Tag: Information

Twosda’s Theme Music

The cat wanted out. 3:20 AM, according to my sleep-blurred vision. Following his victory prance to the door, I gave him the usual admonitions about being safe, smart, staying close, and not letting anything get him. He meowed back with a little defiance, as if to say, “Gosh, I know! You tell me this a million times a day.”

A while later, sun was breaking in through the window. I cowered from it like a vampire. But it wasn’t the sun calling me: the cat wanted back in. 6:32. He came in, rushing to his kibble bowl like a starving maniac. I stumble-walk back to bed.

“Meow,” he said shortly, batting blinds. I want out.

“No,” I answered. “Not gonna happen.”

Of course it happened.

This is Twosda, March 25, 2025. The sun is glowing hard, heating an endless blue sky. Sensing a change in the air, the cat is eager to take advantage of it. “Sure,” I sleep-spoke to him. “You slept all day yesterday. I saw you, curled up in the malabar chair.”

“Meow,” the cat answered. “Out.”

It’s already 54 F. I don’t know what it feels like. I feel like I’d like more sleep. Supposed to get to 78 F today. Huzzah. Yawn. Seriously, I mean, huzzah, but I gotta get some coffee in me before I can give it the enthusiasm it deserves.

I’m suspicious of the weather. This is Oregon. Snow still covers some mountain tops, eyeing us in the valley. I suspect winter is gonna try to slip another storm over us. It’s just like weather to lure us with warm temperatures and friendly skins and then spring out at us like a demented drunk uncle and shout, “Got you.” And then laugh like they’re crazy.

Today’s morning mental music stream Neurons are offering The Friends of Distinction with “Going In Circles”. The gentle soulful 1969 song is in there because The Neurons think it’s funny about how the cat has me getting up to let him in and out over and over again. When it’s warmer, the pet door will be put back into place so he can leave and enter as he wants. But that temperature threshold hasn’t been achieved yet.

In recent news items, Donald Trump was caught lying. Trump said he didn’t sign controversial proclamation. The Federal Register shows one with his signature. Isn’t this rich from the administration which tried to say that President Biden’s pardons weren’t real because, signature. Autosigning thingy. “Did he know what he was signing?” they asked. Think they confused which person doesn’t know what they’re saying. Really, we know that Trump knew what he was signing; he just lied about it because it was giving him negative heat. Trump melts and lies under that kind of heat, sure as the sun’s motion.

Also, measles outbreaks are spreading. It’s mostly among the unvaccinated. You know, intelligent people, learning from what’s happening, would develop and administer vaccines to stop that. But we’re dealing with a new level of denial and irrational thinking with the Trusk Regime and the MAGAts who installed them.

Also, DOGE’s actions don’t seem to be going well with the public. So Republicans are being encouraged to lie about it. Here’s the deets. GOP begs senators to sing DOGE’s praises as support flounders

Gotta go. Cat wants in. Coffee, give me strength. Cheers

0

Munda’s Bumper Sticker

Elon Musk wants to save Western civilization from empathy

“We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on,” Musk said, borrowing the term from Gad Saad, a Canadian scholar who is also a frequent Rogan host.

While Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”

Empathy, he said, has been “weaponized.”

“The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” — Hannah Arendt

Right now, as DOGE cuts through the Federal U.S. government and social safety nets, Elon Reeve Musk shows no empathy for what he’s doing to the government, the nation, or the people.

1

Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

Arias ring through the room’s air. These originate in my wife’s digestive system. She’s on day 3 of a fast. A lacto-ovo-pescatarian for over 30 years, all that she’s permitted herself during these days is green tea and water. Plenty of both have been consumed.

Fasting is her go-to response to matters. First time that she fasted was while I was in the Philippines on military assignment. Living with her parents, she decided to fast and did so for ten days. In this case, she’s dealing with two fronts: RA flares afflicting her shoulder, and being dispirited about the current political clime in the United States. She’d taken to long days of doom scrolling. Friends finally told her, “You need to stop.”

So stop she did. She stopped eating and doom scrolling. How long will she continue, is the question put to her. She’s not certain. She’ll reach some point where she’ll decide she’s clean enough and will resume eating.

While she isn’t eating, she’s still treating herself to warm epson salts baths and near infrared red-light therapy in our home pod. She’s also staying in the house, limiting social contact and physical activity. She’s reading a lot of fiction.

I hope it all works. I hope she recovers and is eating again soon.

2

Munda’s Theme Music

A silky blue sky weaves hope and optimism in Ashlandia. A gorgeous spring day is being promised. 63 F now, ‘they’ tell us it feels like 71 F. I agree with them. Plentiful sunshine, as ‘they’ say. 73 F is the predicted high.

This is Munda, March 24, 2025. I dig this kind of sunshine. Especially after months of rain and clouds and the kind of chilly weather that makes me feel older than I am.

The cat is also quite pleased, I think. He zooms around furniture and through rooms. “Sun recharge your batteries?” I ask. He stops, sits, stares. Classic 3s floofhavior. After three seconds of this, he sticks a rear leg out and washes its underside. I begin for the kitchen. He pauses the washing to gift me with a scrutinizing stare. “You’ll get yours,” I say, because I know that whereismyfood look.

In the kitchen, I’m doing my morning things. Gotta move faster today. Leaving to do Food & Friends deliveries at 10 AM. Everything must be slightly accelerated. Nanoseconds must be shaved away from routines. I don’t feel like shaving time off today. I’m not a Formula 1 driver doing qualifying laps.

I give Papi his first feeding. That’s misleading. He’s already eaten from kibble bowls several times. This is a wet food offering. Eyes bright, he chirps at me as I lower the food bowl toward him. “Yes, you love me now,” I say. His purr vibrates the floor.

Time is flying. I eat. Make coffee. Drink same. Clean and dress. Examine my lower limbs for swelling and find none, knock on wood. My compression socks are easily drawn over my feet and up my legs. I’m becoming very proficient getting them on. It’s the other end, taking them off, that’s the challenge. I might have made a mistake by turning down the doffing stick. I reassure myself that not using the doffing stick gives my wrists, fingers, and hands a needed workout. My self is as suspicious about that as a cat might be.

We hit the Senior Center for the food pickup and schedule. Cars surround the center. Parking is limited. “That’s a bad sign,” my wife declares. “The food must not be ready.”

I’m resigned to wait. “Go check.”

She returns with the first load of food within a minute, surprising us. We’re off and running with a minimum wait.

“Only ten stops today,” she says.

“Ten stops. I remember when we had twice that.” Yes, people have disappeared from the list. We usually don’t know what happens to them. They’re Schrödinger’s elderly people. That’s a miserably depressing thought for such a sunny, bright day.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is the Pat Benatar offering, “Invincible”. Released in 1985, it was quite a hit at that time and stays on classic rock stations as an offering for the elderly still feasting on the past. The Neurons called it up today to support the April 5 Hands Off actions rising. Annie commented on a post, “I just read that the April 5 coalition includes at least 83 organizations, among them the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union. It’s gonna be big!!”

We need big energy to combat the Trusk Regime and GOTP. We need the energy of “Invincible”. Written by Simon Climie and Holly Knight, the song was made for the movie The Legend of Billie Jean.

[Chorus]
We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible

[Verse 2]
This shattered dream you cannot justify
We’re gonna scream until we’re satisfied

[Pre-Chorus]
What are we running for?
We’ve got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there’s nowhere we can run to anymore

h/t to Genius.com

It could be that I’m overwrought by the Trusk situation in the United States.

Hope your day satisfies you in some meaningful ways. I’m writing and then planning long-delayed chores. I’ve always blamed the weather. Now that the weather has improved, my excuses are gone.

Here’s the music video. Cheers

2

A Powerful Piece

Call A Spade, A Spade

Jill Dennison shared Steven Dundas’ column about Hitler and Trump. One of the most striking sections for me:

In the case of the Germans, at least in the early 1930s, even his common followers had little reason to believe that Hitler would follow through on his most extreme statements, even Jews. On 2 February 1933, a leading German Jewish newspaper editorial wrote:

“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture.”

Yep. We still see newspapers, Democrats, Republicans, etc., striving to downplay Trump’s intentions, just as the same was done with Hitler.

Read the whole piece. Share it widely. Maybe it will awaken more people and get them to start thinking, before it’s too late.

1

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I’ve been busy tracking the PINO Trusk administration’s actions. It’s like tracking a hurricane as it roars toward humanity. Oh no, where is it going to hit next? Hope those folks will be okay. Shame about those Trump voters who thought he cared about them. Hope they’re okay despite their vote. Because they’re other humans, right? They are human, right? I have that right, don’t I? I guess it could’ve been bot voters who won the day for Trump. Wouldn’t put it past DOGE and the GOTP at all. But that’s a conspiracy for another day.

Right now, I’m wondering about the tipping point. When will Hurricane Trusk cause enough damage that the majority of American citizens will come together in one voice and finally shout, “Enough, you fuckers! Stop it right now.”

That tipping point moment is predicated on multiple vectors and variables, so it’s a hard prediction. My original call was April of 2025. That’s what I told friends back at the beginning of January. I thought, hey, inflation, high prices, the contempt with which Trump treats history, minorities, and women; emptied shelves caused by trade wars, parks going to crap, and the air and water starting to stink; tourism swiftly cratering, rising unemployment, flopping tax revenues, threats against Medicare and Social Security, and people would be mighty miffed by April.

I don’t know ’bout April any longer. There’s a mass of individuals out there quite willing to endure those things. Mostly, I think, it’s because they don’t want to admit how fucking wrong they were about Trump. That they’ve been tricked, had, conned. Also because some of them are so underwater in the MAGA swamp that they won’t fully get what’s going on. Part of that will be because the right wingosphere will feed the MAGAts what they want, which is GREAT NEWS about HOW GREAT TRUMP IS, regardless of the truth. We’ve seen it before. Lot of them believe that Trump built an impenetrable wall across our southern border. Doesn’t explain why they worry about ‘illegals’ now, but then, that’s their thinking level.

If I had more energy, I’d propose a national betting pool. We could all pick a date and bet that is the tipping day. But that would be a messy thing to figure out, especially with PINO Trusk and his regime dicking with the numbers.

Maybe I’ll do it on another day. After I’d had a few glasses of beer. It seems like a beery thing to do.

3

Goldilocks

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite type of weather?
View all responses

I’ve become a sunshine person. It wasn’t always like this. When I was young, I’d go out in weather that had others questioning my sanity. As I grabbed coats, shoes, whatever was needed, people would eye me with aghast expressions. “You’re going out in that?”

“Sure,” I’d answer, “it’s just a little rain.” Even if was a monsoon. Rain, snow, sleet, wind, nothing kept me in. Not even thunder and lightning. “Just going for a walk.”

I loved pitting myself against the elements. Felt like a hero out of a 19th century novel, just a rugged individual surviving against the elements. I thought myself quite heroic. Especially when I knew there was somewhere safe, warm, and secure to retreat to when I had my fill of being heroic.

Different these days. “Where’s the sun?” I ask. I search all of the sky, even though I know where it’s supposed to be. I know where east is. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I know those directions. Still, I sweep the sky in search of the sun, in case it got off its leash.

I don’t usually get an answer to my question about the sun’s location. Others always think it rhetorical. Probably because everyone knows where the sun is going. Not like it’s a wandering cat.

I used to be more indifferent to the sun. Now, I’m very picky. I don’t want it too bright, too hot, or too much. I have become Goldilocks sampling the three bears’ stuff.

I like a good warm sunshine. Not enough for sweat these days. Used to be — but you know. I don’t want to sweat. I want to be warm, with enough sunshine that wearing sunglasses make sense. Not that it really matters to me: I’m almost always wearing sunglasses outside. Sometimes I wear them inside.

“Why don’t you take off your sunglasses?” my wife will say. “You’re inside now.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look ridiculous.”

I shrug. I’m used to that.

5

Floofnacious

Floofnacious (floofinition) – An animal’s strong trait or ability to hold on, persist, or cling to things. Origins: Floofin, 400 BCE.

In Use: “Papi demonstrated an unexpected floofnacious knack for evading Michael when the latter tried to administer the cat’s morning medicines.”

In Use: “Rocky never said a word, but his floofnacious staring at Brenda always won him treats to make him go away.”

In Use: “The cat’s original name was Corey but after the little mogie grabbed a piece of pizza and refused to release it, he was renamed Floofnacious C, after the rock duo, Tenacious D, but also out of respect for his holdontoitiness.”

0

Sunda’s Theme Music

It’s a bleak and featureless Sunda morning. Like winter and spring both decided not to show up. The sun complained, “If you guys aren’t in, I’m not either.”

The gray feels like a weight pressing down. I wonder what the weather was like when Robbie Robertson wrote “The Weight” for The Band.

It’s three quarters through March, 22 of 2025. 46 F now, the weather ‘they’ are trying to sell me on mostly sunny skies and a high of 66 F. I’ve gone past skeptical about that. Then I read that we’re hitting the seventies for Monday through Wednesday here. My heart harbors doubt. Do they mean the 1970s? With Trump still in office, there’s a reasonable question about the reference.

Papi the ginger blade is energetic today. I make a critical mistake. After feeding him breakfast, I give him his blood pressure medicine in some Churro. He loves that stuff and this is our regular process. But stupid me, I think, I’ll do two things at once. Give him his BP med in the Churro and while he’s eating that, I’ll rub his thyroid medication in his ear. That last is something that must be done twice a day.

Except my nose is a little snoggy. I hear myself breathing through it. In and out like a wheezy, broken machine. Were it a machine, I’d think, I need to replace that thing. It’s beyond fixing.

Doing Papi’s morning meds is not a favorite activity for me. Tucker was on the same regimen. He lasted a year. Papi began it the same month when Tucker passed. Lot of burdensome memories organized in this task.

I bend down to administer the thyroid med. Papi hears that breathing. Thinking a bear or something must be after him, he hits reverse like he’s a Corvette in a police chase and speeds through my legs. I bend over double, trying to grab him while saying, “No, stay there, let me do this, please, Papi. Papi..”

He darts away. I get the gooey white medicine on me. That’s toxic to humans. Cursing, I take off the used finger cap, dump it, and wash off my hand.

Papi has settled by the back door. He did not eat his Churri with his heart medicine. He’s eyeing me the way a quarterback is looking at a defensive end just before the ball is snapped. He is thinking, “Is he coming after me? How do I get away?”

I carry out the Churri bowl like a peace offering. Papi gallops up, all purrs, and bends his head to the task. I back away to give him space.

Papi takes two licks of his Churri and speeds off again. WTF? The Neurons ask. There is no answer.

Okay, I’ll go to the other med. We’re on the clock. This stuff is s’posed to be given every twelve hours. I don a new little finger cap. Put new med on it. Head for Papi.

“Mrr,” Papi says. Watching me, we begin a ballet. I move forward. He moves right. I go right. He backs up and heads left, then turns and prances around the coffee table, saying, “Mrr,” as he does. He looks yearningly at the back door. He wants out. I’ll try to trick him. Heading to the door, I unlock it. Opens it. Papi darts up and skids to a halt. “Mrr.” He knows this trick. Smarter than me, he doesn’t budge when I open the door and brightly declare, “Do you want to go out?”

Papi shies back into the room. I close the door. Verbally cajoling him has worked in the past. That’s the past. Papi’s not having it this morning. He keeps circling me, telling me, “Mrr.” I keep explaining that he knows that I need to give him this med. It’s not that bad. We do it everyday.

He finally decides, okay, here I came. Purring, he edges up to my leg. I slowly bend. Holding gently onto his back, I thank him for indulging me and gently rub the medicine into his inner ear.

Released, he bolts to the back door and releases a plaintive cry. I get what he’s saying. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Time to go out.” I open the door. He’s like a fast wind blowing out. Halfway across the patio, tail up, he turns around, sits, and stares at me. I can’t read that expression. Telling him the usual precautions whenever he’s out, I close the door. Whole thing has taken thirty minutes. I feel like it’s been ninety, ninety five minutes. Back in the office, I take a long gulp of cooling coffee.

Here’s The Weight by The Band. If you read this far, you know why it’s in my morning mental music stream.

I type up this post. Papi comes back in. I set the Churri with his meds down in a different room. He eats it up.

I come back into the office and set. Papi joins me and purrs as I scratch his head and chin.

I need more coffee. Cheers

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑