Listen to this. This video presents us with the results of a beautiful, beautiful mind at work, probably one of the greatest minds ever, communicating as only it can, delivering such beautiful words. It’s probably, and I don’t offer this lightly, no, I do not, but this is probably one of the greatest Offal Office demonstrations of thinking and speaking ever made in the history of the entire world, in the history of the entire universe.
PINO TACO is speaking on the matter of burning the U.S. flag. His grasp of history and rhetoric is so beautiful, it’s amazing. If I was there, I would tell him, “Mister President, that is one of the greatest and most beautiful speeches I’ve ever heard.”
Well, except, of course, in a pre-school class. I have heard pre-school children make more sense and do it more beautifully. Many children just learning to speak make more beautiful speeches asking for a glass of water. They make more sense and enunciate more clearly than this blithering dolt in the Offal Office.
When it comes to speaking, Donald Trump is not John F. Kennedy. Nor is he Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Abraham Lincoln. He will never be known as a great thinker. Nor will he ever be known as a great orator. He will, as this speech demonstrates, be perpetually derided and ridiculed as a bumbling bloviator except for the legions who pucker up and bend over to kiss his ass.
Oh, BTW, shortly after Trump fumbled through his wilted thought salad, someone burned a U.S. flag. The person was arrested for starting a fire, but not for burning the flag.
We’re back home. Vacation is over. Taps was played at midnight to signify the last vacay day was done.
My wife reports she had a great bath and great night’s sleep. She prefers her own fixtures and bed. I slept well at both places. This place is far noisier. By 8 AM, garbage trucks, lawn equipment, and woodchippers were eagerly stressing the silence with their grinding, whirling, and groaning. I heard people walking by on the street speaking. One told her friend about their other friend’s birthday. Another woman was on her cell telling the neighborhood that her car was in the shop and needed a new starter, with additional complaints about this car, a Honda Civic. Airplanes, probably looking for lightning fires, droned overhead. Dogs and crows kept up commentary. Maybe my wife missed all the noise.
Hearing my wife speak about me, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I slept well. From her tales, my superpower is the ability to sleep anywhere, through anything.
It’s now Twozda. We’ll be lowering the flag on another month of 2025 soon, as this is August 26, 2025. It’ll be in the upper 90s here in Ashlandia.
I wish we were lowering the flag on Trump and his administration. The Offal Office dunce keeps displaying his tyrannical streak and wide-ranging ignorance. He can speak ignorantly about everything and anything, doing so eagerly and willingly at every fart of the wind. States have no rights unless they fall in line with his corkscrew thinking. In his latest attacks on our checks and balances, he and his administration sued judges because they keep ruling against him. This, according to them, is bad, because he is the POTUS. Man, that sickens and shames me to write that. Had to swallow some breakfast back down. The way he acts and from his representatives’ speech, they lack interest or comprehension in the three branches of the Federal government. Trump as POTUS is the only Federal office, and Trump as POTUS is the only person with any skills or leadership, to hear them tell it. To the rest of us, he has no skills, and his leadership is like a turd swirling down the toilet’s throat when the commode is flushed.
Papi the magnificent ginger boi who graces me with his presence cheered me up this AM. Chirps and purrs were exchanged with treats and petting. What a sweetheart. I credit him with setting me right and reminding me to live in the moment. The reminder stirred The Neurons to dig into their chambers and pull up a 2018 song by Portugal. The Man called “Live in the Moment”. As it played in the morning mental music stream, I pet my boi and sang along to him. He quickly bored of this and crossed the room to settle down and watch me from a more comfortable distance.
Coffee has restored me to the moment. Hope grace and peace feed your moments today and every day. Here we go again. Cheers
Home is underfoot again. All is as expected and hoped for upon return. Nobody missing, nuttin’ burned down, etc.
Going from the Oregon’s coast 62 F offering to 100 F at home demanded adjustments. From the booming waves crashing like the soft thud of small, distant mortar shelling to here and now’s thundering mutter and sullen air invited mental wow and gosh darn reactions. I’m a little down on my return for a myriad of private reason, mostly induced by churn about life, changes, and aging. I acknowledge my life has been decent and some carry way heavier loads. That’s all logic, though. This is emotional afterbirth. They might come from the same slice of existence but they’re born and live differently.
For the record, today is Munda, August 25, 2025. A friend just announced her husband has been diagnosed with liver, brain, and lung cancer. Triple yikes. Two of the other four with me on vacay battle cancer. My wife battles her autoimmune disease. She aches and fights against being cold. We slept with the heat on at 70 F on the coast. Weirdly, despite my health issues, I seemed to be the healthiest and most energetic of the vacationing sextet.
My sista sent photos of Mom’s new addition. Completion comes soon. Other changes are being contemplated, like shifting the tub out of the first-floor bathroom and putting the washer and dryer in there. It make sense although it doesn’t seem like it overlooks any real long-term needs, problems, and plans. Her beau has lost another five, and now weighs 145 pounds, down by forty pounds. The prognosis for him is dimming.
I see the connections emergin’: like others, I’m losing friends and relatives at a turbulent rate.
Doesn’t help that we returned to news stories that basically paint Trump as convinced that he can do what he wants, because he’s prez. Double standards help stoke my GRRRRRRRR reflex. Like, he’s firing someone (Lisa Cook) because of mortgage fraud allegations? Aren’t there several books about Trump and his financial fairyland tales?
He lies about every effing matter and isn’t subtle. More GRRRRRRing arises from so many GOPers and MAGAteers bending over with glee as the nation they profess to love is destroyed from within.
Example of Trump lies: he claims states and cities led by Democrats are bastions of violent crime and lies that violent crimes don’t exist in ‘red states/cities’ — those led by Republicans — is low or non-existent. Facts, evidence, and history displays the truth.
Today, Der Neurons introduced “Hometown Glory” by Adele. This was a byproduct of both thinking about going home to Ashlandia but also reflecting on things happening ‘back home’ where Mom lives. Where Mom lives always seems like home.
Hope your day was filled with grace and peace. We’re unpacked. The laundry is done. Dinner is eaten. A long day, which was also a short one, is over. That’s the nature of vacation dayz. Cheers
We are socked in with fog in Yachats. No blue sky or sunshine has made their whereabouts known. 57 F now, a high of 65 F has been proclaimed as an afternoon promise. All this is much different from yesterday. Guess we were getting spoiled and things needed to be changed.
We played rousing and enthusiastic Mexican Train last night. The domino game has us enthralled. I was leading until like four hands from the end. Then my friend surged ahead and beat me by a few points. Nevertheless, I was delighted with winning four rounds. Gave me such a high.
After discussing politics and health matters, “Reflections of My Life” from 1970 was brought up into the morning mental music stream by The Neurons. Marmalade wrote and performed the reflective soft rock song. The group had other hits but I never owned any of their albums.
I stayed hooked on those lines, “The world is a bad place, a terrible place to live, oh, but I don’t want to die.” Sums up a lot of the inherent conflict in our many attitudes about life, death, commerce, and politics.
We’re planning a road trip up the road to the aquarium and greater coast exploration. Breakfast is being finished. We’re talking about a friend’s recent fast-food visit. He went into order and encountered a machine asking him for his order. A voice announced it was ready. He picked it up from a racked cart. Never encountered a person, which bummed him. He then went through the drive-thru next time. One person was encountered, to accept payment. I shared my imagination’s output: robotic arms putting the order together in the back, delivering a bag of food to a conveyor belt that carries it out to the customer.
I’m moving on wings of coffee. Hope grace and peace find a way to carry you through the day. Cheers
And the sky is a hazy shade of summer. Good morning from Yachats on the Oregon coast, where it’s 56 F with a marine layer blending blues and grays with the sky and the Pacific. Sunshine has roared over the eastern mountains. We don’t know where today’s battle between weather elements will take us. Yesterday was sharply clear all day long with a sunset unfettered by a marine layer. Forecasts yesterday were teasing us with suggestions that today’s high would find 70 F. Now they’re saying that it isn’t going past 65 F…again.
Ocean splash booms are a familiar these days, but a coverlet of fresh silence stays on us. I’ve not heard a train, siren, helicopter, or aircraft in many sleeps. All are usual sidekicks to every mundane venture outside the house door where we live in semi-rural, semi-urban southern Oregon. Serenity now.
News was shut out like a bad smell yesterday. Too much sunshine and good vibes distracting us, at least for one fortunate day. I did see that a judge ruled that Abina Habba is not lawfully serving as a judge. His ruling is not being enforced to allow the usual appeals. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear later that the judge’s observations about procedures being flouted and requirements ignored is waved away like a gnat annoying a MAGA ear.
Today’s song is “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. It’s our friends’ 34th anniversary. He and she recounted courtship tales and followed up with wedding day memories. She related that they kicked off their fancy wedding duds and played volleyball in the sand. That was an appropriate homage to how they hooked up, by noticing one another on the volleyball court. Anyway, The Neurons, being the jerks they are, heard all this and summoned “White Wedding”. This is a fascinating acoustic version.
May grace and peace hold and keep you. I’m depending on coffee once again. Onward and upward, here we go. Cheers
Greetings from Yachats (which is pronounced just as it appears, with a silent ‘c’: ya-hots — which isn’t how it appears), where a relaxed but busy Pacific studies the land and plots their moves under a light marine layer. Presently 56 F, it’s gonna be 66 F and sunny.
I have the dining room to myself so I’m typing away while I can. Everyone else is asleep, save my wife, who is down in our room doing her dressing and hair thing. That takes some time. Three couples are sharing a huge place. I think two more couples could stay here and barely be noticed. But while the house is big, with three floors, bordering on fancy and luxurious, it needs some updating and repair routines. That big fancy stainless steel frig doesn’t deploy ice and water as it should. The heating controls are hit and miss. The oven and stove top are ancient and wonky. We have an ensuite arrangement but the tub can’t hold water. Then there’s the dealio of utensils and cookware; there’s barely enough to prep and serve one meal. Like, WTF? Serious feedback is being compiled. It is all first-world whining, of course.
Read, of course, about Trump’s continuing overreach, sending in more troops to DC as he and the GOP make like strongarm dictators. I think the jackasses are overreaching, myself. I’m sure Trump hopes to cut off the voting apparatus so he can ignore the midterms, but we the economy trashing, the Epstein Files hanging over his head, his increasing grift and lawlessness, that ridiculous dog and pony show with Putin, his whining to the Nobel committee, and his dictator moves, I think the majority of U.S. citizens are already ready to cancel the season on this mango clown.
Haven’t heard much about Trump and Epstein today but haven’t been deep into the news. I can’t believe that Trump has already forgotten his BFC (best fucking criminal). I’ll post a photo to remind everyone.
Today’s music comes from vintage shopping. My wife loves going into used good places. St. Vincent’s, consignment store, Goodwills, etc. She can cruise those aisles, eyeing those things all day. I’m ready to depart the door in seven point five seconds. Anyway, as I walked around, trying to be patient in one of those places, up comes the Marshall Tucker Band with “Heard It In A Love Song” from 1977. The Neurons excitedly shouted, “We know this song!” So did everyone else in the store. Amazing how many folks were humming along or softly singing that chorus. The Neurons were so taken with the display that they kept the tune playing in my head for many more hours, and refreshed it in the morning mental music stream. Recognizing the situation, I know the only way to get The Neurons to release it from their grubby little hold is to put it out to the world and infect others. Once I, the carrier, do that, then the song leaves my head. I don’t know why; that’s just how it works.
Coffee is applying its black magic to my bod. Time to drift out toward the ocean. May peace and grace find you today and on all days. Cheers
Early morning’s bruised sky promised rain in Ashlandia. Within an hour, that threat evaporated. With sunshine, we were still buried in the 60s F. At that point we were packing the car. Papi brought his floof skills to the scene, silently inspecting every movement and bag. The floofsitter arrived on scheduled at 10 AM. Watching her come in the house, Papi watched her from the living room’s far end. After we exchanged greetings, she said with happiness, “There he is. There’s Papi.” Papi stood, stretched, and left the house. We left a few minutes later.
About four hours of driving had us at last on the Oregon coast, cruising into Florence in the mid-afternoon. Traffic was light although an aggro driver had us exchanging commentary and watching this tailgating driver diving in and out, cutting people off to get one vehicle ahead in a parade of vehicles. Stupid stacked on stupid. Once to Florence, we enjoyed hot sunshine and warm, cloudy day.
Other than discussions about Trump meeting Putin and more signs that the economy was heading downhill with increasing speed, it was a news free day. Now we sit in our room, watching the tide come in, waiting for sunset. What time will sunset be? One source pegs it at 8:02 while another says 8:18 and a third declares sunset will be at 8:30, all in PM. They do agree that high tide is coming in at 8:02 PM. We sit and watch and wait, me with a beer in hand.
Today song comes from discussing the tide time. Once The Neurons heard me think ‘tide’, they summoned Blondie’s 1980 new-wave cover of “The Tide Is High” to the mental music stream. I’m not familiar with the original offering.
Beer has breached my body and I’m turning to the mellow side. May the mellowness find and hold us all. Cheers
Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover. They are converting the government into their private slush fund and just passed the largest wealth giveaway in the history of the US. The money they take from working families, they put in billionaires’ pockets and set aside to fund a private army of ICE agents.
What companies are particularly Trump friendly? The New Republic has an article about the Trump regime rating companies. In a classic pay-to-play move that corrupt governments like to employ, Trump rates companies as strong when they’re willing to support Trump and do his bidding. Some of those companies: Uber, DoorDash, United, Delta, AT&T, Cisco, Airlines for America, and the Steel Manufacturers Association, according to Axios.
Cool rain commences. It’s Satyrda, August 18, 2025. 72 F, we’re two degrees short of our expected high.
Papi loves this weather. The back door is open and the ginger floof makes it his territory. Lounging there, he can monitor us and the outside, grooming after breakfast.
We’re on final vacay prep. I take my ‘puter, so I’ll post but less often and more inconsistently. We’re there mainly for the ocean’s influence. That’d be the Pacific. Our rental place is a few hundred walkable yards from where the ocean beats the rocks and sprays mist the air. The floofsitter will be staying in our house, as her place has some repairs going on. She and Papi get along quite well. I trust the situation in her hands.
I see that Trump hit the trifecta with wholesale vegetable prices in July. Stories I’ve read say the veggie prices jumped over 39 percent.
What led to this? Well, a trio of issues, mainly. One, unpredictable weather, you know, like the increasingly erratic weather caused by climate change, which Trump claims is fake news because he and his supporters are either too dense to understand it, or they view it as a siphon on profits, and without money, life has little meaning for ’em, outside of hatred.
The second cause for the wholesale price jump was cited as labor shortages. That was predicted loudly and continually by anyone with a brain larger than a pea who has paid attention what goes on in the U.S. These labor shortages are directly attributed to Trump’s ICE disappearance policies and heavy-handed gestapo strategy.
The final nail in the almost 40 percent price increase was Trump’s tariffs. Again, very predictable except to the mango clown waddling around the Offal Office and his simpering minions.
Now, on the right, they like to claim that the labor shortage isn’t that bad. That ‘Murican will take over those migrant jobs. They love fables like that. They also bulk up their reasoning with claims that machinery now does most of the vegetable harvesting. While true that machines are used in many circumstances, hand-picking is needed for anything that’s going farm to table. Machines are used for harvesting veggies and fruits destined for canning and animal feed.
This news came from the BLS. Trump just fired that agency’s leader after the downward revision of labor for the previous two months, information which showed that the economy is going down the toilet. Trump hates info like that, so someone over at BLS is gonna get their head handed to them.
The bad economic news also comes on the heels of the Putin and Trump talks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s sucking up and lack of results make him look weak, and Putin ably handled him. Net result: Trump won nothing but praise from Putin for being a victim. Trump loves believing he’s a victim, one of the most unfairly treated people in the world, so he ate that shit up with a large spoon.
Shame, though. All this bad press has diminished the focus on the Epstein Files, and how deep Trump was in with Epstein. His lack of efforts to release the files and irritation whenever Epstein gets mentioned, coupled with his delicate handling of the felon named Maxwell, leads many to think that Trump is bigly mentioned in that file, and not in good ways.
Donald Trump with his buddy, the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
Today’s music is brought to you by my sister. She mentioned yellow on a social media platform, sharing a post asking, “Who is your yellow?” A yellow is a person who brings joy into your life without trying. When I read that, The Neurons pumped up “Yellow” by Coldplay in the morning mental music stream. So here we are.
Coffee is making itself at home among my Neurons. Getting ready to pounce on another day. Hope peace and grace carry you on to the best days you can live. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 