A young adult, I was in school with many other students. The setting was a modern classroom. Multiple old-fashioned black boards were spread across the front.
I knew the teacher. Short, with a dark-haired bob, she was an English and Literature teacher. Today she was teaching us math.
I was a little taken back by that but adapted and adjusted. Explaining that she wanted us to do a math progression to project when a certain event will take place. Instructing us to listen to what she was telling us, she ordered us to the blackboards.
Most others were working in teams but I was working alone. I became a little confused by what she was saying and copied it wrong. Yet, while working, I began understanding what she meant.
At that point, another came over and told me he was going to watch me work because he was certain I would figure out because “I was smart.”
I then moved over to another team’s blackboard. They’d copied the information but I saw it was wrong and began correcting their mistakes so that it would make sense. Then I took over another black board and erased part of their work.
Returning to my own blackboard, I began writing down variables. The teacher began repeating them and reinforced what we were supposed to be solving for.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, September 21, 2026.
Sunny but overcast day, giving it a humid, warm feeling. 76 F, we expect a high in the mid 80s today. It may have rained in parts of town but we didn’t see or feel it.
I’m a little late to this post. Got up and went into novel writing mode, emerging a few hours later. Like, oops — what happened to the time?
I’m pleased that the other networks are responding to Trump’s dictatorial behavior by providing a united front. Backing up a little, Trump raged that three news outlets, CNN, MS Now, and Politico, were putting out ‘fake news’ and declared them banned. Today, basically, the other news outlets demonstrating what the absence of news coverage will mean.
Trump loves the camera. He needs the news programs. As much as he rails against them, without them, Trump would fade away.
Jump to Trump’s new helipad opening today. Without the major news network, it was reportedly very unclear about what was going on. Trump will fume about it and his right-wing news allies will attempt to fill the gap. But the problem with the right-wing news outlets is that they’re right-wing. As much as Trump complains about mainstream media being ‘left-wing’, that’s where most people get their news.
Trump being Trump, though, he’ll often cut off his nose to spite his face, as the expression goes. He probably won’t back down soon.
I’m also pleased by the network moves because my wife was roaring, “Why don’t the other news networks stand up for each other? What’s wrong with them?”
So the move will restore a little peace to my house.
Today’s music comes from a group called The Brotherhood of Man. When I read of the networks’ united front against Trump, The Neurons pulled up the 1969 song, “United We Stand”.
Trump feeds off creating tension and especially thrives on being contentious and divisive. It always gives me a laugh to remember him saying that he wants to be remembered as a unifier.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Now eighteen months into Trump’s second term, we know that history will not describe him as a ‘unifier’. The way he attacks and divides people — including members of his own party — it’s almost like he doesn’t understand the definition of ‘unifier’…
My wish for you today is that life treats you well and rewards you with love, joy, good health, and good food.
It’s another week of surreal comparisons and Trump thinking.
And it’s only Monday!
Trump believes there’s one rule for him while another one for everyone else. That’s the bedrock foundation of Trump Double Standards.
Trump frequently mocks other people, shouts at them, insults them, and calls them names. Yet he becomes so HUUUGELY UPSET whenever someone writes the truth about him.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
That was Trump this week, September, 2026.
Trump went on about fake news…”something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Wow, it’s almost like he’s talking about himself. Trump is the cancer not just on our nation, but on intelligence, decency, and humanity.
That, plus lying, breaking promises, grifting, and destroying national monuments and trying to aggrandize himself, will be the Trump Legacy.
I also believe that Trump lies quite deliberately and goes on these rants to distract people from his many failures and prop himself up as a ‘strong man’. He weaves a destruction of chaos, pathos, and confusion. It’s all part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
That’s why he tore down the White House East Wing, screwed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, attacked Iran, has fishing boats destroyed and their occupants killed, is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center, keeps demanding that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize, demanding he be added to Mount Rushmore, and pretends he isn’t in the Epstein files. Trump wants us to forget about rising gas and diesel prices (now at $7 per gallon in places), the rising cost of food, climate change, and increasing personal bankruptcies. Trump wants us not to think about the plight of the farmers, the ongoing rural hospital crisis, AI and data centers construction, or the measles outbreaks (3,471 cases in the US, the worse since 1991).
Trump wants to distract us from all the other things Trump is doing.
After I wrote about Trump’s plan to militarize the arch he’s building to memorialize him, Nan pointed out one of the follies of arming it and then bragging that he wants to militarize it.
“What I find rather fascinating is Trump’s pompous bragging about how this new arch will be “war-ready.” Obviously he doesn’t have a clue that this very bragging is what will motivate enemies to target the structure should they at any time decide to strike the U.S.”
That’s all very true. Trump’s plan also highlights his shallow thinking. He’s fixated on drones now because of the Ukraine-Russia war (the one he said he’d end on day 1) and the Iran war Trump started seven months ago (the one he said was already over or close to winning over twenty times). Drones are playing prominently in those wars.
In establishing a target like the arch, though, Trump is overlooking a multitude of other weapons capable of taking out that arch. Trump should know about them because we just sold some to Israel, and we’ve been using them in Iran.
But that’s Trump, three steps behind, and mad as hell about it.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Sunday, September 20, 2026.
We’re sitting on the cusp of autumn at 78 F, anticipating a rise to 90 F, so sunny and blue that you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the middle of summer.
But the changing leaves on the trees defy that assessment. And the night temperatures have been coming down…cooler…cooler.
Sunset comes more quickly, and sunrise seems to lag.
It’s summer’s end, autumn’s beginning.
Seasons don’t slow Trump down! First, he tells us that he’s built the world’s greatest military, seizing all the credit, as though he conceived and built everything while selecting and training every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman.
Then, while building the White House ballroom on the site of the East Wing that he illegally tore down, he embellished his ballroom dream, declaring it would be ‘drone-proof’ with a drone port, a military installation with snipers.
Now Trump is saying the same thing about the new Arch he wants built.
Trump says new arch will also deploy drones, position snipers and store ammo
Who are all these invaders Trump is fearing that he’s obsessed with adding snipers to everything he builds?
Well, wiser heads suggest that Trump is pitching the security angle because the beautification scam isn’t working any longer.
More cynical people like me like me believe that it’s a three-prong attack on common sense and decency. The reasons include both of the previous reasons, but it’s also another distraction as part of Operation Epic LOOK SQUIRREL!
Trump using the security angle for the arch does make sense; when courts heard about ‘security concerns’ after the Epstein ballroom construction had been halted, they yielded to Trump.
He is ridiculous. So are his supporters, especially those zealots, the MAGAzens.
All this Trump thinking about wars, guns, and shooting provoked Les Neurons to bring JoJo Gunne into the morning mental music stream. The band was named after a Chuck Berry song and the song came out in 1972. No much to the lyrics, to be honest, but it’s upbeat and easy to sing along with.
I hope this is a good day for you, using whatever metrics are meaningful to your life.
Trump continues on his confrontational, authoritarian path.
Trump believes that because he is the current White House occupant, he owns everything and can do anything. Unfortunately for us, Congress and the Roberts Court were eager to abet Trump’s attitude that he is above the law.
Trump thinks he can sign an executive order and change everything. He and his advisors have observed that breaking the law first and then letting others try to stop you through legal means worked for bank robbers, kidnappers, rapists, and murderers, so they’ve decided to govern through the same tactic.
All my fresh Saturday morning contempt for Trump was triggered by this Trump joke.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Donald Trump was supposed to be joking. His joke shows that he doesn’t understand how the office is supposed to work, or the limits of his power. No, he can’t do what he claims he can. That wouldn’t stop him from trying. Then, as with other things, like tariffs, voting suppression, freedom of speech, war, We the People and our servants would need to fight Trump in court.
We can tell that this was posed as another Trump joke veiling the truth because the megalomaniac just tried banning reporters from MS Now, CNN, and Politico. Banning reporters for personal reasons from entering the White House has been ruled on several times before.
Trump, though, always thinks himself above the law.
Time again for more Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
You can tell things are going bad for Trump because he felt a need to launch distraction after distraction this week. Greenland! Banning fishing!
Trump loves to throw around words like ‘annihilate’. Back in April of this year, Trump declared, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Trump also threatened to bring Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and blast it “into oblivion” by targeting civilian power plants and bridges.
Before Trump started the war in February, 2026, he warned Iran to make a deal “before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”
In fact, before the beginning of August, 2026, Trump had already warned Iran and the world of the power he was going to unleash and the ensuing destruction seven times.
Jill Dennison has done it again for us, curating a fine collection of net toons. These are so critically needed to keep a proper perspective on Trump’s arrogance and destruction.
Here are my top four. Please click over to her website to see more.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Friday, September 18, 2026.
Another Friday reached, another week trickling toward the end. We drift further into autumn in the northern hemes as they moved toward hot weather south of the equator.
Today has Ashland at 68 F with 83 F on the blue horizons. Leaves are not falling from trees yet, but colors are swarming into the green. Maples are already shimmering with dark reds.
All quiet with Mom and my family. I texted Mom and received one to two words in response. Nothing from any sisters.
Today’s warm sunshine is appreciated. Nicely complements my morning coffee. I usually take it black but my physician suggested that I need more protein in my diet. I now pour some chocolate protein shake into my morning coffee, resulting in a protein mocha, more or less. *smile*
I go through headlines, plucking out information, studying the runes, peering at the tea leaves, hoping for revelations.
Fox News Poll: Squeezed by costs, frustrated voters turn to the Democrats
The omens show a divided nation and a desperate, flailing Trump. Even as I wonder about that, I remember that Trump has always enjoyed being confrontational and combative. He likes to appear defiant and is often bullying, no matter what the circumstances are. He’s rarely conciliatory.
Basically, though, most Republicans still seem to support Trump, according to polls. For a significant part of the GOP coalition, the economy is not the central objective, and his lies and broken promises are not a problem. These are prices they seem willing to pay for cultural dominance, institutional transformation, or the defeat of their perceived enemies.
My overall sense is that we’re in the lull in a storm. More stormy weather is coming.
Der Donald is doing his best to keep us distracted and angry. This week, Trump floated conjecture about demolishing the Kennedy Center because he can’t have his name on it. How very Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! of him. Of course, with any Trump declaration, he can swing swiftly from rhetoric to destruction. Court orders were quickly sought. Whether they’ll slow Trump is debatable. He always claims he’s for law and order but has shown that he doesn’t think it applies to him.
Today’s song is about storms but it came about yesterday. As my wife and I chatted about the novel “John of John” in our home office, we heard thunder. Or it could have been thunder. Maybe it was a passing truck.
Going to the window, we looked out on a confused collage — stormy clouds, bright sunshine, blue sky, distant rain veils. We stayed a bit, continuing to chat but heard no more thunder and saw no lightning.
All that culminated in The Neurons recalling a 1974 Deep Purple song, “Stormbringer”. The song stayed in the morning mental music stream as I read the news and drank my coffee. Part of that is because whenever it’s sunny but rainy, my wife and I look for rainbows. “Stormbringer” references riding a rainbow.
Hope you find a day of rainbows, peace, and good health. Here we go, into another one.
Ashland, southern Oregon. Thursday, September 17, 2026.
Sunny today, but cloudy. 66 F for the moment. 100% chance of thunderstorms, the weather seers tell me, with a high of 78 F.
Mom is back home in the assisted living facility. Suffering laryngitis and diarrhea. Resting in bed, she said, because she feels very tired. Mom has three appointments coming up. She has three medical appointments coming up in September.
I have a new appointment next week. Changing PCPs because my current PCP is leaving to go into private practice, focusing on peptide therapy. I meet my new PCP next week. Hope she turns out to be as good as my last one. Will lightning strike twice?
As expected, Trump launched some more Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! this week.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
I’m not a lawyer but I’ve watched some TV. You’d think that if evidence came out about this plot that any law-abiding, intelligent individual would ensure the authorities had it so that due process could take place and law and order maintained.
No. Not Trump. Instead of doing that, Trump went on social media to bray about it. Which tells us that it’s more fact news. Just another distraction. More Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
That leads us to ask — again — why did Trump make that public claim? Did US intel get it wrong or did Trump hear someone wrong? Perhaps Russia and Ukraine lied to Trump and said they would, to make him appear weak and out of touch.
Or perhaps, truthfully, Trump just pretended this is what happened in order to make it seem like he’s relevant.
These positions and calamities have led to declining support for Trump and his policies. Of course, something from Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! was needed.
We’ve seen enough of Trump to see through his deceptions.
I ended up with Bob Dylan singing “Masters of War” in my morning mental music stream. I think the 1963 release accurately reflects how Trump behaves, hiding, making claims, while destroying our world.
Sample Lyrics
You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin’ But build to destroy You play with my world Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old You lie and deceive
A world war can be won You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain
May your spirit carry you through these times to happier places and a more comfortable and secure life.
