It’s the kind of news never wanted but always and never expected.
Dolly Parton, queen of country music and humanitarian hero, dead at 80
Never met her nor saw Dolly Parton live in concert. But she’s just ten years older than me and contributed song writing, singing, and acting to my life’s experiences. Dolly always seemed real and genuine — and you can make whatever joke comes to your mind — but I think the world is a better place with more people like Dolly Parton.
My wife and I greet each other many mornings with, “What’s the news? He dead yet?”
Then we laugh and say, “I know he’s not or you would have shouting the news.”
You know, this is the only person in our lifetime together — over fifty years — that we have ever said such things about. And we never specify who we’re talking about. That’s. Not. Needed.
Mom is complaining about her relationships with her daughters. “Three of them live nearby and none of them will take me to my appointments. Which will only HASTEN my death anyway.”
My sister’s daughter, May, is going to visit Mom tomorrow. We’re interested in the after-visit report. Mom helped raise May, and she and Mom had a great relationship until about four years ago. Then Mom became so angry and bitter, complaining about so many things, May declared, “I can’t do that any longer. It’s just too much.” Which is the case with my sisters and the rest of their children. Mom just became too much. I’d seen that trend developing and told Mom over and over through the last several years that all she does is complain and scold, that she’s always angry and bitter. Once she said that her partner, Frank, had just told her the same thing.
Trump has big action happening in DC with the Freedom 250 Indycar Grand Prix. It’s all part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! He’s just trying to distract all he can from how crappy things are going. Lots of corporations are going along with him. Retail sales are down, reflecting people’s challenges with the increasing affordability of living in the US. But corporations overall are doing well, with energy and technology companies doing particularly well.
So, yes, many corporations are all in for Trump’s Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! distractions. Hey, they’re getting theirs! Make hay while the sun shines! So what if the wealth gap continues to widen, if personal bankruptices are increasing, rural hospitals are closing, measles outbreaks are increasing, and the extreme weather gets worse? Corporation execs and shareholders are making money. Later, when the situation changes, they’ll contritely reduce prices, announcing ‘we’re all in this together’.
No. We’re not. They make that clear. They’re only in it together with us if it’s going to affect their profits, and then, they’ll only act under duress.
Today’s music emerges from my dream. I didn’t hear it in the dream but as I went through the night’s third dream, I suddenly heard Karen Carpenter singing “We’ve Only Just Begun”.
That could be an apt song for now, as far as the title’s sentiment. We’re about to go through some heavy duty loads with Donald Trump. He tried staying in power when he lost his bid for re-election, encouraging his supporters to resist the bona bide election results, encouraging them to ignore the law, resulting in death and destruction while widening the trust gap and polarizing the electorate. This year, he’s been working on trying to undermine the system.
Here’s the irony: Trump is cheerleading the nation’s 250th anniversary while simultaneously undermining the system that we’ve developed and improved for 250 years, the system which actually delivered him victory — twice.
Yet, Trump keeps whining and complaining about stolen elections without evidence. Is cutting much of the federal government in order to shift loads to states because of states’ rights. Meanwhile, he’s working hard to hollow out the states’ role in the national elections, basically usurping it so he can mold it as head of the executive branch of the federal government. It’s such a naked, wanton, power grab.
Trump is doing it because he’s a failure. His policies are failures, and people are awakening to this. His only way to get ahead, as always, is to lie, cheat, and steal.
So get ready: we’ve only just begun.
May your day begin with love and happiness and end on a high note.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Wednesday, August 19, 2026.
August is moving on slow as molasses for me. I’m okay with that.
The claim is that it’ll be 96 F today. Forecasts yesterday said we’d hit 95 but we were four short of that. It’s 68 outside with high clouds clotting across the blue sky.
Our fingers are crossed that Mom’s house will finally close today. The buyers are using a grant to buy. The involved realtors say that the grant review and approval process has significantly slowed this year. It’s a federal program. A large part of me wonders if the Trump administration with its personnel cutbacks is responsible.
I’m not going to go into news and politics much on this post today. Writing a separate post on them.
I’m dedicating this instead to ZZ Top and Frank Beard. ZZ Top is an American rock band which had a heavy blues influence in its early years. They were a trio: Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. I started listening to them in high school. Saw them in concert a few times. Now only Billy Gibbons, lead vocalist, guitar, and song writer remains as Frank Beard, 77, joined Dusty Hill in that big gig in the otherworld.
I basically divide ZZ Top’s sound into two eras. In their early years was that blues sound. Multiple favorite songs hang with me from that period. For today, I’ll go with “La Grange” and “Jesus Left Chicago”.
The second period moved ZZ Top more into commercial mainstream pop. They became phenomenally successful. My preferred sound from that era was “Sharp Dressed Man”, which my wife and I liked to sing as ‘short, fat man’.
So here we go, into the morning mental music stream. May your day be blessed with happy memories of good music and good times, and optimism for our future.
Got chilly last night — low 60s — which felt awesome. Even now, it’s in the upper 60s and a cool breeze is swimming past. Sky is postcard blue; no smoke or clouds. Expected to be in the mid 90s as our highs.
Mom and sis, Gina, remain at war. I’m surprised it lasted this long. Gina usually tries for another pact. Perhaps, after all attempts have failed, she’s really given up on Mom. Mom, on her side, blames Gina; sees no fault on her end. Mom did ask when her house was closing, which won’t be until after August 14.
It was a night of deep sleep and wild dreams. We have some socializing happening today, so I’m not going to dwell on the news.
Today’s music is “Catch Us If You Can”. This is a Dave Clark 5 song that came out when I was 9, in 1965. I know it because my sister, two years older, was getting into music. She had a DC5 album, along with albums by Freddie and the Dreamers, and Herman’s Hermits. She played them a lot.
Why is the song in my morning mental music stream? I don’t know. The Neurons probably conjured some secret connections with my dreams, thinking, writing, memories, but they’re as revealing as the Sphinx on a hot day.
I hope that you have a satisfying and enjoyable day, and that maybe it has some socializing in it.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, July 23, 2026.
Cooler today, although the sky is blue and the sun is brightly shining. 75 F now, we expect a high of 93 F.
The air was much better last night and today, as well. The East Evans Creek Fire is now 38% contained, and there were no flare ups despite yesterday’s strong winds and high heat.
Extraordinary how often things in the news are now measured in billions and trillions. They used to be eye-opening amounts. Now we see them daily in the news:
Trump made more than $2.2bn last year. Experts say this extraordinary haul is only part of the story
AMD to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of computing power deal
Meanwhile, down here in the trenches, life is still measured in dollars and cents as we struggle with affordability.
Current U.S. Beef Prices (July 2026)
As of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data (July 22, 2026), national average retail beef prices are up modestly from last month, with most cuts seeing gains of 0.6%–1.2%. National Average Retail Prices (per pound, USDA Choice cuts unless noted)
Sirloin Steak (USDA Choice): $14.45/lb — ▲1.2% vs. June, ▲6.6% vs. last year
“It’s a private thing, yeah, I’ll do it, and we’ll probably have some donors or whatever, but it’s about $200 million. So, we’ve been planning it for a long time. They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years. But there’s never been a president that was good at ballroom. I’m really good.”
Donald Trump, July, 2025
Back then, Trump was also bragging that the ballroom would cost $200M.
All that has The Neurons playing “Billion Dollar Babies” in the morning mental music stream. The Alice Cooper song (and album of the same name) came out while I was in high school. My friend, Bob, was instantly enamored with both and used to spit out parts of choruses as we went from class to class, a period which I think lasted a week or two.
Alice Cooper was a cross-dressing rock star for a long period. Yet he’s expressed views against transgenders and supports Donald Trump. “(America) got so ‘woke’ with the Biden people, even they thought it was crazy. If a guy says to a coworker, ‘I like your new dress,’ that means he now gets fired? That’s crazy. It got so over the top that whoever ran against the Democrats was going to win. America got sick of the stupidness and all I can say is, in a shooting war, you don’t want a poodle; you want a pitbull.” Wikipedia
Because of this, I don’t often listen to Alice Cooper much any longer.
Hope your day brings fresh air and some good weather, good friends, and good times.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, July 4, 2026.
Today is Independence Day in the US, another bright day in my valley, destined to be 90 plus degrees F.
Fireworks aren’t permitted in Ashland. They are allowed in our county, so there’s a storm going on about buying fireworks right outside of city limits. People then come in and set them off.
I’m one of those against fireworks. We’re in the middle of a drought, and they terrorize animals and some people. Each year, I bring my cats in and ensure they’re in a safe place. Papi heads to the darkest and most secure space, the walk-in closet in our bedroom.
I understand that people like the colors and noises. We have other tech that can be subbed for this ancient technology. I know, though, that change is slow around traditions like these.
For me, Independence Day has a very special meaning. I met my wife just a short week before the holiday. I was fifteen and she was fourteen. My father, then in the Air Force, was stationed at DESC, just outside of Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. I went to live with him after some run-ins with my stepfather.
Dad and my future father-in-law were good friends. Dad worked for him part time years before when stationed at Wright-Pat, trying to make extra money. When Dad returned after assignments in Vietnam, Germany, Iceland, and Turkey, they renewed their friendship.
I met my FIL, Jim, in May that year, 1971, on a fishing/camping trip. Then I met his wife and daughters in June. That was just a short drop by, though. It was on July 4th that my wife and I ‘really’ met.
Dad had given me an old watch after he bought a new one. I wore that all the time. Back when I met her and my wife and I were getting to know one another on July 4th, she asked me about my birthday. As it happens, it’s on July 5th.
My wife asked if she could see my watch. Then she refused to return it. She waited until after the fireworks. She waited until midnight. Then she presented my watch as a gift and told me, “Happy birthday.”
I lost the watch a long time ago, but I cherish her and the memory.
Today’s song is “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John. For the last twenty plus years while living in Ashland, we go to a friend’s house along the parade route to watch our town’s 4th of July parade. It’s a brunch potluck. Our host used to be our neighbor across the street here; when her husband passed away over a dozen years ago, she moved into a small cottage behind her daughter’s house. It’s our daughter’s house where we and about fifty other people congregate and celebrate.
Our host, though, is Barb, the neighbor from across the street, a sweet and charming but small 96-year-old woman. Her husband told me that he met his wife when she was a teenager. She was studying dance, already in college, and he was at college and walking, when he saw her alone on the bridge, dancing, late on afternoon. He didn’t know who she was but he knew he wanted to know her. Since hearing that story, I often call Barb “Tiny Dancer”. And that’s why the song is in the morning mental music stream.
I have you have a wonderful day, whether you’re celebrating the holiday in the US or elsewhere, or just enjoying life in another nation. I hope it gives you memories that make you smile, and comes with memories about what happened before, and full of people who help make your life a better place.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
July has landed in Ashland. Looks much like June: blue sky, sunshine, but unseasonably chilly. 52 F when I rolled out of bed and fed Papi. Now 60, climbing to the high 70s.
Some of the larger news stories coming out this week, beyond Trump’s Great American State Fair Disaster and the various Roberts Courts rulings, is about how much wealthier he’s become while in office a second time.
Donald Trump has boasted about how much money he is making during his presidency as cost-of-living pressures continue to soar for millions of Americans.
The extraordinary comments came as new figures revealed the president reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures last year, fueling claims that he is using the presidency to enrich himself.
To summarize, as most Americans struggle with affordability, job insecurity, and inflation, Trump made more than $1.4B. As POTUS. While We the People pay for him to golf.
Remember when Trump said he would not golf as President, criticizing President Obama for golfing? Ha, ha, fool me once..
Defending himself, Trump insisted that ‘everyone is profiting’. Which. Is. Bull. Shit. That brings us to some Trump quotes.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Many reflect that Trump’s handling of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — Algaegate — reflects his terrible management skills, and how frequently what he claims and the results seen are almost diametrically opposed.
In the same way, Trump’s quote about the stock market and 401Ks in regard to his wealth and affordability show his uncanny ability to lie and exaggerate while demonstrating how out of touch he is with average people and reality.
Trump claims the stock market is up 85%. It’s not: the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has risen 24%. No market has gone up 85%.
A 401K is a retirement account. If you’re not retired and withdrawing from it, the gains are all on paper. They do nothing to help with buying groceries.
Few Americans own stock, 58% by most recent calculations. They own it mainly through a 401K. About 21% of Americans have stock investments.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans own more than the bottom 90% combined.
Trump made his money through his crypto, not the stock market, so talking about the stock market is another distraction, just more of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
I am not surprised to read and report that the MAGA faithful and most conservatives applaud Trump’s wealth grab while in office, attributing it to Trump’s skills as a ‘smart businessman.’
Well, then, Rural America, there it is, there he is, Trump, your king, making money off crypto. Hope all of your are getting off your asses and following his lead, because he’s showing you how it’s done.
Daily Kos added the perfect final assessment of Trump, his wealth, and affordability. In the end, it’s all about Trump and what he can get for himself.
Funny. Trump declared himself the peace president and started a war and kidnapped another nation’s president. Declared himself a unifier and verbally attacks and insults other Americans while sending in heavily armed ICE agents to grab people off the street. Declares himself the crypto president and crypto collapses.
Today’s song is “Ring Rang Doo” by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. The song was a minor hit in the 1960s in the US but didn’t make the mark that “Woolly Bully” made. It entered my morning mental music stream when I entered the closet to decide what to wear.
Don’t ask me why it came then, but it makes sense in a Trumpish context. “Ring Rang Doo” is a made-up word that means nothing. Much of what Trump says is about the same.
I hope your July begins on a high note and just keeps going up as we work through the season.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, June 16, 2026.
95 will be today’s high. Blue sky, sunshine, 71 F right now.
We’re in a mini-limbo with Mom’s house sale. One set of inspections is done, and it’s not bad. Repairs and issues are underway. Some are due to the house’s age. For instance, back in the day, a window in the bathroom sufficed; fans weren’t needed. Now, with the house changing hands, code stipulates bathroom fans. And the dryer duct came undone. Stuff like that.
I used to tease Mom about her old washer and dryer. Both were ‘low value’ purchases. Didn’t match: Whirlpool and GE. She bought the dryer shortly after moving in back in ’95. The house had a washer but then needed to be replaced around ’99. But those two pieces have chugged along. Same with the old gas range. We siblings pitched together to buy her a portable dishwasher from Sears one Mother’s Day in the late nineties. My brother-in-laws installed it as a permanent piece in the early 00s. Still works as well.
Mom’s house is full of things that were old but worked well. She always took care of it all.
My dental appointments didn’t go well yesterday. These are about surgical dental implants. I had the surgery a year ago. The site that remains had a cyst removed and needed more time to recover. Well, yesterday’s ‘click tests’ with that tiny torque wrench show that it needs more time. So the next steps — installing the implant — were pushed back six weeks.
Ironically, I’d changed the implant date, June 25, to July, because it clashed with my scheduled bladder surgery. Oh, well.
It feels like D.C. and Trump has entered a sort of stasis. That’s my opinion from ‘out here’. One, Trump’s war with Iran is ‘over’. We’re all digesting its consequences. Two, Trump is definitely physically and mentally run down. I don’t give a damn about official reports. We can see it in whenever he appears in public, and can read it when he sends out midnight texts.
Those texts remind me of my mother’s bout with sundowner syndrome, BTW. She was also sending them in the middle of the night and they also made little sense.
The economy and systems are all also giving the signals about what Trump’s unchecked actions have wrought. Additionally, the judicial system is pushing back. Many Trump initiatives have become a tug of war in courts, things like his ICE deportation policies, ICE killing of US citizens, renaming the Kennedy Center, building the Epstein ballroom, the tariffs…it’s a long list.
The trends are clear. Trump acts fast, asserting permission with arrogance. Shock travels the affected. Reactions set in. Legal actions are raised against Trump. Courts rule. Trump often loses but appeals decisions, frequently changing legal tactics.
All of that is Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! to cover his enormous stealing, his insider stock trading, his underhanded grifting.
It’s all slowly catching up, leading to the mid-term confrontations. I’m sure Trump rushed to a deal now because he’s trying to save face and gain back support before the mid-terms. I’m sure he believes he can gain some support with Freedom 250 and the Great American State Fair, and the pageantry planned for that.
The problem with his plan remains: he is Trump. He’ll make it about himself.
He is Trump. He refuses to understand that his policies have failed, and that’s why voters are turning against him.
So, he is Trump. He will lash out.
Our question remains, how?
Today’s song ends up being “The Man” by The Killers.
Sample Lyrics:
Don’t need no advice I got a plan I know the direction The lay of the land I know the score like the back of my hand Them other boys I don’t give a damn
I’m the man, come round No-no-nothing can break, no-nothing can break me down I’m the man, come round and No-no-nothing can break, you can’t break me down
The 2017 song was written about the POV that you feel invincible when you’re young. That makes sense.
The song came to the morning mental music stream when I was thinking about Trump and the morning news. And I realized that the song is apt for the day because a large part of Trump is his immaturity. He remains a person who thinks himself invincible.
I hope you have an excellent day, full of peace and grace, no matter the weather or season wherever you are.
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.
Michael Seidel, writer 