On A Day Like This
Walking through a sun-filled day, enjoying the shade given by the large old trees, I came up a small hill to the town cemetery. Large crows making a racket descended toward one grave.
They are such intelligent birds, I wondered what had their attention and stopped to watch.
Falling silent, the crows went into the ground.
Gawking, I stopped and waited for the crows to reappear. A wind gently stirred the trees. There must be a hole in the ground which I couldn’t see, I decided.
Looking for traffic, I started across the street but couldn’t lift my feet. My shoes felt anchored to the pavement. Run, my mind shouted. Go the other way.
Then the crows emerged from the earth.
My breath caught.
I swallowed hard. They carried something.
A large body.
The crows carried a limp, black-clothed body with their claws.
Loudly cawing, the birds flew up past the trees, lifting their burden into the blue sky. A black cloud rapidly grew above them. Cawing all the way, the crows took the body into the black cloud.
Then the cloud and birds disappeared, leaving me wreathed in a quiet, late summer day.
I stayed almost frozen, attention shifting between where the black cloud was before and the grave. After some seconds I blinked, refusing to grasp what I saw.
The grave was gone. Unmarked green grass grew where the crows had entered.
Suspecting I probably wouldn’t remember any of this, I strode on, picking up speed. Glancing back over my shoulder, I struggled to recall, what did I see back there?
Laughing at my failing memory, I went down the street, soaking up the late summer day, saying hello to a person on a bike going the other way.
Lifting my face, I deeply inhaled. The weather felt wonderful. Anything is possible on a day like this, I thought.
I looked forward to what it would be.
Sunday’s Theme Music — Promises
Ashland, southern Oregon. It’s the next to last day of August – Sunday, August 30, 2026.
Autumn has definitely inserted itself around her. Chilly last night, dropping into the forties. Trees are turning gold and red against a blue velvet sky. Sunshine is expected to lift us from our current temp of 53 degrees F to 86 degrees F.
Mom texted me several times yesterday but I couldn’t understand most of it. She didn’t respond to requests for clarification.
We seem to be on flat loop for political news. That’s not to dismiss or make light of all the news about murders, gun violence, fires, and death going on. I’m just keeping the focus narrow right now.
Trump keeps sending out texts, of course, and does some AI-generated photos of himself with truly famous and important people, trying to revitalize his tired image and poor record by leeching off of others.
Ironically, Trump once leeched off of Epstein’s popularity to boost himself. Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy”. Now he’s trying to hide his relationship with Epstein.
An expert said that Trump’s recent round of texting himself with famous people in AI generated images did real work to displace actual news.
Like, no kidding. We the People call them ‘distractions’. I refer to the entire body of distractions as Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
Besides the texts and AI generated images, Trump torn down part of the White House to build a ballroom. Now it’s a mess.
Trump started a war with Iran. That was also to project how tough he was and how powerful the United States is. But Trump has the anti-Midas touch: all which he touches, organizes, or touts quickly diminishes in value. So the US military is now mired in another new Middle East war.
Way to go, Trump.
Besides starting that war, Trump did the Venezuela oil deal. Which…we won’t know what it means until all details are released and time has passed. Trump is talking about how great it is, but that’s what he always does.
Like this economy. Trump says it’s great. But the numbers aren’t great. Beyond rising prices, which are mostly fueled by Trump’s tariffs, his lingering war with Iran, and rising costs associated with climate change and extreme weather, personal bankruptcies are up. So are home foreclosures. Trump is killing the American dream. He’s not worried, though, because he’s enriched himself.
Overall, Trump’s second term legacy can be summed up as lies, delusions, and failures.
And now, a quote about Trump:
Today’s music comes out after thinking — again — about Trump’s many promises and delusions. I think too much about it, to be honest. I do so because he says these things, breaks his promises, and yet MAGAts and the GOP are all, it’s all gone.
Some of the MAGAts support Trump because he’s tearing everything down. That’s what they want: tear it down so we can rebuild. Unfortunately for us, ‘tearing it all down’ in this age will cause huge damage to the world. I guess they have Mad Max fantasies about leaving in a dystopian land…
Anyway, The Neurons ended up inserting a Simple Minds song in my morning mental music stream. “Promised You A Miracle” came out in 1982 and has that 80s techno rock vibe. The lyrics fit now:
Sample Lyrics:
I promised you a miracle
Belief is a beauty thing
Promises, promises
As golden days break wondering
Seems to fit with Trump and the MAGAts, doesn’t it. ‘Belief is a beauty thing’.
May love, peace, and abundance be with you on this and every day.
I’m off for coffee, writing, being. Cheers
The Week in Review…
Saturday’s Theme Music – Talking
Saturday, August 29, 2026. Ashland, southern Oregon.
A chilly, cloudy morning. Rumors of rain are trickling around conversations. The sky is mostly blue, hazing toward white and gray as clouds collect. 58 F now, today’s high is expected to top out in the mid 70s.
I’m off to a late posting start because I instead wrote in the novel. Had been thinking about a series of scenes last night. Today, they were just there, so I sat and wrote three thousand words before I did anything except feed the cat.
Mom has responded to my texts about her house and accomplishments by first, thanking me. Her texts then devolved into complaints about how I’m her only child who will talk to her. Then she demanded that I come and visit her. She finished with complaints about the assisted living facility and staff and wished she ‘woke up dead’.
On to news, where it’s here we go again, on the hideous Trump merry-go-round.
A Salon headline kicked things off.
Pete Hegseth’s press crackdown smells like a coverup
Possible cover-ups are in line with the Trump and his administration’s standard functioning. Exhibits offered as evidence:
- The Epstein files
- White House ballroom
- The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
- Hush money to Stormy Daniels
- USS Abraham Lincoln
Trump and his cabinet insist that everything is great, but they go through acrobatic gyrations whenever they’re challenged. Threats escalate fast on their end. They blame others and insult whomever questions them. They pull credentials, threaten to sue, bluster on social media, and give hostile interviews in which they insist they’re right and everyone else is wrong.
Meanwhile, Trump’s ideas of democracy, freedom, is fully on display. He clearly doesn’t think much of serving We the People. Just wants the power of the office. Nor does he care much about history, treaties, and laws.
Trump has now announced that he secured ‘majority US control’ of much of Venezuela’s oil reserves. This comes after Trump removed Venezuela’s president by force. We the People who pay attention to history remember how regions around the world evolved into dangerous and unstable regions because nations went in, established themselves as the de facto rulers, and then began plundering their national resources.
The United States has long moved toward away from these policies, pushing for democracy. Success is erratic because it’s a messy process, involving wealthy, power, and people. Additionally, the US continued to secretly use the military or CIA to kill. Trump, though, has escalated it, and is doing so blatantly, oblivious to how these policies affect world opinion of the US.
History has shown, these kind of moves often bite us in the ass. For evidence, just look how things have played out in Iran with US intervention.
Today’s theme music is “You Talk Too Much”. This was a hit for Joe Jones in the early 1960s. I was about five years old when I first started hearing it, I think. A popular song, it achieved a lot of air play. It was also song which Mom sang while doing things around the house. She would also sing it to my sisters and I when we were trying to ask her for something. Frankly, that was very irritating.
Sample Lyrics
You talk too much
You worry me to death
You talk too much
You even worry my pet
You just talk…
Talk too much
You talk about people
That you don’t know
You talk about people
Wherever you go
You just talk…
Talk too much
You talk about people
That you’ve never seen
You talk about people
You can make me scream
The Neurons plugged it into the morning mental music stream in honor of Donald Trump. He talks and texts, often before engaging any brain cells. This week after thinking he can change the name of Lake Ontario with the stroke of a pen, he went on to talk about changing the names of other places in like ways.
What Ding Dong Donnie doesn’t understand, either, is that by having the US flex its powers and just do things on whims, he encourages other strong-armed nations to do the same.
What’s funny, though, is how Ding Dong Donnie doesn’t see what he’s done to the world order. He thinks other nations are jealous of us. He was angry — and probably still is, as he is one who likes to indulge in deep sulking — when other nations refused to participant in his Trumped-up war on Iran. He didn’t understand and doesn’t see that he’s burned so many bridges which were carefully build through years of diplomacy, negotiations, and practices.
I correct myself: more than not understanding, Trump doesn’t care.
Trump’s legacy of ego and failures is stacking into one of the world’s ugliest historic periods. Meanwhile, I wish he would shut up. He’s become like a dog barking all night long without reason.
I wish you the best of the best days in every way which you and I can think of.
Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music — Babble
Ashland, southern Oregon. Friday, August 28, 2026.
Another cooler day graces our valley with temperatures rising from 70 now to the low 80s later, all Fahrenheit. Signs of autumn are creeping in beyond temperatures as maples are already shifting colors.
Mom finally responded late yesterday to tell me she’s feeling much better, a relief for my mind.
We did grocery shopping yesterday and then went out to see the lunar eclipse. Success, as I saw it twice, once in the evening, and again in the middle of the night. I took some tme to imagine how our ancient ancestors viewed these things. Cool and clear, being out under the stars, watching the moon felt rewarding.
Then it was a night of dreams and a morning of texts with my sisters. My sister, Gina, is going through all of Mom’s letters from Mom’s mother, and it’s a revealation. Gina photographs and texts the letters to us. I honestly don’t recognize many of the names my grandmother writes about. I never met those people and never heard about them.
Vee also visited last night and today. Vee is for visitor, but my wife calls the gray and white tabby because of the lining around the cat’s eyes.
Saw on the net that some are calling for Dolly Parton day. I support the idea. Dolly left a solid impression of what a good person can be. She’s someone worth celebrating and emulating.
Meanwhile, down on the other end of people and personalities, we have Donald Trump. Trump has established himself as Exhibit A in multiple categories of what They Tell Us Not to Be: a liar, greedy, womanizer, racist, hateful, sexist, hot tempered, and a bully. Besides showing poor math skills and cheating on contractors and wives, he craves attention and hates criticism.
This week, continuing to break norms, ignore treaties, and playing a wannabe dictator, Trump declared Lake Ontario would be known as Lake America.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Trying to rename Lake Ontario is another of Trump’s Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! distractions to me.
Continuing a year of failures, he has the mess at the White House, where he screwed up the lawn and demolished the East Wing for a ballroom. First he claimed that ballroom was ‘needed’. Then he said it was a monument for himself. Also, he kept insisting donors are paying for it. Then, oh, no, that ballroom is for national security.
Take his tariffs — please. Up and down, off and on, insisting how great they’re making the economy. But boom — unemployment is level but so is employment. More Americans should be working, and they’re not. Further, thanks to Trump, we have price increases, and a national debt that’s past $40 trillion for the first time in history. Way to go, Trump!
The national debt isn’t just Trump’s fault. The Spend Without End GOP shares a huge share of responsibility. They let Trump blow through money without employing any checks and balances. So long as Trump is in office and the GOP lets him get away with it, the national debt will worsen. Mind you, that’s despite Trump’s claims that he’s cut so much fraud and waste.
Part of that Republican spending spree is on the useless, unneeded war in Iran. Not only is it costing the world in terms of lives and energy, but it’s costing the United States in tangible and intangible ways. Tangibly, we, the world’s most powerful military, has managed to do little but kill people and blow things up. That’s largely because Trump attacked Iran with little planning and no tangible objectives.
On the more intangible side, other nations like China and Russia are noting how inept the military is under Trump, encouraging them to make moves with hard and soft power.
But Trump babbles on, and the GOP stands in line behind him.
What’s worse is the effect of the current situation. We have rising prices, rising bond rates, rising mortgage rates, flat unemployment, rising national debt, anemic job growth and the spectre of rising AI use. Stacked with Trump’s war in Iran, Trump’s erractic behavior and pronouncements, and the upcoming midterms, we’re facing a very uncertain future in the US.
Then add in climate and the expected super El Nino this winter, and brace yourself. This could be a wild roller-coaster ride.
With all this going on, Les Neurons have “Life During Wartime” playing in the morning mental music stream. The 1979 Talking Heads song is about surviving in a dystopian period. Such survival to extreme changes requires a lot of adaptation, and that might be where we’re heading soon.
Sample Lyrics
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter
To last a couple of days
But I ain’t got no speakers, ain’t got no headphones
Ain’t got no records to play
Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time?
Can’t write a letter, can’t send no postcard
I ain’t got time for that now
Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock
We blended in with the crowd
We got computers, we’re tapping phone lines
I know that that ain’t allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives
Or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle so many times now
I don’t know what I look like
You make me shiver, I feel so tender
We make a pretty good team
Don’t get exhausted, I’ll do some driving
You ought to get you some sleep
Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
They won’t help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace
The burning keeps me alive
May this day and the days to come treat you with peace and grace as you ride the roller coaster of life.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 