Our weather here is chilly but the sky is clear. It’s 44 F but expected to jump to 70 F.
Meanwhile, we’re on the road, heading to the coast. Our friend has just arrived to take up residence with Papi. Her house has work going on so this worked out well for us.
Off we go. Meanwhile, the music in my morning mental music stream is “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago. It’s in the stream because of the line, “Should I try to do some more?” I was doing something earlier and asked that aloud to Papi. While he was indifferent to the question, The Neurons plucked Chicago out of memory and began playing the 1970 classic rock staple.
I enjoyed watching the video because I dressed just like Terry Kahn on lead guitar back in those days. *smile*. Hair was long like that, too, but bushier. *another smile*
Hope your travels take you to happy places, whether it’s down the road, in your writing or thinking, or just through your house.
Wet, chilly 44 degrees F. Clouds are throttling the sunshine. Rain fell overnight, a good short-term addition to keep the land wet, the plants green, and the reservoirs and cisterns full. Today’s high will be 64 F.
My news feed includes stories on an airline passenger biting a crew member, Trump threatening Boebert, and a car crashing into a crowd in California, killing people. The sad thing about these news pieces are how frequently things like this now fill my feed.
The complete Epstein files have not been released, despite Trump’s promise.
Trump’s disapproval ratings continue to climb. The NYTimes compiled a list of 826 poll results. I reviewed the first pages. Only one poll of 120 showed Trump to have a positive approval rating — +2, by a Republican pollster. All the preceding polls showed polling about Trump red with disapproval.
Project Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! remains in a quiet phase. Get ready for a breakout.
Crooks & Liars shared coverage about Trump and Vance and their financial paperwork.Setting the tone for Americans of all ages and backgrounds, Trump and Vance always diligently fill their paperwork accurately and on time.
No; that’s how it’s supposed to be. But in Trump’s Golden Age of Corruption, Trump and Vance keep failing to fill paperwork on time. Other presidents haven’t had this issue, but then, other presidents weren’t buying and selling stock as Trump does. The Trump White House countered, blind trust, but a rep said, “No, we have the paperwork with Trump’s signature.”
Lies, grift, and chaos are the hallmarks of a Trump operation.
Conover Kennard wrote the C&L post, “Rules Are for Little People”. I love her final paragraph because it summarizes the law-and-order hypocrisy of the Trump operations.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here to suggest that Trump isn’t being forthcoming. Shocking, I know. Last year, Trump publicly attacked Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri for collaborating with Democrats on legislation that would have prohibited the president and vice president from trading stocks. Imagine that.“
Yeah. Imagine that.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
I’d be impressed if Trump began by making the White House crime free.
That’s not going to happen. Bolstered by the Roberts Court ruling that things Trump does as president is above the law, Trump has a different set of rules for himself. He has another set for wealthy friends and powerful people, a third set for his supporters, another set for everyone else except immigrants. Trump has a special set of rules for them, and it doesn’t include law or order, due process, or any of that other fancy US Constitution stuff.
Try to overturn the peaceful, fair, and legal elections
Threaten elected officials
Threaten and beat up law enforcement and destroy government property
Reward them for those crimes and behavior
That’s how upside-down Trump, the GOP, and the Roberts Court has turned the world.
Today feels like a bluesy Sunday. Sensing that, The Neurons hooked Gary Moore’s song, “Still Got the Blues (for You)” from the memory bank and began playing it in the morning mental music stream.
My hope for you is that the day works out for you with some semblance of peace, grace, and happiness. Stay strong.
Four women were chatting at a nearby table at the coffee shop. Appearing similar in age to me, two women dominated the talking. One was short and slender, with fair skin and dark, bobbed hair. The other was tanner and smaller. Smiling a lot, her silver hair fell around her shoulders.
They were talking about toothpaste. Looking up from my writing, I tuned in as the first woman said, “I put a pea-sized amount on my brush.”
One of the other women, heavy, with dry brown hair that came to her shoulders, loudly, sharply scoffed. “That’s not enough.”
The first woman replied, “That’s what the directions say to use.”
The brown-haired woman snorted. “Everyone knows you’re supposed to put toothpaste on all the bristles, from one end to the other.”
The conversation fell still for several seconds. “Anyway,” the first woman resumed.
It was cloudy but the clouds have fade, retreated, moved on. Sunshine is winning the morning, carrying us through the mid 50s now. Today high will be around 70 F.
Trump is returning from China. They apparently didn’t want him, either. We should have sweetened the offer, let them keep Air Force 1 if they kept Trump. Throw in Melania and Colossus Don, Dozy Donnie’s golden Floridistan statue.
Note: “Colossus Don” sure sounds like a mob name, doesn’t it? I can imagine a scene of dialogue about him. “What’s Colossus Don doing?”
“Feeding his fat face, of course. That fat fuck doesn’t give a fuck about nobody but himself.”
Trump is pleased because China agreed to buy more US oil. Krugman pointed out that it doesn’t really help us much as consumers. It raised oil prices in the US. Oil and energy companies are making more money and profits. They’re corporations, so we see the fallout from that in the stock market and the stockholders. Krugman points out that the stock market is owned by a small percentage of people in the US and that foreigners own a chunk of it. Yet we’ll keep hearing about how great the stock market is!
Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is contemplating a new Iran military operation. Just don’t call it war. Sure, we’re using military equipment and weapons to shoot at others and destroy things while they shoot at our military and destroy things, but that’s not war in Trumpyworld.
In the next move of the non-war, Trump will launch Operation Sledgehammer to see if they can open the Strait of Hormuz, as they were in February, before Trump ordered the attacks.
Trump’s administration also announced they were increasing global humanitarian aid to $1.8 billion after slashing it before. This seems like another Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! move to me. The announcement is one thing; will other nations see the funds? Not under the standard OE — LS! processes. Just grab headlines, distract from bad news, poor economy, Epstein files, etc.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
“According to a CNN/SSRS poll, 77% of people surveyed said Trump’s policies increased their cost of living. Roughlt two-thirds of Americans said Trump’s policies made the country’s economic conditions worse, according to the poll conducted between April 30 and May 4.” USA Today, May 15, 2026.
My music today is from Led Zeppelin. I watched the Netflix documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin” this week. I’ve been a Zeppelin fan for most of my life so it was entertaining to learn more details about them as individuals and how they came together. Jimmy Page was really the force, but all four were intense, talented musicians.
The making and playing of “Whole Lotta Love” consumed the documentary’s final minutes. As a youth, the song fascinated me. I remember listening to that middle ‘avant garde’ section, identifying sounds as it moved around the room, thinking that’s really cool. LOL. The Neurons enjoyed remembering the song, so it’s hanging around the morning mental music stream, so here you are.
I remember listening to it, too, and having Mom and my sisters look at me strangely when I talked about the song. Mom didn’t get it at all. My sisters seemed really jaundiced about what they were hearing as well.
I hope your Operation Epic Friday begins well and improves as the hours progress.
My coffee is here. Time for Operation Epic Drink Coffee.
We bought new tires for one of our vehicles yesterday.
I took a memory train back to the first time I bought new tires after I was married.
That would be 1975. The car was a 1968 Camaro. Sweet, small, fast car. RS, 327 V8, automatic. I bought it for $1100 after I arrived at my first permanent duty station in my Air Force career, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio. Paid cash.
I married later that year. My wife and I have wonderful memories of being together in that car.
Buying new tires for it was a major financial decision. Recaps were cheap, $20-$25 each, installed. But recaps? I distrusted their safety and reliability.
That meant new tires: $40 each.
$160.
Ouch.
We didn’t have credit cards, so we’d need to buy the tires with cash. I had that in savings but that would severely reduce the balance.
I remarked about this to my wife at dinner last night.
She remembered, adding, “Yes, the things we couldn’t afford then that we needed, and the things we buy now, that we really don’t need.”
I paid for the dinner with my credit card. Leaving, I thought, I could have bought two new tires for the price of that dinner.
Of course, I could have bought the Camaro for the price of the new tires I put on the car.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 14, 2026.
It’s blue out there, full of sunshine. Clouds are absent. 50 F with a high in the mid 70s today.
Thunderstorms looked possible yesterday but it didn’t happen. Just as in the previous days of forecasted activity. After the winter snow drought, May is at 3% of its average rainfall.
Our snowpack is at about 7%. While the reservoirs are above 80%, without snowmelt to replenish them, it’ll be a hot, dry summer. Stack the El Nino predictions, many of us are bracing ourselves for a rough year ahead.
Mom’s state is not good. She wasn’t responding to my sister’s texts. Sis called the assisted living facility, Heritage Grove, to ask about Mom. They said Mom went to bed before dinner and had not felt well all day.
On the optimistic side of the board, two neighbors are reportedly interested in buying Mom’s house.
My wife and I had new tires installed. For the record, we replaced a set that we’d bought in 2019. Got 35,000 miles out of them. Not great, not bad.
We bought them at Costco and had them installed there, shopping while we waited. As we were in the Medford area, we decided to eat out and chose the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant. My wife likes the salmon they serve there.
We couldn’t eat there. The way was blocked by ambulances and firetrucks. Wondering what’s going on, we took to our phones to learn. Nothing at the fire department, alert system, social media, or local television stations could give us that info.
This duplicated a Tuesday incident, in my mind. Driving home from writing at the coffee shop, one lane of traffic was blocked off in front of an SOU building on Siskiyou Avenue. What happened? I searched for information after I got home and couldn’t find anything. 24 hours later, the answer came: a woman had driven across the median strip, up a walkway, and into a building, breaking a gas meter along the way.
Miserable headlines fill my feed. When will there be good news? I’m not sure what I mean by good news at this point. An end to wars would be nice, along with a return to normalcy. Normalcy to me is let’s take action against polluting our air and water. Action against climate change. But the cynic in me says that PINO Trump would take credit for whatever and enough brain-dead people would slurp that down and bray about how great Dozy Donnie is that I’d regurgitate everything taken in during the last three days.
But here’s the state of things in the United States nation in one sharp observation someone else made:
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Paraphrasing, Trump lies, says this isn’t so bad, Biden! Because that worked well previously under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
Enough people with brains are responding, screw you.
You started a war, Donald J “No new wars” Trump.
The economy is a mess, gas prices are rising, all the prices are rising, Donald J “We’ll cut prices on day 1” Trump, and the country is going in the wrong direction.
And you, DONALD J TRUMP, YOU ARE THE REASON WE’RE IN SIX MILLION MESSES WITH NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO FIRST GET RID OF YOU AND YOUR CRONIES.
Now stop building the damn ballroom and release the damn Epstein files so we can feast on your political corpse.
The Neurons inserted “Mind Games” by John Lennon into my morning mental music stream. This actually came about from Papi’s state of mind this morning. I played with him and his favorite nemesis, the red dot. The play began abruptly. As soon as he engaged, I stopped for about a minute. He kept peeking left and right, waiting for it to reappear. Just as he started walking off, I blinked it back on. Off Papi went, chasing it across the room, then stalking it.
I hope your Thursday brings you some good news and fair winds, assuming you need winds to get somewhere. Like you drive a sail car and need to have wind to blow you along the Interstate.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, May 13, 2026.
Cloudy, sunny, windy describes the morning. Thunderstorms are expected. They were also expected the last two days but didn’t show. Today’s clouds look like they have more serious intentions.
They’ve cooled the air. A high of 70 is expected. It’s 56 F now.
We’re talking a lot about the blue wave for the 2026 midterm elections. Hopes are rising that Democrats will be able to gain enough seats in Congress to counter Trump’s rampage through democracy and US political norms. Maybe arrest his war-mongering mentality and willingness to threaten other nations, and bomb and kill people. Perhaps, too, we can then curtail the massive ego massaging that the GOP are doing, going along with naming everything for Trump, ignoring rising prices, a cratering economy, and a shrinking impact on the world. Maybe we’ll also get to see what’s in the Epstein files about Trump that shook Melania enough to make public statements trying to distance herself. We’ll hopefully gain enough votes and influence to restore and repair the social safety net, begin countering climate change again, and stop air and water pollution.
Big ambitions. We did it before. Let’s do it again.
‘No kings’ is still our mantra.
The GOP is fighting against a blue wave by gerrymandering districts to promote and protect Republican candidates. Doing so undermines the progress made under voting rights and substantially diminishes the principles established as part of our democratic republic. Their actions reveal just how little they hold all of that in regard.
Meanwhile, on to Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! Shimmying and trying shift attention from all the bad things happening under Trump and to Trump — rising prices, failing war, falling approval, rising disapproval, increasing national debt — Trump announced tariff relief for beef. It’s a move he tried in 2025. It didn’t work then. Won’t work now.
Trump is trying to lower the price of beef in order to slow inflation. He’s way behind and not addressing the problem. The cause has been going on for years: droughts are causing shrinking grasslands. Less grasslands support smaller herds. Shrinking herds mean less supply. Less supply = higher prices.
It takes years to rebuild a herd. First, the droughts must end.
Trump supplied the same thinking about lowering mortgages, braying that will help people with buying houses. No; it won’t. Housing supply is still the problem. As long as it remains low, prices will keep going up. Supply and demand.
Now, part of the reason why supply remains low: climate change. Wildfires. Droughts. Flooding. Hurricanes. Tornadoes.
Trump won’t try to do anything about any of them.
Instead, he began a war. That war drove up oil prices. Rising oil prices affect food, transportation — and building. Because it takes gas and oil to build. Bulldozers. Trucks to bring in supplies.
Everything Trump does is opposite of what he tries he’s trying to do.
The consequences of his shallow, short-term, backwards thinking are slamming us in the face.
I read yesterday about New Orleans sinking, which means it’s flooding. In comments about the article, people quickly asked, “If it’s sinking, why isn’t Florida sinking?”
I thought, wow. Critical thinking is really diminished in this nation. As we know from history, many parts of New Orleans are lower than sea level. Wetlands dominate. It’s been singing and is well documented. Louisiana has been fighting it but under this Republican governor, they stopped that fight.
Finishing the comparison, Florida is mostly porous rock underneath so it’s not sinking. Sea waters are rising, and that will affect Florida, along with storm surge and flooding.
Today’s music comes by way of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.The novel has a character called Marvin, who is a depressed android. I’m not certain what precipitated me thinking of that book. That then flowed into recalling the movie. From that, The Neurons supplied a 1997 song by Radiohead called “Paranoid Android”.
It’s 66 F in Ashland. Clouds have painted a thin white veneer over the blue. Thunderstorms are forecast, along with an 87 degree high as spring moves toward summer.
Papi and I went out back. As I was stretching and yawning, I looked down and saw him doing the same. I laughed. “Nice stretching, oh great fur being.” He sat down and began grooming places that I groom in the shower.
News from home is that Mom is sick again. Details are shared. Her sciatic nerve has flared up and she’s back in her wheelchair. Also suffering from diarrhea. Sis says that’s been going on for a week.
My sister has been in content with estate sellers. Familiar with them? They buy the contents and then sell it to the public. They really want to know if there’s anything there besides furniture. Yes, there’s all the things you’d find in house where someone lives. I know that there’s a new movement on about ‘vintage’ stuff. Corning Ware is very popular now. Old clothes. Mom has all that stuff.
Strange and humbling to think simultaneously of all that stuff being bought, used, and sold to others. Decisions made about each purchase. I’d rather that someone else finds and uses the stuff rather than having it going to trash or recycled for its materials.
Today’s music has a two-prong inspiration. One, Jill Dennison recently played ELO’s song, “Turn to Stone”. A good song, it brought to mind another song called “Turn to Stone”. As soon as I read “Turn to Stone” on Jill’s blog, The Neurons introduced Joe Walsh’s “Turn to Stone” song.
I also remembered that I once read that Walsh said the song was about frustration. In true ‘net spirit, Wikipedia.org has a good quote about that from Walsh.
“‘Turn to Stone’ was written about the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War and the protesting that was going on and all of that. It’s a song about frustration. Also, I attended Kent State. I was at the shootings. That fueled it, too. In those days it felt like the government’s priority was not the population. They had an agenda that was about something other than doing what was necessarily good for the country.”
That last line echoes through Trump’s agenda. Driven by ‘right-wing values’, also known as racism, sexism, and greed, and orchestrate by the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, Trump’s agenda is about him and not at all anything necessarily good for the country.
As Joe sings, “Read the writing on the wall.”
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Inflation news grabbed headlines this morning. Driven by Trump’s non-war in Iran, inflation jumped 3.8% in April. Rising gas prices were a big factor.
Trump’s disapproval rating keeps climbing. The NYT’s page summarizing polls and their Trump ratings are a column of red, showing net disapproval in every poll.
One another piece of news was that Epstein survivors are testifying in Florida. Standing by for another salvo from Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL to distract us from these pieces of news.
On to the music. Hope your day is full of good intentions and good results.
Just got a text reminder. I’m due to receive my next dental implant on June 25. That’s exactly a year since the molar and cyst were removed.
Since then, I’ve had my gallbladder removed. Stones and sludge in there, you know?
That was about a year after my ruptured tendon surgery. About two years after my broken arm, itself about two years after my kidney stones emergency room visit, which was about two years after my obstructed bladder emergency.
Now I’m due for Transurethral Resection in my bladder to remove cancer.
On June 25.
Damn, what are the chances that those two things would end up scheduled for the same day?
I’ll need to change the implant appointment. Although I’ve waited a long time to get that completed, facts: the bladder cancer is a greater priority, and it’s harder to schedule. I began noticing blood in my urine in March, and there’s been long periods between blood tests, examinations, CT scans, cystoscopy, and surgery. I don’t want to extend it yet more.
From the half-full point of view, though, I’m fortunate to be able to get any and all of this treatment. So, sure, I’m whining, but it’s first world blues.
It’s way worse for my wife, who has had to visit me to all these different appointments and help me recover. Don’t know where I’d be without her and her support.
Michael Seidel, writer 