Tag: history

Thursday’s Theme Music – History

Ashland, Oregon — Thursday, April 22, 2026.

Strong sunshine spreads across the valley from the east this morning. There are few clouds. The temperature is 41, the forecast calls for sunny weather, and the high end will see 67 F.

The latest move in Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! came out today.

Donald Trump reclassified state-medicinal marijuana as “less dangerous”. News reporting calls it “historic”, making it a perfect component of OELS!

With this, people will stop talking about:

  • High gas, fertilizer, and food prices
  • How badly Trump’s war in Iran is going, which he declared over as soon as it began (among other things)
  • The 1973 War Powers Act and the 60-day limit
  • Upcoming 2026 midterm elections and a potential blue wave
  • The Strait of Hormuz and whether it’s blockaded, who is doing it, and whether ships are paying tolls, and who’s collecting it
  • Trump’s feud with Pope Leo XIV
  • Rising disapproval numbers and bad polls
  • The backlash to depicting himself as Jesus via AI
  • Labor market weakness
  • Exploding national debt
  • Low consumer confidence
  • Trump’s health, stumbling, and slurring
  • The Epstein files, and Trump’s role in Epstein’s life and crimes.

If it’s not one thing, it’s the same damn thing, over and over.

Trump did his Bible verse reading. The right-wingers predictably gushed over Trump’s bold leadership. Many of the rest of us said, “Wow, that was terrible.”

Jokes arose about whether Trump would read from the Quentin Tarentino version. While others’ Bible reading was live-streamed, Trump’s was recorded and heavily edited.

Your Trump quote for the day:

Ah, Trump math. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”

Sure, we have. Many con artists make outlandish claims like this, such as George C. Parker, famous for selling people ownership in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Today’s music comes from my dream side. During the dream, I kept hearing the song, “Shame on the Moon” by Bob Seger.

But the dream was about this big birthday celebration for somebody. At its end, Shirley Bassey was introduced to sing.

As I remembered the dream, The Neurons introduced a different Shirley Bassey song, “History Repeating”. The one with her and the Propellerheads from 1997 took over the morning mental music stream.

Lyrics

The word is about, there’s something evolving
Whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here
That the revolution’s near
But to me it seems quite clear
That it’s all just a little bit of history repeating

The newspapers shout – a new style is growing
But it don’t know if it’s coming or going
There is fashion – there is fad
Some is good – some is bad
And the joke is rather sad
That it’s all just a little bit of history repeating

h/t to Genius.com

We heard from Mom. The social worker contacted her. Mom sent a chaotic text summarizing it. Basically, the social worker said that they would not be helping Mom move from the assisted living facility. Mom ended the text by asking my sister if she’ll help her move out at the end of the month.

Hope you have a great Thursday, wherever you are.

Cheers

7

Wednesday’s Theme Music – Outs & Ends

Ashland, Oregon — Wednesday, April 22, 2026.

After a day in which the thermometer didn’t press past the low fifties and the sky cried most of the day, we are seeing more of the same. Less sunshine, so it’s chillier, just 44 F now. The high will be 56.

I skimmed through the news but most of it had me saying, meh. More deaths, more politics, more crime and punishment.

Your Trump quotes for today:

Read those Trump quotes and the contradictions they expose, the outright hypocrisy, and the ignorance. Trump can’t be trusted.

BTW, the Epstein files have still not been all released.

I’m out of sorts today so I don’t have much to say. Dave Mason passed away, 78. He’s a musician. Just a few years older than moi, he was part of my musical landscape. He played with many others, wrote some songs with staying power, and had his own act.

When I read the news, his song, “We Just Disagree”, entered the morning mental music stream and stayed. The song came out in 1977. Married, I was alone on assignment in the Philippines with the US Air Force. 21 years old, I was wrestling with adulting basics. Mason’s music was one of my evening companions as I sat in my room, read, drew, and painted between shifts. Hearing of his death brought that music and time sharply back into focus.

Now I look back and think, wow, look at how many years ago. I sweep a mental eye over all of the changes the world has seen since then.

My hope for you is that peace and grace find you and give you the strength to make this day a success for you.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music – Uncertainty

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 21, 2026.

Today’s weather vibe echoes with yesterday’s impressions: sunshine in the east, dark, heavy, low clouds everywhere else. A late morning squall passed through Ashland yesterday. I was driving through it; my wife said it never touched our place.

The temperature now is 50 with a high of 55 F forecasted, roughly like yesterday. Except I saw 70 at our house at 3 PM.

News headlines told me yesterday that Jacksonville, Florida had wildfires burning. The headlines were about AMTRAK stopping train service for fires. I had to dig to learn about those fires. They now affected Florida and Georgia. The causes are exceptionally dry and windy conditions, and extreme drought.

According to Drought.gov, 51% of the United States is now in drought conditions. I knew it was bad in the west, especially the Pacific Northwest, but it didn’t register that Florida was also suffering from a drought.

We’re preparing for a hot and dry summer in our area. Further east, I read today that Colorado is draining a reservoir, shifting its water to another location, to reduce loss from evaporation.

In Trump Iran war news, the original ‘cease fire’ agreement is ending on the eight week war. Nobody can say what will happen then. Trump is making threats; the US Navy seized one tanker in the Gulf of Oman and boarded another in the Indian Ocean.

Your Trump quote for today:

Heavy snow and cold is forecast for parts of parts of Alaska, California, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia.

Virginia voters go to the polls for a special election about redistricting.

I won’t go into the various shooting deaths of the last few days.

The song that found its way into my morning mental music stream is from 1993. “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots is reputed to have a couple ‘meanings’, according to STP. For me, it’s about uncertainty, waiting — and lies.

Opening Lyrics

And I feel that time’s a wasted go
So where ya going ’til tomorrow?
And I see that these are lies to come
So would you even care?

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I’m not surprised that Les Neurons brought “Plush” into my head as my thoughts swirl with the news and speculation about Mom and her future. The song came out a few years before I retired from the military. I was living in the SF – SJ bay area and heard the song frequently on the radio while driving around on errands.

Hope you experience a safe, healthy, satisfying day, and don’t get too taken down by the news.

Cheers

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All These Things: Trump in decline

The way Trump has been carrying himself is creating speculation about his mind and health.

Much of this is caused by broken promises (like no new war) and things not going his way:

  • Job growth is poor
  • The national debt is growing fast
  • Oil, gas, and associated costs and prices are rising
  • His Iran war is not near an end and seems to be getting worse
  • Epstein’s ghost and his files, linking Trump to Epstein’s crimes, are still out there
  • Trump’s approval ratings drop more each week

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! did not distract people the way it used to. Trump has almost emptied his quiver. He can’t retract or retreat; that’s against his brand and would lose him his base.

All that remains is that he fire people in his administration to blame them for his failures. People are wondering now, who is next to fall under Trump’s blade? Patel, Hegseth, Kennedy?

It could be a bloody week.

More columns are talking about how badly things are going for Trump.

This Is Not a Man in Control of Himself

Jaimelle Bouie noted:

“The president is struggling with the consequences of his actions, raging in protest of the fact that for all its firepower, the United States cannot bomb Iran into submission. When Trump launched his “short-term excursion,” he assumed that it would be — in the words of a Pentagon official in the last Republican administration to launch a Middle East war — a “cakewalk.”

“That, as Trump’s own intelligence agencies told him, was a mistake. Now, he is stuck. And he lacks the skill and patience to find a way out of his self-inflicted catastrophe. Unable to will a better outcome into existence — there are limits to the power of positive thinking — and frustrated by his own impotence, his response, familiar to anyone who must manage the emotions of a young child, is to throw a tantrum.

“Over the last few days, Trump has denounced “the Fake News Media” as “CRAZY, or just plain CORRUPT!” for its reporting on the war. He attacked Pope Leo XIV in a bizarre rant, calling him “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.” And he posted an A.I. image of himself as Jesus, surrounded by devotees, healing an unnamed man.”

Donald Distracted

Andrew Egger observed:

“Well, here we are again: The ceasefire in Iran is once again in a state of near-total collapse. The U.S. military hasn’t yet resumed its bombing campaign of the Iranian mainland, but the danger in the Strait of Hormuz is as bad as ever.

“After claiming Friday that the strait was now open and letting a trickle of ships through, Iran abruptly reversed course Saturday, firing on at least two merchant vessels and insisting the strait would remain closed as long as America maintained its military blockade of Iran’s ports. Then, yesterday, U.S. forces fired on and seized an Iranian cargo ship that they said had tried to run their blockade—causing Iran to announce it was pulling out of the second round of Islamabad peace talks, which were scheduled to begin today. Oil prices, which on Friday had fallen by more than $10 a barrel on Iran’s claims of an open strait, rocketed back upward, now hovering back around $100.

“In one sense, we’re right back where we were last month—the strait closed, Iran intransigent, Donald Trump threatening. But that undersells the damage. A cancer patient who goes under the knife and wakes to discover they couldn’t remove the tumor isn’t likely to be comforted that at least the doctors stitched him up properly. The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz is becoming a global economic catastrophe, and it’s clear Trump is running out of options to compel Iran to stop throttling it.”

Inside the reckoning Trump didn’t see coming | Opinion

Robert Reich pointed out:

“It’s not just that Dems are winning special elections by wide margins (and even where they’re not, they’re “overperforming” in ruby-red areas by an average of 16 points).

“Nor just that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was overwhelmingly defeated after 16 years of authoritarian rule, with almost 80 percent of eligible voters turning out. (The victor, Peter Magyar, overcame Orbán’s rigged system by focusing on Orbán’s corruption and linking it to the economic difficulties facing average Hungarians.)

“Or that Trump posted an image of himself as Jesus, revealing his God complex and causing even evangelical Christians in his MAGA base to question his religiosity and mental stability.

“Or that Trump and Vance were dumb enough to pick a fight with Pope Leo, who has used it to explain his (and, for Catholics, Jesus’s) objections to war and to tyrants everywhere.

“Or that Trump’s major ally in Europe (and the only European leader to attend his inauguration), Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Malone, described Trump’s attack on the pope as “unacceptable” (Trump responded by attacking her for “lacking courage” in refusing to join his war on Iran).

“Or that Trump threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization — prompting even Tucker Carlson to call Trump’s threat “vile on every level,” Candace Owens to demand that the 25th Amendment be invoked to remove him from office, conspiracist Alex Jones to accuse Trump of threatening “genocide,” and Megyn Kelly to concede that Trump’s coalition is “completely fractured and in smithereens.”

“Or that Trump’s war has been such an abominable failure that it’s demonstrated his dangerous ignorance and diminishing mental capacity.

“It’s all these, together.”

Yes, it’s all these things.

It’s also that Trump doesn’t know what to do. He’s run out of gimmicks and is losing support. He needs a win to bolster his fragile ego and his support.

Oddsmakers are betting that there’s a 63% chance that Trump will escalate the war in Iran.

Given his past, who would bet against that?



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“Come From Away”

My wife and I had a mini-staycation yesterday. First we went to the matinee performance of a play, “Come From Away”. Dinner out at a Mexican restaurant followed.

  • The Oregon Shakespeare Festival staged the play. A musical, the book is based on the 9/11 attacks and Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, when 39 aircraft and almost 7,000 people were diverted to the island after US and Canadian airspace was closed after the terrorist attacks.
  • The play was energetic and uplifting. Production values and performances were superb. Afterward, we thought, it must have physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Each actor played several rolls. They often picked up and carried chairs with them, representing their carry-on bags. Chairs and tables were re-arranged to be council meetings, diners, air-traffic control towers, buses, and aircraft.
  • Gander was only a place of 9,000 itself, but with one of the largest airfields in the world. That airfield had been built during the early days of transatlantic travel, when a final fuel top off was needed to cross the ocean. Aircraft landed there coming and going from Europe.
  • The people of Gander were powerfully represented as caring and giving. Differences were set aside to come together to help all these travelers cope with trying circumstances. Passengers had no idea what had happened for hours. Those who spoke little English, who came from places where martial law ruled, were terrified when soldiers arrived and began ordering them off the aircraft and onto buses.
  • One person took it upon herself to find the animals in the aircraft and ensure they had food, water, medicine, and care. There was a lot of singing, dancing, and explanation, along with a new romance, and the end of an old one.
  • Most interesting, high school students also attended. Many of them were confused about what was going on. While those of us born well before 9/11 were transfixed by history and our own memories, these young people were frequently baffled. History was explained to them after the play was over.

Last, most compelling, was the juxtaposition of the times. Here we are, so very polarized by the American president, Donald Trump, and his policies. Establishing guidelines that cuts the legs off of empathy and sympathy, giving speeches which demeans anyone who isn’t American, indeed, anyone who doesn’t support him, there we were, watching people coming together to help one another. It is especially poignant now, as Trump trashes Canada again and again, while declaring himself the ‘unity president’.

Watching the play was a very, very powerful experience. I highly recommend seeing it, if you ever have the chance.

It will remind you of what we can be.

7

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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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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The Comparison: Computer, Trump

It feels like my computer is starting to treat me like it’s Trump. It doesn’t tell me what’s going on or give me a reliable time window.

I’m accustomed to my computer telling me to do things but explaining why it’s doing things. They gave me options: do you want to update and shutdown, or shutdown without updating? Other options were also available.

Along those lines, the computer would inform me about how long it would take — three minutes, two minutes, six.

Yes, they were using computer time. This is not ordinary time. Comparable times are shopping time and waiting time.

“It’ll be just a minute,” I hear. “Maybe two.” Those minutes compound into ten. Fifteen.

Worse, though, are NFL minutes. Especially the last two minutes of a half or game. I did some research and the average final two minutes of an NFL game lasts ten to twenty minutes. Some estimates show that the final two minutes of a four-quarter NFL football game can consume about five to ten percent of the game’s total time, which is wild if you think about it.

The NFL does give us a ‘two-minute warning’. Unfortunately, they’re very terse about it. “This is the two-minute warning.” They should add, “The next two minutes can take anywhere from two and half minutes to eternity. Go use the restroom now, get something to eat and drink, and let your family know where you are.”

Computer time has now overtaken the NFL’s final time minutes as ‘the time that can’t be measured’. My computer doesn’t tell me many times now how long updates or searches will take. It leaves it vague: “This might take a few minutes.”

You think?

I was running a process to check for memory leaks the other night. Yes, on my computer, not for me.

Anyway, the computer warned me, “This might take a few minutes.”

Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting for an update.

And that’s like Trump. Time doesn’t mean anything when he makes promises or projections. Well, neither do facts, for the most part.

For example: Trump was asked when he would come up with his replacement for ACA. Two weeks, he told us, over five years ago.

When will the Iran war end? “When I feel it in my bones.”

Great.

Sounds just like my computer.

When will the search be finished?

“When I feel it in my hardware.”

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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