Monday’s Theme Music – Failure
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, August 3, 2026.
It’s cool now but heat and fire weather warnings are up. Our present temp is 68 F but we’re bracing for a 96 F high as the heat dome comes our way. Will the jet stream save us? If it doesn’t they warn us, brace yourself for temperatures over 100 with a heat index that pushes it much higher.
My wife and I had the case of the missing mangos this morning. “Hey, didn’t we buy mangos?” she asked, looking around.
Yes, I agreed, also looked around. We began a search. Not in the frig, on the counter anywhere. Didn’t ‘somehow’ get left in the car. At last: the last place we looked: with the potatoes.
My wife said. “I was tired when we were putting the food away.”
Case solved.
This is unlike the case of the missing senator. “He’s alive,” the GOP proclaims, but Mitch McConnell still hasn’t been seen in public for almost two months. It’s starting to be a lot like Trump’s war.
Trump’s war with Iran is also in a limbo states. Back in March, Trump and Hegseth claimed the war was over, with Trump declaring it was an “unmitigated success”.
That was six months ago.
Then Trump has gone on and off the record about what’s happening, swatting away any attempt to being held accountable to We the People. “I’m gonna bomb them,” he texts, then reverses himself. Oil prices rise and drop. Oil companies are making record profits. The rest of us scramble to deal with rising prices. That’s standard under GOP guidance: the rich get richer, the poor are told to suck rocks.
The Iran war is just one of many incomplete Trump mysteries. Other is, what happened to releasing the Epstein files? Trump promised he would release the files. A law was passed that they must be released. After months of distraction, Trumpnions are still holding them back on behalf of the bossman.
Thanks to Pirro’s terrible legal skills in leading the DoJ, the case about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is much stronger. Let the records show that it’s just as we thought, that Trump’s contractor botched the job and Trump scrambled to save face by screaming, “Vandals! Plots! Democrats!” Just as he does every time he screws up.
Likewise, the Freedom250 celebration isn’t as profitable and successful as Trump crowed it was, which required that We the People made up the shortfall. We all kind of saw that coming: Trump announced the performers and almost all immediately said, “No, no, we’re not part of this.”
Yes, it’s been the summer of Trump failures. Building toward a year.
Except for grifting; as always, he’s taking care of himself, making a ton of money by making the Oval Office into a crime boss’s golden lair. Between his ruthless need to be honored and his insane hunger to appear rich and powerful, he’s become a Bond villain caricature, which is something, since they’re often caricatures to begin.
Except, also, for the tournament he won at one of his golf courses. He won that. Everyone outside of his grift circle immediately questioned whether he cheated. This is because he’s Donald Trump, a known liar, adulterer, and cheater. Just pick a topic. Look what he promised and claimed. If you’re a MAGAt or Republican, you’re fine because the ends justify the means for you. So, Trump Double Standards are employed.
But they’ll reach that final FAFO moment when they’ve burned it all down. Given their recent history, they’ll pivot: create conspiracies. Blame others about what went wrong.
Just like their leader, Donald J. Trump.
Your Trump Quote(s) of the Day:
Trump on Jeffrey Epstein:
Trump on Affordability:
And the only truth Trump has ever uttered:
Today’s occupant in the morning mental music stream is “Power Failure” by Procol Harum. Released in 1971, it’s an old favorite of mine from a distant era. The song is about bands and the struggles they face. But I think it translates well to politics.
Lyrics (h/t to AZLyrics.com)
Climbing out of open windows
Crashing down from broken stairs
Keeping watch on smoking cinders
Falling over burning chairs
Tossed and crossed and screwed in transit
Broken , splintered, bruised and thrown
Badly shattered, gale force frighty
Rrushed across and shown alone
Speech reduced by poor relations
Strung from weeks of self abuse
Chopped up, churned out weeks of greazy
Spark plugs burned up, power’s fused
That imagery spells Trump failure and GOP collapse.
Hope your Monday — or whatever day — sparkles with magic that invigorates and moves you on to new heights and familiar joys.
Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music — Get You
Ashland, southern Oregon. Sunday, August 2, 2026.
Our weather is cool, 62 F right now. It’ll rise to the mid 80s, basically as it did yesterday. The air is clear with an AQI that says ‘it’s good’. Clouds muddle around the sky as if they’re waiting for a door to open somewhere.
I’m suspicious of it all.
Things are going well — here. Relatively. Everything is relative. We live on spectrums of changing needs, abilities, awareness, knowledge. It all seems more acute for me as I grow older.
I don’t feel particularly old now but then I look in the mirror. Like, who stole my hair? Will they be returning it?
My face just looks different. Not like my parents or grandparents. Now I’m wondering if someone stole into the house and replaced my face.
Then, why would they have taken my average white, upper middle age (ahem) face?
Answer is, of course: they’re going to use my face to commit a crime somewhere.
So now I wait to see what crime my face shows up as part of.
Watching Mom, friends, and Trump, I don’t look forward to getting much older. Mom, 91, is cranky on most days. Filled with pain, she tells me. I see a video of her in a chair, trying to exercise. She’s listing to her right as she jerks her right arm up. She doesn’t look happy or healthy, but she’s trying.
Trump worries me even more. His language, never a strong suit, has become much worse. There are reports of him crapping his pants or delivering some nasty farts. Where there’s this much smoke, I got to wonder about the truth behind it. If he’s crapping himself or emitting enough noxious foulness that others are gagging and turning away, those aren’t signs of good heatlh.
In photos, Trump’s face has that old person, mean, angry look going. He’s glaring at the world like he’s trying to hear what they’re saying and can’t.
Worse, though, are those late night texts — from Mom and Trump.
Mom reached out at 2 AM to ask me if we’re safe from the fires. She pinged me again a few minutes later to ask, “Why don’t you answer?”
I don’t see these texts until I get up a few hours later. Then reply, sorry, missed your texts, was asleep, we’re fine. And I thank her for her concerns.
My sister later reports that Mom texted her in the middle of the night, asking what did Gina do with all the clothes Mom left behind in her house.
I worry, why is Mom up in the middle of the night texting?
Trump worries me in the same way. He spends a lot of nocturnal hours texting. Then he’s shown ready to fall asleep in his chair at meetings during the day.
Trump’s texts are worse than Mom’s texts. Mom shows a belated handle on what’s going on and often shows concern for others.
Trump texted an AI generated vision of himself as Elvis Presley. What an absolutely strange thing to do, I think as I see this. Who in their right mind pretends to be someone else like that?
Let’s pause to think about it: Trump is posting an image of himself as a popular pop culture star. One who died in 1977, almost fifty years ago. What is going on in that troubled head that he entertains these thoughts?
I then think of Trump’s MAGAts. They say that he speaks for them.
Are they out there generating AI images of themselves as others? Are some of them projecting themselves as young Johnny Cash or dead young athletes and actors?
As an aside to that, I admit that I admire the new Iran War Participation Award someone created for Trump. It has the right mix of bitter humor and deadly insights.
I received other texts and messages from people worrying about us and the fires. As the fires grow in the Pacific Northwest and more are evacuated, the news shifts toward the top of the news cycles.
We’re fine, I reply to all, knock on wood. No, it’s been a remarkably ‘cooler’ summer, with us rarely challenging 100 F. Wildfire threats have been far away. The smoke has only been mild and hasn’t lasted too long — knock on wood. Hope to hell I’m not jinxing us by mentioning it.
No, our thing remains the drought. Winter supplies are down to the low 40s. We’re conserving. Vegetation is browning, which would be nice if these were pie crusts baking in the oven instead of grassy fields and mountain meadows.
Between nature’s growing extreme trends and aging, there’s a sense that something is going to get you. Trump, acting crazy, arming ICE and mobilizing them in cities, fostering more war, using violence as a mallet to try to fix things, only makes that feel worse. Especially as his main concerns are promoting himself as a young Elvis Presley, affixing his name to buildings, and destroying our heritage and cultural norms.
No surprise then, with The Neurons’ music choice for the morning mental music stream. “One Way or Another” is a 1979 Blondie song. Deborah Harry was being stalked but wrote the song with some humor injected into it.
Sample Lyrics:
One way or another, I’m gonna find ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna win ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna see ya
I’m gonna meet ya, meet ya, meet ya, meet ya
One day, maybe next week, I’m gonna meet ya
I’m gonna meet ya, I’ll meet ya
Catchy. Easy to sing along with, good hard beat with a fast tempo made it a popular and memorable song. Makes perfect sense for today, with the threats being raised by nature and Trump.
Hope your day is threatfree, and that you enjoy carefree moments of pleasure and happiness with people you’re fond of, in places which you enjoy.
Cheers
Trump Caught Lying Again
Trump was caught lying again.
It was one of his classic whoppers about stolen elections. He focused on one of his favorite hate targets — yes, the ‘unifier’ has many hate targets, doesn’t he? — California, and the mayor’s race in Los Angeles.
“Very few people voted. They had more votes cast than they had people. So the people came in, but the ballots were far more than the people.”
“They had more votes cast than they had people. Okay? How about that one? By a lot.”
No; they didn’t.
Trump didn’t provide any evidence because Trump was making it up. Lying. Fact checkers confirm that no, the number of votes was not more than the city’s population.
Trump just lies. He keeps the stolen election lies going because he’s suffering failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Energy prices aren’t coming down. Affordability isn’t improving, and it’s Trump’s economy — although he wants to blame anyone else for it. Everyone is not getting ‘richer’. The Iran War isn’t over, and Iran is fighting back. In fact, the war is enlarging.
Trump orders fresh attack against Iran as war enters sixth month
Trump has still kept the Epstein files back. Still golfs. Still building the ridiculous, ugly White House ballroom. Still charging the taxpayers for it after he said they wouldn’t.
Lie after lie after lie. Broken promise after broken promise. Failure after failure.
Like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Trump grandstanded about how he was finally fixing it, clapping himself on the back about doing something that no one’s ever done before.
Within weeks, it was a mess. Spinning, trying to blame others, Trump launched new lies about sabotage and vandals.
Now the DOJ has dropped the case.
Justice Dept. admits Reflecting Pool renovation was ‘hasty and botched,‘ drops case against former Olympian
Labirinto Pisani said it well in comments on the story:
“Only a month ago, FOX News had Leavitt, Pirro, Burgum, and Watters all solemnly insisting the Reflecting Pool vandalism was real, while Trump’s slapstick imitation of “slashing the pool” played like a lost Marx Brothers reel. MAGA loyalists, predictably, swallowed every frame. Reality, as usual, declined to participate.“
Failures like this — and the news coverage of it — is why Trump so desperately keeps churning out the same baseless fantasies about stolen elections, now trying to drum up fears about communism. He’s trying to distract everyone from how badly he’s doing. Keep us divided. Unsure.
Trump is instilling chaos. Then he can declare an emergency. Assume sweeping powers. Vacate elections.
No; the Constitution doesn’t give him these powers. Trump is taking them.
And MAGA and the GOP say, yep; go for it, Trump. Because that’s their twisted vision of how the government should work.
We thought that the American ideals are justice, freedom, and democracy. We thought we understood that we are all better if we stand united.
Turns out, that’s not what they think.
I’m so disappointed in them.
Saturday’s Theme Music — The End
Ashland, southern Oregon.
Saturday, August 1, 2026. Happy Lammas Day!
It’s 71 F in our valley at the moment. Light, high white clouds. We expect a high in the upper 80s.
A new heat dome is moving into the region. But the jet stream shifted a few years ago. Now we’re often protected from those heat domes. It can change again at any moment, so I’ll take it for now and celebrate the small win.
It’s a new month but much hasn’t changed.
Eight-five fires are burning in Oregon.
They still haven’t closed on Mom’s house. She is aware that it’s being sold, though, asking me for updates every day.
Trump is still lying. Still squirming, trying to distract us from his failures.
The Epstein files haven’t been released. Trump’s war with Iran is still going on. Affordability remains a crisis. Healthcare costs are going up.
Like many people, I’m waiting for other things. Like the old story: waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So, it’s a new month, but the same mode of waiting.
Without much surprise, The Neurons caught onto my thinking. My Neurons can be slow and flaky, easily distracted by games and cats, but like a car, they can get fired up and pointed in the right direction once in a while.
Today’s song in the morning mental music stream is “Waiting for the End”. This is a Linkin Park song. Came out in 2010. I caught it on SNL and went looking for it to hear it again.
Sample Lyrics:
Waiting for the end to come
Wishing I had strength to stand
This is not what I had planned
It’s out of my control
Yeah, yeah
What was left when that fire was gone?
I thought it felt right, but that right was wrong
All caught up in the eye of the storm
And trying to figure out what it’s like moving on
And I don’t even know what kind of things I’ve said
My mouth kept moving, and my mind went dead
So, I’m picking up the pieces now, where to begin?
The hardest part of ending is starting again
The song is about hope, paralysis, and frustration, IMO. Feels right for today. Here we are, waiting for the end, trying to figure out how we define the end.
I hope you have a strong day, whatever one it is, whatever your season, a day that comes with lasting peace and grace.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 