DC has organized and is battling against the Trump Regime’s moves to occupy and control the nation’s capitol with national guard troops. Here’s the story from NBC 4 in D.C.
A sea of signs and a chorus of chants filled 16th Street Northwest for the ‘We Are All D.C.” march Saturday.
There was a large showing to denounce the actions of the Trump administration, especially the recent federal surge of law enforcement in the District.
“It’s been almost a month now of just pure chaos,” said D.C. resident Nick Shereikis.
“I would’ve never imagined having the National Guard in place in this town terrorizing people,” said Natasha Sakolsky, a Silver Spring resident.
Thousands of people marched about two miles through the city starting at Meridian Hill Park and ending at Freedom Plaza.
“We want unification, and that’s what you’ll see here today, I think already, just the diversity of the different groups coming out,” Sakolsky said.
Many local and national organizations were represented at the march, as well as several labor unions, including UNITE HERE Local 24 from Detroit, Michigan.
My phone was ringing and dinging with a plethora of text messages. I clicked on the app to see WTF was going on. My phone tried calling people. Sighing, I rolled out of bed. 6:48.
Sunshine was again championing the blue summer sky. 58 F now, it’d be 84 F later. A thin line of nascent white clouds trouble the sky blue from being as rich and pure as possible. I tried again to check messages but they wouldn’t come up on an app. My sister, though, corresponds with me on a separate app. Her summaries detailed an overnight firefight in The Mom Saga between Mom, her boyfriend, his family, and my family.
I exercised to engage my muscles and get blood moving in the right direction and consulted my Fitbit for the results. Fitbit hadn’t registered anything. Some scrolling revealed that my Fitbit was fritzing. WTF.
Thirstda, June 26, 2025, was not off to an inspiring launch. Maybe coffee and perusing the news would help. Meanwhile, I would reboot my Fitbit and phone. I mean by that, turn them on and off. That’s often modern technology’s rudimentary fixes: turn it off and back on. It failed this time, leaving me with some WTF mumbling to my caffeinating self. Almost in parallel, I went to the net via computer to search for help. Blank pages came up. Really, WTAF?
Finagling of computer settings were engaged. Results showed. Turning off the Fitbit and turning it on again a few times, I drank coffee and considered the failed results. With coffee in, brain neurons engaged in what was going on.
Hey, they said, did you notice that the time is going backwards on the Fitbit?
Whaaat? I answered. Yes. Each time I turned the FB off and on, the time it showed went further back.
The Neurons said, This has happened before.
I’d tried snyncing the Fitbit with the app. That failed. The app kept telling me that an update was available. But It also told me that the update was already installed.
Well, hold on, partner, The Neurons said. The app is probably hung.
Of course.
Bringing the app up, I worked a hard shutdown on the phone. Yep, that fixed all Fitbit problems.
Thank god for coffee.
Tethered to my computer and technological issues, The Neurons are huddling with songs about freedom. The morning’s hours have sprinted away. Solomon Burke ends up singing “None of Us Are Free” in the morning mental music stream. A line resonates with me: “If you don’t say its wrong, then you say it’s right.” Yep. That’s how I view those Trump voters who say, “I didn’t vote this. I don’t support it.” You spoke with your actions. “The truth is shining bright right before our eyes.”
On into the day I go. Hope you have a better one. Cheers
Welcome to Wenzda, June 4, 2025. Blissful on the back patio this morning. 65 F and sunny, the backyard was vibrant with greenery, and absolutely still and silent, a perfect setting to sip coffee, catch rays, and rebalance my circadian rhythm. Papi the butter butt floof was my sole companion. Fresh from eating breakfast, he was content to clean himself with occassional passes against my calves. 80 is again the mark nature has set for us as a high in Ashlandia.
Happy Pride Month. June is Pride Month. Fools and charlatans in the Gold House, the place previously referred to the White House, contest the need to celebrate Pride Month. They prefer to believe that anyone who professes anything but straight genders and roles are crazy, making it up, or other ridiculous things. And I say, screw them. We will keep building and progressing. It might be on pause while they’re in control, but they are not moving us back, no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do. We will build an inclusive world where all people are equal without any qualifications imposed by anyone else. It’s strikingly hypocritical that the right will say things about God being the creator and giving rights and simultaneously deny that God created anyone who dares say, for example, my name is Michael, and my preferred pronouns are she and her. “How dare you,” these self-annointed arbiters shriek. I ask them back, “How dare you. Who the hell are you to decide who the rest of us are? Screw you.”
In honor of Pride Month, let’s begin with “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. Wikipedia gives us a good summary of the song.
Lady Gaga said, “I want to write my this-is-who-the-fuck-I-am anthem, but I don’t want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today’s music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play. Harkening back to the early ’90s, when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community and all kind of disenfranchised communities, the lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual and I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make. That’s the record that’s going to shake up the industry.’ It’s not about the track. It’s not about the production. It’s about the song. Anyone could sing ‘Born This Way’. It could’ve been anyone.”
Got my coffee. I enjoy a cup in the morning. I was born that way. Have the best Wenzda you can. Cheers
Sunshine is booming here in Ashlandia on January 23, 2025. It’s 46 degrees F. ‘They’ say that it feels like 51 F and that 52 F is possible, which, when it arrives, might feel like 55 or even 56! The big question pulsing through our small town is, will we see any snow this year? Smart money says it’s not happenin’ in January. Although people got a little titallated when a NextDoor poster shared news that’d spotted a snowflake the other day. I think she meant that in a meteorological sense and not the political sense.
Today’s theme music is dedicated to all those Trump voters and supporters out there. The ones so sure that the felon stands for law and order who he’s overruling juries and the judicial system and releasing killers and other criminals. This is for the Blacks who voted for the PINO who is rolling back civil rights. I’m sure those Black voters who didn’t like Kamala Harris because <fill it in> and instead voted for Trump are happy about that, right? As are those immigrants, illegal and otherwise, who will be affected by his campaign to turn America white. Those people who voted for Trump who love the outdoors and get out there to enjoy the fresh air might be sorely surprised as Trump’s deregulations darken the air with pollutants. This song is for them, too, cuz they probably won’t be going out there much any longer.
Yes, this song is dedicated to all the rights that will be gone in the name of freedom, all the religions which will suffer in the name of religion, all the justice that will flounder in the name of justice, and all the poor who will grow poorer in the name of, um, also freedom, the freedom of capitalism and greed unchecked. This song is dedicated also to logic and critical thinking, which are being tossed aside, and the history and heritage being trampled underfoot. This song is dedicated to opportunity which manifest from being educated in a good public school system. These things are all being undermined by Trump and his wealthy reactionary rogues as they pursue the enshittification of the United States.
Here, dedicated to all these things and more, courtesy of The Neurons, live from my morning mental music stream, is the late Dolores O’Riordan and the Cranberries with “When You’re Gone”.
Coffee and I have again worked out a balance, and the fluid is going in without interruption. Hope you enjoy the video and that you have a strong day in your personal life, wherever you may be. Cheers
Man, it’s a gorgeous day outside my windows. My first look was south and west. Blue sky. A few clouds and contrails. Sunshine. Appeared to be a late fall day. A litle deceiving as further gazing brought out frost speckling the bare earth and laying on roofs. Temp was 30 F. High of 51 could be. After looking out that side and inhaling sunshine, I headed for the back windows and a view to the east and south. Still sunny. Woo hoo.
Amazed and amused how the MSM addressed PINO-elect Trump’s Monday comments. These were regarding the possible invasion of other countries. Adding states like Panama, Canada, and Greenland. No doubt he (DJT) loves the attention he gets from saying such garbage. It also distracts from the real business taking place. Like he’s the Wizard of Trump, faking people out, insisting, pay no attention to the man behind the curtains. But a CNN article summarized Trump’s comments as — paraphrasing — different from presidents of both parties in the last few decades. Yeah, NS; you’d need to go back in history for a point where the POTUS was talking about taking land from other countries. I guess they felt a need to make a sober and unbiased statement about it.
Of course, if you’re talking about invading other countries, you know, just for the sake of that other country and, you know, freedom and democracy, or regime change, you don’t need to go so far. And just like true Republicans of the last few decades, they’re eager to look at other countries — say, the UK — and declare how that country needs to be changed while ignoring the shit conditions their policies build at home. Their vision is often shaped by greed, so it’s frequently myopic and narrow. They are very good at Orwell-speak though, and doubletalk, so they can’t be discounted. And, with a third of the country voting them in and a third not voting at all, well, hell, they feel a mandate to do whatever they want has been achieved.
Good news on the social media front. Women can now be called household objects on Meta platforms. I’m sure that will advance the causes of freedom of speech and democracy. Yep, that was snark.
The sunny weather has inspired today’s theme music. Live local, right? So looking out those windows and seeing sunshine, The Neurons adopted a cheerful attitude and put “On the Sunny Side of the Street” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark warming). Mom played versions of the song by several while I was a child. I became familiar with versions by L. Armstrong, T. Dorset, D. Day, and Nat King Cole, among others. I checked out several versions online and stayed with Satchmo on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hope you found it favorable as your day’s theme music. I find it a song that’s amenable to lyric variations. Fer instance, I used to sing, “Life can be so sweet with a cat sitting on your feet.” That was inspired by our cat, who liked to sit on our feet. Strange girl but ever so sweet.
Coffee and I ground out an agreement in the kitchen. Here’s the music, and away we go. Have a good Wezda, Jan 8, 2025. Cheers
Gray clouds have returned to win the sky. Really, it seems like one big light-gray cloud. Low relative to the upper elevations, it cuts off the view after two hundred yards, giving an impression that the world ends there.
The wind is sedated to an infrequent breeze. Chillier air has shifted back in. We navigate 39 F with a high of 50 proferred, and more rain sometime.
This is Saturday, November 23, 2024.
My song today is “Good Life” by OneRepublic. I’d been reading news and opinions online late last night. One thing after another led me to new insights and angles. I ended up reflecting on the MAGA GOP’s narrow minded views. Their hypocrisy and lack of principles always flavor my opinion, as well. I’m sure they rationalize everything as the ends justify the means. Such cliches allow them to declare they’re for freedom, equality, and ‘protecting women’ even as they curtail equality and people’s freedom. They’re all about conforming. Two sexes and genders, traditional missionary position, trad wife, that’s them, at least in public. We suspect many dark things happening in private, based on what periodically crawls into the light. See, for example, Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” philosophy and his affairs, Matt Gaetz, Jeffrey Epstein, et al.
And, it’s their religion and their God to which we must all bow. That’s how they interpret religious freedom in their ‘Merica. Their pasteurized, homogenized history that must be taught. Anything bad that happened is pushed aside so they can pretend it didn’t happen. Mass shootings are all because of people with mental health problems who are troubled by the liberals’ DEI and woke agenda. All is good in the MAGA world, as long as the wealthy can avoid being taxed, the stock market is going up, and everyone is working, even if it’s at menial jobs for slave wages, even if it’s children working, even if the skies and waters are polluted. That’s their version of a ‘good life’.
As for Democrats, liberals, and progressives, they must be ignored, expunged, or re-educated to accept the MAGA way.
It’s so far from my idea of a good life that I’m nauseated when I contemplate the gulf.
Anyway, after I shifted through these strands of thoughts, The Neurons inserted “Good Life” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark rising) where it shared some time with “It’s My Life” by the Animals and “It’s My Life” by No Doubt. “Good Life”, released in 2010, feels like another of those songs people know mostly through movies and television shows. It’s been used in a few of them.
When songs are in my head, my mind often focuses on specific sections. In this case, the specific section is a set of lines:
Listen, to my friends in New York, I say hello My friends in L.A., they don’t know Where I’ve been for the past few years or so Paris to China to Colorado Sometimes there’s airplanes you can’t jump out Sometimes bullshit that don’t work now We all got our stories, but please tell me What’s there to complain about?
Well, excuse me, but I have a lot to complain about. Some of it is about aging. Much of my gripping is first world blues, but there’s also a substantial political section to my complaints.
Coffee and I have been re-introduced. We plan to make green chili stew in a little while. The rain has begun dripping down again, clouds have dramatically darkened the day, and the temperature has leveled off at 42 F. Feels like something lower. That stew will go well with this day.
Michael Seidel, writer 