When black Frida comes, it’ll be chilly, with limited, diluted sunshine in Ashlandia. This is November 28, 2025. Just a few more daz and the eleventh month of 2025 will be in the books. Meanwhile, it’s 43 F and a high of 55 F is hoped. Rain? WTH knows?
A little tomfloofery for your day is in the link. Click and enjoy this interaction between two species.
Today’s music was derived from looking out the window. I was visiting the back scene with Papi, gathering some sunshine against my face and gazing on the leaves on the ground. Dead and dying leaves passed through my thoughts. Instantly Les Neurons began a song in my morning mental music stream about dying leaves and dirty ground. The words were there along with pieces of melody and fragments of sound. What was missing were the title, performer, and the rest of the song. As it didn’t come to me, I took to technology to recover the rest. The answers: “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” by The White Stripes. I thought it a bit cruel of The Neurons to do that to me, trying to me think and remember when I hadn’t even had my coffee yet. Sometimes, I swear, I don’t know what gets into The Neurons.
We had a delightful Friendsgiving, meeting a few new people and visiting with a dozen and a half friends. The food was its usual delicious, the standard for these outings. Standard and straightforward T Day offerings but with organic stuff, vegan offerings, and gluten-free choices.
We chatted briefly about politics. “We ain’t buying it,” was chatted up. We also discussed “A House of Dynamite”, a movie about potential nuclear way now playing on Netflix. One wonders how the Dizzy Donny Regime would respond to detection of an incoming ICBM, given that Donny cut the head off the senior military ranks, replacing them with people more politically reliable to Donny but less experienced. Some had even retired at lesser ranks and were returned to service to take up new positions. Not reassuring.
Hope you had a decent Thirstda. Now out and onward. Cheers
We’re again into the territory in the United States called ‘Thanksgiving’ or ‘Thanksgiving Day’. Shrouded with mythology, embedded in gluttony, wrapped with consumerism, T-day has become complicated for many in the U.S. My wife can’t stand the holiday but participates instead in an annual Friendsgiving. It’s just Thanksgiving with a different label. The essence of gathering and eating is unchanged. For the record, my spouse despises Thanksgiving for the cruelty to animals done in its name, and for the celebration of overeating done while so many go wanting. I respect her opinions. For me, Thanksgiving is filled with nostalgia. Mom loved cooking and feeding her family and having us all together. That’s when she was always at her best. So I have great memories of those times. Later, as I rose in rank, we always opened our door to younger military members and shared Thanksgiving with them. Plenty of good memories swirl around those days, too. So, it’s complicated. Let me put this to you: I’ve thankful for what I have and what I had. I’m hopeful that we can create a world where accumulating wealth and power will finally give way to keeping us all healthy and safe, regardless of holiday, nation, or any of the many qualifications too many people attach to who they’re willing to help.
For Thanksgiving in Ashlandia, the weather is complicated but typical. Sunny with blue skies and clouds. Rain might show up later. Temp hovering around 50 F may get up to 58 F. Average and complicated. This is Thirstda, November 27, 2025.
Thoughts of home and reflections about last night’s dreams prompted The Neurons to bring up “Can’t Find My Way Home”. This Blind Faith song came out well over fifty years ago. It still feels right. I went with a cover with Steve Winwood and Tom Petty. Hope you give it a listen.
A four-year-old social media post from now-Vice President J.D. Vance has resurfaced online, putting him under fresh scrutiny.
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In 2016, Vance was openly critical of Trump’s candidacy and at one point referred to him as “America’s Hitler,” a remark that has repeatedly resurfaced since he joined the ticket.
~snip~
Then comes another headline in the story:
A complicated history between Trump and Vance
Nothing complicated about it. Vance sold out for money, power, and position, and willingly and eagerly advanced Trump’s lies to advance himself. In short, Vance demonstrated he lacks principles. Simplest story in the world. Vance isn’t an exception. We’ve seen this with multiple Republicans. After disparaging Trump, they’ve united behind him and stand with him, except for a few outliers, as this 2016 WaPo story attests.
Hope your Thanksgiving provides something for you to be thankful for, and they you enjoy a good, a good month, a good coming year. May peace and grace find us today and every day. Cheers
Hello World. We’ve stepped into another Wenzda. This is November 26, 2025. Sunshine is warming Ashlandia. The clouds have stepped out. Fog has eased off. It’s 48 F with pretentions of reaching the mid 60s. The winter edge has filed away, and it feels like a pleasant autumn day out there.
The Neurons are offering a melody by The Offspring in the morning mental music stream. “The Kids Aren’t Alright” entered the stream as I scanned news, shook my head, and wondered, “What the hell is going on?” That plays right into the song’s lyrics.
What the hell is going on? The cruelest dream, reality
The song was written in response to one of the band members seeing first hand how the ‘American Dream’ failed his home town. From Wikipedia.org:
Dexter Holland wrote the song after visiting his home town, Garden Grove, California, and discovering many of his old acquaintances had faced serious problems. Holland stated: “The neighborhood looks like Happy Days, but it’s really Twin Peaks,” while guitarist Noodles said that the song subverted the idea that “you grow up hoping you and your friends have a bright future.”
How many of us have seen something like this transpire? You meet these little nephews, nieces, neighbor kids, etc., and think, “Gosh, what a bright and talented young person. So intelligent and precocious.” Parents rave about how great the child is. Then, a few years later, you hear about the child’s growing problems. Some of the problems are derived from school, some from family, even parents. And you think, “What happened?” in wistful wondering tones. Kind of like many do with this country, particularly under the Trump Regime. What happened? WTF is happening? Especially to the cratering of norms, institutions, and structures under Dizzy Donny’s guidance, and the twisted priorities he pursues to glorify and enrich himself. Dozy Donny is such a broken toy.
Call out and reminder, We Ain’t Buying It this weekend. Annie presents a solid reminder of the whereins and whyfors for us. It’s about money, power, responsibility, and living with choices. Check out Annie’s post, if you will.
Big Business is a substantial target as we enter a Big Business Weekend. The coalition behind “We Ain’t Buying It” began with Black organizations that started boycotting Target when it dropped its DEI policy to appease Trump’s White Nationalist agenda. That boycott continues.
The opposition now includes many other supportive groups. As explained below, the emphasis is on Target, Home Depot, and Amazon,and the boycott is for the weekend that begins on Thanksgiving Day, moves to Black Friday, and concludes with CyberMonday.
You can read all the details in Indivisible’s description. As they say, it’s simple. It’s also a building block for the economic measures that will be necessary in the near future.
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On to coffee! The first sip is with the nose. Since grace and peace haven’t deigned to be here, I’ll just carry on widout ’em. Onward, into the world. Cheers
It’s just a few days before the annual food-shopping-football orgy called Thanksgiving in the United States. And man, Trump has ramped up his incessant gobbling.
Affordability? “Gobble gobble,” Trump says. “Just a another Democrat con job,” the great Con-in-Chief declares.
Sure, who you gonna believe? Your wallet and bank account, or Dizzy Donny, a practiced and regular liar? TACO insists prices are down. Independent data sources say otherwise. Overall, for me, personally, prices are up. But once again, Trump exposed his own lies when he declared prices were down and that consumers don’t pay tariffs, and then declared he was lowering tariffs to reduce prices.
Just like the Epstein files, isn’t it? “Democratic hoax,” Dozy Donny woke up and shouted, over and over and over, fearful of what the files say about him and his former BFF, J. Epstein. One thing which has become clear is that Epstein thought that Trump was evil and stupid. Crazy. “The worst person he’d ever known.”
Seems like a pretty accurate assessment.
Dizzy Donny Trump and future with with Trump’s BFF, Jeffrey Epstein.
If you do believe Trump, ask him where the Trump mobile phones are. Orders are in, but phones aren’t being delivered. And they’ve apparently veered away from that ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ promise. Trump will blame someone else for the lack of deliveries and the manufacturing location. That’s TACO’s MO. No disaster or deception is ever his fault, no matter how much his fingerprints and name are on it. Talk about hoaxes and deceptions. He’s a walking deception.
“Sedition!” Trump bellows. “Gobble gobble gobble.” Too many experts quickly explained in the press and on the net that sedition doesn’t mean what Trump thinks it means. Dozy Donny is hungry for distractions and some kind of victory. Senator Mark Kelly and five other Democrats gave Trump an opening in his eyes, when they reminded military members that their oath is to the U.S. Constitution, and not to the POTUS, and that they have a moral obligation to not obey illegal orders.
Of course, what is an ‘illegal’ order for the military? That’s thorny as hell. When a subordinate is given an order by a superior, it’s inferred that it’s legal. It takes moral courage to stand up and say, “That’s an illegal order. I’m not doing it.” Many people lack that backbone to directly challenge authority. The Just Security website has collected multiple opinions about the legality of Trump’s attacks on unarmed civilian Venezuelan boats and Slate article provided a thoughtful summary about the situation.
One opinion on Just Security shares JD Vance’s reaction to comments about the legality.
~snip~
In the early days after the first lethal strike, Vice President J.D. Vance gleefully said he “didn’t give a shit” whether the strike was illegal. And after government officials have (totally implausibly) suggested that the strikes are part of an armed conflict against the cartels, the President shrugged his shoulders at a reporter’s question about seeking a “declaration of war” from Congress, responding that “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be, like, dead.”
~snip~
And there it is, nicely encapsulated in that reaction and paragraph: the TACO Regime just doesn’t give a shit about the law. Get it yet?
The GOP practices of lying and bullshitting the public continues at a brisk pace. The weekly feature, “Congressional Cowards” in Daily Kos covered the phenomena of GOP lawmakers now trying to get credit for the release of the Epstein files after fighting them.
In actuality, just four Republicans can take credit for the success of the legislation.
~snip~
But the one who really pissed me off was a rep. out of Texas. His releases about the Epstein files parrot Dizzy Don to a tee.
~snip~
But perhaps the most shameless Republican is Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas. Before the discharge petition succeeded, Nehls wrote on X that he would be “voting NO on the Epstein Hoax.”
“The Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax to distract us from the winning of President Trump and his administration,” he wrote. “My message to my Republican colleagues: Don’t let this noise keep us from delivering on the mandate the American people gave us.”
But Nehls quickly changed his vote to a “yes” once Trump gave his blessing.
“As President Trump has said, we have nothing to hide. I voted YES to release the files so we can move on from the smear campaign the Democrats have manufactured, and continue to advance policies that benefit hardworking Americans,” he wrote on X.
~snip~
Gag me with the proverbial fucking spoon.
Meanwhile, the corruption in the Trump Regime seems to be spreading.
In recent days, five U.S. senators and two representatives requested documents from the Department of Homeland Security and a formal investigation into how a firm closely tied to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ended up receiving money from a $220 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign.
The demands came in response to a ProPublica story this month that revealed that the Republican consulting firm had been secretly working on the ads, which star Noem. The company, called the Strategy Group, has long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. Its CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS.
Under Noem, DHS bypassed the normal competitive bidding process when awarding the contracts — allocating the majority of the money to a mysterious Delaware LLC that was created days before the deal was finalized. The Strategy Group does not appear on public documents about the deal.
~snip~
Sure, how did that happen? DOGE and the Trump regime gutted contract and spending oversight by firing multiple inspectors general earlier this year. IG are independent watchdogs who oversee federal agencies and root out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. Removing them encourages corruption. And Trump leads by example, lying, bullying, and grifting. Why should those he hires be different?
Good morning. We’re here in Fog City on Twozda, November 25, 2025. It’s a sweltering 41 F outside, and it’s gonna get hotter! As the sun and fog tango and clouds move in and out, we’ll crest 55 F. All this continues a pattern of unusually cold and foggy weather for us, weather that’s colder than normal for Ashlandia. Still, we’re not seeing the heavy rains crashing into the northeastern part of the state, so, thanks, weather gods.
Speaking of the state, Oregon’s governor declared a state of emergency.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency Monday to ensure that enough fuel arrives to the state while the Olympic Pipeline, which supplies more than 90% of the state’s fuel, remains shut down due to a leak ahead of Thanksgiving travel.
Kotek’s declaration is intended to keep enough fuel arriving to the state by ships and trucks partly by waiving certain regulations on how long commercial drivers hauling fuel can operate, according to the governor’s order.
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Oregon officials said they did not expect a fuel shortage in the state or at Portland International Airport with the emergency measures but cautioned that drivers might see an uptick in prices because of the more costly delivery methods.
In Washington, where Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a similar state of emergency last week, the shutdown is starting to slow some air travel in Seattle ahead of Thanksgiving.
~snip~
Oregon often has a price higher than most states. This is generally driven by a combination of factors, including state taxes and the challenges of importing gasoline and other fuels into the state.
Today’s music is a hit by the Four Tops, “Standing in the Shadows of Love“. This is all dream related. As the dream faded, I moved into a shadow. Had nothing to do with love at all. But as I reflected on the dream, The Neurons started playing the song in the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 1966, when I was ten, and was a powerful and repetitive presence on AM car radios. My older sister also bought the 45 when it was available and it was inserted into the song rotation she and her girlfriends played on sis’s little portable record player. So, yes, I have a strong familiarity with the song.
One of the more interesting things about news yesterday was a story that slowly disappeared. Early on, I read a story about DOJ resignation letters under Dizzy Don TACO Trump. I read about that on three sites at that point, including CNN and CBS. When I went back to read the articles again later, the CNN and CBS sites had removed the story. I don’t know why. But I can reasonably speculate that this is part of the mainstream media caving to the Trump Regime and shying away from stories TACO might find too critical or truthful. TACO has a thin skin, dontchaknow, and the media is fearful of his anger and what he might do to them.
Former Department of Justice officials who were either forced out or resigned in protest of President Donald Trump’s administration left some scathing resignation letters for their bosses, and a new organization is seeking to preserve as many of the letters as possible, according to a new report.
Since Trump took office in January, about 5,000 employees at the Department of Justice have either quit or resigned, CBS News reported on Sunday. Meanwhile, a cadre of those former employees is banding together to create a public display of the messages the former employees left for their bosses. Those employees have created an organization called Justice Connection that is organizing and posting the messages, the report added.
Stacey Young, a former civil division attorney for the Justice Department, is leading Justice Connection. A spokesperson for the organization told CBS News that they are working to preserve the messages because they “show what is happening in our country at this moment.”
The repository includes messages left by high-profile former employees such as Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.
~snip~
I found it a compelling situation and admired the sentiments and principles these people espoused. I wholly recommend checking it out.
Peace and grace are still maintaining a low profile. Hope they find us soon. The fog is blotting out less of the sun and the coffee is hot and fresh. Guess I’ll just flow with those positives. Here we go, once more into the day. Cheers
We’re Gloomsville today, Munda, November 24, 2025. Fog is squatting on us with a chilly, gray ambiance. Sunshine took a look and said, “Pass,” for the morning. Warmer today than yesterday, 44 F, we’re hoping to plumb 60. Such a winter feel soaks the air that I wouldn’t be surprised if Frosty the Snowman strutted down past my house.
Yet this all feels like many childhood Thanksgivings in the Pittsburgh area where I spent my elementary and junior high school years. We’d be released from school for the holiday and rush into this stuff, noses red and running above our grinning mouths. Eyes sparkling, we’d ask one another, “What do you want to do?” Because we were free! And also because we knew good food was coming. Yes, some restrictions would also rise up about how to behave and dress for the good times as the larger mass of family, the ones we only saw a few times a year, all came together. Wish I could recover some of that youthful hopefulness and energy but the weight of too many events in too many years tamps it down tight. All that remains are reflections.
Sunda was spent celebrating another friend’s 78th. We treated them to dinner and then retired to their home for a few hours of Mexican Train, because that’s what she wanted to do. Phone calls of others interrupted out time, but that induced smiles instead of resentment. Good to know she was well thought of by so many friends and relatives that they took time to call.
My post today is late as it was our turn for our monthly Food & Friends deliveries. A smaller list this time. We wondered about the absentees and wished them the best. Then my wife suggested breakfast out somewhere. Although I’d eaten breakfast, I agreed because I know this as one of her favorite things to do. I’m still cautious and mindful about what I consume, eating in moderation and then monitoring my bod for problems.
Today’s song is “Man in A Box”. This is a 1991 grunge song by Alice in Chains. It’s a song about censorship and government restrictions, and was inspired by the songwriter learning how veal was produced via calves kept in cages. Later interviews, band members said that the song’s inspiration was derived from how the media worked in conjunction with the government to control the story. We’re all familiar with that, aren’t we. So, as I was reading the news this morning, The Neurons came up with this song.
I last played this in July of 2024, when we were still hopeful that people would Vote Blue. Not enough did. “The economy,” they cried. Now look where we’re at.
There was cause for some show and victory celebrations today. That would be the dismissal of the Comey and James prosecutions because the prosecutor was not lawfully appointed. I suspect that this will be challenged and end up at the Roberts Court. Odds there probably favor the Trump Regime. I write that because I don’t think the Roberts Court is overly invested in law, precedence, or the Constitution. The majority are more about right-wing ideology.
Next food for musing came from news about a new investigation.
This is all about the video released the other day that urged military members not to obey illegal orders, reminding them that they swore an oath to the Constitution. I’m retired military; I fully understand what was in that video. I suspect Senator Kelly is like me and probably laughed, saying, “Bring it on!” This advice is continuously given to military members. Ain’t nothing new. That it’s a military veteran and senator, and Democrat giving that advice, along with other Democrats and veterans doesn’t change that it’s anything new or unique. It’s just timely, needed advice, given the Trump Regime’s propensity for lying, ignoring the law, and attacking people and encouraging violence against others based on political stances. We always address following and obey lawful orders, as called out in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ. We learn that in initial training sessions and it’s reinforced multiple times in training sessions while in the military. It’s a serious matter, and that’s how we treat it.
Peace and grace ain’t here yet but I still light a candle in the window. Meanwhile, coffee up and carry on, or if you’re not part of coffee nation, whatever bevie works for you. Here we go again, once more into the foggy sunny windy chilly warming autumn winter day. Cheers
Jill Dennison has again brought us a luscious pre-Thanksgiving offering to humor and politics. I didn’t want to share them but The Neurons felt they were so compelling…anyway, here are my favorites. Hope you go by her site to see the rest.
Michael Seidel, writer 