Scottie pointed me to ten bears’ fact-checking of Trump’s interview. We expected lies from Trump, and we got ’em.
Friday’s Theme Music
Mood: caustic
Today is Friday, August 25, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the smoke is thick and the air is cool.
Had to take my car in and drop it off. 1. Great to have a break in routines and tedium. 2. Hated to have a break in my routines. 3. It felt early out there.
In the car shop were posters showing different aspects of cars and repairs — electrical, starter system, suspension, brakes, etc. I stood in front of them remembering fixing those things are different cars during my life. Not a love of doing it for me; I’m not mechanically minded. Too poor to pay someone to do it. But that honed that whole idea in me, fix me it myself. Modern cars are much different. And I have more money. Plus, the lack of facilities — the military provided us workshops and facilities to fix our cars — means I take my cars and drop them off for others to tend them. There aren’t any points and plugs to changed, no rotor. I only check fluids and air pressures in this generation of my life. It’s one of many things which have changed, and are still changing.
Had some chuckles over Donald Trump’s height and weight claims when he was booked in: 6’3 and 215 pounds. One person noted, that’s almost the same height and weight as Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, and very close to other quarterbacks, such Tom Brady. Patrick Mahones, KC Chiefs QB, is an inch shorter but ten pounds heavier than DJT. Somehow, the weight looks very different on Trump. Must be the football padding and uniform…right? Right. What a vain, vain man and liar DJT shows himself to be. Make me hurt for his supporters who unflinchingly support and believe him — many claim. I wonder.
From that, it was an easy route for The Neurons to dial up a Three Dog Night song called “Liar” from 1971 and slot it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark surprising). No more to say about it. Most of the chorus is the group loudly singing, “Liar!”
For the record, it’s smoky out there, around here. 70 F now, we’ll clip the hear in the low nineties today. Stay pos and be cool. Hand me my coffee. Here we go. Cheers
Monday’s Wandering Thought
I read about Trump strongholds and the lack of an impact the charges and indictments have on the former president’s supporters. One description struck me more deeply. From the NY Times:
“Among voters who plan to vote for Mr. Trump again, Nicholas Kalamvokis, 58, said he liked the former president’s “regular people” persona and was willing to overlook his role in the events of Jan. 6, which he did not believe rose to the level of a crime.”
The former president’s “regular people” persona is a startling description. Trump has been found to cheat in business, compulsively lie, and demonstrates little self control. Full of pompous bluster, he’s cheated on his wife, has been married three times, shows little intellectual curiosity, and is both demonstrably petty and greedy. As a business person, he has multiple bankruptcies and has led numerous failed business efforts, while his WH administration set a new record for indictments and convictions. Meanwhile, since leaving office, Trump has set records for the most indictments ever levied on a former POTUS, including obstruction of justice as he lied about keeping classified information and tried hiding the requested documents from the government.
Liar. Thief. Cheat. Immoral. Unethical. Untrustworthy.
If this is a typical Republican’s view of ‘regular people’, their attachment to reality is more tenuous than I ever imagined, and I wouldn’t want to hang out with their ‘regular people’. Then again, I suspect that people like Kalamvokis live in an information bubble. The light seems different in there from the light with which I view the world.
Monday’s Wandering Thoughts
He reads about how former POTUS D. Trump encourages a Republican crowd to cheer the US Women’s Soccer Team loss and their elimination. If they’re not willing to cheer for other Americans, who are they willing to cheer for?
Trump knocks ‘woke’ US women’s soccer team after World Cup departure
Trump Encourages GOP Crowd to Boo U.S. Women’s Soccer Team
GOP efforts to divide the country and tear it down seem to be accelerating.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Is today a holiday or a travesty? Talking about former POTUS reporting to the court in New York. Some decry it all as political theater. Others shout, “‘Bout friggin’ time.” More wail, “No, presidents and former presidents are sacrosanct and should NEVER be arrested.” More say, “Hey, none of us are supposed to be above the law.” That’s where I stand. No one is above the law. Investigate and present the evidence, hear the arguments. Let a court decide. It’s a balancing act.
It is interesting to note that so many conservatives, solid law and order supporting individuals, are claiming this isn’t part of law and order, declaiming that there is no evidence, etc., whenever the law at any level focuses on Trump. Mind you, he’s been screaming to lock people up, especially political opponents but also anyone who crosses or displeases him. Evidence also keeps emerging that he kept trying to weaponize the Justice Department, especially the FBI, during his term. Then he tried to fire those people he appointed and wanted to lock them up because they wouldn’t do as he bid.
It’s Tuesday, April 4, 2023. We have more April snow on the ground. Just a wet inch which is already fleeing, vampire like, from the thin sunshine squeezing in past clouds. The surrounding mountains have much more snow to the east. Good for the base and the needs for our other seasons, growing things like hemp and marijuana, wine grapes, barley, and hops, and feeding us all with the valley’s network of organic farms. Better, the rain and snow will help the region combat wildfires this year. Yeah, fingers crossed, as always.
The discussion about the former POTUS and his legal situation and the country’s political atmosphere has The Neurons pulling David Bowie’s music out of the mental cellar, putting it into the morning mental music stream. “Law (Earthlings On Fire)” came out in 1997. The song’s main refrain is, “I don’t want knowledge, I want certainty.” Feels like that’s a weighty component of what’s happening in the U.S. at this point. I don’t know. I’ve not had coffee yet.
Stay pos. and have a magnificent Tuesday, baby. Coffee is standing by. Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music
The moon’s visit moved beyond normal to sublime. Sometimes a clear night hosts a moon that lights the night and finds something more primal and hopeful in the mind. Last night’s moon was one of these, romantic and inspirational, a moon with light that whispers, “the impossible is possible.” No wonder a moon like that is spoken of in sentences about magic, fairies, and spaceships.
It’s January 16, 2023. It’s Monday. It’s 30 degrees F and sunny. It’s calm. It’s a new week’s start. Happy New Week! Have you made any New Week resolutions? I have. Of course I have. I don’t do NY ones, but I do daily, weekly, and monthly resolutions. You only fail if you give up trying, am I right? Some people place the week’s start on Sunday. I consider Saturday and Sunday neutral ground. The week begins on Monday and ends on Friday.
The sun pressed its presence into our valley at 7:37 this morning, coming around like it’s nobody’s business. Daylight will light us up until about 5:05 this evening. Then the sun will set and bring on dusk, followed by night. The cold front will keep our high from getting much above 42 F. Some say that rain is due but the clouds for that job haven’t checked in. Snow is visible in far fields on high mountains, appearing like cake frosting on the ridges’ pines and firs. It’s a tranquil blue-sky sight.
News continues emerging about President Biden and the classified documents found at his home and office. This turn pisses me off more than Trump’s classified doc scandal. I thought Joe Biden was responsible and this oversight, this sloppiness, is infuriating. I was in the Air Force for twenty years. With high secret clearances and active in special access programs, dealing with classified material, including stuff that was Top Secret with special qualifiers, including nuclear war plans, launch codes, attack plans, and intelligence materials, I was frequently the Top-Secret Control Officer, the unit security manager, and also often the OPSEC/COMSEC and COMPUSEC manager. I took it seriously. My peers, commanders, and those we supervised all took it very damn seriously. I was appointed as an investigator several times when processes failed or people violated the governing regs and laws. Trump’s conniving to keep some classified documents ‘as his own’ insulted our efforts to keep the nation safe by properly protecting such material. Joe Biden’s sloppiness — or worse, as the investigations are only under way — undermines our systems as well. President Biden has at least acknowledged that what has happened is bad, unlike Trump, who dances and shouts, trying to deflect blame and responsibility, squeaking out ridiculous justifications for what he did.
Okay, off the soap box. Today’s music is “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. I went with the Animals version of 1964. Besides being the version seared into my memory by radio play repetition, I’ve always liked Eric Burdon. I also enjoyed the band’s keyboard use and the gritty blues sound they brought to their performances. The Neurons decided on this song and put it in the morning mental music stream after conversations with the cats. They were asking for something and I didn’t understand what it was. The felines’ insistence was the final driver for Les Neurons. Listening to them, Eric Burdon’s voice just rose from the depths of memory to sing, “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” And there we were.
Try to stay positive. I know it can be tough. I feel less than positive on many days. Right now, I’m positive that I would murder a cup of coffee so I’m heading to the kitchen for that black brew. I’m excited just thinking about it! Here’s the music. Hope your week takes you to new heights. Cheers
Rewriting History
In the Smithsonian Magazine’s excerpt of Narrative Tension, Inc.. From the forthcoming book Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission, Richard Cohen writes this:
‘Around the same time, between 1934 and 1936, the Politburo, or policy-making body, of the Russian Communist Party focused on national history textbooks, and Stalin set scholars to writing a new standard history. The state became the nation’s only publisher. Orwell had it right in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. The ruling party of Big Brother “could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”’
He is writing about the old U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union, and how Putin’s Russia draws from the lessons learned from Lenin and Stalin about rewriting history to control the narrative.
I can’t help but think of the United States. GOP led legislatures in several states are fighting hard to rewrite history or ignore it, battling against teaching critical race theory, solidly misrepresenting it as they do. Alabama passed HB 312 earlier in 2022, 65 to 32. Pushed through by Republicans, the bill bans teachers from broaching subjects that Republicans find divisive, like ideas that the United States is now or was ever racist.
Ignoring facts or history that is painful or inconvenient has become the GOP standard. It’s been going on in Texas for over twenty years. The Texas textbook controversy erupted as Republicans attempt to color the United States in white, Republican, Christan hues. Trump leans hard on this idea of changing history to fit his needs, denying that he fairly lost the election in 2020, accusing everyone he can of voter fraud, lying, and cheating, without offering evidence. Officials and lawyers working on his behalf have had their cases and lawsuits rejected as lacking merit in courts across the United States. The most prominent cases of voter fraud involve Republican and Trump lackeys being caught while illegally voting or tampering with the process. Search the net for proof of this. Of course, deep Trumplicans hold that anyone saying or printing anything except their version of the truth is guilty of spreading false news.
This is all supported by ‘Evangelicals’, a group that holds the world is only six to ten thousand years old, depending upon which group you hear. They ignore all evidence and facts to the contrary. Listening to such would distort their reality.
This operating process of distorting reality and twisting and denying history is just like Russia and the old U.S.S.R. It’s sad but not surprising that several Republicans are admonishing the world for not embracing Russia’s excuses and lies as the truth for why they invaded Ukraine. Why, paraphrasing their thinking, Russia is only destroying Ukranian cities and killing Ukrainians to protect them. Doesn’t that sound like thinking right out of 1984?
And the one excusing Putin and Russia most of all? That would be the dear GOP leader, Donald J. Trump.
The GOP has become a shallow party, bereft of principles, and desperate to remain meaningful. The only way they can now make history is by pretending what has happened — and is happening, in the case of climate change, and LGBTQ rights and equality — didn’t happen. Deny, deny, deny.
It’s been a long, sickening fall to watch for the party begun by President Lincoln.
The Friend’s Comments
My buddy, Bob Hoesch, sent an email out to his beer-drinking buddies last night. Liking it, I received his permission to share.
If any single image can sum up the tenor of an era, I would suggest this as a legacy photograph for the Trump Era.
Yes, that’s Don the Don, hawking Goya foods on the Resolute Desk in the oval office, because the owner of that company had just publicly praised him.
I didn’t know this until now, the Resolute Desk has been in the White House since it was gifted to the United States by Britain, during the tenure of Rutherford Hayes. FDR had it modified to accommodate his wheelchair while he ran WWII. The name comes from the decommissioned British warship HMS Resolute, whose lumber was used to make the desk.
Trump’s innovation was to use the desk to promote canned foods to the Mexican-American community. He should be remembered for that, as the most openly transactional national politician we’ve ever had.
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty (1977)
Sunday’s Theme Music
Sorry, but it’s sort of a quasi-politically inspired song again. (Wow, such a wishy-washy caveat and apology.) There’s also a writing angle.
Thinking about not just Trump but about life in general summoned John Mellencamp’s 1987 song, “Paper in Fire” to mind. I was thinking about aspirations and permanency and how often what people do amount to nothing or disappear like…well, like paper in fire.
And the days of vanity
Went on forever
And he saw his days burn up
Like paper in fire
Trump comes into this because of the vanity angle. He couldn’t govern and lead by getting legislation probably passed and put into place as law. Part of this was that he didn’t want to share glory. He wanted to be the one who was seen to originate the idea, to demonstrate his smarts. As he couldn’t, he instead used executive orders or chose not to enforce laws. Many of the executive orders meant almost nothing except to signal his desire, but others of them actively circumvented due process.
Much of what Trump seemed to be to appeal to his base. He loved their adoration. His actions and words were a reflection of that vanity.
Of course, Joe Biden intends to countermand Trump with more executive orders. This ends up in a cycle that creates a stronger executive branch to the detriment of the other branches, breaking the system of checks and balances. It becomes more dysfunctional and less stable and sustainable.
Of course, part of all this is the existential logjam that’s taking place in Congress. Democrats in the House pass bills, with partisan votes, but Republican McConnell in the Senate won’t bring them forward for action.
Beyond that, many of our individual dreams are like paper in fire. We diligently pursue them but they often come to little or no fruition, disappearing after we stop like paper in fire.
Sounds like it might be unhappy thinking. It’s not. We had our first snow dust this morning. Peering out at the cold scene with coffee in hand prompted reflection. Besides Trump and the US government, I also considered my characters and their motivations and dreams. They’re mostly in survivor or service roles even as unusual and unique issues impact them. In many ways, while they affect what happens in their world, their names will disappear like paper in fire.
So, there it is. Good rock tune with an Appalachian musical vibe. Hope you enjoy it and that you’re having a good one. Wear a mask, please. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 