Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in the United States. Oh, what the heck, make it to the mothers of the world, no matter your religion, nationality, or species.
It’s 65 F in Ashland with light clouds mildly blocking the sunshine. Our high will hit the upper 70s, giving us pleasant holiday weather.
I’d written a post earlier. Edge crashed, taking the post with it. WordPress hadn’t ‘autosaved’ it, so there was nothing to show that I’d been typing and thinking. Foolishly, I hadn’t saved it myself.
After that, I decided, I’m taking a hiatus from thinking about the news today and commenting on it. Do a MDB: Mother’s Day Blackout.
That’s when the 1995 Van Morrison song entered the morning mental music stream. I retired from the US Air Force in ’95. I heard this song on the radio in one of the first few days of life after wearing a military uniform for twenty years.
I wasn’t employed for the first time since 1974. Wasn’t really looking yet, either; I had my retirement pension. My wife was getting antsy, though. Still, I’d decided to take time off for myself. There would be other days for work.
That happened in early November. By December, I was employed and was fortunate to remain employed for another twenty years.
Today has a similar vibe to my memory of that 1995 day. Look at how over thirty years have passed, and here I sit, feeling like I’m at another threshold. Then again, every day is another threshold.
Remembered Lyrics
When you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this When no one’s in a hurry there’ll be days like this When you don’t get betrayed by that old Judas kiss Oh my mama told me there’ll be days like this
When you don’t need an answer there’ll be days like this When you don’t meet a chancer there’ll be days like this
When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit Then I must remember there’ll be days like this
Hope your Mother’s Day is a good day for you and yours, no matter your sex, gender, whatever. Just celebrate the day, rejoice in what is, and make something to build in.
It involved a chrome sports car. The fragments I remember include a young me looking at the car. The car was very low and slick, chromium, more like a toy from Mattel’s Hot Wheels collection than a ‘real’ car.
In some scenes, I was designing it. Other times, I was making yet I also remember it being given to me, and I remember getting ready to drive it.
Throughout this, the background is dark, like a starless, moonless night.
Blue, blue sky. 67 F that we now feel would’ve been the high a few days again. Now it’s a measurement as the thermometer sings toward 83 F. Higher is possible, I think.
Mom is settling into acceptance that the nursing facility will be home for a while. Although she looks and seems happy in photos and videos, she doesn’t like paying the money and doesn’t like having her independence curtailed.
I hear her. I can see myself feeling and doing the same. I wish something better was available for her.
Meanwhile, my sister is moving forward on selling Mom’s house and getting powers of attorney. Sis has been patient and persistent and gets a lot of points for that.
My sisters and I shared health texts yesterday. We older beings laughed as we compared our health issues. My younger siblings were agog with dismay. My older sister responded, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”
Big news front that I’m seeing is Justice Roberts is upset.
Chief Justice laments perception of ‘political’ Supreme Court
I read that to my wife. She laughed. “Gosh, I wonder why.”
No kidding. The shadow docket has surged under Roberts once Trump came into power. The Brennan Center summarized exactly why we think the Roberts Court is politicized and favoring Trump:
“The Court has sided with the administration 80 percent of the time when making “emergency” rulings, often without revealing its reasoning.“
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Despite Trump’s claim, made less than three months ago, Republicans are now asking for $1,000,000,000 for the ballroom. Trump also claims the Epstein ballroom is under budget, even though they’re now asking for five times the original amount to build it.
Trump can’t be trusted. Nor can the GOP. What’s your guess for how much the Epstein ballroom will end up costing?
Between the Epstein ballroom and Trump’s Iran War, Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is becoming one of most expensive fiascos in history.
Today’s theme music is “Under My Wheels” by Alice Cooper. The song came out in 1971. It entered my morning mental music stream today after reading Jill Dennison’s blog. It featured the ELO song, “Telephone Line”. That was enough to inspire The Neurons to lift “Under My Wheels” out of my dusty folds of memory. See, the song begins, “The telephone is ringing,” and the line is repeated throughout the song.
Hope you enjoy it. Still sounds good to me, fifty years plus later. However, I don’t often play Alice Cooper these days; he’s a right-wing individual who trashes trans ‘as a fad’.
I hope this day finds you doing well in all ways that matter. May peace and grace carry you on no matter what adversity life might deliver.
I just want to see her book, a small paperback. She flips through it, pen in hand, underlining passages.
I’m horrified and fascinated. Writing in books? I know others do this and it’s permitted under certain circumstances, but it’s something against my personal coda. Unless…is it a puzzle book?
What is this book she’s defiling? If only she’d put it down so that I can see it.
She left while I was busy writing. I never saw the book.
Trump reminded everyone we’re at war but also said he’s not going to use the word war because that would need approval. Also, the war that wasn’t a war stopped with the ceasefire in April, even though there’s shooting going on.
At the same time, Trump also told Axios there was “nothing left” to bomb in Iran. Trump also said, “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
Trump later told supporters at a Kentucky rally that same day that Washington “won” in Iran and the conflict was “over.”
You follow that? We were at war, we were never at war, it’s a mini-war, the war is over, and it’ll be over whenever Trump says it’s over.
Fine, fine pretzel logic.
“We have a war right now, and we’re to what, six weeks? They said, ‘What’s taking so long!’ We were in Vietnam 19 years.” Donald Trump, April 21, 2026.
Technically, the US can’t blockade Iran because that’s an act of war and we’re not at war, although we might be in a ‘mini-war‘.
Lindsey Graham is getting into Trump’s pretzel logic: “If we can take back control of the Strait of Hormuz, it is checkmate. This thing is over.”
George Conway “Interesting. This must be a new kind of chess where you compete to put the pieces back where they were before you smacked them off the board.”
Not everyone is in the stock market. And even if corporations are making profits, not all employees will see much more money, except for in the C suite. People who aren’t in the stock market or a corporate exec paying $4.46 per gallon of gas in the US might not agree that the economy is booming.
Jill’s post, “Da ‘Toons Tell Da Story” sharply illustrate the foolhardiness of the Trump administration and his followers. I pulled a few favorites to share right here and now, but way more are on her page. Get thee over there to check ’em out!
It’s 57 F outside and a high of 77 is predicted, despite clouds and haze obscuring the sun.
Good-bye April, hello May. As it’s May 1st, I’m staying home and not buying anything today.
The fifth month of 2026 begins with little change politically.
Trump remains in office
Prices are still rising, with gas in the US setting records for how fast they’re rising
Kash Patel is still running the FBI but that’s not expected to last
The Epstein files haven’t been released
Trump’s approval ratings are falling and his disapproval is climbing
May begins as the third month with the US Schrödinger’s War with Iran where we’re at war and not at war. Common sense says we attacked them, bombed them, killed people, all in pursuit of Trump’s fragile objectives — ego, approval, masculinity. Iran has fought back and we have warships stationed over there. Ergo, it’s war.
Legal semantics are being employed to argue the US is not at war because, law. “Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL” began on February 28, 2026. Trump formally notified Congress on March 2. Today is then the legal deadline to either stop the war or get a formal Authorization for Use of Military Force. All eyes still wearily blink at Congress to see who among them have grown a spine.
Republicans argue that sudden withdrawal would embolden Iran. I think Trump’s failed bombing campaign is already doing that.
The article says they gave him a 55% chance of winning last year, and now give him a 25% chance. Sounds like Trump math. He’s still in sixth place or lower as a potential winner. In my mind, if they gave the prize to Trump after all his bombing and threats, the prize would lose all credibility.
Trump has seemed very low key, low energy recently. It’s like he checked out. Never one to be on top of things, he’s always been bombastically out there, pretending like he is. I wonder, though, if it’s not a culmination of his war against the press merging with the press’s weariness over his lies and attacks resulting in less reporting of him. Could be, too, that he’s simply retreating into trusted safe places.
Whatever the cause, the optics of his absence as ‘commander in chief’ promote the impression that he’s overwhelmed and flailing. Stacked on top of ‘the bulge’ in his pants, his weary appearance, and fewer, more muted appearances, I’m getting a lame duck vibe.
I’m looking forward to his May 17th Rededicate 250 speech. At this point, anything he says and claims about Making America Great Again is going to remind us about how much worse the nation is now compared to two years ago.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
I have “Sweet Surrender” by Sarah McLachlan in my morning mental music stream. This actually came about when my ginger fur friend, Papi, did a roll at my feet on the patio as we tested the weather together. I chortled and gave him some skritches and rewarded him with extra treats. His move seemed like he was doing a sweet surrender, but so did my response.
I hope this day goes well for you, with good friends, good food and drink, and good news.
A new weather front has moved in. It’s 54 F under layers of clouds and sprinklings of sunshine, a typical Ashlandic spring day. Highs in the upper 70s are forecast for us. Right now, with all those clouds, it feels weirdly chilly.
Good news from the home front. Mom is electing to stay in assisted living and cooperating. She’s also agreed to sell her house and furniture. While it’s welcomed, it’s also so sad for her and our family. She wanted to be there; we wanted her to be there. Yet, practically, it could not work. Personally, I will miss go home, to her house, to hugging her in her living room, chatting with her in her kitchen, helping her with her laundry. And I will miss the many wonderful dishes she used to make. Her potato salad, spaghetti with meatballs, and chili all remain the best I ever had.
I will say, though, my sisters are a little annoying with their texting. They get up early, before six, and text. My first text from them came at 2:12 AM. I have my phone set up to notify me of texts from the family, in case there’s an emergency, but these were casual, informational texts. Okay, rant over.
No, I haven’t spoken to them about it. They’re doing so much to take care of Mom and help, etc. It would be really petty of me to complain to them about the time they send their texts. I’ll just whine here instead. *smile*
I’ve not seen much surface changes on the Trump front. The voting front is rapidly changing as the Roberts Court dish out their rulings and states respond. A situation as messy as first graders fingerpainting is going to get muddy and sloppy. That mud and slop favors the GOP and Trump. That’s why they’re pressing it. Not about democracy; it’s about staying in power.
Meanwhile, it’s been quiet on the Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! front and the Epstein front.
With the war in Iran at a stalemate, more conversations about the US military’s capabilities are emerging, such as this one. And they’re right; as often happens, the military fights the last war. We’re built for vast nuclear battles in the US with technologically sophisticated but expensive systems. Iran is countering us with different tactics and inexpensive weapons.
In a sense, what we’re seeing in this war echoes wars for the US back to the American revolution. The British were fighting an old war. The colonist changed tactics and won.
Changing policies and weapons in the US will be a challenge. As President Eisenhower warned, the military-industrial complex has a firm hand on procurement. Defense companies manage Congress through projects, manufacturing, and employment. We build systems as much for our economy as much as we do for our security. Meanwhile, the public nods agreeably because, ‘patriotism’.
Trump is responding by increasing the defense budget and calling for more expensive weapons systems. He’s pushing hard on a new class of Trump battleships. As with many things Trump, the battleships he envisions are outdated and bloated relics better fit for the past.
As the war stays stall, oil prices are slowly rising. A Gasbuddy AI analysis from March of 2026 is hilarious to read:
“GasBuddy’s latest projection paints a starkly different picture from the past. The company now forecasts the 2026 U.S. gasoline price average to fall to $2.97 per gallon, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline and the lowest average since 2020. This sets up a clear seasonal pattern, with prices expected to peak in May around $3.12 per gallon before declining steadily to a low in December of $2.83 per gallon.”
Mock Paper Scissors found a saner prediction from a Gasbuddy expert:
“GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, a widely cited gas price expert, predicts the national average price at the pump will hit $4.50 a gallon within a week (currently $4.30).”
Never to shirk from taking advantage of a bad situation, British Petroleum is making some handsome profits from the war and the world energy situation.
“Gas prices have risen 49% since the beginning of 2026, according to prices tracked by AAA. They dropped by an average of 7 cents a gallon after a two-week ceasefire was announced last week.”
And as any driver now knows, that drop is already gone.
The Neurons observed my thoughts on fronts and responded. They put Elton John and “All Quiet on the Western Front” from 1979 in my morning mental music stream. Lifted from a movie of the same name, it’s not a song that comes on the radio much. The song’s tempo’s and musical style reminds me of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” from 1975.
I hope your front is calm and peaceful and that you progress to better and better places for you in all ways possible.
Michael Seidel, writer 