Category: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music — Wheels

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, November 5, 2026.

Warmer and drier today, with a hazy but blue sky and a temperature of 48 F. Our valley’s expected high is 60 F.

Mom’s latest lab report returned with bad news. Her Escherichia coli count was abnormal, >100,000 CFU/mL. More antibiotics are being prescribed, and Gina is picking those up.

Gina, my sister, acts as Mom’s POA, messenger, driver, and financial manager. Now, as she points out to Mom, she’s also managing Mom’s doctor visits and prescriptions. Mom can do little on her own. I was aware of this back when I visited Mom before Frank passed away. Mom struggled to keep things mentally organized and clarified. Frank helped a great deal by being Mom’s driver, helping Mom with her doctor’s visits, and picking up her prescriptions.

Now, with Frank no longer available in those roles, Mom struggles to understand why Gina doesn’t respond immediately to every text Mom sends her, instantly escalating from “I need this” to “WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME”. When Mom posits her requests and needs, she tends to be demanding, as if an imperial decree is being issued.

Mom has always been like that. What’s fascinating is that I’ve witnessed these transactions and saw how they went down. Mom often projected herself as being very sweet, patient and polite. That was often far from the truth. That’s part of the reasons why my sisters and I keep our distance from her.

Enough of that complaining. Had to get it off my chest.

We’ve been processing the blue wave, waiting for some results, and digesting the ‘what happened’ autopsies. I’m expecting two years of Trump chaos and legislative gridlock. The Democrats will be under a microscope, with every move and word examined for effectiveness as the GOP and Trump enter counter-attack mode. Accusations about overreach, communism, socialism and other rightwing scare tactics will soon begin popping up.

I don’t expect any changes to Trump’s attempts to rule like a dictator. He’ll keep insisting that he’s above the law, the greatest ever, and a genius at everything, while demonstrating amazing ignorance. Trump has already gone from being contrite about the midterm results to blaming the Republicans who lost for not being him.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

There’s a mountain of evidence that Trump and his policies and administration are unpopular. Donald Trump will continue to deny them because he cannot face the truth.

Today’s theme music is a 1972 Black Sabbath offering. I was thinking about Mom, politics, and life and went into a reflection about wheels turning.

The Neurons pounced! The morning mental music stream went from John Lennon and Alice Cooper offerings to a Journey tune to a BST song1. Then, perhaps because I was thinking about my youth and Mom, 1972 called up with “Wheels of Confusion”.

My gosh, was that a surprise. I’d not heard this song in too long and hearing it in my mental stream made me grin. So I offer it up to you.

I hope the wheels keep turning for you and carry you to better places.

Cheers

  1. John Lennon – “Watching the Wheels”; Alice Cooper: “Under My Wheels”; Journey: “Wheel in the Sky”; BST (Blood, Sweat, and Tears), “Spinning Wheel”. ↩︎
3

Wednesday’s Theme Music — Right now

Ashland, southern Oregon — November 4, 2026.

Beautiful day outside. Something in the air. The sky is a fantastic BLUE and the sunshine is sharp and bright.

It’s 49 F degrees outside, rising to 58 F today. We might see 60. Overall, a crispy autumn day.

My sister, Gina, took Mom to vote yesterday as well as taking Mom to her doctor’s appointment. Gina treated us to regular updates about Mom’s awareness of what was going on and what was expected. Gina concluded that Mom needs to be in a nursing home.

The midterm elections were held in the US yesterday. The projected blue tsunami came through even stronger than expected.

Mike Johnson immediately announced a TACO move.

There are many terrific headlines out there today, reflecting the state of things.

Goodbye, Susan Collins

Late at night, a lame duck quacks on Truth Social

2 Native American Women Break Political Barriers This Election

Vance Blames Republican Midterm Losses On Iran War: ‘Everyone Knows Why We Lost’

I’m sure there are many who think as I do, that the midterm election results are in with good results for We the People but the mango maniac still remains in a seat of power. Trump may be contrite today, blaming others for his mistakes, but Donald Trump will come raging back. Don’t let your guard down.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Even after the decisive Democratic victories in the midterms, an election specifically about the success and direction of the nation, Donald Trump refuses to accept the failure of his policies and practices.

With all that bubbling in my thinking, The Neurons pulled up “Right Here, Right Now”. This Jesus Jones song reflected exactly what my main body of thought was reporting. Take a pause, right here, right now, to accept the win because we’ve been waiting for it but now that it’s not over.

Right here, right now, it’s a little better.

Cheers

0

Trump Flails Again!

Trump has become a bad television show or movie, one you stay with because it becomes so bad, it’s funny.

Unlike those television shows and movies, Trump is a real-life challenge to our norms and acceptable behavior, with far-ranging repercussions emerging from his action.

We rolled into Tuesday, November 3, 2026 — Election Day in the US — with Trump and his policies and administration growing less popular. Donald Trump has fired effort after effort to enhance his standing. He’s offered payments, subsidies, and benefits to offset the impact of starting a war in Iran, driving up prices, and causing death and chaos. He’s even portrayed himself as various respected people like superheroes and saints. Nothing is swaying the voters because the pain from Trump’s failures is cutting too deeply.

As part of Trump’s flailing desperation, he turned again to Iran. New attacks were launched, resulting in greater confusion and tension about what was going on with the war. Donald Trump previously said no attacks on Iran were planned and also mentioned that the war was over or won, that the war wasn’t a war, and that gas prices would quickly come down, soon.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Trump was trying to say that the US isn’t at war because there was no shooting going on — never mind the death and destruction already caused by the seven months of war already endured.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, commander-in-chief, the US announced new military strikes on Iran shortly after Trump’s convoluted weave about what constitutes war. The timing between Trump’s defensive explanation and the new attacks left Trump looking like an a) an idiot, b) a liar, c) out of touch, d) not in charge, or e) all of these things.

Trump already attempted to reduce the impact of voting by mail. Recent elections showed more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail so Trump tried an end run, attempting to slow down the mail. This slowdown affected rural areas more sharply. Rural areas in the US tend to lean heavily Republican, so these postal measures have paradoxically created the highest risk of ballot rejection for the very demographic that Trump historically needs, rural voters.

Trump also attacked voter registration in California and other states, and tried intimidating state voting officials. In parallel, red states attempted to reduce voter participation by onerous voter registration and ID laws, closing voting locations, and prohibiting water in line.

With none of that working, Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! went into action.

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is Donald Trump’s recurring project to keep people distracted from what’s going on — especially bad things like a war not going as planned, prices rising across the board, and a rising national debt and a growing deficit. Worse than all of those things for Donald Trump is the specter of the Epstein files and what they tell about Donald Trump, and Trump’s declining popularity.

Under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, Donald Trump has launched a succession of distractions. These include trying to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, demolishing part of the White House, starting construction of a new, gigantic White House ballroom, festooning the Oval Office with tacky gold decor, paving over the historic Rose Garden, tearing up a golf course, cutting down trees, arbitrarily declaring new names for places, sending ICE into US cities, abducting the sitting president of Venezuela, and of course, attacking boats at sea, killing people, and starting the war with Iran.

Whew! That’s not even a complete list!

The distractions aren’t working. In fact, many of them blew up in Trump’s face, acting as a catalyst to decrease his popularity and approval ratings.

Something had to be done. Something grand!

U.S. will stop $4B in aid to Israel at the end of the year, Trump says

I yawned when I read Trump’s latest desperate distraction.

There are a number of legal, political, and logistical impediments to Trump’s grand declaration. Besides those aspects, I’m dubious of Trump maintaining the focus and political will to do this. I put this alongside of many other Trump announcements, like eliminating the national debt, prices coming down on day one, no new wars, prescription drug prices being cut by hundreds or thousands percent, and stopping the Ukraine War before he even began his second term.

Donald Trump makes many promises. Few promises result in anything close to what he claims. Instead, he’s enriched himself, increased division in the nation, and is inflaming the affordability crisis.

A change is needed. I hope enough people realized this.

I hope a blue wave is sweeping the US.

Fingers crossed that it will make a difference.

14

Sunday’s Theme Music — Rolling on

Ashland, southern Oregon — November 1, 2026.

November has arrived, and it looks tired out there today. Dispirited. Like it’s beginning with a hangover. Limp with rain and moisture, many leaves have surrendered, leaving their trees almost naked. The remaining leaves appear dull, as if they’re just hanging on.

Fog and mists cut down the light and block the views. It’s warmer today, already 43 F, with a high of 53 possible.

Mom sent out a text to Gina (my sister) yesterday. Mom will give Gina $4K a month and apologize to Pat if she can come live with Gina.

The money aspect isn’t a concern for Gina. It’s always been about Mom’s accusations about Pat and her refusal to apologize to him for what she claimed he did to her. Mom claimed that Pat spied on her all the time, took and hid her remote, and used an ‘invisible device’ on her head to cause her pain.

I don’t know what will come of this. Texts exploded yesterday after Gina and Mom became angry again, with Gina threatening not to take Mom to her appointment or to vote next week.

With November here, the midterm elections are at last in reach. I’m feeling the anxiety that many others. One, a hope that there is a blue wave.

Two, a worry that there won’t be a blue wave.

Three, a worry that there is a blue wave and Trump reacts by inciting violence. There is infamous precedence for that.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Yes, that was Donald Trump — the ‘peace president’, the one who never condones violence — after he lost the 2020 election and the results were being certified. Yet, Trump has sanctioned and cheered the violence done in his name, and the GOP says little.

For whatever reasons, the Bachman-Turner Overdrive song, “Roll On Down the Highway”, is being cranked through my morning mental music stream.

The song was released in 1975. I was in my first year of service in the US Air Force and my wife was a senior in high school. She graduated and we married, and this was part of our soundtrack of the time.

Today, my mind is stuck on the chorus, “Let it roll, down the highway.” It’s a reflection for me that I’m ready for some changes. The dice are thrown. Let’s see how they roll.

I hope the dice roll breaks in your favor today and everyday. Have a peaceful and joyous Sunday.

Cheers

4

AI, Trump, and Deception

On some days, it’s hard to be in the coffee shop. I was writing away when a group of five males who are about my age arrived. I’ve seen them before but don’t know them. After ordering drinks, they took the table beside me and began discussing subjects I enjoy.

For instance, they mentioned “Klara and the Sun”. Terrific book. A short summary is given. They don’t know the author’s name.

Working on my manuscript, I refrained from informing them.

“Did you lose any money yesterday?” one asked another. “There was a big crypto crime. I can’t remember the name of the company.”

I know, I know, my brain shouted, but I kept typing, venturing deeper into the novel in progress.

My coffee-shop neighbors returned to an earlier topic, AI. One said, “I think they’ll need to start labeling things made with AI.”

“Oh, yes,” another confidently replied. “That’s a given.”

I laughed to myself. I don’t think anything involving large sums of money and corporations is a given. I think that’s especially so when profits and revenues are in direct competition with public health and safety. Thinking back, I easily recall several historic incidents that repudiate that idea.

  1. Way back when cigarette companies paid doctors to reassure people that cigarettes weren’t dangerous.
  2. Remember the exploding gastanks on Ford Pintos? Ford paid a lot of money to keep that quiet, figuring that it would be cheaper to pay off the lawsuits.
  3. How ‘bout that time that oil and energy companies found and hid the risks and dangers of climate change?
  4. Purdue, the Sacklers, and the opiod epidemic early this century?
  5. Or what about DuPont and 3M hiding the effects of forever chemicals, Johnsons & Johnsons and the talcum powder/asbestos scandal, Volkswagen and dieselgate, or Monsanto and Roundup?

I can imagine the campaigns already, based on what I’ve seen with GMO labeling battles and Oregon Connects’ astroturf efforts here in Oregon. AI companies will run emotional ads arguing that forced labels stifle local software developers, harm tech startups, and slow down life-saving medical AI innovations.

They’ll jump on the deliberate manufacturing of ignorance and doubt, tactics corporations successfully employed before. As we’ve seen with multiple issues and challenges, the fight over AI labeling won’t be fought with facts; it will be fought by trying to convince you that facts don’t exist yet, or that a consensus about the facts doesn’t exist. It’ll be fought by convincing you that there is doubt.

Which brings us to Trump. Trump loves AI, although he wants to rename it, of course. While in office, Trump will absolutely fight to keep AI labels from being applied. Donald Trump is all for making money and dismisses values like honesty, ethics, and integrity.

So Trump will instantly denigrate any efforts to label AI content. That, I think, to Trump seems a lot like ‘woke’. And if he does, it will malign the effort for years.

I think that because of the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump claims that election was ‘stolen’ from him. No evidence of that has ever been produced. Trump often claims it’s because of voting by mail. 51% of Americans believe that election security is now a big problem in 2026. When it’s addressed by party, 83% of Republicans believe that voting by mail is now not safe.

We can argue that the polls now reflect a worry that Trump has taken steps to make voting less secure. I believe that he influences others with his lies and deceptions.

Which is the point. When someone like Donald Trump takes the stage and bellows a claim, it becomes part of our modern landscape, tainting truth, spreading doubt and confusion.

And that’s why I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to accurately label AI content.

Not till longer after Trump is gone.

3

Friday’s Theme Music — Notorious

Ashland, southern Oregon – Friday, October 30, 2026.

Octobers is sliding home. On to November – highly anticipated, fraught with tension and holidays, November. Many think change is needed. Disagreement still fills debate about what change is required.

It was another cold night last night, 34 F. Today is bleakly sunny with faded, slanting sunshine and a high in the low 50s.

My wife and I are going to a movie tonight at the Varsity Theater. “Wicker” is finally out, a movie starring Olivia Colman, Peter Dinklage, and Alexander Skarsgård, my wife has been looking forward to it for months. Based on a short story, the movie is a romantasy comedy about a woman who commissions a basket weaver to make her a man made of wicker.

Mom and I talked on the phone for another 30 minutes today. Her voice doesn’t carry well and her thoughts seem to scatter. She’s free of her UTI for today, and her birthday went well as my other sister, Lisa, visited her. Gina went by today, dropping supplies off for Mom. Gina also will take Mom to her doctor appointment on Tuesday and take Mom to vote. Peace is at hand for a day.

Like many, I’m waiting to see what happens on election day next week. Mail slowdowns have been spotted so people have voted early in reaction. Trump’s Department of Injustice is already attempting to influence and challenge election results in several states. Whispers keep circulating about ICE being deployed to voting locations or other ‘strong man’ intimidation tactics. Trump insists without evidence that it’s needed because others will cheat. Well, we can smell that trumpshit, because we’ve smelled it before.

Trump is notorious for being indifferent to the law – or anything and anyone who isn’t him. When it comes to his welfare, wealth, image, and legacy, he’s very concerned. Not so much when it’s anyone else.

Donald Trump has failed in so many ways. Economy, healthcare, national debt, war, popularity, cell phone, crypto, tariffs, trade agreements. He even failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He’s only won fake prizes created to appease him.

And his approval and popularity are getting lower and lower, especially compared to former President Obama. President Obama is filling places, getting cheers, and grabbing headlines. He’s very popular. People came away from President Obama’s speeches saying, “President Obama is so smart, and he looks so good. Wasn’t that another great speech?”

Trump is winning empty seats and crickets. He’s very unpopular. People come away from Trump’s erratic rants wondering, “What the hell was he saying? God, he looks so sick and unhealthy. I think he’s going to die soon.”

So, we’ll see what Trump. Tries. Next.

“Notorious” by Duran Duran is today’s theme music. Yes, The Neurons plugged it into the morning mental music stream after I used the word notorious while discussing Trump with my wife this morning.

Although it was released in 1986, the song has some lyrics which fit well with the Trump practice of making and blowing off promises.

Sample Lyrics

Girls will keep the secrets so alone the boys making noise
Fools run rings to break up something they’ll never destroy
Grand notorious slam (bam) and who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit
Don’t ask me to bleed about it I need this blood to survive

You own the money you control the witness I’ll leave you lonely
Don’t monkey with my business you’ve paid the profits to justify your reasons
I’ve heard you promise but I don’t believe it that’s why I done it again
No no notorious, notorious, notorious

I can see references to the Epstein files via ‘girls will keep secrets’ too. Ditto, ‘fools run rings to break something’. Damn, that pretty well summarizes the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025: let’s break everything so white rich people can rule and make more money!

I hope these final days of October of 2026 find you in good health and good spirits. May you keep both through the coming months and many years beyond.

Cheers

2

Trump World Truths

I Found a new time suck.

Yes, that’s what my life was missing because I have all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to do.

This particular suck is all about the elections. The UF Election Lab maintained by Dr. MacDonald, offers interesting data on the 2026 midterm election cycles. Like any good time suck, it offers the kind of information that always has me questing across the net, looking for validation. Trust but verify.

But wait, there’s more!

The next site is called MAGA Report Cards. And holy cow, it’s a magnificent time suck for a good cause. It’s such a great collection of information about GOP candidates. What’s best about it, though, is how it connects the dots between who they were before and who they claim to be now.

For instance, on here, you can look up Republican’s positions on Medicaid cuts. You know that Republicans claim they’re against Medicare cuts, right? Or so they claim.

MAGA Report Cards responds with the receipts:

Republicans Cut Medicaid by Nearly $1 Trillion. They Scheduled the Pain for After You Vote.

This isn’t news for most of us who have been paying attention. But it’s helpful as a refresher, especially if you need to repudiate some MAGA fact denier.

MAGA fact deniers are amazing, terrifying critters. My wife was listening to a video of one yesterday. A reporter was asking a MAGAt woman what she thought of the Ukraine War and Trump’s failure to end it as he promised he would. This woman responded, well, that’s fake news.

There is no Ukraine war.

Like, whhhhaaaatttt?

No, according to this MAGAt, all that you see on the news about the Ukraine War is made up. Fake.

And that’s where technology fails us. At a time like this, I had a desperate urge to go through the computer screen and ask this woman, “If the Ukraine War is fake news, why is Donald Trump talking about it? Why did he make that promise in the first place, you fucking moron?”

Alas, technology hasn’t advanced that far yet.

Your Trump Quote of the Day, for the record:

I came across the MAGA Report Card when I looked up Christine Drazan’s record. Christine Drazan is a *cough* Republican running to be Oregon’s governor. Oregon is where I now reside and vote.

Voting by mail has been Oregon’s standard since 1998. Works great from my POV. I moved here in 2005 and have always voted by mail as an Oregon resident. I liked it because as a military member for twenty years, stationed around the world, voting by mail was often the only way to go.

Christine Drazen claimed that she fully supports voting by mail and blah blah blah.

That’s not what I remember of Christine Drazen’s previous position. She’s been in the Oregon legislature for a while. A search for her position on voting by mail took to MAGA Report Card.

MAGA Report Card handed me the receipts.

Christine Drazan Wrote the Bill to End Oregon’s Vote-by-Mail. She Describes It Very Differently.

Sites like MAGA Report Cards are so important in this digital age. The party of Trump follows their leader’s course. Donald Trump charts paths of lying, cheating, denying, and pretending.

MAGA Report Cards helps us stayed moored in facts, truth, and history.

Change is needed.

Vote blue in 2026.

5

Monday’s Theme Music — Another day

Ashland, southern Oregon — Monday, October 26, 2026.

It was a chilly wet day in our valley. Layers of clouds thwarted the sun. Sunshine sporadically broke through but had little staying power. The asphalt roads were black and shiny wet, reflecting golden leaves. It was impressively spectacular on the large oak tree that resides across the street.

Today’s high was in the mid 50s. Now it’s in the low 40s F. That’s where it’s supposed to stop for the night.

Rolling out of bed and into another day’s light, I basically thought, “Here we go. Go check the phone calls and text messages and see what’s happening with Mom. Read the news, see what Trump and the GOP are up to. See if another war has been started. Get ready for another appointment, dress for another day, and so on.”

Yeah, still feeling a little weary, I’m afraid. I blame it on the rain.

The Neurons collected all this and set up “Day by Day” from “Godspell” in my morning mental music stream. I’m not religious but I understand the song’s sentiment. But for me, the song’s bottom line is the refrain, “Day by day.”

Hope your day was satisfying and rich with peace, joy, good news, and good health.

Cheers

0

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