The Writing Moment
The Writing Equation:
Five minutes of imagining scenes of your novel in progress while in bed = roughly thirty thousand words and ten days of writing.
That’s how it feels to me.
Your experience may vary.
The MAGA Mind
I laughed. I had to.
Reports had come out: annual inflation was the highest in three years.
Americans are irritated. Worried. Bothered. Inflation has pushed up the costs of new homes, home repairs, car insurance, healthcare, health insurance premiums, food, and energy.
Trump said, “I love the inflation.”
Which is why I laughed.
It also makes total sense for Trump to say that.
Back when Trump started his war with Iran, he mentioned, “We’re not at war.” He often did it with a little sly week, instead referring to it variously as a conflict, operation, or excursion. Yet, he still used terms like dropping bombs and talked about destroying Iran.
MAGA, who loves Trump, immediately began parroting Trump’s language. So, the Iran ‘conflict’ is fine with them, because we’re not at war, and he didn’t break his promise, “No new wars.”
That’s why “I love inflation” makes sense now. They’ll hear Trump say that and begin using his phrase. They’ll get all gleeful and giddy about inflation — using Trump’s terminology, of course, about how inflation is good because we’re fighting Iran, and that’s some kind of good thing, in his head.
That makes it totally swell for MAGA.
For the rest of us in the real world, the inflation isn’t good and has serious repercussions on health, happiness, and the quality of life.
Also, making statements like, “I love inflation,” is part of Trump’s Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! distraction weave.
- Look — I tore down the White House east wing! Building the biggest ballroom ever!
- Look — I painted the Lincoln reflecting pool!
- Look — I bombed Iran! Saved us all from nuclear annihilation!
- Look — there’s election cheating going on in California!
- Look — I love inflation! Isn’t that crazy?
As for the Iran War — what is it good for?
That depends on what day Trump is talking about it.
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
Slow day at the coffee shop. Bailey and Nat were behind the counter. No customers were behind me. I asked Bailey if she wrote cursive.
Yes. She told about learning it, she thought when she was eight, in Washington. “Then we moved to Tennessee. I was just learning how to write cursive then.”
“Can your children read cursive?” I asked.
“My daughter can. She’s thirteen and she just learned to read and write cursive. My son can’t, yet. He’s younger and I think they’re going to teach it this year.”
I then explained why I was asking. We’d been at the DMV in Medford where the agent joked about the need to read cursive. Her children couldn’t read or write it.
Bailey asked Nat if she could write cursive. “Yes,” Nat agreed. “But we were the last class to be taught, we were told.”
I said, “I’m happy to hear they’re still teaching it.”
Bailey volunteered, “Yes, but I think it varies with the district. I’m 38.”
Nat said, “I’m 24.”
“You learned in California, right, Nat?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, and my teacher was like, you will learn cursive. I’m not changing my writing. You will learn it.”
Her imitation had us laughing.
So, cool. Here in Ashland, at least, cursive remains alive.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Ashland, southern Oregon – Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
Warmer today. 56 F now but looking for 80 degrees as sunshine stretches across a clear blue sky.
Papi did his morning laps. I did the same. We meet, a Venn diagram of habit, wants, and needs, then go back to our respective circles.
Gina plies us with news about a hundred things happening. House inspections, furniture removal, cleaners, realtor. Prescriptions for Mom ordered — not yet ready, come back at 3:30! Commenting that she’s sweaty and tired. Informing us that Mom hasn’t said a word about the house. Saw the listing on Zillow but never spoke about it. Instead talks of the assisted living place.
After Gina’s demands at Heritage Grove, they cleaned Mom’s floor yesterday. Gina orders Mom, “Track it. They better do it once a week. Tell me if they don’t.”
Outside of those twenty texts, it’s quiet.
Trump and Iran are heating up their war. Trump makes continued assertions: the war is over. We have won. They have nothing. We are all powerful. I am a great negotiator. I want peace.
But retaliation is the order of the day: they hit us, we hit back — harder. Playground mentality — or mobster?
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Iran will ‘pay the price’ for daring to fight back after Trump attacked them. The word sounds like lines out of a movie like “Red Dawn”. The movie was about high-schoolers fighting back after the Soviet Union (along with Cuba and Nicaragua) invade a small town in Colorado. 1980s fare. Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, other young actors.
In an ironic aside, the movie’s background is that NATO was dissolved, which encouraged the invasion, an interesting point, given Trump’s position on NATO…
According to Wikipedia, “Red Dawn” began life as a little anti-war movie but MGM wanted a teenage Rambo style approach. The Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, helped refine the script.
Just for the record, because the record does matter, the war is 102 days and counting. Trump originally said it would be over in four to five weeks: 45 days. Since then, he’s also said it’s almost over 37 times. And counting.
In other news, US annual inflation hit its highest level in three years.
Though unfunded, work continues on the Epstein ballroom. All of the Epstein files have not been released.
Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is “Invincible.” I’m referring to the 1985 song Pat Benatar performed to commercial success.
Sample Lyrics:
This shattered dream you cannot justify.
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied.
What are we running for? We’ve got the right to be angry.
What are we running for when there’s nowhere we can run to anymore?
We can’t afford to be innocent
stand up and face the enemy.
It’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible.
And with the power of conviction there is no sacrifice.
It’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible.
I hope for your sake that your day goes well.
Got my coffee. Here we go again.
Cheers
Views from the Net
Oh no! It’s The Terrifically Terrible Tuesday Trump Thirteen!
Bonus Views!
Remember: you are not alone.
Tuesday’s Theme Music – Crashing
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, June 9, 2026.
Lightly rained off and on all day yesterday. We have a marbled sky today, gray and white against blue. Sunshine cuts through the clouds, darkening the mountain’s greenery with shadow islands. 56 F, our high will cut into the mid 70s. I don’t mind; give me this instead of the drought’s extreme dry and the blistering heat that usually strikes.
Gina is on the warpath, as we put it in my household growing up, a carryover from Mom and her generation and those before her. Mom called Gina with reports of theft and the lack of regular cleaning. Mom said that she’s been cleaning her own bathroom floors with wet wipes.
As the most confrontational of my family, Gina charged right in: this needs to be fixed. What’s the ‘or else’ implied? I’m not sure. It might be ‘more Gina’.
My wife got her latest ‘real ID’ yesterday. This one has the star. What will adorn them next?
Getting that for her required an appointment and a visit to the ‘big’ DMV in Medford. It was either go there or camp out at the Ashland DMV every morning and hope the Gods of Bureaucracy were kind.
She took in her birth certificate. Not the real thing, but a tattered, certified ‘photographic reproduction’ created in 1962. Much of the birth certificate’s entries were in cursive. The DMV agent, a very nice person, laughed about the struggles to read cursive, as she hasn’t had to in a while. That led to a sidebar about her children. They don’t know cursive and when she writes notes using cursive, they ask things like, “What language is that?”
That chased us into a conversation about signatures. The DMV agent said anything can be used and recognized as a ‘signature’. From further conversation, it appears that we’re basically going back to ‘making our mark’.
On the Trump side of things, my wife and I were talking about the food prices. My gosh, how they’ve gone up.
This morning had news about Scott Bessent, Trump’s secretary of something, claiming that prices are coming down. I’m sure you can cherry-pick and find some prices have declined. Overall, prices remain UP.
I did a search about Bessent’s claim and saw that he’s made that claim a few times the last several months. And as late as last November – 2025 – he was trying to blame Democrats for the prices. I know from Trump’s latest Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! pivot, aka the Trump Iran war, that Trump knows that prices are higher. He knows that the war is causing it.
*probably also knows his tariffs are causing them but won’t admit it because that would reveal he’s been wrong all along*
Trump, though, has pivoted. He’s not worried about high prices, affordability, or Americans’ finances, no; he’s saving us from Iranian nukes.
Ironically, of course, that was also the Bush-Cheney claim for the war against Iraq: WMD.
Yes, Trump and the GOP have dragged WMD back out of the closet. They’ve avoided using that phrase. That phrase — WMD — is loaded with baggage for US voters and the world.
It shows that in the end, Trump and the GOP only have three dimensions to their strategy: fear, distract, and cause dis-unity. For when facts, truth, and unity show up, Democrats win, and we move forward. Not evenly, and certainly not perfectly. But we move forward in our efforts against poverty, food deserts, climate change, and real challenges. Not fake challenges that are monsters only in unthinking minds.
Trump’s war is now 101 days old and counting. Iran shot down a helicopter. Trump vowed retaliation. That’s how it works with cease-fires with Trump.
The other big Trump news was about Trump attending the NBA game in New York.
- Trump couldn’t make time to go to his son’s small, private wedding, but oh, boy, he loved showing up at an NBA playoff game.
- The arrogance and selfishness Trump showed by going to that game, and its impact on fans’ ability to enjoy the game.
- Boos rained down on Trump. He heard it and tried to pretend it was cheering. LOL. But he knew it was booing, and he didn’t like it.
- A photo showed Trump asleep at the game. Real? I don’t know. But Trump has been shown sleeping at enough events that the photo has legs.
- Trump looks really bad. Sick. Tired. OLD. DOTTERING.
Not a good outing for Trump.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
The Epstein ballroom remains under construction. No new news on who is paying for it.
Trump’s approval continues its slow crash. Disapproval numbers show a sea of red. In a way, Trump is starting to live up to the vision he had of himself as a ‘unifying’ force; unity in disapproval of him and his policies is increasing.
My morning thoughts were about a dream that involved flying. The Neurons were snooping around, found out, and introduced “Aeroplane” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the morning mental music stream. Hope you enjoy it.
My hopes for everyone and everything is to go with peace and grace and make life better for all of us. Not just a privileged few.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 