Yes, it’s Satyrda, July 19, 2025. I’m about as amazed as you. It’s gonna be a cool one here, just 90 F as our high, up from the current realm ruled by the low 70s. Clouds have abandoned the blue sky and the sun rules.Although fourteen fires are being addressed in our southwestern Oregon region, we’re fairly smoke free. Wind patterns, I guess. Air quality is good.
I glanced at the news but it’s Satyrda. Not much churn going on at this point. Trump is suing Murdoch over the WSJ’s Epstein story. It’ll be interesting if Murdoch backs down. That’s the usual Trump MO. Sue and force the others to back down. Rarely seems to be about truth; more about pressure and money. In this case, with MAGALand clamoring for the Epstein files to be released, Murdoch might have the upper hand. Will he press it?
Today’s music is “While You See A Chance” by Steven Winwood. I heard the1982 song on television last night and The Neurons are not letting it go. They’re focusing on the lines, “When some cold tomorrow finds you, when some sad old dream reminds you, how the endless road unwinds you. While you see a chance, take it. Find romance, fake it. Because it’s all on you.” And this might also be dream related, now that I think about it a little.
Hope this Satyrdaz find you doing well and taking care of business. Off we go, one more time. Cheerz
The work week is at its end. That’s what we used to call the Monday to Friday gig. Don’t know if that’s still the handle.
Yes, today is Frida, July 18, 2025. Today in Ashlandia, we’re at 73 F and expect a high of 95 F under skies that go on forever blue and steady sunshine.
More sucky news fills the cyber pages. I’m one who prefers to skim the net and read the news rather than turning to streaming or OTA tv. A news piece touched me with serendipity. From the 1440 Daily Digest was a summary of a new procedure to reduce disorders in newborns.
Mitochondrial disorders, affecting about 1 in 5,000 births, are transmitted via the mother and can cause vision loss, diabetes, and heart issues. Six of the eight babies showed a 95% to 100% drop in mutated mitochondrial DNA, while two showed reductions between 77% and 88%. All eight remain healthy; one experienced and recovered from an irregular heartbeat.
I had read the news elsewhere before. On the same day that I read the news, Jill Dennison shared the song, “In The Year 2525” from 1969. One stanza struck me from the song in connection with this news:
In the year 6565 Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too From the bottom of a long glass tube, whoa
I guess my point is that I have always felt that’s the general direction we’ve been headed: manufactured people, whether it’s through cloning or genetic manipulation, or some other technology. I always think there will be dire unforeseen and unintended consequences. Time will tell, right?
My morning mental music stream music is much lighter than that other song. “Take the Money and Run” by the Steve Miller Band, is a 1976 offering about robbery and murder, but with a peppy pop beat. I’s about whims and things that go wrong, and how the consequences. A detective chased them and they remained on the run forever. But to me, the song was always about opportunistic criminals, like those populating the current GOP. Do what you can and need to get yours and screw all others. Yeah, you knew I’d turn this political. LOL. That’s me. At least, that’s why I think The Neurons put it in the morning mental music stream.
Have the best Frida you can. That’s my goal. Here we go again. Cheers
Thirstda, July 17, 2025, slid into Ashlandia with a fresh load of heat. And here we were, still dealing with the heat we already had. We’re in the yellow for air quality, a mind surprise if you look at the air’s discoloration. 87 F now, 1 PM, it’s hit 99 F before the heat subsides. Same ol’ story for the last several days.
Yes, we did early morning shopping runs so I’m into writing late. For reasons which The Neurons keep closehold, they have Van Halen playing “Finish What Ya Started” from 1988 and OU812 in the morning mental music stream. It could be very any number of recent news stories. One that particularly jumps out is the morphing Epstein saga. Once told as a horror story about Democrats, Trump wants it out of print and out of mind. His stance, so curiously different than how he stood not so long ago, amuses many and inspires more to want the files released. Who knows if that’s what The Neurons had in mind. They may have also been pointing to TACO’s tariff tango, where he slides forward and slips back about what’s going on with tariffs.
Coffee has been rehomed in my systems. Time to rock and roll another day. Here we go. Hope it all goes well for you. Cheers
Happy Wenzda. Jumped out of bed (it’s an expression), and went to the windows and —
“Alexa, what’s the air quality?” I asked. Because looking west, smoke sheathed the view. What fresh hell was this?
Alexa told me the air quality was good. Yes, I did not smell smoke. Windows were open. Cool 66 degree F air was flowing in. But that smoke was turning the blue sky gray. Must be from one of the nine fires burning west of us. Or one of the several blowing along mountain ridges from the fires burning south in northern California.
Supposed to be 97 F today. That’s what we saw yesterday. Ashlandia summer is in place.
I can become obsessive about things. My routine soon incorporate sniffing the air for smoke smells and looking out the window to see if the smoke was becoming better or worse. Some crow was yelling something the whole time. Another was responding from further away. I don’t know what it was about. I don’t speak crow.
Reading about Trump’s irritation with the Epstein files. While he’s still burning down the U.S., his base is upset about the Epstein List. Trump, being true to his core of caring only for himself and lying and throwing aspersians at others when he gets upset, lashed out on a lie-filled text. I read a good rebuttal with a timeline and a reminder, Presidents Obama and Biden didn’t have anything to do with it. It was during Dubya’s administration and Trump 1. Staunch Republicans Barr and Acosta were involved. Indisputably, though, Trump and Epstein were runners together. Photos exist. Trump talked about Epstein in glowing terms. No doubt, Trump is in that file.
Today’s music is a 1998 Eve 7 offering, “Inside Out”. The Neurons had it playing in the morning mental music stream for a bit, slowly turning the volume up. Finally hearing the part that goes, “I’m not as Ugly sad as you. Or am I origami folded up and just pretend, demented as the motives in your head.” Knowing some lyrics makes the modern net useful for finding the song’s details. Once those details were rehoused in my awareness, some memories about where and when I often heard it — in the car, driving around the bay area, Alex — stacked.
Now I’m feening for coffee. Off we go. Have a most excellent day, as we used to say. Cheers
Cool air regales us today, Twosda, July 15, 2025, in Ashlandia. Tiny wet old smoke offset’s the mountain air’s freshes. We’ll live. 68 F now, 97 F is forecasted. We saw 99.3 at our house yesterday but didn’t need the A/C. A clear blue sky and focused sun says, yeah, this might be a hot one.
On local news, the talk is about affordable housing. Affordable housing has been discussed since I moved here twenty years ago, along with growth. Each time ‘affordable housing’ is approved and built, investors snatch it up to flip or rent out. So it’s all been 20 years of talk and churn with no substantial changes.
Our local economy isn’t doing well. Ashland depends on tourism and Southern Oregon University (SOU) for the most part, along with some spotty light industry, mostly related to outdoor tourism, and of course, healthcare. Wineries and breweries give us two more legs. Beyond that, we have a service based economy, as most residents are older and retired. Tourism has been damaged by heat, wildfires, and smoke. Tourism’s centerpiece is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, assisted by a series of outdoor concerts called the Britt Festival. Both were heavily cratered by smoke, heat, and wildfires. The pandemic then knocked tourism back again just when recovery began. Now we hold our breath, cross our fingers, and wait to feel what Trump’s attacks on people, trade, common sense and other nations does to tourism.
Meanwhile, healthcare’s rising costs have driven costcutting, layoffs, and firings to that local industry. The Greedy Ol’ Trump Party’s monstrous bill is expected to implode rural healthcare activities, and we’re part of that scene.
Finally, SOU has announced that enrollment has declined again. Tuition has been raised but they can’t keep raising it, so they’ve cut staff and programs. Desperate for money, they’re planning to shift some unused parts of their their campus into that fast-growing industry, assisted living. But again, the greed propelled GOTP absurdly named ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is expected to body slam education at all levels. Trump has cut Pell Grants and other programs, and that will leave a mark.
Underlying all of it: Trump’s charge to deny climate change and do nothing except punish those who do try to talk about it and address its impacts and causes. But climate change will affect the beer and wine industry, tourism, and wildfires. Did I mention that insurance companies withdrew from providing coverage in the area?
BTW, talk is about more than just this. We’re also talking a lot about deer, as they’ve become aggressive and attack dogs and people walking dogs.
Today’s song is “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. The Neurons slotted the 1974 song into the morning mental music stream for reasons they closehold and don’t disclose.
In a final comment on the morning, the local Internet, and by local, I mean ‘at my house’, is very sluggish. Anything happening to it out there in the world? Probably, but when will we learn?
Have the best day you can. I hope it’s excellent. Cheers
It’s Munda again! July 14, 2025. I don’t know about you, but we’re just ripping through July in Ashlandia. The days and hours whisk by like they’re passing on a blink of light. Some clouds slashed with grays and whites have braved our blue skies. It’s cooler today, peaking at 97 F, and should drop into the sixties at night. Yesterday saw 102.8 F at our place at 5 PM. We’d been doing well without running the A/C but my wife requested it at ten last night. She said that she had to apply something to her face but her face had to be dry, and it wasn’t dry. Nope, because it’s a humid heat. So we ran the air for about thirty minutes.
Our local fire, the Neil Creek, is 20% contained. Smoke is almost non-existent in the taste of today’s air. I’m grateful for that on behalf of my sinuses.
There are six birthays in July in my extended family. Two of those people, though younger than me, have already passed away. Cancer in both cases. Don’t know the specific cancers. A cousin’s birthday is today, my sister’s birthday is tomorrow, and my wife’s birthday is Wenzda.
Some Florida lawmakers visited Trump Concentration Camp Florida. Democrats, of course, found the conditions appalling. Republicans thought them okay, on a par with other ‘detention centers’. “Nothing to see here,” Republicans said after going on the guided tours. Just like there’s nothing to see in the Epstein files, right?
I was awakened (names and causes will be omitted) at four AM. Although I felt quite ready to return to sleep after jumping back in bed, my mind began playing a 1987 song, “Night Train”, in my mental music stream. It stayed through for the morning. I’m pretty sure of the cause and effect behind this one. The cat is a night train. And someone (hi, Ark) mentioned “Night Train” in the comments the other day. I’d not heard the song in yonks so I hunted down a video and watched and listened and thought and remembered. And, as it’s night, I suppose all this made sense to The Neurons and they brought the song up. The lyrics also played into it as I tried ‘guess the time’ and looked for signs of daybreak. “Down on the night train, I feel the starlight steal away, use up a lifetime looking for the break of day.”
Coffee has been introduced into my body once again. Time to get out there and rock the day away. Hope your day rocks you in a good way. Cheers
I baked for the Independence Day festivities. I’m not usually the house baker but my wife thought I should bake as a blow against the patriarchy. So bake I did.
My baking was the modern kind: a brownie mix, egg, oil, water. Everything except the water was purchased at a store. The water came from my faucet, part of our city’s water and sewage systems.
I made circular brownies with M&Ms in a silicon baking pan created for that job. We have a gas oven with a timer and all that. I added the ingredients into a bowl per directions, preheated the oven to the temperature they told me to use, and doled the rich concoction into the waiting little cups built into the silicon ‘pan’. Then, see the timer for the time the instructions recommended, wait, watch, and test to see if they’re done, using the honored toothpick test.
The process allowed a lot of free time thinking. And that becomes my point. Baking has been around about 10,000 years. The earliest evidence of baking comes from Egypt, and not the United States. While it may have started around the Meditarranean Sea, it grew. Many peoples, cultures, and societies contributed to its growth and the lessons learned in what works. Then they passed it on. People took it up, tweaeked and refined it, documented it, and passed it on. People from many religions and ethnicities had a hand in it. Men and women, along with people of less certain genders baked, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of nationality or religion, until we reached this point that baking is a well-refined and understood process, simplified enough that even a neophyte like me can gather stuff and bake.
Here is my real point, something the Trump Regime and its half-assed backward, racist, sexist supporters want to dismiss. We live in a world of developments built on the shoulders of others. We’ve stacked advances and helped consolidate, perpetuate, and spread the gains. Name an industry and explore it, and amazingly, you’ll probably discover that it wasn’t all done by white Christian American men. Now the Trumpettes want to pretend that no one except white Americans did anything worthwhile, especially in the United States to deliver the success we’ve achieved as a nation, trying to bestow as much credit as possible on men and Christianity, even if they need to lie to make their case, which they do.
America First! Hell, the United States wouldn’t exist without immigration — and shall we talk to the peoples who lived in North America before the waves of explorers, settlers, and armies ‘discovered’ the land mass? America First! Our form of democratic government is derived from other nations, as is our mercantile system, which also depends on other nations for success.
Trump’s willful, deliberate ignorance won’t stand, although it will do serious damage. Progress comes from unforeseen developments as much as planned advances. We don’t know who will make a critical, game-changing insight. Trump is trying to pretend otherwise. He can successfully fake it for a while, but eventually, his willful stupidity will bite us all in the ass.
As always, time will tell when and how. Meanwhile, we grit our teeth and resist his ignorance as best as we can.
I begin my Sunda with the summer morning ritual. I step out to rebalance my circadian rhythm, feel the air temp, and give it a sniff test. How hot is it now and how much smoke is polluting the air are the dual concerns. Today it’s now 80 F, up from the 71 F holding when I first went out. We’ll be at 103 F today, a few degrees above yesterday’s 99.8 F. The smoke isn’t bad. I water things and close windows, sealing us against whatever nature is plotting against us today. I have learned that by closing the blinds and windows and keeping everything shut, we’ll be 13-15 degrees cooler than outside. We like to use fans to move the air when it warms, as the air conditioning, while cooling, makes our noses run. My wife is one who needs heat anyway.
This is Sunda, July 13, 2025. It’s a cousin’s birthday, but she passed away. Cancer. Cheery morning thought. Then I ate a lucious moderate-sized fig, savoring the experience with a slow chew, trying to be mindful. I don’t think I’m mindful enough. At 69 yo, can I become more mindful?
I jogged yesterday morning. It was a whim and I wasn’t prepared, just testing myself to see how far I could go before my body rebelled. The Fitbit says that was 2.5 miles, surprising me. It felt good. I jog walked home, thinking that I should combine those words and create a word: jolk. Yes, I jolked home, letting my sweat drip dry. No aftereffects strike this morning, knock wood. I thought I’d hurt somewhere.
ICE and wildfires dominates our news feed. Nextdoor reports an ICE vehicle was spotted in Ashlandia yesterday morning about 9:30 on Ashland Street by the cemetery. People advise others to report it on the app. A judge blocked random ICE raids in LA. We’ll see if this is appealed to the Roberts Court and swatted away. A man died from a fall during a chaotic ICE raid.
Getting news of the local fire plaguing us, the Neil Creek fire, is problematic. Something like 72 fires are burning in southern Oregon and northern California. The Neil Creek fire is closest to us but isn’t threatening anything (last heard) and is not large. Media focus is on the big burners. I understand that but my understanding doesn’t alleviate my frustration over lack of Neil Creek fire information. The last updates were days ago. Also, I haven’t seen or heard tankers since yesterday morning. Surely all this must mean good news, right? I finally find a Neil Creek fire update on Watchduty from fourteen hours ago. It’s five percent contained. Then there’s a summary:
Despite increased fire behavior, crews held fire lines with the help of helicopter water drops. Firefighters continue to strengthen lines and expand mop-up around the fire. Along the south end of the fire, crews removed hazardous standing dead trees to allow firefighters to access the southern perimeter safely.
There was an incident in the night. The neighbor’s dog erupted with furious barking. Bear or cougar, my wife thought, hurrying to the back door. She flicked on the lights and opens the door but stays in, leaning out to look around. I get a flashlight. By then the dog’s owner has talked the dog down and quiet has reclaimed the world.
“Overkill” by Men At Work is in the morning mental music stream. It’s all about the line, “I can’t get to sleep.” I awoke sometime in the night a few hours after the barking dog, mulled and dissected a dream and then the writing muses took over. I wrote for a while in my head before I managed to shut them down with a meditation process I use to induce sleep in myself. But the song remains in the morning mental music stream. While looking for a video to use, I found this accoustic version by Colin Hay, the band’s vocalist, where he’s backed by a choir. I thought it a cool difference maker and offer it to you.
Coffee has been sucked up. Time to press on. Hope your day answers your needs. Cheers
Welcome to Smoky Satyrda in Ashlandia. The smoke isn’t heavily visible but the smell of sodden wet wood hangs in the air and shifts my sinuses into overdrive to flush the crap back out. Yeah, poor me, right?
It’s 77 F now in Ashlandia with 99 F projected. The local troposphere looks up to it with blue skies gleaming down and a mighty sun raising up. Wouldn’t surprise to break 100 F; that’s the forecast for the valley overall.
A friend has fig trees on her land and gifted us with about five pounds of fresh, ripe figs. These things are huge and gorgeous. I’m married to a fignatic. We just spent $11 for a pint of figs the other day. They weren’t the best of figs but my house’s fignatic was happy to have them. You can imagine her joy from this gift. The figs are also a great addition to my morning diet. Yum. Pairs well with bananas. No so good with coffee.
I subscribe to multiple newsletters about books, writing, and publishing. One email subject said, “New Horror for your Summer”. I was like, no thanks, I have enough of that crap in the MAGALand daily news. For instance, when Trump’s gestapo rounds people up, their pets are often left alone in homes and apartments to die of thirst and starvation. This is Trump’s United States: cruel, mindless, thoughtless, heartless. Should I add greedy? That’s pretty fuckin’ self-evident when Trump brands and hawks new trinkets and consumer goods every month. Beyond that, there’s climate change and growing natural disasters around the world. As a couple nations war on each other and the wars threaten to engulf more geopolitical regions, TACO cuts back on the State Department and retreats.
Trump also announced he’s rolling out new tariffs. Will he or won’t he? TACO loves getting attention from making these announcements. Project 2025 goons installed in his regime loves him to do it, as they continue to operate under the distractions he generates with his blithering dithering — or is it dithering blithering? Trump makes announcements as the world burns and crashes around him, and the MAGAts clap in approval.
All that brings me to the morning mental music stream offering. After a surprisingly restless night and just one remembered dream (but a good dream), I found myself in the kitchen with a specific chorus echoing in the MMMS.
“Never free, never me, so I dub thee unforgiven. You labeled me, I’ll label you, so I dub thee unforgiven.”
Yes, that’s Metallica with their 1991 offering, “The Unforgiven”.
The Neurons were dubbing ICE agents as unforgiven. The entire damn Trump Regime is dubbed unforgiven, as are those senseless MAGAts who rolled this mess into existence. They’re unforgiven.
Have the best Satyrda you can. I plan to do the same. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 