Tag: food prices

Monday’s Theme Music – Hope

Ashland, southern Oregon — Monday, May 4, 2026.

It’s cloudy this morning but it’s not a solid mass. Sunshine washes through to warm us. It’s 55 F but we expect a high in the mid to upper 70s, and thunderstorms. We experienced a high of 80 yesterday before thunderstorms cooled us in the mid-afternoon hours.

Trump’s thin ego and weak position has been on display all weekend, beginning on Friday night. Heather Cox Richardson summarized Trump’s frenzied Friday night texts in her May 3, 2026, edition of “Letters from An American”.

  • This great uniter called Rep. Jeffries ‘low-IQ’ and a thug
  • Trump continued his pattern of spreading fake information, showing an AI-generated image of Jeffries holding a bat
  • Likewise, Trump showed an image of him and some of cabinet desecrating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a national monument
  • Trump added a text showing his worry about the mid-term elections; in his mind, they’re going to be stolen

Trump also makes the fake claim that Democrats destroyed the US after the 2020 elections. History shows otherwise. BTW, gas was a lot cheaper back in President Biden’s days, wasn’t it?

Trump was promising to release the Epstein files, and still hasn’t released them all.

And we also weren’t at war.

Your Trump Quotes of the Day:

Hope is my theme today, though. Last night, I watched a documentary on Netflix about the making of the song, “We Are the World”. The documentary came out two years ago. Here is the Wikipedia summary of the song:

“We Are the World” is a charity single recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones for the album We Are the World to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. With sales in excess of 20 million physical copies, it is the eighth-best-selling single of all time.

Documentary trailer:

It’s the hopeful nature of the endeavor that made me decide to play the song today. The song was made at a time when there was a lot of hand-wringing as people asked, “We can we do?” It reminds me of now, as so many watch Trump stagger through the world, destroying the nation, peace, and the environment. Come together, focus, and work against him and his reactionary, destructive policies.

The documentary was full of some fascinating moments. Diana Ross took her music to Daryl Hall and asked him to sign it for her because she was his biggest fan. Watching those singers cope with the notes, wording, and situation fired my amazement about how capable and accomplished they are. They were also often star struck by the others in the room.

One of the most hilarious pieces came from an anecdote related Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles talking together. Both are blind. Ray commented that he needed the restroom. Stevie said, “Oh, I’ll show you where it is.” Stevie then led Ray away, leading someone to crack, “The blind are really leading the blind here.”

Hope you have a great day. I’m off to do Food & Friends deliveries with my wife.

Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music – Going Down

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, May 3, 2026.

It’s a springy 63 F in Ashland this morning. Clouds feather the sunshine effect. We’re expecting a high of 77 F and thunderstorms.

All is quiet on the Mom front. I’m privately mourning the changes and losses to her life. Don’t know what my sisters are thinking but their relationship with Mom was rockier than mine. Part of that is that I moved out early and was away for years at a time, inuring me to her chaos.

Unfortunately, we’re not inured to Trump’s chaos. Let’s call it Traos. No matter what I drink or how much, he’s still there, and the reality of what he’s doing to us gets worse with every viewing.

Now several months into Trump’s second year of his second term, certain trends have become cemented as part of his legacy.

  • Trump is a corrupt person, enriching himself at the expense of the country
  • Trump’s cabinet is inept and chaotic
  • Dizzy Donnie’s health is worsening and he’s hiding something
  • Whatever is in the Epstein files, Trump doesn’t want it found
  • Trump has no plan forward except to cut everything except Homeland Security and Defense, impose more tariffs, and isolate the nation
  • Between his lies, broken promises, failed policies, and delusions, Trump can’t be trusted

Some will say that I’m being harsh. I am. But I’m using standard benchmarks for my judgements.

  • Trump keeps playing ‘hide the Epstein file’
  • His personal wealth has grown while social services and education are being cut
  • The national debt is growing at a record rate and has overtaken the GNP
  • Prices are rising and he can only offer band aids like the $6000 tax credit for seniors that results in $720
  • Awakening to his grift, his approval ratings are falling, and his disapproval ratings are rising
  • He promised no new wars and started one
  • Declaring himself the unity president, he’s done more to polarize voters than any other in modern history

And as final proof of how delusional he is, he keeps ordering things renamed for himself, and planning monuments for himself, because he thinks everything is going great. The rest of the world knows, if he was worthy of monuments, we’d be proposing and building them on our own. Instead, brown nosers who like to kiss his ass are trying to find new ways of doing it.

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! still goes. No doubt trying to regain some of his mojo, Trump announced some major gun safety changes. Makes the NRA happy. That’s what’s important. *snark*

We have months to go before it’s all over.

BTW, have you seen Iran’s humorous take on Trump?

The confluence of news, dreams, and mood inspired The Neurons to pull the trigger on “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”.

The Fall Out Boy chorus fills the morning mental music stream:

“We’re going down, down in an earlier round, and sugar we’re going down swinging. I’ll be your number one with a bullet.”

My hope for you today is that you weather it all and come out stronger, healthier, and happier.

Got my coffee. Time to rock on. Cheers

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The Bottom Line for Trump

For Trump, 2026 mid-terms are coming fast. Reminders are coming, too: of what he promised, the promises he broke, and the failures littering his promises. Here’s one person’s reflections on Trump’s state of the mid-terms worth reading.

Election 2026 #2

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Tuesday’s Theme Music — Enduring

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps they will reconsider who they vote for in November.

Your Trump quote of the day:

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

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

Reminder: the Epstein files have not been completely released.

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

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

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

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

Cheers

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Friday Focus on Trump & his Minions

A summary of the Enshittifier-in-Chief and his dumbfuckery for the week.

Friends are suggesting that we have annual Trump Enshittification Awards to immortalize him. Who’s in?

And finally…

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Thursday’s Theme Music – Too Much

Ashland, Oregon — Thursday, April 16, 2026.

It’s fifty shades of spring green outside. How quickly the front yard tree went from being bare to full of green leaves. I was out there working on the yard the other day and noted how bare it was and wondered when its leaves would arrive. Then the leaves were full and green on it, as though they’d been delivered via Amazon. “Your leaves are on the way and will be delivered by 3:30 PM on Wednesday.”

It’s 46 now, up from 32 F, and expected to climb to 52 F. Thunderstorms are expected tomorrow.

In fifty shades of Trump, Republicans in Congress are sticking with their leader, refusing to hold him accountable for the war in Iran. Some have compared it to Operation Poseidon Archer under President Biden. It’s messy, but there was a difference in scope, costs, and intentions. Although President Biden’s operation lasted fifteen months, his administration notified Congress before military operations were ordered and carried out. Not so with Trump, who has been operating more unilaterally, limiting how much Congress is told, and sometimes not telling them until after the fact. President Biden’s operation was also well-defined in objectives and stayed in scope. Trump’s Iran war has been much broader and general, with no clear cut stated goals. While various reasons have been stated, Trump has also threatened to destroy Iran as a nation and attack civilian targets.

  • Operation Poseidon Archer cost about $400 million a day, with a total of $5 billion dollars for the first year of operations. Trump’s Iran war has spent $1 billion dollars per day on average, with an estimated expense of 35 to 51 billion dollar so far. Some experts believe that Trump’s Iran war could exceed one trillion dollars.
  • President Biden’s Yemen strikes had a relatively contained economic effect. Trump’s Iran war has caused gas prices to soar to $7 in some states while disrupting global air travel due to airspace closures.
  • Trump’s war has also affected the price of fertilizer for US farmers. The Strait of Hormuz closure has restricted access to components like sulfur, which is required to manufacture phosphate fertilizers in U.S. plants. Many small farmers are facing fertilizer costs which are 30 to 40 % higher than planned. The scale of the impact on increased cost for food and consumer goods will depend on how long Trump’s Iran war lasts.
  • Total deaths for President Biden’s Yemen operations were estimated at 106 to 337 lives. Trump’s Iran war has claimed an estimated five to ten thousand, so far. No US military members were killed in the Yemen operation, while Trump’s war cost fifteen US military members to date.

It all added up to too much. That was enough for Les Neurons to invite the Dave Matthews Band into the morning mental music stream with “Too Much” from 1996.

I eat too much
I drink too much
I want too much
Too much

Hey
Suck it up, suck it up
Suck it up, suck it up, suck it up, yeah
Suck it up, suck it up, suck it up
Suck it up, suck it up, suck it up baby

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Hope your day isn’t too much for you, and that all goes well.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music – History

Ashland, Oregon — April 15, 2025.

A gray dawn in Ashland. Rain is expected throughout the day as clouds gather and temperatures drift from the low forties to the low fifties. Temperatures are expected to drop into the low thirties tomorrow morning. A frost warning is in effect.

Reason.com reminded us of Trump and the emptiness of his declarations and claims. This one was about the national debt. Ten years ago, Trump said he would eliminate the national debt. Oh, the cheers he got for that.

They asked him, how long would it take? “Fairly quickly,” Trump replied. When pressed for a more specific answer, Trump provided a shocking timeline. “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”

Analysis showed that Trump was blowing wind. His plans to eliminate the national debt was diametrically opposed to his plans to lower taxes. Lower taxes won.

The national debt was 19 trillion dollars ten years ago. It’s now 39 trillion dollars. President Biden added to it, but Trump has done most of the damage.

Put this in their with the other claims he’s made. That’s he’s the peace president. A unifier. That he was going to replace Obamacare with a much better plan. That Mexico would pay for the wall. That he would lower prices from day one. That he would drain the swamp, eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.

That he would release the Epstein files on day one.

Sickening how much he has lied and done to destroy the nation. More sickeningly, so many Republicans still cheer him on.

Also in the news, SOUTHCOM reported that they’d destroyed another boat and killed four more people.

It was the fourth attack in four days. No war; no court; no evidence. No judge, jury, ruling. Just Trump ordering the US military to kill untried civilians.

Today’s song comes from 1986. The Neurons had nothing to do with it. I read the news and remembered “Bullet the Blue Sky” by U2. Inspired by what Bono witnessed the US military doing in El Salvador and Nicaragua under Reagan. Much like now, when Trump is using military force in the name of Christianity, morality, democracy, and freedom to kill others. Sadly, this is an American tradition. Trump is just being overt, boastful, and brazen about it.

It’s demoralizing and depressing, but angers me as well, watching Trump tear down our norms and violate the laws, throw his name on everything, build monuments to himself. Meanwhile, measles outbreaks are on the rise, food and gas prices are climbing, and Trump is killing and destroying in our name. Our national debt grows but worse is what he’s done to our reputation and morals.

I hope your Wednesday is filled with peace and grace, and that we can garner the voice and political will to move us toward a better future, like the future we were once moving toward.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music – Dreams

Ashland, Oregon — Monday, March 30, 2026.

We’re looking at a rainy spring day in our valley. Sunshine is on the low side as clouds gather and darken. It’s 49 F with anticipation that we’ll peak in the low sixties today.

Out early to do our monthly Food & Friends delivery, we’re back now and into our daily grooves. Our F&F route was small again, with several favorite regulars missing. We always what’s happened to them and hope for the best.

I had a rush of micro-dreams last night. All of them felt very uplifting. Seeing and remembering them was like watching a strobe light on a crowd of dancers.

Mom remains quiet today but she’s on our minds as my sisters and I exchanged texts about her, remembering her, wondering what’s next. We spent a bit of time remembering Mom and Frank together. They used to love going dancing and to estate sales, or the grands’ concerts and ball games.

They were a sweet couple, but Mom’s illnesses, accidents, aging, and medications changed her.

Trump has also been on my Monday morning mind. I’ve been wondering, what’s next? Tariffs, ICE, Iran War, ballroom, Epstein files, general BS — what’s next?

Trump wants to start signing the currency. The GOP is proposing to issue a 250th Anniversary coin that will feature Trump’s pudgy scowl. Look others, I plan to Sharpie his signature if that comes to pass. I also agree with the premise that the only currency Trump’s face should grace is a wooden nickel or fake funny money.

Stevie Nicks wrote today’s song, “Dreams”. It was a hit for Fleetwood Mac and a personal favorite. Slow moving like a thunderstorm, it’s reflective words and sound carries me into different moods and thoughts. It’s also a song about loss, too, mourning what was and what is now. That’s no doubt why Les Neurons put it into the morning mental music stream.

I took to a different video for it, finding this lovely acoustic version on “Playing for Change”. I hope you enjoy it.

Let’s hope peace and grace arrive and help us all to improved lives.

Cheers

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Trump’s Vision: Unhinged, Untethered

I read the NYTimes review of the Trump Ballroom addition to the White House, the addition where Trump tore down the Easat Wing without public approval.

The Times article cited a grand staircase that leads to no entry. Pillars that block the view from inside the ballroom. A building that is too tall and too large for its planned purpose. It was also a building put up without previous engineering and architectural reviews.

A judge ordered construction stopped so reviews could be conducted. Trump responded to a hand-picked panel that unanimously grunted, “Approved” without thinking about any of the 19,000 objections raised.

In many ways, the ballroom is perfectly symbolic of Trump’s decisions.

  • Dismissing medical science, Trump appointed anti-vax people to important positions. With more people encouraged to dismiss childhood vaccinations, measles outbreaks in 2025 climbed to the highest levels seen in decades. 2026 is expected to surpass that mark.
  • Ignoring economic and political history, Trump instituted ’emergency’ tariffs which drove up costs and prices, and which now must be paid back.

All these are like his ballroom: with steps that go nowhere, a confused design that even now, he’s trying to change.

The problem with it all is Trump. He has a maligned vision of what peace, war, unity, and prosperity means, and it’s an unhinged, untethered vision.

The one clear thing we know about Trump from his actions is that he and Jeffrey Epstein were good friends and he’s scared of having details about his Epstein friendship revealed. To that end, he’ll do anything to hide the truth.

Hiding from the truth is what always drives Trump’s unhinged, untethered vision, whether it’s how badly he lost in 2020 or how his popularity is tanking in 2026.

Get ready for more.

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Trump: It’s A Gas, Gas, Gas

The Trump Iran War is now in week four. Trump thought it could take “four to five weeks” but admitted it might go longer.

He is also talking about winding the war down while sending in ground troops.

As they used to sing on a children’s television program, “One of these things is not like the other.”

It ought to get very interesting. My wife and I put $30 worth of gas in our ‘compact’ Mazda CX-5 SUV yesterday: 7.44 gallons at $4.569 per gallon. This was at Costco, which has the lowest prices around here. We laughed till we cried, remembering how we used to almost fill our tank each week for the price of one gallon now.

A Dodge RAM 1500 and a Ford F150 pickup trucks were filling up. Those trucks have big tanks, take a lot of fuel, and get poor gas mileage. Know who drive pickup trucks? Trump supporters.

Know who likes Trump’s Iran War? Trump supporters.

Of course, Trump voters have a history of voting against the truth. They voted against Harris because Trump said Harris would take them to war. Trump said he wouldn’t start any wars.

They voted against Harris because Trump promised to lower food prices on day one. He didn’t.

They voted against Harris because they live in rural areas. Rural areas are the hardest hit by Trump’s policies in his second term.

They voted for Trump because he said he would come for the immigrants. They never thought he meant them.

They voted for Trump because he would release the Epstein files on day one. He didn’t.

Trump also said that Presidents Biden and Obama ‘made up’ the Epstein files. Neither were POTUS when the files were created.

Trump also promised to lower oil and gas prices, and then he attacked Iran.

Trump voters: they’re not deep thinkers.

Just like their leader, Donald J. Trump.

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