Tag: debate

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sundaylazing

Autumn covered us this morning with a familiar old comforter. Sunshine on changing leaves, cloudy, hazy blue sky, crisp weather ranging from the upper forties (Fahrenheit) at night to today’s high in the low to mid 70s.

Today is Sunday, September 29, 2024.

It’s National Coffee Day in the United States! Like many holidays, its provenance is a little iffy. Coffee is a staple in the United States. Lot of coffee drinkers like me swear by a daily brew or two. The only thing I drink more than coffee is water, and the only drink I enjoy more than coffee is beer. But coffee has less calories and is fat free! Woo hoo! While it has some potential benefits, it comes with potential risks. IMO, the coffee person relationship is more individualized. Either your body works well with coffee or it doesn’t. Think I’ll celebrate as I do every other day, with a cuppa coffee.

BTW, since there’s a coffee-inspired holiday, there are coffee-inspired deals available. USA Today provides a list.

Over on my brain’s political side, my spouse refocused me on a USA Today opinion piece. Written by the notorious Kevin Roberts, it’s titled “Opinion: Harris is wrong about Project 2025. Our plan is good for America.” His final paragraph cracks me up:

“What should be a scandal is the vice president’s attempt to avoid discussions of substantive policy issues. Americans want and deserve a real debate, not vibes.”

Yeah, baby, year, real debate, not vibes. Real debate as Trump and his surrogate, J.D. Vance, spread acknowledged lies about Haitians eating pets in Ohio. Let’s debate that, Roberts.

Will Trump debate the ‘stolen election’ claims he continues to make, even after admitting that he lost the election? The stolen election claims that were thrown out of court over and over again? The efforts to overturn the election that he’s been indicted for?

Let’s have a debate over Trump’s healthcare plan. The one he installed when he was POTUS. *Chortle – yeah, that didn’t happen.* Vaporware has more substance than Trump’s current ‘concept of a plan’.

Let’s debate Trump’s declaration that he’d protect women after the fucking disaster of the Trump-stacked Dobbs decision and its afterbirth on women, their rights, their bodies, and their health. You know, the women who he refers to as ‘bimbos’. The ones he’d grab by the pussy, and Jean Carroll.

Remember this exchange?

Donald Trump: You know and I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach.

Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.

Trump: I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married.

What respect he shows! Such a protector! (Yes, that last was late-morning, coffee-fueled snark.)

Yes, let’s have a debate between Trump and Vice President Harris, Roberts! Oh, we can’t because Trump refuses to debate Harris again because she trounced him the last time so badly that Trump’s feelings remain hurt.

Moving on.

Today’s music was inspired by another’s blog post. Tom MacInnes mentioned April Wine in his fabulous series about rock music. I’ve only featured April Wine here once, six years ago. But after today’s post, The Neurons were stirred to drop “Roller” from 1979 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark limited). I had a Canadian friend serving in the U.S. Air Force with me on Okinawa. April Wine was one of his basic “we’re going to play their music” groups. If you were at his house listening to music, you would hear April Wine sooner or later.

Funny, but thinking on that, several such connections exist through my years of friendships. With Jeff, it was Culture Club. Randy could be depended on to bring out Van Halen, although Boston also came out at his place. Rich in Germany was a Chris Rea advocate while Bobby was apt to crank up Cream. Gene, being more old school, frequently invoked the Grateful Dead. Robert was always bringing in Rush. Such a group of characters. Of course, I was likely to turn up a piece out of Pink Floyd’s catalog.

Stay positive, test negative, remain strong, and lean forward. While you’re at it, could you also vote blue in 2024.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Fallandfell

Today is Thursday, September 12, 2024. A chilly morning here in Ashlandia, the rain has stopped and the sun is crowning over obstacles, trying to toast us a little today. Right now, it’s 54 F, and the high won’t wander much more than the low seventies.

Yesterday was supposed to see us in the upper seventies. We never made that mark at my place. When I was out writing, rain was dumping on the intersection where the coffee shop sits. Like, wow, very cool to see the silver bullets splashing up on the soaked asphalt and cement. Heavy streams built up fast, gushing into sewers. But driving home, just a four minute event, I was quickly out of the rain; we didn’t see that rain event at our place. Weather can be fickle like that.

The cats took to the rain like cats who don’t like water. After some feeble efforts to assert himself as an outdoor animal, Papi stretched out in front of the fireplace. Although it wasn’t on, it has a pilot light when I lit a few days ago, so it emits some heat. He stayed there for hours, deeply asleep. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) on the other hand headed for the bed and sacked out.

Last night at the beer gathering, a small group ended up discussing birds. One asked about robins and their migration habits. Like me, he’d been taught in grade school that robins fly away for the winter. Like many life aspects, it gets more complicated than that. Our retired biology professor recounted that a friend of his did several bird counts at a slough for several years and discoverved exactly where the local robin population went each winter, living off various winter berries.

Other than that, we talked about the election and the debate, and the vice president’s pearl earrings. You now, on the right, they believe those were audio devices, giving Vice President Harris an affair advantage over Trump. That’s why he did so poorly. Because how else could he have done so poorly when she did so well? Yes, that was morning snark, undiluted by coffee.

The Neurons fired up Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble from 1989 in the morning mental music stream (Trademark caught). The song is “Crossfire”. It seemed to come into mind as I gazed across the valley. The air feels like autumn but most of the trees didn’t get the text in this area. And then I just sort of mused about how we were caught between the two seasons. And ‘lo, “Crossfire” began playing. I always particularly enjoyed the lines, “Money tight, nothing for free. Won’t somebody come and rescue me.” Used to sort of identify with it.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote blue in 2024. Breakfast has been consumed; so has some coffee. Time to get up and do things. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: bummed

It’s Friday, Jun 28, 2024. Summery again today, 65 F with blue skies and clouds mixing it up, and 86 F expected as a high.

Last night’s presidential debate sucked. Watching President Biden was like watching your All-Pro quarterback go into a big game and bomb with fumbles, interceptions, and missed throws. Left me asking, what’s going on? There was also a lot of swearing on my end. I’m avoiding news for the moment. I took a big swig of coffee and looked at the news first thing but between stories of death and Pres. Biden’t debate performance, what I saw was putting me off my year.

Shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose, that I dreamed of the end of the world. Well, don’t know if it was the planet’s ending or just human civilization or western civilization. Three dreams, actually. I see three, but the third one was a sequel to the first one after awakening and thinking of the first one.

I ended up musing about escaping after reading and dreaming as I muttered around the kitchen attending breakfast needs for me and the floofs. The Neurons picked up on it and offered Gwen Stefani’s song, “The Sweet Escape” from 2006 to the morning mental music stream (Trademark crashing). The song has the phrase in it, “If I could escape and create my perfect world,” which dovetailed with my thinking’s gist this AM.

Stay positive *cough cough* — yes, I have a lot of gall to put that up there after my negativity fest — and be strong — uh huh, I hear ya’ — and suck it in and Vote Blue in 2024. I gotta get more coffee. Here’s the music. Come on, let’s get going. Cheers

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A Good Question

The Hill has a nice little opinion piece about Donald J. Trump and the Louisiana ten commandments law. That law says that every classroom in the state will display the ten commandments. Many think that Louisiana law violates the separation of church and state establishment clause of our nation’s founding documents.

But The Hill has a great idea: ask Donald Trump if he supports this during the debate, and then, as a first follow up, ask him to name the ten commandments.

Oh, boy what a word salad that would create! We’d hear great a lot. Probably hear, too, that Moses was a great friend of Trump’s, wonderful guy, used to cruise the desert together. We might be regaled by a Trump tale of how Moses wanted Trump to fly him to the flaming bush but Trump talked him out of it.

“Mo,” Trump says, further explaining, “I always called him Mo. All his close friends did, and family, some family, but I believe I’m the one who started calling him Mo. He wasn’t a Moses he was a Mo. Not like the Three Stooges but still. Three Stooges. Funniest comedians ever, so funny, very funny.

“So I told Mo, Mo, think of the optics. I’m very good with optics. I’m great with optics. Some say that I’m the greatest with optics in the world ever. Optics, you know, optics can change people’s impressions of you. It’s true. That’s why, you need to have a brand. Once you have a brand, you protect it. The Trump brand, I established the Trump brand. Very protective of it, very protective, very. Greatest brand in the world, greatest. People voted for me when I ran because they knew the Trump brand.
They knew it. They knew the Trump brand and all the Trump brand stands for. That’s why people trust me. It’s the Trump brand. The Trump brand is one of the most valuable in the world. Ever. I told Lincoln, I didn’t tell him, no, Lincoln was, but if Lincoln had been there, I would have told him, Ab, you need to create a brand. If Ab had created a brand, he’d, they would have never shot him. Democrats shot him. Democrats. Cuz they feared him. Just like they fear me. Because I tell the truth. I tell the truth. Everyone knows I always tell the truth. That’s why I wanted to lock up Hillary. But I never said that. Never said it. Never. I could have locked her up, had every right to, after I won. But I didn’t. That’s why they created the virus, the covfefe virus. The Dems did it. Worked with the Chinese. Secret government. They’re out to take over the world. That’s why they must be stopped. They’re killers. They’ll do anything to stop me. Anything. I receive more threats. If you knew, I’ve been threatened more times than Lincoln. And they killed him. So, you know, that’s a lot of threats. But I’m too tough. Too tough. The generals who worked for me in the White House, they’d tell me every day, sir, you’re so tough. Sir, you’re the toughest son of a bitch we’ve ever seen. Always call me, sir, always call me, sir. Because they respect me for my toughness. I would’ve been a great soldier. Great leader. Natural leader, natural leader. I was a leader when I was a child. People, whenever something went wrong, people would like at me and they would ask, what should we do? You’re a great leader, what should we do? See, they can see that in me. I have an aura of greatness. Also an aura of invisibility. That’s why I know so much. Put on my invisibility aura and people don’t know I’m there. So I eavesdrop on them because they don’t know I’m there because I’m invisible. That’s how I knew the FBI planted documents. I was there but I had my invisibility aura on and they couldn’t see me. They couldn’t see me but I saw. And I heard. So I know what they did.

“Did you know I have an invisibility aura? Let me put it on for you. I’ll put it on right now. See? You can’t see me know, can you? That’s because I’m invisible. But you can see Biden. You can see Joe Biden. He’s standing there, on the other side of the stage. You can see him because he can’t become invisible like I can. That’s why you should vote for me.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: summerpositive

The cats and I agree, it’s a strong sun today, biting my skin with its heat, blinding my eyes (yes, what else would it be blinding — my ears?) with its light. Not supposed to be hot today, just 87 F, and it’s just 67 F now. This is Monday, Jun 24, 2024.

The cats are pratically living in the backyard, slumbering beneath bushes or stretched out, floof-napping in green patches of lawn. They come in to visit me, get fed, and use the litter box, and then dash back out. Reminds me of being a young child in the summers, doing the same with Mom. Except I didn’t use a litter box. Not in those days.

I jest, of course! Spoke with Dad yesterday. He’s down. They — the omniscient they here is the medical staff — are pushing for the dialysis port, and he doesn’t want to go through with that. He seems fazed by the surgery and claims he doesn’t want to be a burden on people, as others would need to drive him to his appointments several times a week. I’m sure he will go through with the procedure but he needs to work himself up to it. I called him this morning to chat with him but reached his voice mail. I need to call Mom to catch her up on that news. Never did call her yesterday.

Terrible flooding in the midwest. Iowa was severely hit. Evacuations were ordered and bridges collapsed. I remember flying over the plains states decades ago. The floating and the heat dome are connected events. Hope the climate doesn’t get any worse or the nation and its citizens might start getting worried. Yeah, that’s snark, baby.

My spouse picked up a nice Charles Wysocki jigsaw puzzle at Ashlandia’s library of things yesterday. I thought we should have some on hand for more Internet outages. We began the puzzle last night, even though the net didn’t go out. Lovely little beach scene featuring an old house where a high school kite flying club meets. Kites lean against an old fence in the sand and a heart shaped balloon, tethered to the gate, floats above the scene, red against a cloudy blue and white backdrop. A few sailboats skim choppy waters in the background. I can almost smell that ocean.

Other than these matters and the standard form of our days of eating, cleaning, writing, reading, it’s quiet. I accept quiet. Still recuperating with my ankle issue.

Today’s music comes by way of Willy Nelson. I was reading about his show cancellations and the article reminded me of a gay cowboy song Willy sings. The Neurons immediately began a little rendition of the song, “Cowboys Are Frequently Fond of Each Other”, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark grazing). Although Willy’s version came out back when Brokeback Mountain was gaining Oscar attention, I picked up a later version done by Willy and Orville Peck. Hope you enjoy it.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Also brace yourself for a busy news week. With more SCOTUS news forthcoming, the end of June sending up a cloud of dust as it sprints at us, and the debates and the weather, I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about, read about, and GRRRRR about.

Coffee has been sucked down. Here we. Cheers

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Great Math

The debate between Trump and President Biden is coming up, and Trump has some concerns.

‘Mr. Trump also told his followers to be suspicious of the whole debate enterprise, although his campaign negotiated the terms of his participation. They should keep in mind, he said, that he’ll be up against multiple adversaries at once — not just Mr. Biden but both of CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who, Mr. Trump added, were constitutionally incapable of treating him fairly. “I’ll be debating three people instead of one half of a person,” he said.’

Great math, D.J. If you’re debating ‘a half’ and you add two — or never mind, you cheese whiz.

Vote Blue in 2024.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: crusty

Thursday, August 24, 2023. Ashlandia, where the crows are busy and the cats are wistful.

It’s like a different day out there. Sunny, good visibility, 68 F, light mountain breezes. The change chased me to the fire map to check on the fires’ statuses. Were they all miraculously put out overnight? No. Seems, after looking at the air quality map to see what the air is like, that we’re the beneficiary of some southeasterly wind. I’ll take it. With the cleared air and a different front moving in, today’s high will kick the mid nineties.

Didn’t watch the GOP debate last night. Just didn’t feel it in my bones. So I’m playing catch up, reading reports about what I missed. Except for DeSantis to a small degree — he held back more than I expected — they presented the impressions and delivered the expected comments. Nothing in any of the accounts I read this morning made me want to rethink who these candidates were.

Instead, I found myself more drawn in by two murder cases. Both killers were young women. One — 28 y.o. — killed a vocal coach by shoving them to the pavement and walking away; the other — 19, 18 when she killed — took her car up to 100 MPH and steered the vehicle into a building, killing her two passengers. The first will spend eight years in jail; the second was sentenced to fifteen years to life, eligible for parole in 15 years. Why my interest? Well, why did they do these things? What were they thinking? Anger played a role in both killings, although smoking marijuana was part of both stories. Both seemed to surrender control and acted out; these are the results. Very human and tragic. They received a lot of print and coverage. Maybe I just missed coverage of the others, but I searched for other young women who killed, and easily found three of the same age range and time period in other states in the news. Odd how the press clamps onto certain matters. Odd, perhaps, how they attracted my attention.

The Neurons have stuffed “Texarkana” by R.E.M (1991) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fickle). Apparently, this was out of a dream sequence. My wife was mimicking Mick Jagger in the dream and I told her, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you fall.” ‘Catch me if I fall’ is repeated in “Texarkana”. When I first listened to the album, I would like for “Catch Me If I Fall” as a song title. Texarkana? Whaaattt? Anyway, here we are.

Stay well, be strong and pos. My coffee-fueled day has begun; here we go. Let’s hear the music first. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Musically, I’m living in the past. Not surprising, is it? The music from the past is more connected to me. I used it to celebrate, grieve, love, and learn.

I was also inundated by it in the past. I commuted everyday and took long road trips by car. Although listening to talk radio, sports, and books on tape competed for my attention, many hours were devoted to pop music, including rock.

I don’t commute much any more. COVID-19 has truncated my traveling opportunities. So, I’m less exposed to new music via radio. I could turn it on in the house, but I generally maintain silence through the day. I’m writing and reading, and not interested in distractions. Which is what all those things were on long drives and morning commutes: distractions from the tedium.

Anyway, this morning found me channeling the 1976 Doobie Brothers song, “Taking It to the Streets”. This is a response to the presidential debates last night. “Oh, you. Telling me the things you’re going to do for me. I’m not blind and don’t like what I think I see.”

I always like videos of live shows, when I can, so I’m sharing a 1982 video of their farewell tour. The band’s energy can often be vicariously experienced, and it makes me smile to see them all young and vibrant once again, you know?

Cheers

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