Tag: cynicism

Sundaz Theme Music

Gray, wet, cold. We haven’t even officially started winter and I’m already getting tired of it. One wag said, “Of course, we’ve started winter. It’s December.” I responded with words about the equinox. They rolled their eyes. How dare they.

It’s Sunda, December 7, 2025. 35 degrees F. Gonna be 50 F, the masters of weather tell us through Alexa. I have a problem with that. Last night, I asked Alexa about the weather. She told me the low would be 40. That didn’t strike me as believable so I asked her what the temperature would be at 6 AM. “Forty degrees,” Alexa asserted.

Imagine my reaction when it was below 40 degrees at eight AM. I said, “Alexa, what’s the weather for today?”

“Right now in Ashland it’s thirty-five degrees. Today’s low will be forty degrees with intermittent clouds. The high will be fifty degrees.”

Blatantly lying to me, just like the Trump Regime. “Alexa,” I said, “How can the low for today be forty degrees when it’s five degrees colder than that right now?” Alexa mumbled on about how she didn’t know what I was talking about and then mocked the way I asked the question.

Today’s song is “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy”. It’s a rocker by the red rocker, Sammy Hagar. Came about when my wife asked me if she could interrupt what I was doing to share something with me. “Go ahead,” I replied. “I don’t mind.” That was even though I did mind because I was reading something and deep into thinking about it and would probably need to start reading it all over again because I haven’t had coffee yet and The Neurons were mumbling, “What are those black things on the screen? What are they? I think I’ve…does anyone have a doughnut?”

Then The Neurons hooked up on the words, “I don’t mind,” and click, “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” was playing in the morning mental music stream. Song came out in 1983. Consulting The Neurons, that’s like over forty years ago. I had a friend back then who thought this was the only good Sammy Hagar song he’d put out. He’d turn this one up but change the channel on any other SH offering. When SH joined Van Halen, he declared with deep gloom, “This is the end of them.” He could be so chipper!

Read something about some inane thing Trump said. The press shook their heads. Other liberals grrrrrowled and mocked and raged, etc. At this point, I feel like Heritage Foundation and soulless GOP zombies have taken over the Trump Regime. He’s just a mouthpiece. Way Trump speaks in public these days, it doesn’t seem like much mind remains. Sad in its way, as it’s probably dementia. I don’t want that for anyone but especially someone with control over nukes, someone who others let wander around without oversight and supervision. Seems like the regime lets Trump out to talk and walk in the way that people use toys to entertain their pets or plop their children down in front of a television with a movie to keep them quiet and preoccupied while everything the nation built since the start is torn down. Except the military and police. Yes, I’m a cynic and pessimist at this point. Gimme coffee, stat!

Gonna go make my coffee so I can shut The Neurons up. Hope peace and grace, etc. Here we go. Cheers

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Wenzdaz Theme Music

Blue sky. I see blue sky and sunshine. It looks so different today, Wenzda, November 19, 2025, then it did on Twozda, November 18, 2025. It’s only 40 F out under that blue sky and sunshine. Fall’s full impact has arrived as we shift toward winter. Dead leaves are browning, curling up and resting everywhere, like sayin’, done. Gonna be up to 50 F, so wear shorts.

Today’s song is one by The Wallflowers called “The Difference”. The Neurons gifted it to me because I was walking through the house and thought, something looks different. Then I stopped and puzzled through WTH looks different. Nothing came to mind but as I walked off, The Neurons began “The Difference” in the morning mental music stream.

Off I go to another medical appointment, some ultrasound for this or that, or maybe the other. One of those NPO things. I’m hungry and thirsty and keep automatically reaching for things to put into my mouth, forcing me to chastise myself, don’t eat that! Don’t drink that. Put that down! Bad boy.

I’ve been thinking about the economic bubble we’re in. This is the AI bubble. Look how much investment is attached to it. It’d driving employment, production, and growth plans. Big thing about it that I can see is that companies like Amazon are salivating over the idea of hiring less people. The GOP, especially Trump, is drooling over this. I guess they’re thinking, let’s use AI to hire less people so we can build more things that less people can afford, thereby increasing the wealth gap yet more.

Of course, others think, we’ll use AI and its predictive and analytical processes to more precisely predict weather! Except the Trump Regime cratered many of the satellites used in weather forecasting. He’s gonna turn them over to Musk’s companies. It feels like a bad idea, like it goes against that proverb, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Seems like as robotic manufacturing and AI management grows, less people will be working and more people will need assistance for things like food, medicine, and housing. As the GOP doesn’t want to give those things, it feels like we’ll then have greater homelessness, more sickness, and higher levels of deprivation and starving. But given that the GOP is erecting the means for the wealthy to live isolated and insulated from the masses, most of them won’t know. They don’t care but not knowing will help them sleep easier, and don’t we all want the wealthy to rest easy? Isn’t that why we cut them deals on their taxes and give them freebies, hmmm?

Sorry, the inner cynic broke free of his moorings and tossed around on the cynical sea. On to other things. May peace and grace find you, if you can afford it. Way it seems to be going, only those who can afford it will know peace and grace. At least I have coffee. Thank dog Trump lowered the tariffs that he raised on it, right? Of course, that doesn’t offset all the other things driving up the costs of food and coffee, does it? But what do we know? I know; let’s build some AI so we can ask it what we need to do. Then we can ask AI what it thinks of tax cuts for the wealthy, tariffs on imported goods, using the military on your own citizens, separation of church and state, climate change, things like that. Man, it’s getting to look like a fugly future.

Wish I could sip some coffee and mutter to myself over this, grumble grumble. Have a better one. Cheers

1

Fridaz Theme Music

Say, are we are the moors? Gloomy fog is dulling the morning’s edge. Tattered golden leaves brown, slumping and slipping, waiting for their day’s end. Today’s present, high, and low come in a compact range of 47, 53, and 40 degrees F. Without sunshine bursting through the windows, the house feels cold and listless. Here’s a photo of an early August morning in Yachats as counterbalance.

Mom’s continued improvement keeps reaching new heights. Frank’s death really shook her into a stumbling, falling, thoughtless wreck. I’m so happy sis noticed and moved her. Mom was ready to move by then, having experienced days of relative solitude and helplessness. One amusing sidebar to this whole tale. While I was over collecting papers and tidying, I came across a wooden box full of coins. Knowing Mom, I knew she’d be worried about it and took it to her. When I showed it to my sister, she said, “Yes, Mom was asking about her box of coins.” Sis cashed in it for almost $200. Cracked me up to see her still saving her coins like that. So Mom.

Mom & Frank, circa 20 years ago, Florida. She would have been ’bout 70, and he was ’bout 75.

The Neurons surprised me today with a beat from my early rock ‘n roll years. Looking out into the fog brought “Into the Sun” by Grand Funk Railroad into the morning mental music stream. With its simple progressions, you can see why it was one of the first songs I learned to decently play. Video of this early rock and its style fires up The Neurons. It’s an upbeat song, too, about better days ahead.

Ate oatmeal today, and apple sauce and tapioca pudding last night. Progress!

I have been reading about politics and news. Many disturbing trends continue under the Trump Regime. The economy and voters are both reacting in negative ways. Trump will probably double down and get crueler. He thinks he’s inflicting severe damage on blue voters and believes that red voters will endure despite their sacrifices and hang with him. I think that base is smaller and weaker than he realizes. Affordability, not inflation and not prices, are the new watchwords, and affordability is falling fast. Meanwhile, the Epstein Shutdown slogs on, now doing far more harm than good. Coupled with the pressures that AI is putting on the infrastructure, especially the power grid, and the job market — see the record layoffs reported by Challenger — disaster is looming. We are circling the Trump drain. I know I’ve been saying that since the beginning. It’s not been as fast as I thought it would be; part of that was that some countries and stores were offsetting tariff increases by sucking them up. That was never sustainable. Nothing I see emerging from this current mess changes my mind. One key that Trump and his Project 2025 minions don’t appreciate is the economic workhorse that the Federal government is. As it slows, it casts a shadow across the nation. With air travel now also impacted, airlines will see less revenue, pay less taxes, and might be forced to reduce staffs.

Smirking BFFs, J. Epstein and D.J. Trump, so happy together.

The bogus Walmart comparison about Thanksgiving for 2024 compared to 2025 does nothing. Critical thinkers already noted that there were far fewer items in the cart. Yes, classic Trump Republicanism: do more, spend more, and get less value for your dollar. Classic enshittification. I note that the red publications reported Trump’s claim almost verbatim. No critical thinker there, or the falsehoods will be on full display.

I saw that Fox News’s selection of Melania Trump as the ‘Patriot of the Year’. Sure demonstrates their cynicism. By the words and deeds, they so devalue patriotism that it’s now a full joke. Sadly, MAGA will probably not see how the joke is on them.

This was what the first criminal said when accepting the award.

“Let’s embrace the spirit of ambition. Let’s celebrate everyone who dares to think differently. For it is these courageous Americans who are the heartbeat of our civilization.”

It’d be ironic if she and Trump and MAGAland had any self-awareness that she’s ‘celebrating everyone who dares to think differently’ while the Trump Regime works so hard to whitewash all history and success and cancel anyone who was or is different, such as blacks, Muslims, women, gays, trans…well, you get it.

Have the best day you can. Many peace and grace will do a pop in on you. Off to my first cuppa coffee in a few. Cheers

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Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts

My Inner Cynic cracked their eyes opened and cackled. “Huh.”

“What?” I asked.

“I just thought of something.”

That wasn’t news. The Inner Cynic thinks of something two, three hundred times a day. Yet, here they are, saying it like it was important news.

Honestly, I was annoyed. I’d gone back to an article pointed out by Nan the other day: The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why. After reading it lightly once, I was reading it again as The Neurons pondered the articles’ points, such as this one.

Our starting point is the hypothesis that prejudice is fueled more by aggressiveness than by submissiveness, and that it is accompanied by the wish for a domineering leader who will punish the “undeserving.” This wish is clearly authoritarian in the original sense, but we give the notion of authoritarianism a fresh spin. In contrast to most of the established theories, we posit that people with authoritarian tendencies follow domineering leaders less for the pleasure of submission than for the pleasure of forcing moral outsiders to submit. Vicarious participation in the domination and punishment of out-groups is a core part of the authoritarian wish to follow a domineering leader. Hence, to activate this wish, leaders must be punitive and intolerant. Authoritarianism is not the wish to follow any and every authority but, rather, the wish to support a strong and determined authority who will “crush evil and take us back to our true path.” Authorities who reject intolerance are anathema, and must be punished themselves.

Yes, I understood that. Trump obviously and clearly sharply embraced the idea. It’s one of his central policy pillars, sharing space with “Love and obey me,” “Don’t trust Democrats,” “Facts are fake news and don’t trust the media,” “Fuck you, I’m getting mine,” and “Violence is peace.”

The inner cynic said, “Well, what if Trump is blustering and threatening those other countries to provoke them back into attacking us?” As The Neurons stewed on this, the Inner Cynic continued, “You keep thinking that Trump hasn’t learned lessons from the history. But that’s on his own. The Heritage Foundation is propping him up and guiding him. They know history. They know how popular George W. Bush became after terrorists attacked the United States on 9/11. His approval ratings shot up overnight. Then almost everyone rolled over to give him (and Dick Cheney) whatever they wanted in the name of patriotism.”

“Yes, and that culminated in those disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The Inner Cynic chortled. “Yes, and you remember that. You also remember that you were furious when revelations came out later about how the United States was conned into war. You were mad because you saw it coming and predicted it. Then people responded to the revelations with statements like, ‘they fooled us all.'”

“That’s right. They didn’t fool us all. I wasn’t alone in that. I was following Krugman, Olbermann, and other, even Colin Powell, who was against the war before he was for it. That Bush Administration was using information from the intel source known as curveball because he was always lying, for god’s sake. People were acting like brainless zombies.”

“That’s the point, though. How many Americans will remember that crap? You pointed out that the terrorist attacks were a result of failed American policy where we secretly killed people and manipulated others in secret.”

“Again, that wasn’t me, I just — “

“Tut, tut,” my Inner Cynic interrupted. “Let me finish. The point, to finish, is that you think Trump is doing the same thing without realizing what happened before.”

“Right. Because Trump is pretty damn dim.”

“Yes, but the Heritage Foundation folks aren’t. They’re the ones advising, guiding, and goading him. They’re the ones who put stupid, unprincipled people in charge of various departments, people like Noem, Hegseth, Kennedy, Bessent, Miller, Patel, who will do whatever the fuck Trump orders, regardless of law, logic, and precedence.

“There is a reason why there are no guard rails in 47’s Regime. And there’s a reason for the constant chaos and impulsiveness.

“And there’s a reason for his saber rattling.”

Closing their eyes, the Inner Cynic sat back. “And that’s why Trump doesn’t care about falling approval ratings. That’s why he doesn’t give a shit about the laws, the government shutdown, starvation, or inflation. Why he doesn’t care about accountability. He’s going to keep attacking other groups and nations with limited military force until one of them makes the mistake of attacking us back, giving him a firm reason to unleash the full force of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. And Congress will approve it because the homeland was attacked, and the MAGAts will roar their approval, and all those other low-informed people who don’t pay attention will roar right along with them.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” I answered.

The Inner Cynic smiled. “We’ll see.”

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Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Peter Sage shared a guest post on his site. Peter is a regular liberal. Alan DeBoer is a wealthy Republican. DeBoer wrote the post with AI’s help.

I’m familiar with Alan DeBoer. As an Ashland resident, I’ve met him a few times. He always struck me as a smooth, smiling, and conniving businessman, typical of many of that ilk, furthering their own wealth while singing the right notes about democracy and the environment here in blue Ashlandia. He says he wants money out of politics but he supports politicians who make no moves to get money out of politics. He doesn’t think gun control can be done and supports Trump, who stands adamantly against gun control. In a 2022 Op-Ed piece, Alan DeBoer decried the state of our education system.

Education is not going in the right direction. Schools are separating students by beliefs. We have stopped teaching how to solve problems and suppress independent thinking while having less tolerance for opposing opinions. Shouldn’t we teach how to have a positive conversation while respecting different opinions?

Yet, he supports Trump. Trump, who champions a twisted form of Christianity while oppressing every other religion. DeBoer supports Trump even as Trump methodically attacks universities and colleges and dismantles the education system. DeBoer supports Trump even as Trump polarizes the voting body by viciously attacking anyone who disagrees with him, using the levers of government to suppress free speech and opposition. With Trump as their leader, the GOP is working hard to separate students by economic class and race through private vouchers. Trump tacitly supports this by not doing anything about it.

That is so Che Guevara, n’est pas?

Here is Sage’s post title for the DeBoer guest spot:

What if Trump isn’t Hitler?

What if he is more like Che Guevara, a revolutionary disrupter taking on entrenched elites on behalf of oppressed people?

I was simultaneously ready to howl with laughter at DeBoer’s incredibly inane premise, but sickened and disgusted. One DeBoer paragraph leaped out with its simplistic naiveite.

Decades from now, historians will look back and weigh not only Trump’s rhetoric but also his policies. Among these, his tax reform is likely to stand out. While critics often characterized it as a gift to corporations, the reality is that millions of lower- and middle-income households saw relief through reduced income tax rates, a doubled standard deduction, and expanded child tax credits. For working families, this meant more money in their paychecks and greater flexibility to support themselves — hardly the mark of a leader indifferent to ordinary citizens.

DeBoer’s piece brought out my Sarcastic Neurons. Why, sure, Alan, Trump is a liberator of ordinary citizens. That’s why he’s ignoring court rulings, right? Due process? That’s for the elites. Disappearing people off streets? That’s to make it better for the ‘oppressed’, right? Trying to end mail-in ballots, why that’s surely a good thing for the oppressed and democracy, isn’t it? Cause making it harder to vote and more difficult for your vote to be counted will clear the way for the oppressed. Trump is such a champion of the poor and oppressed, he’s cutting healthcare for them. Take that, elite evil doers!

And I’m absolutely sure that $200 child tax credit will go a long way to cope with rising prices that come from Trump’s combo of tariffs and trade wars.

Trump is whitewashing history. He and DeBoer must think that People of Color are part of the elites running things. Why, all those billionaires on the Trump’s cabinet are champions of the oppressed. That’s why they’re billionaires: they’re hoarding money to save oppressed people from having any. That’s ’cause these billionaires know that money is the root of all evil. They’re wealthy not for themselves but to save the rest.

That stuff about separation of church and state, and the idea that all people are created equal, all that’s just elitism offered by the original elitists, the nation’s founders. Yeah, I know, the founders were flawed individuals, too. Some of them had some damn good ideas, though, like protecting individual freedoms, instilling checks and balances to protect the government from itself, trying protect the nation from destruction that religions and bankers can cause. Trump’s actions are tearing down these protections. Alan, do you really think the oppressed will benefit from that?

Using troops against our own citizens is a clear Che Guevara move. Likewise, building new prisons like that pathetic Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. Trump makes fantastic claims about being a man of peace after he bombs another country and bloviates about ending ten wars without coherently explaining what conflicts or how he ended them. Meanwhile, he accused Ukraine of being the aggressor in their war with Russia, ignoring Russia’s attack and invasion, withheld funding from Ukraine for months, and hasn’t ended that war after boasting that he’d do in the first 24 hours of his administration.

DeBoer doesn’t address any of this behavior. Naturally, DeBoer says nothing about the growing inflation or the impact of the tariffs, or the cuts to the IRS, HHS, VA, Weather Service, or Parks Services, cuts which undermine the government’s ability to maintain and serve. DeBoer clearly views Trump’s activities through a narrow rose-colored prism that lets him see some things that Trump is doing as wonderful for the people, while filtering out all of the rest.

I don’t think that history will view Trump through that same prism.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

I cleaned the kitty litter today. The excavated taters were shoveled into a paper bag. I then went through the house with the bag of kitty litter to dump it into the trash. As I went, I held the bag up and called out, “Ho ho ho, merry Thanksgiving.”

I thought it was good symblism for the holiday season upon us.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: speculativitis

It feels like a diluted summer day. An archapelago of gray fuzzed small white clouds spill across the sky. Today’s blue is diluted into a pale hue. Weirdly feels like rain is possible in the cold mountain air shouldering me through the window. But it’s 70 F at my house and will top off at 99 F.

Of course, summer is on its heels. Autumn is crowding in again. This is Friday, September 6, 2024. Diluted, the door is also pregnant with a sense of finality. I don’t know what pseudo psycho-quantum vibes has me feeling that.

I read my fill of the story about the Apalachee school shooting. The alarm buttons in the IDs. The congratulations that the system worked and kept the loss of life down, spoken without irony. The continued reporting that the system failed because the kid had been investigated by the FBI who couldn’t tie him to the social media threats he’d previously made about carrying out a school shooting. The later news that the father had been arrested for his role after giving his son the murder weapon for a gift — after the child had been investigated for making the threats.

The wonder, the murder weapon was a Christmas present. Ho, ho, fucking, ho. Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. Anyone care to bet that it was part of a Black Friday special? How sinisterly ugly is that?

The wonder, what were the dynamics in that household, with the kid allegedly making these threats and also apparently asking for mental health help, and Dad giving his boy, a troubled 14 year old, a killing machine? The wonder, what is the truth, and will this shit ever change?

Bet there are a lot of hopes and prayers being offered the family of the dead. They can take those hopes and prayers and add five dollars and have a coffee at Starbucks as they grieve.

All this has The Neurons playing “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads in the morning mental music stream (Trademark cracked). The 1981 song has a refrain that goes, “Same as it ever was. Same it ever was.”

You get where I’m coming from. I mean, mass shootings are a recurring part of the U.S. news scene. And let’s not overlook the other shootings. Children accidently killing themselves or another child because they found Mommy’s gun.

Let’s not overlook how frequently police officers are being ambushed and killed with firearms.

Yeah, but we don’t have a problem. Thoughts and prayers will take care of that shit.

Meanwhile, I’d read of Don Old Trump’s response to a child care question. This is part of it:

“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to. But they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country.“

And nothing in the rest of the answer will stop the swirl of ‘what is he talking about’ that’s circulating around many people’s head.

Also, though, I’m amused by the cognitive dissonance needed for this question to be asked in the first place. Project 2025’s architects wants women to return to the home and take care of the family. She won’t be working; ergo, child care isn’t needed in their heads. Plus, they want to remove barriers against children working. So the child won’t need anyone to take care of them, because Mom will be home, or when the child is old enough, they’ll be at work to help support the family, which will be needed now that Mom doesn’t work.

Asking Trump, which Project 2025 specifically mentions throughout its contents, with many of the authors directly tied to him, what he’s going to do to help with child care costs for working women, demonstrates that some folks just aren’t paying attention.

Hah, same as it ever was, right?

Pause. Or maybe the person asking the question knew and got the answer that they wanted: he’s not thining about it, and is incapable of forming a coherent sentence about it. If so, brava to her.

Alright, let’s roll on. Be strong and stout and positive, and vote blue. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Inconcoffeeiated

Today is Friday, May 24, 24. The door to the four-day Memorial Day weekend has cracked open. While the valley’s high will be about 83 F today, it’s now 69 F under a blue sky marred by sketchy cotton being stretched apart.

Started early today, helping Mom log on to a video call to get her hospital bed approved. Now I’m on the coffee shop spaceship, accepting coffee gifts to pour into my mouth. I’ve found it’s best to drink the coffee. I’ve tried pouring it on me but the results of that aren’t nearly as refreshing.

Tomorrow night, several sisters and I and a BIL are going to Oakmont to watch Pitt Floyd. Then, Sunday is a cookout at another sister’s house. Wednesday is my nephew’s graduation ceremony. Thursday I’m on a manmade bird out of here and winging west.

Today’s music was because The Neurons like a particular set of versus. The Lemon Twigs came out with “Small Victories on Later” back in 2018. The Neurons like these lyrics and have them rotating through the morning mental music stream (Trademark later).

But all is well and all is merry
Even when the times are scary
Every generation is the same
Resulting in this fear illusion
Is a void that breeds confusion
Leading to a population tame

h/t to Genuis.com

Now I can tell you for certain that this song’s place in me head was triggered by my ruminations about politics. The Republicans have evolved this fear-filled message that’s all they’re really running on for over twenty years. No real policies, just fears about what Democrats will do — take your guns, cause inflation, let illegal immigrants in, change your children into something else — a nauseating fabric predicated on baseless conspiracies and consistent lying. “Climate change is fake,” they scream as weather becomes more violent and extreme. GOP leadership responds by changing lies to disallow saying climate change or taking action against climate change. Their supporters respond, “We’re saved. Thank God they outlawed those words and actions. Let’s go make money.”

Meanwhile, Dems are establishing policies, coming up with plans, working with the international community, etc., managing threats against the country, and managing the economy. As those don’t seem to hold most voters attention, they’re now pointing out how the Trump-led is a threat against our democratic republic. Democrats and liberals point out Trump’s many lies, and the growing number of lies the GOP put out there, like the big lie, that the 2020 election was stolen.

It’s bizarrely becoming a war of fear vs fear that reminds me of the old Mad Magazine’s feature, “Spy vs. Spy”.

Enjoy the weather, enjoy the day, enjoy whatever games you play. Enjoy the coffee, enjoy the drink, and try to understand what others think.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

Since retiring from the military in the 1990s, I’ve had health insurance through various Tricare programs, which replaced CHAMPUS. Most recently, my coverage was mandated to be Tricare for Life. It worked well. Of course, to continue using TFL, I was required to sign up for and start paying for Medicare once I became 65 years of age, which happened two years ago. This is a vein of the product called ‘Tricare for Life Medicare’.

I was recently hit with a bill for lab work done earlier this year. The lab bill was $300 and I had to pay $108 of that.

That surprised me. Investigating my benefits, I found that Medicare paid part. I thought TFL would cover the rest, but no; Tricare for Life Medicare doesn’t cover preventative lab work, only such work for life-threatening issues.

After a life of being pushed to be proactive and take preventative measures to find and treat health conditions in early stages, it seems like an odd turn of coverage. Makes me re-think what they were thinking when they called the program ‘Tricare for Life’.

2

Friday’s Wandering Thought

He wondered and worried, would hotel rooms begin emulating air travel pricing, monetizing everything? He wondered if there would be a day when he reserved a room but that doesn’t mean he has a room – just like buying an economy airline ticket or even rental cars (see Seinfeld for more). He can imagine going online to rent a room and being offered upgrades. Ten more dollars for both a bed and chair in the room on top of what you’re paying for a preferred floor and location, size, and view. Twenty-five more for pillows, sheets, and blankets. Go for the Deluxe Room Plus – it includes complimentary coffee and a television, just fifty dollars more.

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