Saturday’s Theme Music

Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, June 13, 2026.

Another June morning. 63 F, it feels cool and comfortable to me, “chilly” for my wife. Today’s high will peak in the mid 90s. A heat advisory is on for tomorrow as temperatures are going over 100. Temperatures are expected to drop on Tuesday — a little.

Nothing new from my family and Mom in Pittsburgh. Going through dreams occupied my morning.

I enjoyed this morning headline:

Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center after blowing past deadline

One small step for decency, democracy, and justice.

But the Epstein ballroom is still under construction, and Trump is racing to build his Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! arch before the system can stop him.

Do we really need a monument to remind us of Trump’s ego? No. Sure won’t help with any problems we face. It’s just more by Trump, for Trump.

Seven states led by Democrats — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington — have withdrawn from the ‘Freedom 250’ fair. The states withdrew, citing costs and politicalization.

It started out as a celebration of the United States. As with anything with Trump involvement, he’s slowly made it less about that and more about him. For example, after many musical performers bowed out, Trump decided to replace them with himself as the opening act. He plans a ‘rally’.

Trump’s war with Iran goes on. The war has clocked 105 days. Peace is close, both sides agree, then argue about whether the other is telling the truth. It feels like, “Pot, meet kettle,” to me.

Gas prices in the US have dribbled down over the past few days as peace in Iran seesaws. Many best-case scenario project gas prices will drop to $3.75 gallon on average by November. In most dire predictions, $6.35 a gallon is projected as the national average.

I laughed at this headline today:

Man fed 32,754 of Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts to AI and one concerning observation stands out

The story continued:

Key takeaways

  • Self-Focus: AI found that Trump frequently centers himself in posts, with roughly 1 in 11 posts being self-praise, and his name appearing as the most common positive reference.
  • Conflict & Adversaries: Many posts involve accusations, criticism, and disputes, portraying Trump as both a victim and a winner in political and legal battles.
  • Posting Habits: Notable patterns include heavy capitalization (16% of posts), late-night posting (midnight–6 a.m.), and recurring themes of praise, boasting, and accusations.

We didn’t need AI analysis for these conclusions. They’re self-evident, something who isn’t part of the MAGAsphere has noted for years.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

“Wrong Again” Trump was wrong again. We the People built this nation. Men like him just conned people to make money from what others built.

Playing “Spelling Bee” this morning, I laughed and put in Levitake as a word. “Not on the list”, the system responded.

I think it should be. Levitake: to lift and remove something. In use: “They worked through the night to levitake Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.”

The music playing in today’s morning mental music stream is “Fantasy” by Aldo Nova. The 1982 song started playing as The Neurons spied on me doing my dream review. It was because of the night breeze coming in the window, cooling me.

May your day progress with peace and grace, and bring you an abundance of joy and love.

Cheers

The Trump Dichotomy

We’re at a fascinating — and disappointing — crossroads in the US. The Trump administration is advocating more funding for defense, security, and detention centers. They’re doing this while the national debt grows.

Inflation is eating into people’s discretionary spending. Yet Trump is deliberately shrinking the safety net. Under MAHA, they’re actively working against people being healthy by cutting oversight and campaigning against vaccines while cutting the EPA air and water regulations which kept our air and water safe.

As inflation increases and the number of people on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security rises, the Trump administration says, “Work harder! Work more!”

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration pushes for more AI.

As with robotics in manufacturing, AI and General AI are often touted as a way to reduce personnel costs in help centers and bureaucracies through employing less people.

Conversely, AI and data centers have an adverse effect on the environment and increases the price of water and energy and hit local economies. That will again squeeze the poor. Spending more on water and energy, they’ll have less for food and anything else.

So, the Trump administration is driving us toward being poorer, with fewer work and employment opportunities, with higher food, energy, and water costs.

That setup benefits the hyperwealthy. People like Trump. Musk. And most of Trump’s administration. They’re not affected by inflation.

In parallel to this, Trump is hyping stocks and then buying them. Once articles about that came out, don’t you think that his administration and faithful followers are doing the same, if they have the money to?

“Oh, look, Trump just visited Thermo Fisher and hyped it. Buy, buy, buy!”

As the days of Trump’s war continue adding up, the war is heating up again. Iran struck; now Trump vows he’ll strike back ‘very hard’. That’s the person who declared himself ‘the peace president’.

The dichotomy between what Trump says he wants and what he does has never been greater. He’s making himself and his cronies wealthier and bankrupting the rest of us.

This is Trump’s vision of make America great again. The irony, first noted back in 2016 and apparent ever since, is how negatively Trump’s policies hit his staunchest MAGA supporters. Yet, they cheer his moves. It’s a dichotomy rooted in perversity and emotions that I’ll never grasp. Nor will they.

How does the $1,00,000,000 Epstein bunker-ballroom help MAGA? Does it cut inflation?

How ’bout that mega arch that Trump plans to build? How does that alleviate the water problems, the drought, the rising food and healthcare prices that Americans are enduring?

Is the Iran war making MAGA safer? Trump is convincing them that it is.

Likewise, Trump convinced MAGA that tariffs are good for them, but the opposite impact has been seen.

Just as Trump has convinced them that cutting health and environmental rules and regulations will make it ‘easier to do business in America’ — while making it harder for anyone to enter the United States to do business with his oppressive ICE and Homeland Security tactics.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but Trump can fool MAGA all of the time.

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Enduring

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

Spring endures in Ashland. 48, blue skies, clouds, sunshine, high in the mid-sixties expected.

Mom endures in her assisted living facility. My sister couldn’t do the things she enumerated yesterday. Mom remains in the assisted living facility and seems agreeable to selling her house. However, she’s trying to manipulate us in other ways, according to my sister. She said Mom wrote a long text that she wanted sis to share with all of us. My sister refused. Life.

My plumbing endures. Mixed results with the plumber yesterday. Both shutoff valves replaced at the toilets, but the plumber felt only one had a leaking wax seal. When he pulled it, lo, the wood under it was soaked. So, wax ring replaced, toilet put back, but now we need to send someone under the house to examine that area. I’ve been under the house; not fun. We have a low, low crawlspace. But I don’t have the expertise needed for this kind of assessment. Thought about using different cameras to see what it looks like. Still noodling that.

Trump endures, too. It is remarkable but many speculate that Trump staged the attempt on him. While Trump blames ‘the left’, he continues to incite hatred and violence toward others while asking that we be nicer to him.

Part of this is that Trump is a documented liar and cheat. He wants to be feared, liked, respected, admired. As part of his ‘weave’, he’ll say anything but that’s shredded his credibility. We know now he makes grandiose promises and bizarre accusations and declarations; it’s all just air.

Doesn’t help, neither, that within hours of the attempt, Trump was calling to build his White House ballroom because, “Security!” But the WHCD was not in the White House. Even if the ballroom had been done, it wouldn’t have affected what happened at the WHCD.

I will also say that even if Cole Tomas Allen left behind a ‘manifesto’ and seems to have a life, Hollywood has convinced me that creating a legend like that is very possible. While I don’t particularly believe the Trump administration is sanguine enough to get it done, there are some high-tech security firms in his corner who could do it. If I believe Hollywood, so could the CIA.

Why not? It’s the age of deep fakes and AI.

With Trump not being held accountable for his lies and behavior, it’ll probably because worse as others attempt to emulate and duplicate his success as a con artist. More troubling is how his actions undermine our trust and belief in authority.

Meanwhile, the squeeze is on U.S. farmers. They’re in a bad situation: diesel is up, fertilizer is up, interest rates are up, available migrant labor is down, and droughts are in the forecast.

Perhaps they will reconsider who they vote for in November.

Your Trump quote of the day:

“Data from the USDA show that soybean exports to China, as of March 19, are about half the amount they were last year.” 

Reminder: we’re into the eighth week of the Trump Iran War. He has no exit plan.

Reminder: the Epstein files have not been completely released.

Reminder: Trump’s popularity is declining and prices are rising.

Expect some new Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! breaking news soon.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” ended up in my morning mental music stream. So many bricks being put into place between what we were, what we could become. Trump builds walls to divide and separate, keep the poor in misery and empower the wealthy, along with walls against equality, freedom, science, and education.

Hope you end up in the best possible place when this day is finished. Onward.

Cheers

Monday’s Theme Music – Simpler Times

Ashland, Oregon — Monday, March 16, 2026.

Hazy but sunny, it was 43 F out when I got up this morning but now it’s 61, with a high in the upper 70s expected. This is part of the California coast heatwave. Being Oregon, we don’t get as much national attention as our southern neighbor, but the conditions striking California are also nailing us. We might set a new record high for the date tomorrow as analysts say that the low 80s are possible.

The news cycle brought more war news along with stories about Academy Awards winners and losers. The Trump Iran War continues. Suggestions swirl that both the United States and Russia will deploy ground troops to Iran. Despite Trump’s claim that Iran’s military was 100% destroyed, Iran hit a UAE oil port and Dubai airport.

Trump doesn’t always understand percentages, though. He promised drug prices would go down by 1500%, which is factually impossible.

Friends yesterday talked about the current political atmosphere. Many were dismayed by how easily Trump launched new military attacks and dragged us into war. While we naturally recognized, this has been an ugly trend by the left and right for decades, it’s really disturbing that a person who often speaks like he’s high is able to launch powerful, deadly weapons almost at will.

Others brought up how Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, is threatening the freedom of the press. One friend said when that Democrats return to a position where it can happen, there should be some Nuremburg-style trials. There wasn’t much further discussion of that, but the general consensus is, changes are needed.

I later received an email from another friend, who wasn’t at our little gathering. She wrote,

“We need Nuremburg-style atonement. Without it, we’ll just continue on our late-stage capitalist descent into the ranks of failed experiments with democracy. But hey, at least we have energy sucking, water guzzling generative AI to make silly videos of pets in bathrobes enjoying the spa to distract us from all this while data centers drink our future…”

Today’s song came from a concert by the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band yesterday. I’ve always enjoyed it so it’s no surprise that when The Neurons heard it yesterday, it resurfaced in today’s morning mental music stream.

The concert’s theme was Echoes of Oregon and featured composers who lived in or were educated in Oregon. One of these was Mason Williams, who came out with “Classical Gas” in 1968. The song is an instrumental featuring an acoustic guitar and symphony. I’ve always been drawn to its soft, contemplative beginning and then its urgent, more soaring sound later. A simple melody, the song reached number two behind a song by The Doors. Pretty remarkable.

Someone else who was at the concert and heard “Classical Gas” lamented she wished we were in a simpler era. Several of us scoffed, reminding her of all that was going on in 1968. All of us remembered headlines about the civil rights movements, riots and protests, the Vietnam war, space race, dark, filthy air with rivers on fire, and the cold war and its nuclear threat.

We were left wondering, when were simpler times?

Hope your day is simple, carefree, and satisfying to you in important ways. Off we go, one more time.

Cheers

The Morning eMail

My wife heaved a sigh. She’d just come into the home office with her tea and settled down on her computer to check her email.

“My NYTimes is again in my junk folder, along with Ashland News,” she announced. “Two pieces of junk mail are in my inbox.”

“It’s probably the AI that’s supposed to be so helpful,” I answer. She laughs.

Complaints about her emails have been going all week. She uses Hotmail, which is now Outlook. Or maybe it’s the other way. Whatever you call it, she’s displeased with its performance. Every day, she has to check to see where her trusted emails have gone and delete the spam that now hits her inbox. As a product, the Hotmail/Outlook app seems to be going backwards.

It’s not consistent, either. It first started with her saying last Monday, “I didn’t get my NYTimes newsletter.” Then she said, “I found it in my junk mail.” That continued for several days before it went back to her inbox. That’s when Ashland News went to junk mail.

“I don’t understand,” my wife said. “Why is it doing this?”

A search of the net suggests many ways to try to fix this problem. None of them mentioned why the problem began. I decided to use AI to see what it said. ChatGPT blamed new adaptive AI which Microsoft introduced last year.

I passed that on to my wife, who laughed. “Great. AI is screwing up my email. What a perfect metaphor.”

I laughed, too. “I don’t know how much I trust of what one AI says about the other. It’s like wondering, what does your wife think of your girlfriend?”

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Tuesday slid into Ashland under a cloud. 46 F out, rain and sunshine are expected today, January 27, 2026. Our high will be in the mid-fifties.

Buoyed by a powerful dream, I’m in an upbeat and optimistic mood today. I know a lot of crap is going on in the world and many people have it bad. That weighs on me and yet, I feel empowered today.

A friend sent me an interesting video. It’s all AI. My Neurons urged me to use it as today’s theme music. I’ll do so. It’s a catchy punky-influenced tune, made with AI’s help. The chorus has found a home in my morning mental music stream. From Sean Hayes at Scaredketchup, here is, “ICE, F**k You”.

I hope you’re in an upbeat, optimistic place despite the world load, and that it leads to a happier place for all of us. Cheers

Fridaz Theme Music

Welcome, welcome, welcome. It’s First Frida, January 2, 2026, a day traditionally celebrated with food, drinks, and jokes. Here is my joke. Fittingly for this era, it’s AI provided.

I once tried to do nothing.
It took all day.

Currently 49 to 54 F in Ashland with an expected high of 54 to 57. Strong winds are singing their warnings. Grey clouds and sunshine square dance.

I sent my stepmother a condolence card today. I was just expressing my appreciation for what she and her family did for Dad, providing him the love and comfort of a family. Mom, Dad’s first wife, and his biological children from that union, could never work that out. Too many variables to reduce it to understanding. Dad was part of that. As he once told Mom, he didn’t mature until he was 35.

My mood is all over the place today. As I shift away from Dad’s death and the reflections they provoked, I’m moving into the new year and trying to re-engage politics. I don’t want to be a downer. I want to be honest. My mood is up, as is my spirit, but then I read about the latest news, and the sighs creep out of me.

While a new year has begun, Trump hasn’t changed for the better. He’s projecting again, calling Democrats ‘the worst’. I suspect criticism of him squeezed past his handlers. He knows he’s not being held in high regard, and actions he lauds as being great are being disparaged. So it goes in 2026 as it was in 2025, 2024, 2023… That leopard doesn’t change his spots.

After reading political news, my cheeky Neurons introduced “Radio Ga Ga” into the morning mental music stream. That made me laugh. The 1984 Queen song is a nostalgia look back at the radio era as television and music videos rose in popularity. The Neurons jumped on the a chorus after reading about Trump.

[Chorus]
All we hear is radio ga ga
Radio goo goo
Radio ga ga
All we hear is radio ga ga
Radio blah, blah

Radio goo goo, radio ga ga, radio blah blah. That’s too often Trump.

The song itself, though, uplifts me. This particular version, with Freddy Mercury out in front, feels powerful.

With 2026 underway, I hope to see meaningful and positive changes for you and me. May grace and peace come together with us. Cheers

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Wenzda finds me in a cheerful mood after reading some news.

Slop is the word of the year. The slop and state of the U.S. reminds me of the early Nazi efforts, back in the early 1930s. The German Nationalist party was still calling themselves socialists while attacking unions and communists, trying to get a grip on the population’s support. That grip finally came when the economic situation became dire. With employment hemorrhaging, unemployment rising, industry and trade faltering, prices rising, affordability decreasing, and shortages increasingly common, the NAZIs finally gained control. Patient and duplicitous, they were in it for the long haul.

This does remind me of now. Trump is a front. A distraction. His antics, nonsensical babble, tirades, and failing health give cover. His regime’s Project 2025 players feverishly work on making things worse behind the scenes. They push tariffs on Trump in the name of returning industry and economic power to the U.S. They’re bright enough to know that it’s really raising prices, reducing trade, decreasing tax revenues, while increasing the deficit.

This is all about manipulating the economy, which lets them manipulate consumers, which permits manipulation of voters. This is about making voters angry, desperate, and distrustful of the government, the media, and everyone else. This is about setting the stage for the next phase of their takeover.

They easily lie to Trump about what’s going on. They keep him in a bubble and feed him fake numbers. Trump, being the restless, self-centered, low-information guy who he is, easily swallows their lies. He wants and needs to believe it’s working because to combat his insecurity and the secret despair of how inferior he is. Information about his falling poll numbers is fed to him. He’s reminded that this is former President Biden‘s fault. That it’s fake news. That increases Trump’s frenzy and increases his distraction.

It’s well-established that when Trump gets more distracted and frenzied, he doesn’t calm down. He doesn’t step back to think. He spins up the crazy. Lying and cheating made him a ‘successful’ businessman. Spinning up the crazy got him a ‘reality’ show. Becoming crazier, and more openly hateful and sexist — telling it like it is — won him elections. Tacitly encouraged by his handlers, he’ll spin up to dangerously unstable levels.

Meanwhile, the Project 2025 folks will smile or look away. Let Trump go off and destroy himself. Go ahead, take down the GOP. Most Republican elected officials lack principles. They just want to remain in office. That keeps them relevant only in the minds of voters who don’t pay attention. Voters with short memories, little understanding of history, and less interest in thinking about it. They don’t want to think of themselves as dupes.

Trump’s handlers aren’t too concerned about the midterm elections or even 2028 POTUS elections. They give less than a fuck about the GOP and any ‘vision’ they might put forward. No, let them talk and strut. Just as we know who they are, so do the creators of Project 2025.

This is the long game. The serious right wingers, once called Neocons until that became tarnished and flailed, started their destabilization efforts in the United States long ago. Remember PNAC? PNAC wasn’t a failure. It did the job needed and was put to bed. Project 2025 is another step after PNAC and the Foreign Policy Initiative.

This is just the middle segment of the long game. They don’t have the right leader for the next phase. Not yet. They know it’s not JD Vance. Like Trump, Vance is easily manipulated, bent, and controlled. Like Trump, Vance is greedy and vain. But Vance lacks Trump’s charisma and oversized personality. He doesn’t lie and bloviate with Trump’s charm. Vance looks, smells, acts, and sounds like a snake oil hawker.

No, they need someone else. It wasn’t going to be Charlie Kirk. He was just riding on Trump’s coattails. Somewhere out there is Project 2025’s next leader to destroy the U.S.’s democratic republic and replace it with a white Christian fascist state run by oligarchs and true believers.

That leader could be a woman, a woman with charisma and charm, who can smile while lying and get everyone to laugh along with them, a woman who hates other women, who desires power because she’s morally bankrupt and needs attention to fill the many holes in her spirit. Basically, a female Trump.

Such a woman could speak to other woman and convince them that she should be the first female POTUS. She would deny Project 2025 — just as Trump did — and vow to restore the United States. She’ll fix the economy and restore dignity to the office and return rights to Americans. Then, in office, she’ll fill her cabinet with a new version of MAGA sycophants and play from a new edition of the latest update to Project 2025. Because remember, Project 2025 was written for now, the middle segment of their long con, to take advantage of POTUS 47’s availability and his staunch base.

The next phase is out there, waiting to be written and put in place. Unless we can do something about that AI slop and the disastrous Trump Effect on the United States being fostered by the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.

And that must begin now.

No kings? Hell, no crazies. No NAZIs.

No slop.

Wenzdaz Theme Music

Greetings to my fellow humans and coffee ants. It’s Wenzda! Humpda! December 17 2025.

Ashlandians find ourselves in warmer weather with less fog. We’re hanging at about 40 degrees F. Light gray clouds with low bellies soldier past sunlit dark green evergreens. The clouds tear and break as they meet the trees. Another slice of sky features darker clouds mingling with bright blue sky. All shines with a rainy sheen, waiting to dry off. Today’s high will strike 47 F, ‘they’ say. We’re unsure they’ll be correct.

Slop is the word of the year. Hard to argue with that. In this information age, disinformation sown and furthered by AI’s efforts to entertain and uneducate the masses while undermining political will and decision-making owns many media outlets and social platforms.

Some of this is deliberately done. Feeling down? Go shopping! Look at these deals!

Not into shopping? Tune into NASCAR. NBA, NFL, college football, college basketball, hockey, volleyball, oh, boy the Olympics are coming! The world cup!

Eat our new food! Buy our new stuff! Watch our new show! Enjoy our new movie! Don’t like them, then watch the old movies, the old sitcoms, the old dramas, and remember how it used to be. Don’t think. Just sit back and relax. Let us take care of you.

What a way to end the year, mired in slop, wondering WTF is going to happen next year. Will the U.S. wage open war on Venezuela or go all in with Russia against the Ukraine? Trump is all for that. War for peace. “We can only win peace if we’re strong enough to fight for it,” he’ll snarl. And enough Americans are simple enough to eagerly nod agreement. We got all that military power. Shame not to use it, right?

Thinking about slop as the word of the year has The Neurons laughing. “Slop is the word is the word that you heard. It’s got groove, it’s got meaning. Slop is the time, is the place, is the motion. Slop is the way we are feeling.”

The Neurons might be on to something this time.

Anyway, they slotted “Grease” as sung by Frankie Valli in the movie, Grease, in the morning mental music stream. Except we’re singing ‘slop’ instead of ‘grease’.

Okay, coffee is greasing me up. Hope peace and grace break through the slop and make a cameo sometime in 2025’s final days. Here we go again. Cheers

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑