Tag: high gas prices

Friday’s Theme Music — All About Him

Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, May 8, 2026.

Friday, we wear purple.

Thin white clouds marble a bright blue sky. 56 now, a high of 78 F is expected. Sunshine washes the greenery with bright, warm light. Papi says, “This is perfect weather. Don’t change it.”

The jobs report for April came out. I wasn’t surprised that more jobs than expected were added.

It wasn’t much: 115,000. Jobless claims held steady, 4.3%. The jobs growth saw a surprise increase in “messengers and couriers” of 38,000 jobs.

Healthcare added nearly 54,000 jobs. Again, not a surprise, because healthcare laid off 108k in January. Hospitals are closing in rural areas, and rebalancing is underway as the healthcare industry copes with Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance changes.

May will be an interesting month for the jobs report, and travel, hospitality, and tourism industries. Gas prices are up over 50% since Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! initiated war in Iran in February 2024. The national average is now around $4.53 per gallon.

Trump may not care but Americans who aren’t wealthy are worried. “The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to a record low of 48.2 in early May 2026, missing market expectations of 49.5 and falling below April’s 49.8.”

Sure, Trump doesn’t care. Make a promise — “No new wars” — break a promise.

That’s him. Just like Trump’s Epstein ballroom. ‘Americans won’t pay anything for it.’ Sure. Now, we’ll just pay a $1,000,000,000. Or more.

We’re feeling the economy in my region. Southern Oregon University (SOU) is in a slow collapse; Assante is in decline, taking the regional healthcare system down; the City of Ashland is mired in financial struggles.

With SOU cutting back, music programs and activities are in danger of disappearing. Parks and Rec has been forced to cut back. Meanwhile, we’re holding our breath to see what happens with tourism, OSF, wildfires, and drought — along with rising gas, energy, and insurance prices.

What’s of more interest to me at this point: is how many other regions in the US are being affected in like ways?

Today’s music is brought to you by The Kinks. The song is “He’s Evil”. I first heard it when I was in high school.

It’s in the morning mental music stream today because, Trump.

Lyrics:

He comes on smooth, cool, and kind
But he wants your body, not your mind
He’s got style, personality
But he’s the devil in reality
He’ll make you laugh, make you smile
And make you feel good for a while
Wicked smile, decadent grin
He likes school girls, nuns, and virgins

His skin is soft but his mind is hard
He’ll lead you on and then he’ll tear you apart
He’ll treat you rough and he will make you cry
And you will kiss sweet innocence goodbye
And once you’re in, there’ll be no getting out
So look out, look out, look out
Look out, look out, look out

He’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil
He’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil

Hope you have an evil-free day, full of grace and peace.

Got my coffee. Time to rock.

Cheers

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Trump: Pretzel Logic

The war with Iran is not a war.

Trump reminded everyone we’re at war but also said he’s not going to use the word war because that would need approval. Also, the war that wasn’t a war stopped with the ceasefire in April, even though there’s shooting going on.

The really big question is, what do Dozing Donnie’s bones say about the war?

At the same time, Trump also told Axios there was “nothing left” to bomb in Iran. Trump also said, “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”

Trump later told supporters at a Kentucky rally that same day that Washington “won” in Iran and the conflict was “over.”

You follow that? We were at war, we were never at war, it’s a mini-war, the war is over, and it’ll be over whenever Trump says it’s over.

Fine, fine pretzel logic.

“We have a war right now, and we’re to what, six weeks? They said, ‘What’s taking so long!’ We were in Vietnam 19 years.” Donald Trump, April 21, 2026.

Technically, the US can’t blockade Iran because that’s an act of war and we’re not at war, although we might be in a ‘mini-war‘.

Lindsey Graham is getting into Trump’s pretzel logic: “If we can take back control of the Strait of Hormuz, it is checkmate. This thing is over.”

George Conway “Interesting. This must be a new kind of chess where you compete to put the pieces back where they were before you smacked them off the board.”

Meanwhile, smog is increasing in Utah and Arizona, but it’s not a problem. That bad air is from other places. Although it affects local citizens, Trump’s EPA ruled that the affected cities don’t need to do anything about them.

Did you hear, too, Trump says his economy is booming!

That’s what Trump told small businesses this week.

Small business bankruptcies surged 67% in the first quarter of 2026.

However, the stock market is doing well. Corporate profits are at record levels.

Not everyone is in the stock market. And even if corporations are making profits, not all employees will see much more money, except for in the C suite. People who aren’t in the stock market or a corporate exec paying $4.46 per gallon of gas in the US might not agree that the economy is booming.

Especially if that gas price goes to $7 per gallon, as some analysts suggest.

The U.S. average for regular gasoline was approximately $3.81 to $3.82 per gallon at that time.

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Saturday’s Theme Music — Stuck

Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, May 2, 2026.

Clouds rule our valley this morning. It’s an almost unbroken sea of white and gray but thin enough to let sporadic sunshine sneak in and out. 59 F now, we’re anticipating a high of 77 today. Again.

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! has recommenced. After Trump successfully grifted Republicans in Congress into believing that Trump’s Iran War is over, Trump has turned his sights to Cuba.

To recap:

  • Eastern Pacific/Caribbean – killed 181 to 186 people while destroying 40 ‘drug boats’
  • Venezuela: abducted the nation’s president and first lady
  • Greenland: threatened to take it in the name of peace
  • Iran bombed it twice
    • October 2025, to ‘obliterate’ its nuclear capability
    • February 2025 to now, because of its nuclear threat
  • Now — CUBA!

Donald Trump says US will take over Cuba ‘almost immediately’

Yet, the Epstein files remain unreleased.

Trump’s approval ratings are dropping, and his disapproval ratings are falling.

High food, gas, and oil prices challenge US shoppers.

It’s all so Trump. He can’t solve problems, only create them, then lie about what they are, and insist that only he can fix it.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

“Mark my words.”

Yes, we marked your words, Trump.

“In a February 2016 interview with MSNBC, Trump said the wall would go “probably 35 or 40 feet up.” The height reduction was short-lived, however. Later in the same interview he said “And I heard [Mexican President Vicente Fox] said that we will not pay. Guess what? The wall just got higher.” At rallies in early 2016, Trump repeatedly said the wall gained 10 feet everytime Mexico rejected paying for it.

“At the Republican presidential debate in March he reverted to his earlier claim that “the wall’s 50 feet high.” Later that month at a MSNBC town hall he stated the wall would be “a good 35 feet. It’s getting higher all the time” and reiterated Mexico “will pay in one form or another.” At the same town hall the price of the wall jumped to $10 billion.”

Repeat after me: you can’t believe anything that Trump claims.

Now tell me, who is going to pay for the ballroom? And how much will it cost?

Today’s theme music came as I went about lazily doing things this morning. Papi had been fed and was outside, washing, being a cat. I was lost in thought about a dream and realized, damn, time! So I told myself, “Get it together. Let’s go. Move.”

Hearing that, The Neurons hooked up with a U2 song, and delivered it to my morning mental music stream: “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”.

Sample Lyrics

You’ve got to get yourself together
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it

The song came out in 2001 — before 9/11. Yet it feels like a perfect summary of our political situation in the US since then, with war, Trump, the Great Recession, etc.

It feels like a moment we’re stuck in, and can’t get out.

I hope the end of today finds you better off than the start of the day, and that you can stack good days upon good days.

Cheers

2

Saturday’s Theme Music – Have A Bite!

Ashland, Oregon — Saturday, April 18, 2026.

Warming up today. 56 degrees, climbing to 75 as the sky goes full blue. After Saturday and Sunday going to the 70s, rain is expected Monday and most of the week, with high temperatures in the mid to upper fifties.

Scanning the news, I read a good piece from Digby, Trump’s El Foldo, about Trump’s Iran deal. They pointed out how Trump raged about President Obama releasing 1.7 billion to Iran.

Trump outdid that, of course, without a shred of self-awareness or irony, releasing 20 billion dollars to Iran according to some news reports. It’s a payoff to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, which were already open before Trump bombed Iran. It’s also a payoff to stop Iran’s nuclear program, which started on a fast track once Trump began his first term and tore up the agreement the United States had with Iran.

That’s the Trump shuffle: one step forward, five steps back.

The NYTimes has obtained Supreme Court ‘shadow papers’ regarding their shadow docket, where they decide cases with little to no explanation. Did not read the documents yet, but I read the reporters take on them. The most infuriating takeaway:

The conservatives reacted to Obama’s use of power very differently from Trump’s.

Yeah, no shit. We’ve known this. Seeing it in print just stimulates my fury about GOP hypocrisy and double standards.

The rest of the papers seem to show that Roberts’ drive was a personal grudge against the Obama Administration and the EPA, and not about legal reasoning, which is something that we’ve long suspected. Roberts is supposedly thinking more about his ‘legacy’ these days; if so, these revelations did substantial damage.

There are also articles about the huge price increase — from $12.90 to $150 — for World Cup spectators to take the train to get nine miles to Met Life Stadium, Trump’s massive, ridiculous monument to himself (the drunk arch), and how much it’s costing to retrofit Qatari’s gift aircraft.

Everything Trump does stinks of ‘me first’. There is little outside of his braying that is ‘America first’. Sending Vance to campaign for Orbán; America first? Really?

And then, just to fuel that extra edge of anger I feel about the Trump administration:

Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media

Sure, tell me again the fable that this is all about truth, justice, and the ‘American Way’.

I remain convinced that all of this is still part of Operation LOOK — SQUIRREL! to keep the public from knowing what Trump did with Epstein, which is why all the files are still not released. Trump’s minions have claimed several times that all were released, only to later reveal that more unreleased files exist. Tell me again that they’re not hiding something.

In a sliver of good news, US gas prices dropped seven cents. The average price per gallon still remains over $4 a gallon.

Is it any surprise that My Neurons have Aerosmith serenading me with “Eat the Rich” from 1993 in my morning mental music stream?

Jean Jacques Rousseau originated the phrase, “Eat the rich”, during the French Revolution. Little ironic that a rock band of wealthy successful individuals advocate ‘eat the rich’.

Lyrics

Well I woke up this morning
On the wrong side of the bed
And how I got to thinkin'
About all those things you said
About ordinary people
And how they make you sick
And if callin' names kicks back on you
Then I hope this does the trick
'cause I'm sick of your complainin'
About how many bills
And I'm sick of all your bitchin'
'Bout your poodles and your pills
And I just can't see no humor
About your way of life
And I think I can do more for you
With this here fork and knife

Eat the rich
There's only one thing that they are good for
Eat the rich
Take one bite now - come back for more
Eat the rich
I gotta get this off my chest
Eat the rich
Take one bite now - spit out the rest

I got a little coffee to wash down a few bites of the rich. I hope you have a significantly satisfying Saturday.

Cheers

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