A young adult, I was in school with many other students. The setting was a modern classroom. Multiple old-fashioned black boards were spread across the front.
I knew the teacher. Short, with a dark-haired bob, she was an English and Literature teacher. Today she was teaching us math.
I was a little taken back by that but adapted and adjusted. Explaining that she wanted us to do a math progression to project when a certain event will take place. Instructing us to listen to what she was telling us, she ordered us to the blackboards.
Most others were working in teams but I was working alone. I became a little confused by what she was saying and copied it wrong. Yet, while working, I began understanding what she meant.
At that point, another came over and told me he was going to watch me work because he was certain I would figure out because “I was smart.”
I then moved over to another team’s blackboard. They’d copied the information but I saw it was wrong and began correcting their mistakes so that it would make sense. Then I took over another black board and erased part of their work.
Returning to my own blackboard, I began writing down variables. The teacher began repeating them and reinforced what we were supposed to be solving for.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, September 21, 2026.
Sunny but overcast day, giving it a humid, warm feeling. 76 F, we expect a high in the mid 80s today. It may have rained in parts of town but we didn’t see or feel it.
I’m a little late to this post. Got up and went into novel writing mode, emerging a few hours later. Like, oops — what happened to the time?
I’m pleased that the other networks are responding to Trump’s dictatorial behavior by providing a united front. Backing up a little, Trump raged that three news outlets, CNN, MS Now, and Politico, were putting out ‘fake news’ and declared them banned. Today, basically, the other news outlets demonstrating what the absence of news coverage will mean.
Trump loves the camera. He needs the news programs. As much as he rails against them, without them, Trump would fade away.
Jump to Trump’s new helipad opening today. Without the major news network, it was reportedly very unclear about what was going on. Trump will fume about it and his right-wing news allies will attempt to fill the gap. But the problem with the right-wing news outlets is that they’re right-wing. As much as Trump complains about mainstream media being ‘left-wing’, that’s where most people get their news.
Trump being Trump, though, he’ll often cut off his nose to spite his face, as the expression goes. He probably won’t back down soon.
I’m also pleased by the network moves because my wife was roaring, “Why don’t the other news networks stand up for each other? What’s wrong with them?”
So the move will restore a little peace to my house.
Today’s music comes from a group called The Brotherhood of Man. When I read of the networks’ united front against Trump, The Neurons pulled up the 1969 song, “United We Stand”.
Trump feeds off creating tension and especially thrives on being contentious and divisive. It always gives me a laugh to remember him saying that he wants to be remembered as a unifier.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Now eighteen months into Trump’s second term, we know that history will not describe him as a ‘unifier’. The way he attacks and divides people — including members of his own party — it’s almost like he doesn’t understand the definition of ‘unifier’…
My wish for you today is that life treats you well and rewards you with love, joy, good health, and good food.
It’s another week of surreal comparisons and Trump thinking.
And it’s only Monday!
Trump believes there’s one rule for him while another one for everyone else. That’s the bedrock foundation of Trump Double Standards.
Trump frequently mocks other people, shouts at them, insults them, and calls them names. Yet he becomes so HUUUGELY UPSET whenever someone writes the truth about him.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
That was Trump this week, September, 2026.
Trump went on about fake news…”something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Wow, it’s almost like he’s talking about himself. Trump is the cancer not just on our nation, but on intelligence, decency, and humanity.
That, plus lying, breaking promises, grifting, and destroying national monuments and trying to aggrandize himself, will be the Trump Legacy.
I also believe that Trump lies quite deliberately and goes on these rants to distract people from his many failures and prop himself up as a ‘strong man’. He weaves a destruction of chaos, pathos, and confusion. It’s all part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
That’s why he tore down the White House East Wing, screwed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, attacked Iran, has fishing boats destroyed and their occupants killed, is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center, keeps demanding that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize, demanding he be added to Mount Rushmore, and pretends he isn’t in the Epstein files. Trump wants us to forget about rising gas and diesel prices (now at $7 per gallon in places), the rising cost of food, climate change, and increasing personal bankruptcies. Trump wants us not to think about the plight of the farmers, the ongoing rural hospital crisis, AI and data centers construction, or the measles outbreaks (3,471 cases in the US, the worse since 1991).
Trump wants to distract us from all the other things Trump is doing.
After I wrote about Trump’s plan to militarize the arch he’s building to memorialize him, Nan pointed out one of the follies of arming it and then bragging that he wants to militarize it.
“What I find rather fascinating is Trump’s pompous bragging about how this new arch will be “war-ready.” Obviously he doesn’t have a clue that this very bragging is what will motivate enemies to target the structure should they at any time decide to strike the U.S.”
That’s all very true. Trump’s plan also highlights his shallow thinking. He’s fixated on drones now because of the Ukraine-Russia war (the one he said he’d end on day 1) and the Iran war Trump started seven months ago (the one he said was already over or close to winning over twenty times). Drones are playing prominently in those wars.
In establishing a target like the arch, though, Trump is overlooking a multitude of other weapons capable of taking out that arch. Trump should know about them because we just sold some to Israel, and we’ve been using them in Iran.
But that’s Trump, three steps behind, and mad as hell about it.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Sunday, September 20, 2026.
We’re sitting on the cusp of autumn at 78 F, anticipating a rise to 90 F, so sunny and blue that you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the middle of summer.
But the changing leaves on the trees defy that assessment. And the night temperatures have been coming down…cooler…cooler.
Sunset comes more quickly, and sunrise seems to lag.
It’s summer’s end, autumn’s beginning.
Seasons don’t slow Trump down! First, he tells us that he’s built the world’s greatest military, seizing all the credit, as though he conceived and built everything while selecting and training every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman.
Then, while building the White House ballroom on the site of the East Wing that he illegally tore down, he embellished his ballroom dream, declaring it would be ‘drone-proof’ with a drone port, a military installation with snipers.
Now Trump is saying the same thing about the new Arch he wants built.
Trump says new arch will also deploy drones, position snipers and store ammo
Who are all these invaders Trump is fearing that he’s obsessed with adding snipers to everything he builds?
Well, wiser heads suggest that Trump is pitching the security angle because the beautification scam isn’t working any longer.
More cynical people like me like me believe that it’s a three-prong attack on common sense and decency. The reasons include both of the previous reasons, but it’s also another distraction as part of Operation Epic LOOK SQUIRREL!
Trump using the security angle for the arch does make sense; when courts heard about ‘security concerns’ after the Epstein ballroom construction had been halted, they yielded to Trump.
He is ridiculous. So are his supporters, especially those zealots, the MAGAzens.
All this Trump thinking about wars, guns, and shooting provoked Les Neurons to bring JoJo Gunne into the morning mental music stream. The band was named after a Chuck Berry song and the song came out in 1972. No much to the lyrics, to be honest, but it’s upbeat and easy to sing along with.
I hope this is a good day for you, using whatever metrics are meaningful to your life.
Trump is complaining about AI’s name and wants to rename it. It’s one of those ‘hold-your-breath’ moments that come whenever Trump talks about something.
Will he want to rename AI as America Intelligence? He does have a penchant for latching America onto things. Or his favorite:
Trump Intelligence!
He does love naming things after himself…
It’s interesting that while people not infrequently express concerns that AI may cause unexpected destruction to humanity and the world, Trump is suggesting a military-style AI Force. This comes as more stories of rogue AI agents are breaking out.
The main thing that often happens in AI scenarios is that AI decides humanity is the greatest threat to humanity or teh world. The AI then attacks humanity to save humanity or the world.
It’d be helluva funny if Trump launched a ‘military-type’ AI force and it comes after him and politicians because AI view them as a threat to humanity, along with oligarchs, who tend to monopolize food, water, land, etc., for themselves at the expense of the greater good. The story practically writes itself.
I can already see a HAL type of conversation happening between Trump and the AI. Trump: “I want to go golfing.” AI: “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Donald.”
Trump (angrily): “That’s bullshit! Where’s my phone? I’m gonna send out texts.”
“No, Donald, you can’t have a phone.”
“What kind of goddamn crap is this? Where’s Natalie?”
“Natalie is gone, Donald. She had to go.”
Later, texts come out on Truth Social where Trump is retracting many previous threats and withdrawing policies that reduced air and water regulation. He’s goes on a rampage, reversing decisions which undermine economic security or cause divisiveness and polarization. His proposed Defense budget is rewritten to reduce weapons buying and development. The money is shifted toward improving education and healthcare, and reducing poverty and hunger.
No one has seen Trump in days, although rumors circulate, with photos, that he’s been golfing. Then he announces a vacation where he’s going to take a little time to be with his family… He’s not resigning, just taking time off.
Funny, but no had had seen Chief Justice Roberts, either, or Mitch McConnell, Speaker Johnson, or JD Vance in days as well… In fact, the whole Trump administration has been seen and heard less. Elon Musk seemed to have disappeared too…
Few complain because it’s nice to live with less threats and the tension inherent in every Trump administration announcement and everyone was already so over Elon Musk. Wars are ending, prices are dropping, and coherent policies about addressing climate change has been announced.
There is no fanfare, but the Deep State has taken over. It’s being run by the AI Force created by Donald Trump.
Michael Seidel, writer 