Tag: alternate reality

Sundaz Wandering Political Thoughts

I’m not reposting it or linking to it. Trump released an AI video of himself as a king and a fighter pilot.

Trump weaseled out of serving his nation five times when he was young.

Whined about having bone spurs.

Now he pretends to be a fighter pilot, a specimen of individual who is highly trained and extremely fight, 180 from what he is. There it is again, the alternate Trump reality, where facts, truth, history, and logic are completely disengaged. Not a good place for someone in his position. He needs to be removed. If this isn’t 25th Amendment material, what is?

The other part…where he projects himself as king. Well, that’s exactly what we’re protesting in the No Kings rallies. As a POTUS pretending to be a king, acting like he’s a king, above We the People, and not serving us, he should be impeached.

Worse, though, he fantasizes about bombing American citizens. Dropping sewage on them. How horrible is that for anyone who occupies the Oval Office?

And those deep, deep, double standards are fully in play here. Listen to the crickets as the GOP say nothing. Recall their fervent outrage against President Joe Biden. How they bleated about him being unfit. He, who never released a video fantasy about being a king, being a fighter pilot, and bombing our people.

Imagine the uproar if this had been President Obama. My, oh, my, the shockwaves would have felt like major earthquakes across the continent.

But here we have it, signs of a demented, detached individual fantasizing about being a fighter pilot and king, bombing his citizens.

And they say nothing.

Their silence speaks as loudly as Trump’s video fantasy. They are as corrupt and complicit as him.

And this is why we march and protest.

No kings. Not in 1776. Not in 2025.

Not. Ever.

2

Life in Trump’s Alternative World

My wife and I climbed into the car. I started the engine. After over revving it, I began driving in reverse. My wife asked, “Why are we in reverse?”

“Everyone says that you get better mileage in reverse.” I swung the transmission into drive. “Now I think I’ll go this way.” I turned on the windshield wipers.

My wife peered into the sunlit blue sky. “Why are the windshield wipers on?”

“We need gas,” I declared. “We don’t have enough money for a full tank.”

“I’m starving,” my wife replied. “I thought we were going out for dinner. Where can we get something to eat?”

“We don’t have money for food. Just hold on.” I pulled into a miniature golf course. “I think I’ll play a game.”

My wife objected, “I didn’t think we have the money.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get more money.”

I went in and paid for the game. Before teeing off, I went back to the car. Jumping in, we drove off.

My wife looked around in puzzlement. “Where are we going?”

“Straight ahead.”

“This is the opposite direction of where we were going.”

“Don’t worry, I’m taking a short cut.”

“What happened to your miniature golf game?”

“I played it. Set a new record. I was stripes.”

“But you weren’t gone five minutes.”

“I know. It was the fastest golf game ever. I scored more points than anyone in the game’s history.” I steered the car into the path of oncoming traffic. “They were amazed. Said they’d never seen anyone play like that. They’re giving me a special golfing medal.”

A truck almost hit us. My wife screamed. “Get on the right side of the road. What is wrong with you?”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “they’ll get out of our way.”

The car’s engine coughed and sputtered.

“What’s wrong with the car?” my wife asked.

“I think it’s the wind,” I answered, throwing open the door.

My wife gasped. “What are you doing? The car’s still moving. You’re going to get yourself killed.” Leaning across, she grabbed the wheel and began steering.

After turning on the radio, I leaped out of the car and rolled across a lane. A car screeched to a halt, almost hitting me. Leaving their car and coming toward me, the driver said, “Oh my God, I almost hit you. What’s going on? Are you alright?”

Beaming, I took off my shirt. “Aren’t I ripped?” I nodded toward my car as my wife managed to steer and stop it. “It’s my wife. She made me do it. She’s crazy. Doesn’t know a thing about flying. She shouldn’t be allowed near a boat.”

Stepping in front of a car, I waved my arms. “Help, help. Call the police. This guy’s trying to kill me.”

2

The Writing Moment

I’m still working on a novel. Finished one earlier this year and edit and revise it when free time gestures, do it. Meanwhile, I’m writing another. Thought I’d have it finished by September’s middle. Did. Not. Happen. I wrote an ending but it didn’t work. Yet it did work.

Why it didn’t work… Well, it wasn’t satisfying. None of the characters liked it. Especially the protagonist. You wouldn’t believe her reaction. The Writing Neurons were also pissed by the ending, and also let me know.

Hush, hush, I told them all. That was just the climax. Now I’ll write a denouement and all will be well. You’ll see.

Snorting, the Writing Neurons muttered, “Bullshit.” The Muses were more restrained, expressing their WTF doubts with a smirk.

Ignoring them, I pressed on. That’s when I realized why the ending did work. It did work because I had to get it out of me. It also worked because I saw that I was aiming toward the end of one story line, involving the main person, but there was a larger story line that needed an ending. I’d become so focused on my main person, I overlooked that other story line.

When I wrote that ending for the story, I killed one trending direction. Doing so freed the character to take over. Completely unaware of where I was going, like trying to find the bathroom in an unfamiliar, pitch-black house, every new paragraph was a challenge. I often rewrote paragraphs several times, trying to figure out what they meant. Is that how novel writing is supposed to go? I actually think so.

Now, I think I see the real ending. I don’t say that too loudly. Don’t want to piss off the protagonist, Muses, and Writing Neurons. It’s hard enough keeping them all in line and moving in the same direction. Like herding angry feral cats.

Got my coffee and a table. Got my ‘puter. Time to continue writing like crazy, at least one more time.

4

Sundaz Theme Music

Summery wisps are present for Sunda, October 5, 2025, in Ashlandia. Now 57 F, sunshine and blue skies say summer but the trees’ scarlets, oranges, golds, and yellows remind us, no, we’re turned the seasonal corner. Still, 75 F is our projected high. Good day for getting outside for yard chores. Papi approved, to judge from his floofverbals — tail up, eyes slitting in appreciation as a sun pool is turned into a floofspot. He commences a lazy spruce up of his whiskers.

Several interesting articles were read this AM. One is an Adam Gabbatt analysis in The Guardian addressing Trump’s increasing strange behavior.

The president is unhinged’: Trump’s online behavior grows increasingly odd

The column highlighted Trump’s AI use to portray Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as Hispanic, a strange and silly ploy which drew Hispanic anger against Trump. That was stacked atop the right-wing conspiracy about med beds shared in a Trump tweet (later deleted), his unfounded ideas about pregnant women using Tylenol, and Trump’s pingpong attention span. Trump went from the Michigan synagogue shooting, where he promised to keep people updated and then never posted about it again, to bragging about the tacky gold decoration he’s added to the Oval Office to his dissatisfaction with an NFL kickoff rule. Then he talked about how presidents walk.

“America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day. Every day, the guy’s falling down stairs.”

Trump continued: “I said: ‘It’s not our president. We can’t have it.’ I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs for – like I’m on stairs, like these stairs, I’m very – I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record, just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy.

“We don’t want that. Need to walk nice and easy. You not have – you don’t have to set any record. Be cool, be cool when you walk down, but don’t, don’t bop down the stairs. That’s the one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen – da da da da da da, bop, bop, bop, he’d go down the stairs, wouldn’t hold on. I said, it’s great, I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually bad things are going to happen and it only takes once, but he did a lousy job as president.”

Those of us who regularly Trump watch were wearily unsurprised. No, we’re more amazed that the GOP cynically not just accepts Trump’s surreal behavior but actually celebrate and support it. Meanwhile, Trump grows more violent, more eager to use the military every day. Attacks against Venezuela have escalated without any checks being offered by Congress about WTF is going on. And Trump regularly drools over chances of sending in military, even threatening to use the 82nd Airborne, into American cities run by Democrats.

The other article catching my attention was more direct about Trump and his growing wars.

Trump’s phony war on Venezuela — and his larger war on reality

That’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it: Trump is conducting a war on reality, and bringing his alternate reality and self-created facts and history into our reality. That’s the old square peg in a round hole problem. Trump reality is wholly at odds with truth, facts, medicine, and history, and often wars with logic. This piece is by Andrew O’Hehir in Salon. O’Hehir writes,

This war on the world has both fictional goals and real ones, and the fact that those are incompatible is, once again, not a fundamental problem for Trump’s courtiers or adherents. There’s no hypothetical version of global equilibrium in which the United States is simultaneously the dominant superpower and also an isolationist fortress-state with zero immigration. I would guess that Trump loves the sound of that but doesn’t follow the logic too far, while the people who intend to outlast him just “yes queen” along and roll their eyes. Their goal is more doable: leveraging American power to ensure the continued dominance of the billionaire elite for at least as long as our planet remains habitable. (They’re aware that it probably shouldn’t be advertised that way.)

This is how many of us have viewed Trump and MAGALand since early days. I recommend reading the entire article.

The summer/autumn blend has The Neurons feeding me a song about summer. Called “Summer”, by Calvin Harris. This video of young people at a show having fun was amusing to me to watch. Hope it doesn’t something for you, too.

Coffee has again answered the call. Peace and grace are still hanging back, despite my naked dance under the moonlight last night. Hope peace and grace get here soon. Till then, cheers.

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Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Maddow Blog | As the public rejects his economic performance, Trump pitches an alternate reality

The headline about Trump pitching an alternate reality irritated me. This is nothing new. Trump has always pitched an alternate reality as a politician. He pushed and supported the idea that President Barack Obama was not a United States citizen. He damned the 2020 election that he lost as stolen. That alternate reality caught on with his MAGAfans and lured more of them in. Facts and court cases consistently reveal this as an alternate reality. Many of his supporters still live in that alternate reality. Trump went after “Sleepy Joe Biden”, disparaging him as too old and uninvolved, selling the alternate reality via hysteria about inflation that President Biden’s presidency was a disaster. He sold the alternate reality that he would “fix it on day one”, and now claims that’s what he’s done.

Trump continually bellows about what a terrible deal the ACA is for Americans, selling the alternate reality that he would have a big, beautiful replacement. He used to talk about that coming out in two weeks. Then he swung to an alternate reality that he had the concept of a plan. Now that he and the GOP control both houses, Trump doesn’t mention replacing ACA much. It played its part in his alternate reality that he had something better.

If you can cast your mind back to earlier this year, Trump and the GOP eagerly spread the alternate reality that not passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would cause economic disaster, would not change Medicaid, would not cut SNAP, and wouldn’t add to the national deficit. As the truth about the OBBBA has emerged, enraging voters, elected GOPers are hiding from their constituents, refusing to hold live townhall meetings because of OBBBA blowback.

In Trump’s alternate reality, companies or other nations pay tariffs and they won’t raise prices, because in his alternate reality, companies aren’t profit driven, and other nations were always ripping off the United States. Even in the deals he made, Trump claims in his alternate reality that they were terrible deals and the other nations were taking advantage of the United States.

United States citizens are catching on. Republicans Say Country Not Heading in the Right Direction.

“More than half of Republicans now say the country is heading in the wrong direction, a new AP-NORC poll shows. The new survey conducted between Sept. 11 and Sept. 15 found that 51 percent of Republican voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 percent in March. What’s more, less than half of Republicans (49 percent) now say the country is heading in the right direction, down from 70 percent in June. Republican women and individuals under 45 are more likely to say that America is not on the right track.“

And it’s spreading.

The growing chasm between MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans on Trump’s economy

The greater problem now is that corporations are deciding that they’d rather support Trump’s alternate reality than risk upsetting him, because upsetting Trump could jeopardize their business plans and money-making intentions.

And, while the Roberts Court seems to be taken in by Trump’s alternate realities, many other judges and courts are still rejecting them.

Judge rejects Trump’s New York Times lawsuit for being ‘decidedly improper and impermissible’

I hope all of us could hold out long enough against this onslaught of unnatural realities and get rid of this plague on the world, aka, Donald J. Trump.

Otherwise, it can become very surreal.

1

Birthday Boy

Two seventeen was on the clock when Dee decided she would get up to wait. Rising, she walked downstairs with the slowness demanded of her diseased-ravaged ninety-year-old body, wheezing as she went. They said she’d beaten cancer, but it didn’t feel like it. Her feet and hips ached. So did her neck and her jaw. She could barely raise her right arm enough to dress. Drugs did nothing for that pain and movement any longer. They wanted to scrape the joint.

Turning on lights, she walked around the kitchen and dining room, looking out windows. It was dark, and she was alone. Although her eyes, mind, and body felt tired, sleep was like a Mega-millions lottery ticket this week. She’d cleaned the house, washed the bed linens, baked and cooked, and worried.

Prowling the kitchen, she regarded the black forest cake on the table. He’d told her that was his favorite once, so she always had one on hand, with candles. She didn’t know how old he was. He would never say. Based on his annual visits, he was sixty, but he’d been an adult on every visit, so he had to be older, didn’t he? Sometimes, he looked older. Once, he’d seemed like a very old man. His hair had been almost gone. What remained was gray and white. It’d been shocking.

Rubbing her face, she sighed. She was too tired to think. She’d been looking forward to this, but she also wanted it done. She wanted coffee, but for God’s sake, it was two in the morning. Once it was over, she’d want to sleep. Yes, but she felt so tired, maybe a little cup of decaf would help keep her alert. She didn’t want to fall asleep and miss him.

No, she would not miss him. That would be a first. If he came, he would wake her. If he didn’t come —

If he came, he would wake her, if he had the time. He was always so busy, busier every time. That’s what it seemed like.

And last time —

Leaning forward against the sink to hold herself up, she entered a reverie. Last time, he’d been in the worst condition that she’d ever seen. Blood all over him, and so gaunt, with disheveled hair. God. She’d wanted to hug and kiss him but the sight of him froze her.

“Peter. What happened to you?” she said. She scanned him with her nurse’s eyes for wounds and spotted several.

“War,” he said.

“War?” she said with shock. Recent news events bounced through her thoughts. “What war?”

He shook his head. “There’s not time for that.”

“But you’re hurt — ”

“I’m okay, Mom, don’t worry,” he said, but a wince crossed his face, turning into a grimace. “You should have seen the other guy. Seriously.”

“Your arm is bleeding,” she said, moving toward him. “So is your abdomen.”

Peter moved away from her. “I know. Stay back. I don’t want to get blood on you.”

“But you may have major internal injuries.”

“I know, but there’s not enough time for you to do anything, Mom. I’m going to be gone in a moment. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I just had to see you.”

“Why can’t you stay longer?”

He had not answered. Peter had disappeared.

So, she had little hope for this year that it would be a longer visit.

She’d read The Time-Traveler’s Wife when it was released. So much of that book was like her experience with her son. But when she’d mentioned it, he’d said, “No, it’s nothing like that. It might seem random, but your visits are part of a much larger timetable.”

“My visits.” The way he said that, she knew it had more meaning. “You’re the one visiting.”

He’d smiled. “It’s really too complicated to explain. This visit would need to be a lot longer.”

She closed her eyes against the press of pain. It had taken her years to accept Peter was real and that his visits were real. Poor little Peter had lived less than a month. That loss remained a jagged wound in her soul. His first visits —

Her Fitbit’s alarm buzzed, reminding her of the time. She’d set it at his birth time, two thirty-four A.M. He always showed up then. As she pressed the button to stop it, he said, “Hi, Mom.”

Dee started and turned. “Oh, Peter. You scared me.” She laughed. “Right on time.”

He looked great. He came to her and hugged her tight, giving her a kiss as she tried saying, “I didn’t know if you’d make it,” while kissing him back.

“I’ll always make it, Mom,” he said, releasing her.

She drew back. “Let me look at you.” Her eyes brimmed with pride. He was so tall and good-looking, with a lean and athletic body, and beautiful green eyes. It was the best he’d ever looked. He could be a movie star. “You have a beard.”

“I do?” He grinned at her. “When did that happen?”

Dee wasn’t sure if he joked.

Smiling at her, Peter said, “How are you feeling?”

She sighed. “Oh, I’m tired and old. I’m in constant pain.”

That’s not what she wanted to talk about. There wasn’t time for it.

“You want something to eat?” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “Do you have time to sit down?”

Regret spilled into his expression. “No, Mom, I’m sorry. I don’t have the time this year. I tried, but….” He sighed, looking tired.

At least he wasn’t wounded, or older than her. Remembering who he was and what day this was, she said, “Happy birthday, honey. I wanted to say that to you while you were still here.”

“Thank you,” he said, looking past her at the table. He grinned. “Is that black forest cake?”

Nodding, she smiled. “It’s your favorite.”

He nodded back. “Cut me a piece. I’ll take it with me.”

“Really?” she said. “Do we have time to for me to sing happy birthday first?”

“Only if you cut the cake while you sing,” he said, “and you sing really fast.”

She rushed to do so. “I put everything out, just in case there was time.” Picking up the knife, she sang, “Happy birthday — ”

She stopped as she looked for him.

He was gone.

“Happy birthday, son,” she said to the empty room. “Happy birthday.”

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