the valley.
“What are they doing?” a woman seated with me asked.
I smiled. “They’re hitting golf balls down. I think they’re supposed to help locate the original ball.”
“How?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
I went back to work on the book. Sometimes as I worked on it, the print on the page was purple. Other times, the pages flared in bright purple. Yes, purple prose came to me in the dream, to giggles.
By the dream’s end, the novel was finished. I awoke very satisfied.
Blue states and blue cities are run by Democrats.
Trump hates Democrats.
Democrats are Americans. United States citizens.
To prove the depths of his hatred of United States citizens, Trump is following a course to destroy United States blue cities.
First, he disrupted supply chains by breaking trade agreements and declaring outrageous tariffs. That slowed imports. That damaged business, business planning, and employment.
That severely affected farmers in rural areas. In red states. Which means the nation produces less food. Which drives up the cost of food. So more food needs to be imported. Like beef. But tariffs increase the costs of importing food. Like beef.
Right?
Trump then marched in national guard units to patrol city streets, but only in blue cities. Even though they were safe.
The Trump Regime threatened media outlets that are less than flattering to Trump. Trump threatened to take away licenses to broadcast if they are critical or factual in their reporting about what he’s doing. He threatened networks which allowed comedians to make fun of him.
In parallel, Trump expanded his ICE police force and filled cities with ICE in masks, with guns, to sow terror, grab people and disappear them, just as we’ve seen and read about happening in all those stories about nations led by dictators, or places like the Soviet Union, NAZI Germany, North Korea, and Red China. Without due process. Without evidence.
Right?
Trump began persecuting political opposition through DOJ. If a prosecutor failed to fall in line, they were removed and replaced. As we’ve read about happening in the Soviet Union. NAZI Germany. North Korea. Red China. And many other countries ruled by despots.
Then Trump installed federal law enforcement units to protect the storm troopers from Americans trying to save and help their fellow citizens.
How am I doing so far? Do I have this right?
And as Americans stand up to protest Trump and these actions, Trump and his mouthpieces like Ted Cruz, Mike Johnson, and JD Vance accuse these Americans of being anything and everything except Americans exercising their Constitutional rights.
Then, this self-declared law and order prezzy cut funding to fight terrorism and other crimes, pouring Federal monies into his maligned destruction campaign against blue states and cities.
But –
Red states and cities are poorer. Proven fact. They receive more from the Federal government than they give. And red cities and states dominate the crime statistics.
Blue states and cities dominate as centers of education, research, technology, business, and trade.
The money these blue states and cities make are paid into Federal coffers as taxes and fees to support people in red states and cities.
Right?
If you destroy blue states and cities, make them unlivable with heavy military and law enforcement presence, and disrupt their business means, their revenue to the federal government will drop.
Which means the red states will get less money. Which means red state voters and children will have less food to eat, less healthcare, be less secure, and have less education. So, red state citizens will be sicker. Poorer. Unhealthier.
All this is supposed to ‘make America great again’?
Do I have that right?
The Federal government is made a political tool. Oppression through the government against citizens and the media is increased.
Citizens are turned against citizens. The voter systems are handicapped. Protest and criticism are attacked. Employment falls. Health and safety systems are dismantled. Education is crated. They recklessly and wantonly destroy our national heritage and censor history. Only white history matters in their world.
This is to make us as a nation, ‘greater’.
Right?
It is clear. Trump hates the United States. As do the leaders and architects of Project 2025. They’re out to destroy the nation. And Mike Johnson, JD Vance, the Roberts Court, and the GOP are happy to stand by and let them.
No matter what it takes, no matter what it costs, no matter how illogical, depraved, illegal, immoral, inhumane, or un-American it is.
I mean, it is only logical and makes sense if Trump is trying to destroy the United States. Because the actions he takes against the blue states and cities will affect and damage the red states and cities. That means that all United States citizens will be affected. If they have wealth, they can rise above the fray. Like Trump. Vance. Johnson. Billionaires.
Did I get that right?
Michael Seidel, writer 