PORVEL
I was doing the NYT Spelling Bee today.
My wife and I share it; she begins, getting bingo if available, and finding all the pangrams she can. Today there was only one.
Meanwhile, I like to keep adding words until we reach a ‘genius’ rating. Like, yeah, recalling or recognizing all those words from the seven letters available doesn’t make us a genius. Just a fun activity.
Today’s seven letters were R V O N E L P. V was in the center, which means it must be used. As I was going through the words, I put in PORVEL.
That wasn’t in the word list.
That surprised me; I’m sure PORVEL is a word. It means ‘poor novel’. Seriously.
I checked the net to verify the word, but the searches only came up with Porvel cheese.
We really need better search engines, don’t we?
Monday’s Theme Music – Cracking Up
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, August 10, 2026.
Our August cooling trend continues. Today we’ll see low 90s with blue skies and sunshine in our valley. Last night saw the temperature fall to 58 F in our area. I had to go around closing windows to keep the house from getting too cold. Poor us, right?
Mom and Gina, my sister and Mom’s Power of Attorney, continue their cold war. I don’t think peace will come again, a change from how I was viewing it. Something about the conflict has triggered both, hardening their attitudes. Each instantly react angrily. Invectives and accusations fly.
Got Food & Friends deliveries today, along with a medical appointment this afternoon, so it’s another brief post. Somehow, most of my reading ended up being about Trump and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The story reminds us that Trump first claimed how resilient the fix he installed was.
“In May, for example, Trump said the lining was “so strong, so powerful” that it couldn’t be cut with a knife. He even drove his motorcade across it while it was being installed to inspect the work.”
Then, somehow, a vandal or group with knives managed to cut and tear that ‘so strong, so powerful’ lining.
Next, Trump was making claims about the evidence of this vandalism:
“We have photographs, or tapes,” he said, making a circular gesture with his hands. After a pause, he pointed to the cameras recording him and added: “Like moving cameras, right?”
Except, oh no, after Jeanine Pirro announced that they were dropping prosecution of the one vandal they’d arrested, Trump now claims there is no evidence:
“There was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
Anyone following the story knows the truth and has seen the evidence: the one who screwed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is Trump. And the one lying about it is also Trump.
The thing is, too, as it’s been often noted, the cover up is frequently worse than the crime. If Trump had just let it go, admitted he made a mistake, or anything like that, it would have already disappeared as a story. Instead, Trump dug in, refuse the facts and the truth, and made it worse.
But that’s Trump: lying, then lying about his lies, digging deeper and deeper holes. Did it with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; tariffs and the economy; the Epstein files; and the war he began with Iran.
A little over a year ago, I used the song “Basket Case” by Green Day as the day’s theme music. Trump has just attacked Iran for the first time. At that time, I wondered if June 21, 2025 and the attacks on that day would go down as the day that World War III quietly began?
Trump declared that mission enormously successful.
Trump says US ‘completely and totally obliterated’ nuclear facilities in Iran
Three days later, he walked back those claims. February of this year, he attacked Iran again. And the war has been going ever since, off and on, widening and creating death and destruction. Time and again, Trump gives different reasons for that war, not calling it a war to avoid being held in check, and has claimed different levels of results and success.
And that is why “Basket Case” is playing in the morning mental music stream today — again.
Sample Lyrics:
Do you have the time to listen to me whine?
About nothing and everything, all at once
I am one of those melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it
Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I’m cracking up
Am I just paranoid or am I just stoned?
Papi has settled in for the day. He’s ready for a day of relaxation. Hope you are, too.
Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music — Games
Ashland, southern Oregon. Saturday, August 8, 2026.
Cooler today. Although now 74 F, it will get only to 96 today. Officially, I think we hit 99 yesterday. My house saw 102 again.
There’s another fire burning. This one is to our northeast. Already at 19,000 acres with no containment, we’ve added it to our fire watch.
Trump urged his Attorney General to open prosecutions of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again. Given the plethora of bad news for Trump this week, I’m not surprised.
That’s part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! When things get bad, Trump tries to change the topic. Bad economic news came out. Trump would normally bluster about bombing Iran again. Can’t: low munitions, so they’re supposed to be ‘negotiating’.
Fallback number two would be to talk about how great everything is. But with prices still up and affordability still in crisis mode, he’s probably been advised to not talk about that.
Trump’s other topics would be calling climate change a hoax but with so many fires burning in the United States, he’s been silent about them — after stupidly threatening to impose tariffs on Canada because their wildfire smoke was bothering the US. While the US has ‘only’ burned over 6 million acres compared to 9 million in Canada, the United States’s fires outnumber Canadian fires 45,000 to 3,900.
Trump sure as hell can’t talk about Epstein…especially after a Federal court ruled that tearing down part of the White House to build a new ballroom was outside of Trump’s authority. That sent Trump off on an angry frenzy; since Trump lives there, he thinks he can do what he wants to it and fails completely to understand that the White House belongs to We the People. He’s just an occupant, and many of us are ready to kick him out.
With celebration of the nation’s 250 Anniversary going poorly so far, Trump is staying pretty mum about the Patriot Games which are starting this week. They had to move them from D.C. to Ohio. This is a classic Trump thing: the Freedom 250 Indycar race is coming up in a few weeks. Guess what? You can’t set up for an Indycar race at the same time that you’re running Patriot Games. The operations clashed, setting up a logistics nightmare.
So the Hunger Games — sorry, Patriot Games — were quietly moved.
I’m not overly impressed with those games, either:
The DC Indycar race — arrives later this month. The event has free admission, but many are angry about it. 1) Trump ignored getting approval from anyone for the event — surprise! 2) Although ‘free’, people attending aren’t permitted to bring in anything: chairs, foods, suntan lotion, drink, etc. 3) Locals are upset about how the race and its logistics are going to affect their lives during hot, humid August, especially when the race was forced on them without their approval.
So, back to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for Trump. It’s a mess that he created, a blot on his recorded, etched into his legacy, along with the Iran war, Epstein files, poor economy, and his corruption and ineptitude. He created this mess, and he’s going to go down swinging, pretending it’s not his own fault.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Yes, he’s had some great polls, if you ignore over half the nation.
Trump is weak, ineffective, losing power and losing face. He’s struggling to save it, but too delusional to do anything meaningful. So he’ll continue with the same ol’ same ol’ fantasies, ranting, raving, threatening, and bullying.
With all these thoughts of games — Trump’s games, pretending that he’s doing great, the ‘Patriot’ games, etc — Les Neurons supplied the morning mental music stream with an Alan Parson Project fave, “Games People Play.”
May your day bring a winning hand your way today and every day.
Cheers
Trump Is Doing Great!
Trump is doing so damn good, it’s incredible! Certainly the most amazing thing any of us have ever witness in the history of the entire world.
Yes, Trump is doing great — as long as you ignore a lot of the economy. Prices have gone up since he’s taken over, but inflation is dropping a little. So if you ignore those prices and focus on the declining inflation, Trump is doing great — and so are we!
Except, well — okay, you also need to ignore the July jobs report, and, um, the jobs reports for every month that Trump has been in the Oval Office since January of 2025. Those numbers are not good, but — here’s the good news which you need to focus on — unemployment is still down and a little lower than before. Of course, that’s because there are less people working — but if you just ignore that, the employment picture is rosier than ever!
Although, in order to conclude that Trump is doing great, we will need to forget that he promised no new wars. But those were just words, am I right?
We’ll need to pretend that Trump didn’t attack Iran, driving prices UP FOR EVERYTHING. We’ll also need to adjust our thinking so that it doesn’t look like Iran is dragging us over the coals, or that Trump said the war that isn’t a war which he started in February and claimed would last just a few weeks isn’t going on for over six months and burning through military resources.
Also, to support the reality that Trump is doing great, we’ll need to, ah, ignore the national debt, and how much we’re borrowing to pay that off. I mean, if we start thinking about that! Well — ha, ha — Trump isn’t really doing that great, but if we IGNORE that, then things are SUPER under Trump.
Also, proving how great everything is under Trump — except measles outbreaks — yikes! — which used to be almost eliminated but is now at some kind of high we haven’t seen in decades in the United States — but ignore that, please. Proving how great everything is under Trump, even Trump says it’s going great! He says his poll numbers are really terrific.
His poll numbers certainly are great — well, if you discount over half of the Independent voters, almost all Democrats, and a quarter of Republicans. Also, ignore young voters — three quarters of them disapprove of Trump — and Latino voters, as almost three quarters of them also disapprove of Trump.
Also, umm, over half of mothers with young children disapprove of Trump and the job he’s doing, so don’t talk to them, ha, ha! Along with Gen Z women, who disapprove of Trump more than any other age group! In fact, overall, over sixty percent of women don’t approve of Trump, so…you know…
Other than those small groups, Trump is doing great. And so are we!
I must say, Trump also looks so good — well, if you overlook his apparently obesity — and I wouldn’t want to body shame him — and his posture, skin, and hair — and that wig! — and the way he walks — but let’s not go there. If we overlook all of that, you gotta admit, he looks pretty…um…fair.
For an old, tired, rich white guy.
The Optimist
The price of gas has fallen in the US, and so quickly!
Now it’s just $.95 a gallon more than it was when Trump took office in 2025.
Follow me here. That means that if I buy ten gallons a week every week, I’m only spending $9.50 a week more, or just $494 a year more. Peanuts, really!
I’m doing even better with my electricity. Used to cost me $159 a month back in January 2025. Now I’m only paying $183 a month!
I’m laughing all the way to the bank.
Grocery prices, too, are really falling, and fast! Used to cost me $235 a week for groceries, and now it’s just $243 a week. Hahahaha. I’m only paying $9 a week more, just $468 more a year! My gosh, isn’t this great?
Add it all up, and I’m only spending $1,250 a year more than eighteen months ago, and it’s all coming down so quickly!
And don’t get me started on my healthcare insurance. Really, don’t. Please. There’s no comparison to be made because I can no longer buy insurance. That’s cool, though, that’s cool. I’m kind of young. Kind of healthy. Just a little overweight and diabetic, with a little stiffness, although I don’t sleep well and I feel tired all the time.
But man, things are going so great now that ICE is rounding up all those people. Yep, it’s all so great.
So very, very great.
Michael Seidel, writer 