Category: News

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: rebellious

This is Saturday, March 23, 2024 — 032324.

Winter’s turn continues to erode our confidence that spring has actually arrived. Rain. Heavy clouds signaling more rain may be falling. 51 F with milky, intermittent sunshine. Could be bleaker but something about this pulls me down.

I’m not alone in feeling a downward tug. Before I mentioned it, another friend announced that he felt blah and blamed it on the weather change from sunshine and warm air to cold rain. Others quickly agreed with him. Several wondered if we’d get snow. Then came memories of March and April snowstorms fro previous years. I volunteered the time I remembered walking down the street in early July and looked across the valley at the snow on Grizzly. Wow, the others exclaimed.

The cats are back in the house. Papi tried the front door, side door, and back door, in and out times three, before acknowledging with plaintive meows, there’s no sunshine. The sunshine is gone! Where is the sunshine? Stop the rain. Make it stop.

“Can’t, little buddy,” I answered the ginger blade. “You’ll need to endure, just like us.”

Tail up but a sulky look over his shoulder to me, he headed for the bed.

The Neurons loaded the Clash into the morning mental music stream (Trademark floundering). The song is “The Magnificent Seven”. Now, the original 1960 movie which went by that name was a favorite of mine but was a remake of a 1954 Japanese movie Seven Samari, released in the US as a film called, The Magnificent Seven. The 2016 remake was called The Magnificent Seven. It wasn’t bad. I suspect the next edition of The Magnificent Seven movie will be set in space, or maybe another planet.

Anyway, the Clash’s song, “The Magnificent Seven”, is a punk statement on society’s states, especially as people’s buttons are pushed to conform, go to work, and enjoy the entertainment provided. Keep up with what’s going on by buying the latest consumer goods and you’ll be happy, because you’ve been told, that’s how it is. Seems fit to me as we plug in, turn on, and tune out, feasting on whatever powers our pleasure centers: shopping, cooking, games, sports, hunting, television, movies, books, fashion, TikTok, the net.

Well, now I’m depressed. Thanks, neurons. Think I’ll go escape into a novel. Shut up, neurons. They’re so eager to laugh and mock me when I act hypocritically by conforming to the mores and norms. Bloody hell.

Stay positive (ahem), lean forward, be strong, and vote. Think I’ll nurse more coffee and escape into my writing. It’s a safe place. Here’s the video. Cheers

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Say What?

I said to my wife (yet again), “I can’t believe that NBC hired Ronna McDaniel.”

I’ve told her this several times since the news was announced. Ronna McDaniel is the former RNC chair. “Wny? She has no integrity. She supports the idea that the 2020 POTUS election was stolen or not fair in some way.”

“She sold out her name,” my wife replied. “A person who sells out their name to take a job will see which way the wind is blowing and change. Give it a few months.”

“That’s my point,” I answered. “She has no spine. No integrity. She never acknowledged that Joe Biden fairly won the election. All those lawsuits that said, didn’t happen. All that lack of evidence.”

I went on for a few minutes but my wife had zoned out. Her eyes had shifted to her computer screen. She wasn’t even pretend nodding to show she was still listening.

Yes, I’m angry. I clearly remember news reports declaring that Federal officials in Trump’s government said, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

That didn’t matter to Ronna. No sir. She now belonged to Trump.

“I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real. I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “I’m from Wayne County. We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots. We had to look into that. That’s deeply concerning. When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning. We have every right to look at that.”

In the interview, Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.

“I think there were lots of problems with 2020. Ultimately, he won the election but there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that.”

Excuse me, can you produce any evidence, Ronna? LIke, what were the results when you looked into the note from a ‘woman being told to backdate ballots.’ Was there evidence that was true? Or are you just throwing up bullshit?

That’s my primary concern with Ronna McDaniel as a member of the network she’s been consistently attacking and lying about since she became RNC chair. She was full of crap, making accusations and statements without backing it up with facts.

And now, you, NBC, are promoting this voice of lies, amplifying her as a serious person with serious positions, bending over backwards in the name of ‘bothsides’.

That is why you, NBC, have become part of the problem with US politics. You’re promoting a deceiver, a liar.

Which really demonstrates your own lack of scruples. No wonder that trust in the media keeps declining in America.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Fridifferous.

Greetings to my life companions on Earth. We are annotating today as Friday, March 22, 2024.

Spring is supposed to be here, but last night’s air was thick with wintery smells and feels. The palette for this morning’s sky had no blue but a great range of greys. Some were smoothed across with a palette knife. Others were swept around with fan brushes, merging and muddying the shades and shapes.

The sun wasn’t included as an element in the sky. 54 F now, some say we’ll surmount 62 F today. Doubts are stirring as rain falls and the clouds maintain a firm front against sunlight.

Multiple dreams are recalled from last night’s sleep session. One emerged almost intact as a short tale about cats and their nine lives. Others were recorded. Might share one of the others.

My wife told me that today’s news was so depressing. I had avoided reading news by focusing on my dreams and reading a novel which is engrossing me, so I asked, “What news?” She shared the projected profit which Donald Trump might realize with the Truth Social/DWAC merger. The rich get richer.

Then there was The Donald’s claim that he has $500,000,000 in cash. Does it surprise you if I told you that’s contrary to what his lawyers have been saying in public and telling the court? Does it make you question that if that’s the case, why hasn’t he been able to get the bonds he needed? Certainly makes me wonder these things. I’m not an expert in any of it though.

As WaPo notes, “Trump’s suggestion sharply contrasts what his lawyers told a New York appellate court earlier this week that it would be “a practical impossibility” for him to post a bond covering the full amount. His lawyers cited rejections from 30 bond underwriters in their request for a stay of enforcement on the judgment.”

I bet this will raise some questions in the Judiciary.

Shouldn’t be a surprise with the quagmire of thinking in my head that The Neurons delivered Asia and “Only Time Will Tell” to the morning mental music stream (Trademarked over a million times, maybe a billion times). We’re wanting on the outcomes of several Trump trials, along with a few SCOTUS rulings, and trials for other Trump-aligned individuals, like Rudy G. and Mike L. Only time will tell, we often tell one another.

Anyway, Asia’s song was released in 1982. Easy, simple lyrics, and a robust but progressive rock sound made it a hit.

Stay positive, lean forward toward a better future, and vote. Coffee has energized The Neurons. Here we go. Enjoy the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: sunsational

The weekly wheel continues its stops. Today it lands on Thursday, March 21, 2024. What’s that about spring? Why yes, it does seem to have arrived in southern Oregon. We have sunshine to sell today. At least for now. Sulky clouds are peeking in over the box valley mountain barriers. It’s 56 F with 66 F allegedly coming our way.

Caveats are required. We witnessed 66 F yesterday. Subsequent clouds dropped us to a surprisingly chilly 62 F. On the surface today is like yesterday, presenting fair warning about what we might get.

I’m in shorts, though. Once we convincingly put the 70 period reliably behind us, I pulled out my shorts, gave them a sniff (yes, they smelled and looked clean), and slid them up my pale legs. Chilly on the knees and thighs yesterday evening, though.

Thoughts about these troubled times led The Neurons to call “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark paperwork lost). Elvis Costello and The Attraction’s cover of the Nick Lowe song was the one playing in me head. Costello and his group released it in 1978.

When Lowe was originally writing it, he considered it a joke. This was a send up of others’ reactions to hippies and their visions of peace, love, and understanding. It eventually evolved into a serious question about why others considered peace, love, and understanding a joke.

Costello and the Attractions cover made it more of an upbeat rocker, adding sincerity and intensity. It’s since be covered by a clowder of others. (See, I consider clowder correct here. Used to designate a group of cats, I’m using it for a group of musical cats. Heh.)

But I roll with the lyrics, whoever is belting them out.

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside
There’s one thing I wanna know
What’s so funny ’bout peace love and understanding? Oh
What’s so funny ’bout peace love and understanding?

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Want to pause to mention, a comic strip by Iizcat.com referred to cats as ‘vessels of chaos’. I just love that description.

Stay positive, remain strong, keep leaning forward, and vote. Coffee drinking has commenced for the day. Hope it’s an excellent day for you wherever you’re at. Here’s the music. Cheers

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World Poetry Day

Today, UNESCO celebrates The World Poetry Day…

We need to keep looking forward

while still glancing back

as we shouldn’t forget the horror

of all those wars and attacks

something better must be ahead

because look back how it was

it’s a long arc and takes time

but peace and justice for all is our cause

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: Montastic

Spring has set up here in the Rogue Valley, home to Ashlandia, where professionals from California come to rest. Mountain snow remains on the mountains in places but blossoms, blue skies, and sunshine seem to have settled in. 69 F and sunny now, we’re climbing fast toward today’s 76-degree F high.

Now this warm weather does bring worry, worry that winter didn’t gift us enough, worry that March is too warm too fast, worry that summer will be stratospheric hot. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it’ll be a moderate summer and give us a respite for recovery from the last several years.

The cats are happy as cats in sunshine, although Papi has become ridiculously restless. Out to in, in to out he goes, what he’s searching for, nobody knows. Methinks he’s hunting for some fun.

I realized from a photo that he’s been with us at least eight years now. Scheckter, one of my original Orange Boyz, passed away in 2013 (cancer) at too young an age after being with us only twelve years. Papi remarkably resembles Scheckter. Seeing Papi on the fence before he joined our household always surprised me because he was such a mini-me Scheckter.

That’s only in markings. Papi is about eight pounds less than Scheckter. Scheckter and his mate, Pogo, were large, muscular cats. Scheckter came in at 19-21 pounds while Pogo bested him with two more pounds.

News reports in the US are cycling around DJ Trump and his latest inflammatory rhetoric. Does he mean it when he declares ‘some people aren’t human. What does he mean people ask when he talks about bloodbaths if he loses.

The headline for David Smith’s article in The Guardian posits that Trump’s 2024 political campaign is about vengeance. ‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term.

Smith writes, ‘Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.’

For some reason, this is what former POTUS Trump thinks is what will fix the United States. He believes this is what Americans want and what the world needs. I believe he’s wrong. The majority of economists believe his various tariffs had negative effects on the US economy or did nothing. Few believe the tariffs did any good.

As for detention camps, mass deportations, and capital punishment for drug smugglers, such draconian measures belong to a less civilized era, one in which violence and brute force were employed to achieve national objectives. Although we’re waaayyy too armed as a nation, mostly because of the Military-Industrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — warned us about in 1961.

It’s depressing that some will follow Trump and pursue these warn out ancient ideas as modern solutions. I don’t believe the majority do. I just hope the majority votes and ensures these ideas don’t become our new national policies.

Shifting from politics to music, The Neurons have “In Bloom” by Nirvana in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). “In Bloom” came out in 1992. It’s come to mind for me today because of that chorus, “He’s the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, but he knows not what it means.”

I think it applies today because of DJ Trump. He says many things. But he really doesn’t understand what they mean or how incongruous they seem. He tries to spin other meanings, making shit up. And that becomes the new truth for the followers in his cult. They, and Trump’s compliant Republican supporters and right-wing press, spin and insist, “That’s not what he means.”

Outside of the cult, outside of the right-wing media bubble, and outside of the empty GOP, the rest of us understand what he means. We understand the implicit violence of his promises and declarations. We see through his garbage and recognize that he doesn’t give a shit about the United States or the U.S. Constitution and its ideals. This is all about him and his vengeance quest.

Okay, back off my box. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. I’m indulging in another serving of coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: writcitement

TL/DR: It’s spring. Today’s song is “Why Worry” by Dire Straits. President Biden’s predecessor and current GOP candidate is enamored with dictators, promises a bloodbath if he doesn’t win, and thinks some humans “aren’t human”.

Hello, my traveling peers. It’s Sunday again, March 17 again, but adding the year, 2024, makes it a whole new date.

The average daily high for Ashland in March is 58 F degrees. We expect to hit 71 F. I think I’ll be higher.

I checked a local weather station’s temperature, along with the SOU (Southern Oregon University) weather station, and a web weather source. Here are our temp variations:

My house: (Clay Street, southern end, in early morning mountain shadows, 1836 feet elevation): 45.5 F

Wimer Street: (2 miles west of Clay Street, above downtown, 2050 feet elevation, in mountains): 46.2

SOU: (1.1 miles southwest of Clay Street, 1890 feet elevation, in sunshine by East Main Street): 42.1

MSN.com: 50 F.

Honestly, SOU’s elevation — 1890 feet — seems suspect to me. We descend to that location via a series of hills. For the record, Ashland’s official elevation is 1949 feet. We consider ourselves ‘the valley’, but the valley floor is a little bit lower than us. It’s a pinched and rolling place on this end of the Rogue Valley.

Whatever the temp, it’s a spring day out there, with colors along the spectrum breaking out all over the region.

Reading political news, it’s another head-rubbing, grrrr morning. We have the headline, “Trump warns of ‘bloodbath’ for auto industry and country if he loses the election”. He sounds desperate, resorting to such base threats, trying to induce fear in others.

Then there’s the story circulating about Trump’s other comments during a campaign speech. This is from an article on TheHill.com, but it’s in WaPo and others, too.

The former president’s comments about migrants accused of crimes come as immigration remains a critical issue for the 2024 election. 

“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at the rally. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

See, I am ‘the radical left’ because I think others are people. I base this on biology. Genetics. Not politics, religion, or circumstance. It doesn’t matter where they come from. Or how they reached our land. But in Donald J. Trump’s opinion, some people are not people. That’s just laying the foundation to treat other humans as less than human as justification for inhumane treatment.

Okay, class, can anyone name a fomer world leader and dictator who said things like that about other humans?

Up top of that, I read a USA Today opinion post. “Trump keeps praising dictators like Hitler and Kim Jong Un. Will Republicans ever care?” Sara Pequeño wrote it. After writing about Hitler’s record as a dictator who ordered millions to be killed, Ms Pequeño write, “There is no redemption arc for Hitler. We all agree on that, right?”

Well, no. I agree. However, a surprising chunk of Americans seem to disagree. People — and I was one — overlooked how many Americans backed Hitler before WWII and even during WWII. There are Americans among us who still back Hitler because they’re antisemites. They want someone to blame, and remain willing to claim Jews are causing them problems.

That’s one reason they like and support Trump. Trump isn’t bothered by Hitler’s record. His former chief of staff related that “Trump said Hitler did some good things.” That’s worrying for someone threatening bloodbaths if he doesn’t win, and chatting and joking about being a dictator on day one if he does win.

But what about the greater Republican party? I share Ms Pequeño concern, “Will Republicans ever care?” I’m concerned that many don’t know and don’t care because they’ve convinced themselves that Trump is something else, someone special to them. They write off the rest of us and our dire threats about Trump as the lies of outsiders who don’t see Trump as they do.

I agree, too, with Ms Pequeño’s final assertion: “So, everybody who is bothered by this, Republicans and Democrats alike, should keep pointing to his comments for the rest of this election. Then voters can ultimately decide if they support this or not.”

Today, The Neurons posted “Why Worry” by Dire Straits to the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). I know exactly what’s going on with me this soft 1985 song by Mark Knopfler.

I’m a worrier and regularly talk myself down. I recognize that the view I get of the world is skewed and imperfect, no matter how many sources I use. Many of those sources are political or commercial. Each uses buzzwords and headlines to gather attention. Some of them are just trying to rile me up or say things to help their revenue streams. So, while I will continue to worry and voice my thoughts about my worries, I’ll also try to talk myself down.

The cats are outside in the fenced backyard, loving the warm air and sunshine. I’m about to do the same. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. Hope your weather is to your approval at your place. Here’s the music. There’s the coffee. Let’s bring it all together. Cheers

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

I came across a plague in Ashlandia’s railroad district. The plaque identified the tree beside it as a slippery elm and announced that it had been the tree of the year.

The tree of the year is an annual tradition in our city. Stepping back, I admired its height and thick, expanding branches. Sunlight backlit them against blue sky.

I didn’t have a camera with me — yep, not even a phone — so I don’t have a photo of the plaque nor tree. I ran a search for a photo of it but nada emerged. I need to return to the scene with my phone, I guess.

Forty-seven years had passed since the tree had been honored. It still looked like it could be the tree of the year.

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