Tag: Gaza

Twozdaz Theme Music

Howdy, sports fans. It’s Twozda, September 9, 2025. 62 degrees F holds forth in Ashlandia. Marbled clouds headline the moment. Never fear: it’s going to move to 69 degrees F by the day’s end, although we may need to navigate more thunder and rain while we get there. Feels like autumn has got its dandruff up and is out to end summer’s hold on Ashland.

Yesterday early afternoon found us with a huge downpour. People rushed into the coffee shop bursting with news about how intense, sudden, and cold the rain was. Brief was added to its description as the rain ceased after ten relentless minutes.

Then, 2:30 AM. A sound is covering the house. My sleepy mind thought it was a giant fan. Asking, what fan is that, I roamed through the house and realized, that giant fan sound was rain hissing down with Biblical efforts. I returned to bed and sleep only to awaken a while later to my wife in the kitchen getting water.

A sharp, high squeal noise had awakened me. I asked my wife if she’d heard it. “It’s raining,” she said.

I listened. “It stopped.”

“No, it’s still going.”

Papi and I went out back to prove the rain was stopped. It was. Cool breezes swept by with friendly helloes. Moonlight bright enough to walk on broke out. Rain clouds were splitting up and racing away in different directions, leaving a starry dark gray feast for my eyes. “This is nice,” I said. Papi didn’t disagree.

After I was back in bed, a sound like a brassy chord being strong on an electric guitar awakened me. “What the hell was that?” The Neurons asked the dark room. Nobody was giving any answers about noises.

Dad remains hospitalized. Not much can be done about a fractured pelvis. He’s due to be moved to a rehab center today. Andy is also being moved to a rehab center to help him recover from his hip fracture. Sis is mum about her medical procedure and its results.

Gritting my teeth and swallowing my GRRRRR, I peruse the news. Trump is suing the WSJ and anyone attached to the story about his ‘alleged’ birthday card/notes to Epstein. I’m sure Trump is betting that the story will be withdrawn and apologies issues. Meanwhile, he donated the Bible his mother presented to him in his boyhood to a Bible Museum. The net responded with laughter and mocking about the Bible. Most doubt that Trump opened his Bible, read it, and went to church, except for publicity when it suited his needs.

More attacks have been carried out in several wars. None of the war reporting arrives with a sense that the fighting is going to end soon. The major aggressors, Russia and Israel, are well past reasonable lines about their intentions. All can see that Russia will not stop until it has Ukraine. Israel won’t stop until Hamas are all dead. Neither nation displays concern or empathy for the innocents they’re killing.

Economic news will take over today’s media top spots. 911,000 fewer jobs were created between April 2024 and March 2025, BLS says. US job growth through March was significantly weaker than previously thought. Economists and analysts are telling us that it means the jobs markets was even worse than realized. A large downward revision was expected, with many citing sampling errors resulting from declining survey responses, weaker-than-inferred job creation at new firms, and adjustments related to asylum-seekers and other undocumented workers. The pandemic’s impact on the global labor market and residual adjustments were also blamed. Trump’s WH thinks that it proves Trump was right, the Biden economy was a disaster, and the BLS reporting is broken. That’s certainly puzzling, isn’t it: the Trump Regime is depending on a system they claim is broken to prove they’re right. Classic MAGAt non-thinking.

All this has culminated in The Neurons’ song choice for my morning mental music stream. It stormed in Ashland, with more storms coming. Trump is riding a storm of criticism about Jeffrey Epstein. We the People are riding through the storm of data about what’s going on with the economy. Hence, The Neurons summoned The Doors and “Riders on the Storm”.

Coffee has dropped in for an extended visit. May grace and peace visit and stay with us all for a while. Here we go again. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I just want to note. Children are dying of starvation around the world, but most especially, most visibly, in Gaza. And the self-described ‘pro-life’ party in power, the ones who hounds every woman seeking an abortion with religious zeal while screaming about the sanctity of life is doing fuck all about the dying children. No, the greedy Republicans like Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump are focused on making money and saving money, and protecting Trump from the Epstein Files fall out and exposure as a pedophile.

As always, actions speak louder than words. The GOP’s actions scream with hypocrisy.

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Twosdaz Theme Music

Welcome friends, come in, come in, to Twosda, July 29, 2025. I suspect many of you are like my niece and l’il sister, plotting back-to skool strategies for buying gear and deciphering starting days, agendas, and schedules. We have a while yet here in Ashlandia. The first signs will be the changing of the signs at the schools, making their public announcements for their start dates. Then comes newspaper articles and the police staking out the school zones to remind everyone that those are school zones.

Weird thinking of BTS activities when we’re still in summer’s hot throes. 68 F now, we’re humping up to 93 F tomorrow. The dry conditions have caused red flag warnings about fire dangers. As we heard about this, my wife remarked, “I don’t even know what our evacuation zone is.”

I replied, “We’re Ashland Zone 4.” Her look back pleased and delighted me, as she was clearly impressed that I knew. I added, “There’s a sign on every road intersecting with Siskiyou on the south end of town, telling us what zone the road is in.” Siskiyou Boulevard is the main drag through town, becoming highway 99 as it leaves the northern end.

Her eyes widened. “There is?”

I’ve been enamored with the WSLS Sky Cam focused on some bobcats. Three bobcats were rescued from dire circumstances with deceased or missing mothers in southwest Virginia and are being raised to be released back into the wild. They’re not related bobs. Here’s their story at this link.

The young cats sleep during the day and are active and playful at night, and the camera isn’t at its best at night. But I like to look in when I can and wish them a good life, fingers crossed and all that. This is their live video feed: https://www.wsls.com/watchlive/ The page has several there so you need to look around for the enclosure and click on it.

Seeing those little ones prompted The Neurons to spin up “End of the Tiger” by Survivor from 1982. Most people know the song as one of the Sylvestor Stallone Rocky theme songs. It won some grammys and was nominated for an Oscar, and is often used in sports and politics, usually without permission. The vocalist, Jimi Jamison, based away from a brain stroke in 2014, 63 years old.

I have political thoughts but I’m not going in to them now. Lot of gun violence out there in the United States this week. More critically, we’re waiting for news about the economy. Even more urgently and critically, we’re searching for leadership and answers about the horror-show starvation in Gaza. The U.S. used to be humanitarian enough to try to assuage such situations. Under Trump and his right-wing United States centric thinking and desire to ‘cut fraud, waste, and abuse’ *cough cough cough*, Trump and the Grand Old Greedy Party are disinclined to help any but the wealthy, white, and right wing.

I’m gonna try to have the best Twosda that I can. Hope you do the same. Coffee has been drunk. Time to press to test one more time. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s another golden morning of cool night air. Wenzda, June 18, 2025, has us at 60 F. Sunshine is expected to lift us up to 83 F. These days of mild warmth and cool nights reminds me of living in Mountain View, CA, while we were stationed at Onizuka Air Base in California in the early 1990s. Starting in May, this would be our weather until fall began descending into winter and the rains started slashing us. It is not bad at all, though.

Just gotta ask people a few questions. Anyone remember when Trump said, “In a golden age of America, the entire planet will be more peaceful and prosperous as a result.” Yes, that’s right, it was on his inauguration day in January of this year. 2025.

He also claimed in that speech, “In the United States of America, as we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust.” Then he unleashed Elon Reeve Musk and DOGE and gutted the government’s services and cut payments to people who trusted the government to pay them as it said it would.

In that speech, Trump also said, “For American citizens, January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day. It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country — as our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda, with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society: young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural, and, very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states and the popular vote, we won by millions…”

‘The entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda…’ Yes, that explains why so many Americans were out there protesting him and his policies on No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, right? That explains why he’s minus ten in approval ratings in polls, right? Only in Donald World is the nation more unified now than it was last year.

Trump is such a liar. He’s full of bullshit. He’s incompetent, and for Trump 2.0, he’s installed incompetent loyalists.

When will this peace he promised the entire world begin? Well, you know Trump; based on his record of lies and promises, it’ll come at about the same time as the terrific, great healthcare plan which he never revealed. The one he promised almost ten years ago.

Today’s music is “Emotional Rescue” by the Rolling Stones. I admit, the song has grown on me through the years. Still not real fond of Mick Jagger’s falsetto. But I like the 1980 song’s funkiness. None of this explains why The Neurons selected it for the morning mental music stream. The Neurons work in mysterious ways.

Well, rock on. Brace yourself for more shitty news from PINO TACO. And hang on. Looks like it’s gonna be a bumpy fucking ride.

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Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

I’m just a Venn diagram. I’m at a point where massive disappointment in my nation fills me. I didn’t expect the GOP to fight Trump. It saddens me that I’m right. They just rolled over and became the Grand Ol’ Trump Party.

Pisses me off that the Trump Regime thumbs its nose at the law, treating elements like due process as something beneath them. Unfortunately, I predicted this when Trump was campaigning in 2024. So did many others. They laughed at us. But Trump said he would be a dictator on day one. We knew that wasn’t a joke.

Politically, I’m angry, disgusted, disappointed, and a whole dark rainbow of other negative energies about what’s going on from bullshit tariffs to the damaged economy to the ridiculous and unlawful gutting of the Federal government to — well, fill in the blank.

But it’s a sunny and warm spring day. Promise is in the air. I’m getting ready for beer with friends on Wednesday. They’re intelligent, good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Preparing for a secular Easter brunch with friends on Sunday. That’ll have bittersweet toppings drizzled over it. Some of the regulars are gone. Others are in hospice.

Writing is fun and full of promise. That puts me in a very positive frame. A novel draft is finished, and so many other novels are lined up, eager to be written. But will that finished draft hold up in the next round of editing and revision? Then there’s the publishing game. That closes the damper on my enthusiasm.

Mom texts me and reminds me that she wants to be cremated. Do what we will with the ashes. Play Glenn Miller at her service. Hold it in the garden. She’s lived almost nine decades but she endures hourly pain and discomfort. Her quality of life can be categorized as miserable.

Down to one cat, my cativities are truncated from what they once were. An air of depression clouds that aspect of life.

Financially, my wife and I are okay. Viewing my health, I can be better or worse. Got all my limbs. They function well. I endure little regular pain on a daily basis. I’m not as strong nor limber as I used to be, and my hair is trekking away from my forehead. Memory still works for most of the time on most of the days.

My wife’s health is not as good. She searches for words more often and doesn’t find them. She’s developed a new habit of forgetting to turn things on or off. She’s bitter and angry with the world, especially with Trump, and the Roberts Court. She’s furious and anxious about women’s rights. Shoulder and back pain are building up their frequent flier miles with her.

So, I am here. In the middle of it all, happy and sad. Worried and hopeful. Bitter and angry. Joyful and loving. Loved and frustrated. I read of far worse situations for people. Like those in Gaza. Ukraine. Immigrants hunting a better existence for themselves and those they love. War and disaster refugees trying to find a home. People working hard and struggling harder. Sleeping in cars and hanging on for meals and help. Women and people of color hiding, living in fear, beaten and killed for who they are. People with a gender that doesn’t fall cleanly into male or female dismissed as less than equal, unaccepted by narrow-minded bigots. People starving to death as billionaires pile up more money and more property, self-pleasuring themselves with mindless greed.

We seem so far away from Star Trek‘s ideals and so much closer to Mad Max, Solyent Green, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Life is one hell of a spectrum.

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