A tribute to John Lewis and a protest against the Trump Regime.
Click here for good trouble lives on protest information.
Sunda’s Bumper Sticker
Sunda’s Wandering Thoughts
I baked for the Independence Day festivities. I’m not usually the house baker but my wife thought I should bake as a blow against the patriarchy. So bake I did.
My baking was the modern kind: a brownie mix, egg, oil, water. Everything except the water was purchased at a store. The water came from my faucet, part of our city’s water and sewage systems.
I made circular brownies with M&Ms in a silicon baking pan created for that job. We have a gas oven with a timer and all that. I added the ingredients into a bowl per directions, preheated the oven to the temperature they told me to use, and doled the rich concoction into the waiting little cups built into the silicon ‘pan’. Then, see the timer for the time the instructions recommended, wait, watch, and test to see if they’re done, using the honored toothpick test.
The process allowed a lot of free time thinking. And that becomes my point. Baking has been around about 10,000 years. The earliest evidence of baking comes from Egypt, and not the United States. While it may have started around the Meditarranean Sea, it grew. Many peoples, cultures, and societies contributed to its growth and the lessons learned in what works. Then they passed it on. People took it up, tweaeked and refined it, documented it, and passed it on. People from many religions and ethnicities had a hand in it. Men and women, along with people of less certain genders baked, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of nationality or religion, until we reached this point that baking is a well-refined and understood process, simplified enough that even a neophyte like me can gather stuff and bake.
Here is my real point, something the Trump Regime and its half-assed backward, racist, sexist supporters want to dismiss. We live in a world of developments built on the shoulders of others. We’ve stacked advances and helped consolidate, perpetuate, and spread the gains. Name an industry and explore it, and amazingly, you’ll probably discover that it wasn’t all done by white Christian American men. Now the Trumpettes want to pretend that no one except white Americans did anything worthwhile, especially in the United States to deliver the success we’ve achieved as a nation, trying to bestow as much credit as possible on men and Christianity, even if they need to lie to make their case, which they do.
America First! Hell, the United States wouldn’t exist without immigration — and shall we talk to the peoples who lived in North America before the waves of explorers, settlers, and armies ‘discovered’ the land mass? America First! Our form of democratic government is derived from other nations, as is our mercantile system, which also depends on other nations for success.
Trump’s willful, deliberate ignorance won’t stand, although it will do serious damage. Progress comes from unforeseen developments as much as planned advances. We don’t know who will make a critical, game-changing insight. Trump is trying to pretend otherwise. He can successfully fake it for a while, but eventually, his willful stupidity will bite us all in the ass.
As always, time will tell when and how. Meanwhile, we grit our teeth and resist his ignorance as best as we can.
Satyrda’s Theme Music
Welcome to Smoky Satyrda in Ashlandia. The smoke isn’t heavily visible but the smell of sodden wet wood hangs in the air and shifts my sinuses into overdrive to flush the crap back out. Yeah, poor me, right?
It’s 77 F now in Ashlandia with 99 F projected. The local troposphere looks up to it with blue skies gleaming down and a mighty sun raising up. Wouldn’t surprise to break 100 F; that’s the forecast for the valley overall.
A friend has fig trees on her land and gifted us with about five pounds of fresh, ripe figs. These things are huge and gorgeous. I’m married to a fignatic. We just spent $11 for a pint of figs the other day. They weren’t the best of figs but my house’s fignatic was happy to have them. You can imagine her joy from this gift. The figs are also a great addition to my morning diet. Yum. Pairs well with bananas. No so good with coffee.
I subscribe to multiple newsletters about books, writing, and publishing. One email subject said, “New Horror for your Summer”. I was like, no thanks, I have enough of that crap in the MAGALand daily news. For instance, when Trump’s gestapo rounds people up, their pets are often left alone in homes and apartments to die of thirst and starvation. This is Trump’s United States: cruel, mindless, thoughtless, heartless. Should I add greedy? That’s pretty fuckin’ self-evident when Trump brands and hawks new trinkets and consumer goods every month. Beyond that, there’s climate change and growing natural disasters around the world. As a couple nations war on each other and the wars threaten to engulf more geopolitical regions, TACO cuts back on the State Department and retreats.
Trump also announced he’s rolling out new tariffs. Will he or won’t he? TACO loves getting attention from making these announcements. Project 2025 goons installed in his regime loves him to do it, as they continue to operate under the distractions he generates with his blithering dithering — or is it dithering blithering? Trump makes announcements as the world burns and crashes around him, and the MAGAts clap in approval.
All that brings me to the morning mental music stream offering. After a surprisingly restless night and just one remembered dream (but a good dream), I found myself in the kitchen with a specific chorus echoing in the MMMS.
“Never free, never me, so I dub thee unforgiven. You labeled me, I’ll label you, so I dub thee unforgiven.”
Yes, that’s Metallica with their 1991 offering, “The Unforgiven”.
The Neurons were dubbing ICE agents as unforgiven. The entire damn Trump Regime is dubbed unforgiven, as are those senseless MAGAts who rolled this mess into existence. They’re unforgiven.
Have the best Satyrda you can. I plan to do the same. Cheers
Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts
Just putting out reminders who Trump is because he likes pretending he’s someone else. I know I’m getting numb to it; I’m sure others are, too. We’re angry but numb.
Angry But Numb might be a good rock group name.
Frida’s Theme Music
Frida’s here and the smoke is here, and the heat is coming. It’s July 11, 2025, 68 F locally, 93 F pitched as the day’s high. I stepped outside to check it all out and smoke jumped into me and kickstarted my sinuses into broken water line mode. I ditched the outside work planned and vacuumed instead.
My spouse last used this vacuum. Like many Boomer Americans, we are over vacuumed. A cranky, ancient Hoover is on standby along with some Black & Decker Dustbuster copy cat, and a central vac system. I was using the central with the power head. This system features three outlets and a 30-foot long vacuum hose.
The hose was tangled into several knots. As I untangled it, I grumbled to myself about my wife’s tangling habits. I’d just untangled her hair dryer cord and her Apple laptop cord. This seems to be a world of tanglers and untanglers. Knotters and Unknotters.
Firings, tariffs, lies, and bullshit highlight the Trump news day cycle. More flooding struck several states; more wildfires have forced evacuations. The biggest news circulating at the mo seems to be Trump’s efforts to coerce Brazil not to enforce due process in their nation by slamming them with a 50% tariff. Such a law and order person, isn’t he? Yeah, that’s snark.
Today’s song is “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image. The song was popular in the U.S. in 1970. I recall being with my friend, Scott, and talking about the song, as he was supremely enamored with it. It’s a mellow rock tune and one that invoked a faraway cast to his gaze. I heard that he died of a drug overdose a few years later and have always wondered if the song about sailing to another world was his secret fantasty. Come on, we all have them, those secret fantasies. Before I move on from the song, I want to mention, this is the only Blue Image song I know.
Off to pursue my not-so-secret writing. Have the best Frida available. Cheers
Wenzda’s Theme Music
It’s Wenzda, July 9, 2025. It’s a difficult day for people like me, who like to complain. I have so much to complain about. I’ll start with weather, although it’s not bad now, 77 F, soon to be 88 F. No, it’s the thunderstorms from the other day, which torched multitudes of fires. The storm was like Jesus making more out of nothing. Smoke now tints the blue sky and white clouds with ugly shades of dirty, old concrete. You smell the burning wood; it’s inescapable. The air quality isn’t bad now, 67, enough jab your eyes into itchiness, tease your nose into irritation, stuff your sinuses into running, and bully your throat into scratchiness.
Neil Creek is the closest fire, right off I5 at mile marker 10. Ashlandia’s first northbound exit is 11. One southbound lane of I5 is closed for two miles.
We’re also trending up in our temperatures. TV weather guy gleefully told us we’re going into the low 100s this week, well over the historic average, but not as bad as last year, when we were running 108 plus. It’s the prototypical 2020s Ashlandia summer. I’ll have a lot to complain about.
Over in politics, it’s a complaint smorgasbord. A complaintasbord.
Like, Trump promised 200 trade and tariff deals by now. He has 3. He’s batting .015. If he was a major leaguer — no, if he was batting that on any time, he’d be pulled from the field and find himself fast out of the game as a never was, never will be. That abysmal performance doesn’t keep the MAGAts and GOP that fill his Greedy Ol’ Trump Party, known in its shorthand as the GOTP, from declaring his Donnie the greater player ever, even greater than Babe Ruth. They don’t mention people like Hank Aaron, because, their heroes are only white.
So easy to complain about Trump. Donnie boy makes ridiculous speeches. He sends ridiculous letters. Transmit absurd texts. Like his latest embarassment he sent out to other countries regarding tariffs. If he was a businessman, people would trash it or post socially about it, mocking it. Oh, yeah, they did.
Another complaint about Trump is the promise of how little he cares, how little he pays attention. Texas was struggling with death and destruction from flash floods. He went off to golf. Said he’ll visit there Friday, a week after it all unfolded. FEMA finally got there. It surprised me that the Trump Regime FEMA bothered to show at all. But it is gerrymandered red MAGALand.
I simply must laugh and complain about Trump being nominated for the Nobel Peace prize. International war criminal Netanyahu nominated the convicted felon and genuine idiot for the prize. If Trump is awareded that prize, the Nobel Committee might as well close up shop and slink away in disgrace. The black mark against them won’t wash off for generations.
The Neurons called up a dedication for Epstein and Trump. Trump wants us to forget about his relationship with Epstein and the parties they attended together. Says he barely knows the guy. With his weaponized DOJ loaded with MAGAts to defend him, the Epstein List suddenly vanished. What a Trumpian way to handle things. Why didn’t he just say the dog ate it. Oh, probably because dogs don’t want to have anything to do with him. They’re too smart.
So, this song is dedicated to Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and their shared past. Fresh out of 1997, here is Marcy’s Playground with “Sex and Candy”, from my morning mental music stream to yours.
Coffee is being consumed and the writing position is being assumed. May your day give you all you need. Cheers
Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
If you have a brain, and some thinking skills, the full Trumpasy is all revealed. Just check out the Trump Regime’s actions. Look at the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’. Read again Project 2025.
- Redistribute wealth to the wealthy. They need it to ‘build the economy’. This is called trickle down economics. It has been decisively proven not to work.
- Start shredding the welfare net. Cut Medicaid. Force people to work more.
- Cut all assistance contributed by the Federal government to the states and local communities. Downtrodden existences lead to downtrodden morale. A sick people is a desperate people, and are more easily manipulated.
- De-construct the education system. An uneducatd population is more guillible. Indoctrinate young people into right wing values via vouchers and private schools.
- Manufacture and reinforce negative stereotypes of other citizens, people who ‘are different’, i.e., people who are not heterosexual and white. This is useful for blame games and distraction, and helps neuter political will.
- Weaponize ICE into a paramilitary force. While laws limit what the US military is authorized to do to citizens, it’s a more wide-open field with ICE. Under the guise of rounding up ‘illegal immigrants’, the Trump Regime are also undermining due process and the concepts of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. People are being disappeared as the right-wing social media machine provides cover by declaring that the Constitution isn’t meant to be applied to ‘non-citizens’.
- Establish concentration camps. The first one has been built in Florida, of course. Don’t be surprised if Texas eagerly builds one in the race to be patriotic by refusing others equality, rights, and freedom. Disappearing people and creating concentration camps stoke fears and can be used to threaten political opposition.
- Build a right-wing Supreme Court bias that’s willing to overlook history and precedence, one which will used flawed interpretations of the U.S. Constitution to empower the Executive Branch and wipe out the checks and balance system provided by three equal branches.
- Weaponize trade. Try to force manufacturing back to the United States, even though the raw materials are obtained elsewhere, and even though the capital investments needed for new factories are astronomical. This provides a false hope of new jobs; there will be new jobs but they won’t pay wages needed to live in this ever expensive land, forcing people to work more, no matter their health or situation. This will also increase people’s desperation to work and make money to pay for basic goods and services such as food and housing, as prices see tariff-based inflation bound upward.
- But — also cut limitations on child labor laws. Encourage poor poeple to have more children to provide a larger and cheaper work force.
- Cut or waive environmental laws and regulations to reduce the cost of building new manufacturing facilities.
- Nurture confusion among facts and distrust of the news media. Confusion helps the Regime maintain control by undermining grass root organizations’ ability to effectively organize and protest. It also allows the Regime to turn citizen against citizen in a cold war that favors the Trump Regime’s heavy hand.
- Distract, distract, distract. In this endeavor, natural disasters are your friend; they pull focus from the political arena. Reduce the Federal government’s effectiveness in predicting disasters and helping states and communities. Again, chaos, confusion, and low morale are useful for controlling and manipulating the population. As a bonus, when a natural disaster levels a region, it opens up land and opportunity to rebuild. People with next to nothing can be more easily induced to take less pay for bad jobs.
- Attack other nations; encourage aggression among other nations. Make the world a scarier place.
Yes, this is cynical. It’s not my thinking, but my interpretation of what the Trump Regime and the Republican-filled Greedy Ol’ Trump Party, also known as the GOTP, is doing. Show me I’m wrong. Point to Trump’s actions and demonstrate otherwise. Parse that OBBB for clues that this is not what the Trump Regime pursues.
Time will tell. It’s already told us a great deal in the first six months of 2025.
Munda’s Theme Music
Munda, July 7, 2025, has broken clear and relatively cool, hosting blue sky and 76 F temperature. Expectations for th afternoon heat have been lowered; some say we’ll kiss 100 F, others claim we’ll peak in the mid 90s.
Keeping a weather eye on the global fire situations. With so many large fires going at it on multiple continents, smoke and air pollution becomes a problem for us. Of course, the Texas flash floods disaster remains the headline story. Among the headlines are reminders of shortsighted decisions, like, Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System. Costs were cited as the reason why an improved system wasn’t installed; they lost out on a million dollar grant a few years ago. Meanwhile, Texas spent $2,300,000,000 on their ‘border wall’ and several more billion on border security. Speaks well for a ‘pro-life’ state where fear and racism won again over practical matters. Those are Texans’ choices, a reflection of their political worries and priorities. It’s a sad state and it’s questionable, with the cuts to the National Weather Service under Trump, whether appropriate alarm would have been given.
In unrelated news, U.S. measles cases reach 33-year record high as outbreaks spread.
The United States has reached its highest annual measles case tally in 33 years, hitting at least 1,277 confirmed cases across 38 states and the District of Columbia.
The milestone marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength.
Way to go, Trump, way to go.
I’ve been calling our local healthcare providing, Asante, to establish arrangements for the needed gallbladder ultrasound. The net: 5 calls, 25 minutes on hold, and never spoke with a human. That doesn’t do much to reassure me that the system is working.
Today’s music is a 1985 hit for Eric Clapton, “Forever Man”. The Neurons didn’t establish a concrete reason for its use in the morning mental music stream.
Breakfast has been consumed. Off to get involved with the day. Have a better one. Cheers
Frida’s Wandering Thoughts
The parade is over. The fireworks await us tonight. Cloud cover has passed away so viewing shouldn’t be a problem. The arguments over whether they’re entertaining and patriotic or an environmental hazard and an ordeal for animals continues.
2025’s Ashland Independence Day parade was remarkable for its thin festivities and shortness. Didn’t even go an hour this year even though four bands entertained us with march and show music. The are the same four bands heard every year. Indivisible had a “No Kings” display and vocalized that, encouraging us to join. La Clinica was barely there. Climate awareness scuffled past, as did Peace Corps members who knew their legacy was being defunded and dismissed.
Applause was muted; many participants seemed tired, trudging, not marching, forcing dull smiles out as they remembered to toss a feeble smile. Some performers, like the elderly female dancers, were still into it, zinging us with smiles and waving with happiness, but they were the rarity. Mayors from Medford, Phoenix, Talent, and Ashland all drove by, along with other minor local government functionaries. The cars, an Austin Healey 3000, two Jag E types, and a Bugatti GTC, brought comments, along with the vintage and antique cars that gassed us with exhaust fumes out of the 1940s.
The weather stayed cool but the sunshine was hot, a crisply contradictary way of being, which felt perfectly symbolic for this national holiday in 2025.
Michael Seidel, writer 