Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, November 14, 2026.

We’re experiencing a classic autumn day — windy, cloudy, a chance of rain and sunshine, nothing too cold nor warm. We’re talking lows of 45 F and highs of 58.

A friend suffered a stroke back on Thursday, November 5. She underwent surgery the next morning and had a carotid stent inserted but then suffered another stroke. She was unresponsive for a while and slowly gained a little back. Doctors though, more strokes are expected because of blood clots. Having no to little chance for recovery, she’s elected to return home and enter hospice.

It’s a pretty shocking cycle. My wife chatted with her on the phone before her Thursday stroke. They made plans for Saturday. After hearing about the stroke, my wife called her and said, “I guess Saturday is out,” which made our friend laugh.

We visited her in the hospital the other day. Her eyes were closed during most of the visit. She said little. Moved little.

She’s made her choice about what she wants. Her family accepts it. Wanting the best for her, my wife and I do as well, but we will miss our friend. Her husband had just passed away on October 17, so people who were once solid rocks of our social circle will be gone.

Looking back over the medical sciences’ advances, though, just think of what her chances would have been like when she was born almost 90 years ago. Yet, even with those advances, there are hard limits.

I wonder what it’ll be like 90 years from now.

What do you want is circling through my head. I find myself asking that about life and politics. What do you want? Do you want a ‘wealthy’ nation where things break down because everyone cheaps out from fixing them, a nation of lagging education because money is more prized over everything else, a nation where some are more free than others, where some are actively repressed and persecuted for being who they are, and some are homeless and starving?

I don’t know exactly how and where I formulated my vision of the United States, but it’s not about getting wealthier or gaining more power. It is about freedom, democracy, and equality, and We the People ruling ourselves. That often takes compromise, but I always assumed that logic, facts, truth, and history would be part of the conversation.

Now, under Trump’s banner, after Vietnam, Watergate, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran, after the Recession when We the People saved those businesses who are too big to fail, after Q-Anon and Pizzagate, Watergate, Vance and Trump’s campaign lies and broken promises, and the Epstein files, I wonder what has been learned. Trump, MAGA, Heritage Foundation, and white Evangelicals have been trying to turn the vision of the United States on its head. Who would have ever thought that people would so eagerly support, follow, and trust Trump, given his history?

So yes, again — what has been learned?

What do you want?

My thoughts inspired Les Neurons once again. Spying on me as The Neurons do without apology, they fired up “Rock of Ages” by Def Leppard in my morning mental music stream. Made sense to The Neurons because the chorus keeps asking, “What do you want?”

Now I want to sit, drink coffee, write, and put worries aside for an hour.

I hope peace and hope rock you and your day this day and for all the days to come.

Cheers