Tag: revolution

Fridaz Theme Music

It’s a sighing kind of day. Sunshine is spare as rain falls and gray clouds swallow the valley. 46 F now, we’re almost at our high. Yes, good to have some rain. But not so good for my spirit today, Frida, December 5, 2025. On the plus side of things, Wordle, Connections, and the Spelling Bee were all easy. So I have that going for me.

Mom and sis are again having issues. These are also adjustment things. Relates to how things used to be done when Mom and Frank lived together and Frank ran Mom’s errands. Sam’s Club was being used as Mom’s pharmacy. That was cost-effective and convenient for them. Sam’s Club was just less than ten minutes away, an easy drive. Frank enjoyed going through, picking up the prescriptions, doing some shopping, getting gas. Sam’s Club is nowhere near sis’s house. Going through is an hour plus investment of time and effort deeply affected by traffic and weather. Sis asked Mom to change her pharmacy to CVS because it’s just a few minutes away. Mom said she called the Sam’s Club and told them. No, Mom needs to call her doctor and tell them. She says she did. They told another sister that Mom’s message couldn’t be understood. Sis asked Mom to call them again. Mom said, no, she’s only allowed to call the doctor once a day. WTF? So yeah, confusion, frustrations, and stress are rising. Doesn’t help sis that she’s working this week so much of this is being conducted via phone calls and text messages while she’s at work. It’ll pass. Hopefully that’ll happen soon, and without much bloodshed. This sort of reminds me of the novel, Corrections.

Today’s music is dedicated to Trump and his enablers. After news reading that encouraged headshaking, groaning, growling, and sighs, The Neurons put Linda Ronstadt in the morning mental music stream with her cover of “You’re No Good”.

My wife raised this issue today: why didn’t the Trump Regime pick up those two survivors of the boat attack and question them for intelligence and information? Answer: because it’s about killing and making a show, and not about truth, facts, facts. She continues to advocate for the guillotine. She believes drastic changes will be needed once Trump is gone, and the only way to emphasize that We the People are serious is to lop off a few heads. Mitch McConnell tops her list. Weird to hear this lifelong pacifist advocate cutting off heads but that’s where we’re at.

Coffee and I are making nice again. Time to get out and do other things. Hope peace and grace light your day for a bit. Here I go, into the rain. Cheers

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Frieda’s Theme Music

If you’re feelin’ some heat, that might be cos it’s Fried-day. Not much heat to Ashlandia’s thin sunshine. Black clouds dropped in and held like smoke curling against a low ceiling. Rain has been jumpin’ in and out, heavy at times. We have jumped from 37 F to 47 F, which is about as high as we can expect. This is Frieda, March 21, 2025.

Out to a late start. Final therapy session for the lymphedema. Things lookin’ good, fingers crossed, knock wood, ‘cetera. Just gotta keep it so.

As it was an early AM appointment and it was in Medord, my wife tagged along so we could do some shoppin’. Pick up ‘sentials. That done, since we’d not eaten, we took a late lunch at a restaurant where we chowed on eggs and hash browns with coffee and toast. Then it was back home and back here and at last I’m sat up in the writin’ position. I jumped immediately in novel writing because some muse critters were hammering at things they felt needed done. With those checked off, I’m turning to posting.

Today’s song comes from offhand exchanges between the other and me. Coming into the house, we chatted about getting online “to see what the orange hooplehead has done now,” as she put it. So we were asking of our computers, what’s going on?

That exchange gave The Neurons ammo to introduce “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes to the morning mental music stream, afternoon edition. But in my search for a video, I came across a cover by Pink which took me in, so here we are.

I also offer the song as theme music for all those coping with the crap which the Trusk Regime is lading on us. As one line goes, “And I pray. Oh my God, do I pray. I pray every single day for revolution.”

Coffee and I have met up a few times today, and I’m doing fine. Hope you are, too. Onward. Courage. Cheers

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A Dream in Three Parts

A long and greatly involved dream in three parts entertained me last night. It seemed like it was about hopes, expectations, and relationships.

Part 1: the Catholic family.

In this, Mom had to go away. Although I was an adult, she worried about where I was going to stay and what I was going to do, standard concerned Mom reactions to change. I ended up with an offer to stay with a childhood friend’s family. Neighbors. Haven’t seen the guy in almost fifty years, but here he was, in my dream, along with his parents. His parents have passed away some time ago, BTW.

In this dream, they had a huge home. I wouldn’t deem it luxurious but enormous with a byzantine layout. Some rooms were like huge cement auditoriums or gymnasiums; others were small but with multiple levels.

My friend’s mother told me, “Do whatever you want here. Just act like it’s your house. We’re happy to have you here.”

While I appreciated the sentiments, I was leery of making myself an unwanted guest, so I tried being circumspect. Weirdly I wore off-white pajamas with narrow blue pinstripes the entire time. I thanked her, of course. After casual exploring, I found a large room with a small student desk, the kind seen in elementary school, where I set up my computer and sat down to write.

After I set up, she came by with her family. Only she spoke, though, telling me, “We’re going out. We’re going to be gone a while, so the house is all yours.” It felt like a huge responsibility, almost a burden, but I thanked her for her trust and hospitality. They left; I kept writing.

At some point, I grew aware that it was pouring rain and the onset of dusk outside. I decided to leave.

Part 2: the Porsche rally and restaurant.

I went into my hosts’ garage and found a car. A small and older sports car of some kind, I knew it as mine.

I drove out into the rain and down a driveway to a busy, winding multi-laned urban street. Small sports cars were passing, dropping revs and downshifting, and sometimes sliding, drivers catching spins as the car’s back end swung out on the slick asphalt.

I recalled then, that’s right, the town was hosting a Porsche Rally, with special emphasis on older Porsches and the Porsche Spyder.

Well, that explained it! I also saw a circa 1970 Lotus Elan go by. I wondered if they’d allowed it to participate in the Porsche event, or if serendipity had brought it to this time and place.

Pulling out into the driving rain, I drove carefully, wishing I had a Porsche like the stylish little cars I saw. As I came up one hill, I needed to slow substantially because a Bugatti Veyron had spun across the middle of the road. I wondered, what is an expensive exotic like that doing here? I then saw three more going by in the rain.

Bugatti Veyron from the net — not my car.

It was almost dark and I reached my destination, a crowded old restaurant where I was meeting friends. The menu was American-Immigrant fusion. I began with pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, and then switched to chicken fried rice. We stood as we ate, and my food tasted sensational.

As I ate, a tall, thin man walked by. “Guess what,” he loudly said, “I saw jars of Ragu in the kitchen. You’ve been tricked! This sauce is not made here.”

My friends and I shrugged it off. Wherever the food was from, it was awesome.

Part 3: the Revolution

I piled into a car with four other men. One of them was driving. One was armed with a gun which was part of his head. I could see that it was loaded with one round bullet, like something you’d fire from a musket. I was pondering the intricacies of how you’d aim a gun like that, especially if the target is moving.

We parked and entered a small, dim theater. A small stage was set up on the far end in front of rows of padded metal folding chairs. About twenty people, mostly men, were present. All were early middle-aged or older, and all were white. I milled with a few people, chatting for several seconds, and then one man began talking. They were there to overthrow the government.

Well, hold on, I thought, uneasy. I’d been invited to this gathering, and it’s not what I thought it was going to be. Something about the way they were addressed struck me as a religious group. I eased myself to one side, thinking, how am I going to get out of here?

At that point, the man with the gun head fired. He pointed it somewhere else and not at me. I watched the round ball leave its barrel with a plume of white smoke.

How weird, I thought, and that’s where it ended.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: helter skelter

It’s a meh sky for Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, just like yesterday’s meh sky. Yesterday turned to rain by the early afternoon. It’s warmer today, though, 48 F, up from 38 F, with chances of breaking into the fifties later.

Took my elderly floof, Tucker, to the vet yesterday. He has severe inflamation on his mouth’s left side, especially the lower mandible. Besides his dental issues, bloodwork shows he has a hyperactive thyroid. Everything else looked good, but he’d lost seven pounds since he was last checked, years ago, and now weights ten pounds. Painkillers were prescribed, along with meds to address the thyroid, and an anabotic steroid shot given. Plans are to treat the thyroid treatment, do more blood work in six weeks, and then address his teeth. He ate well last night, was given his meds, and slept. Today, though, after receiving his meds and eating, he vomited and then basically went comatose. I worried that I’d need to take him to an emergency vet but my wife found more details about the drugs and side-effects. We concluded that Tucker was going through one possibility on the spectrum of reactions. We made him warm and comfortable and slipped in a few drops of water. The websites said this state would wear out after eight hours. We witnessed his responsiveness improve withint four hours. He then started shifted himself around, making himself more comfortale. It felt like whatever crises may have existed had passed. I am reducing his dosage, though.

The painters finished the house exterior painting. They did a sensational job. We’re highly pleased.

My wife was out of the house at her exercise class/coffee clatch when the painters were here and I was dealing with Tucker. Those four hours felt more like six and a quarter. Meanwhile, Papi had been in and out, and had at least three sequels of going in and out in the books, when he decided, with the wind blowing, inside was better. But now, each time the painters knocked or rang the bell alarmed Papi. He’d look to me for guidance, didn’t like what he read, lower his belly to the floor and pelt off to the back bedroom to save himself. Quite a morning. Coffee saved me.

After reading Jill Dennison’s post about “Day Tripper” by the Beatle’s last night, The Neurons cranked up “Revolution” (1968) in the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). There was controversy about the song’s lyrics: do you want revolution? Why are you singing it’s going to be alright? How come you’re saying, count me out? I always took it to mean this was a song about peaceful change, and felt that I understood what Lennon was saying: we will have change, and it will be alright, and we don’t need to destroy the world to make that happen. Full stop.

Stay pos, be strong, lean forward, and vote it’s time. Coffee has been guzzled and more is being ordered. Take the day and make it yours. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

A classic song by The Beatles, “Revolution” (1968), crashed my mental stream this morning with the intensity of an asteroid hitting Earth.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
Alright, alright

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Yes, I’m not happy with D.C. status quo. Its BAU approach doesn’t address needs quickly enough. I want change but I don’t want destruction.

Meanwhile, reading of the assault on the capitol the other day and the aftermath, it’s Kabuki theater. While photos of identified Trump supporters spill over the news and social media, and they crow about what they’ve done, some who’ve identified and called out claim their innocence despite the overwhelming evidence that says other. They left behind a swath of evidence. Despite this, right-wing media and supporters have also attempted to blame antifa. The disconnects with reality would be hilarious except for the seriousness behind their willingness to casually trample democracy and abuse freedom. Going back to the song — and Trump — there are always claims, but where are the plans? Where is the thinking? And that extends to his base. There’s nothing concrete there, just vague notions of what they will ‘do’.

Stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask. Enjoy life as you can. Cheers

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The Cusp of Revolutions

I’m pretty excited this morning. Awoke in that state. I owe this excitement to a teenage woman.

I didn’t meet her, but I saw and listened to her. It was during our weekly beer meeting of the BoBs, the pretentious and silly name of our group, “Brains on Beers”. It’s actually a group of retired doctors, scientists, engineers, professors, etc, that meet to have a beer each week and talk. We mostly talk about science, technology, politics, and beer.

We also collect and donate money to buy materials to help local schools and their STEM educational programs. One of the projects we support is the southern Oregon robotics team. The teenager was with that group when four of them came to us to pitch their project for a donation.

An adult leader and three local high school students were making the pitch. Christina, the young woman that I found so inspiring. She loves science. My sense, from listening to her, is that she loves life, knowledge, and learning. Her dream is to join Space X and go into space and colonize other places. Her enthusiasm was like gulping a dozen shots of espresso at once. It was beautiful to behold.

Her comments and enthusiasm trickled into my thinking streams. Eventually, a week later, thoughts came together and bubbled up from my subconscious thinking, and I realized, we’re on a cusp of a revolution.

No, make that revolutions.

People feel and see them coming. That scares and intimidates them. Many people dislike change, or are uncomfortable with change. I’m not too good with it, myself. Processing change requires time and energy. I often feel like I lack enough of either, and just want to climb into bed and cover my head.

Yet, I could see the revolutions coming so clearly in my thoughts this morning as I contemplated my fading dreams. I saw at least another industrial revolution as we move away from fossil fuels and introduce more robotics and automation.

We’re undergoing an information revolution right now. How we acquire, process, and spread information has evolved, and that evolution is speeding up. To combat it, guerrilla warfare comprising of false information and false equivalencies have been

We’re undergoing gender revolutions, and revolutions that are overturning Business As Usual. Sexual assaults, bigotry, and prejudice are being exposed. In a sense, we needed the Trump Administration, because its existence turned on the lights, revealing the ugliness that we’ve institutionalize and accepted as normal and standard.

Of course, the technological and digital revolutions are underway, as well. These are leading to social and cultural revolutions. These revolutions will cause yet greater economic and political revolutions. The great democratic revolution will itself undergo another revolution because the representative form of government, with its elections that establish a ruling class, has been outgrown. So have nation states, as we conceive of ourselves more and more as humans sharing a planet with finite resources, with a need to improve how we use those resources, and begin developing plans to seriously use exo-resources on other worlds.

That’ll launch the space revolution.

It’ll all be a bloody mess for a long time, of course. We know that economic, social, political, and regional stagnation and siloing reduce cooperation and create obstacles and roadblocks. Some like these obstacles. They even want to build walls, because they’re afraid, or they don’t want their comfort zone to change, which is wholly understandable.

But, smart people are out there. They’re perceiving these problems, and they’re conceiving solutions and new approaches.

Trust me. I heard one.

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Revolution

One needed to be the look-out. The look-out’s role was critical, but it was a dangerous situation.

“I’ll do it,” Varashi said.

The leader didn’t like that. Varashi had been the first dandelion to learn to stand up and lie down. Located in the yard’s middle, he’d been there a long time, spying on the humans through windows and learning their ways. In a sense, Varashi had been the leader’s inspiration.

Noting the leader’s reluctance to accept him, Varashi said, “Come on, I’m old. I’m due to be done. It’s not a great loss if I’m seen and weeded.”

Varashi’s logic was true, so the leader agreed.

The whole yard knew something was up. Even the clover, which was the dumbest plants in the yard, other than the grass, knew it. It had been a mild but wet winter. All the backyard inhabitants had thrived. The leader approved of the rise of his dandelions but knew that their success was also their threat. The human, the man, didn’t like weeds, and seemed particularly hostile toward dandelions.

The sun was high and the air was warm. It was time. “What’s the situation?” the leader asked. The word was sent through the roots to Varashi. He stood up his purple stalks. Although still twelve inches tall, they were naked on the ends. “All clear,” he reported.

The report was returned to the leader. He mentally nodded. They needed to leave as soon as possible. This was it. Per tradition and history, the man was going to come out soon and start removing them. The leader didn’t understand such hate and disdain for his dandelions. He didn’t feel understanding was necessary for him to take action to protect his people.

“All right,” he said. “Everyone ready?” The units reported that they were. Taking a deep breath, the leader stood. His many stalks were full and yellow on the ends. He looked about. Only Varashi stood. The man was not around. With the strength of commitment, he ordered, “Everyone stand up.”

His dandelions responded. Yellow heads rose. Oh, it was such a beautiful sight to behold, it hurt his leaves to see. “Now,” he said. “Lift your roots. Lift. Lift.”

He did so with the rest, pulling his roots free with a concentration of strength and willpower. “Now forward, toward the fence, march, march, march.” 

They managed twenty steps before stress rippled through the roots and everyone complained. Twenty steps — three inches. In that time, the sun had slipped behind the house, and their were in shadow.

Three inches. It was the most he’d ever gone. Ordering the others to stand down, he remained upright, staring at the fence.

Someday, they would reach the fence and get beyond it. And then?

Seeds, winds and birds brought news, and the trees offered their views, but those were just physical descriptions. None knew if his field of weeds could survive beyond the fence. But, they all agreed, it was a better choice than remaining in the yard, waiting to be pulled out of the ground and killed.

 

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