Wednesday’s Theme Music – Wrap it up
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, October 28, 2026.
Awoke to 30 degrees at my house and very clear skies. Gorgeous moon last night lit up the valley. Peaceful, but cold. We’re creeping past 48 F, leaning toward something in the mid 50s as a high. The sun shines but our planet’s journey mitigates its effects. Angles, distance, all that.
Mom is scuffling with Gina again. Mom ends up texting and calling Gina’s daughter, complaining about Gina and begging the daughter to pick her up and take her shopping. Mom won’t ask the assisted living facility staff for help because Mom thinks they’re too dumb to help her. So it goes.
Got my diet requirements for the week of my colonoscopy and polypectomy. The diet is to be started three days before surgery. No caffeine. Like, gasp! The horrors!
White bread and no fiber. Nothing with seeds. No nuts. But I can eat all the meat I want. Geez. But don’t drink or eat anything red! That’s repeated multiple times. Then, only clear fluids the day before.
My wife seized on it. She loves a good eating challenge. She quickly started mapping out meals for me.
Meanwhile, though, we’ve joined a soup organization. SoupDivas make a soup every week, then send out an email announcing the choice. After that, it’s first come, first served, $17 a quart. Once you’re on the list, pick up is Wednesday. I duly picked up this week’s quart, Quixote Lemon Lentil. Looking forward to a nice hot soup on a chilly autumn day.
I was reading about the increasing odds of a ‘blue tsunami’ in the 2026 midterms. I remain anxious, hopeful, and leery, which sounds like some new variation on the seven dwarfs.
Part of me though, thinks, wrap it up, I’ll take it! Which triggered The Neurons. They put “Wrap it Up” in my morning mental music stream. I had the cover done by the Fabulous Thunderbirds in mind. But when I drifted through the net in search of a video offering, I came across Bonnie Raitt and friends performing it on “Austin City Limits”. The friends include Brittany Howard, Gary Clark Jr., and Jimmie Vaughan playing and singing, a good group of friends for this Sam and Dave classic.
Yes, I’ll take a blue tsunami. Wrap it up!
Simultaneously, if a blue tsunami takes over, I expect Trump’s rage to break the rage meter. He’ll dial up the chaos and hate, screaming and crying about fraud and stolen elections. I also expect him to turn on the Republicans who lose, blasting them for not being as good as him, which is how Trump sees it. Donald Trump works hard to pretend he’s great and all powerful, and not a miserable cheating creep. Taking a loss that repudiates him will spin him like tornado. Expect an F5.
I hope the best kind of day for you today. May it feel your needs and help with your wishes.
Cheers
Tuesday’s Theme Music — Here we go
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
Here we go, another rainy autumn day, snow on higher elevations further north, shifting quickly from fall toward winter. Light blue splashes between white clouds smeared with gray. Rain rushes down and moves away. Another wave comes and goes.
It’s 42 F. Been 42 F since I got out of bed hours ago. High is supposed to be 48 F.
We’re all welcoming the rain. Lovely witnessing brown fields become green again.
Today’s music is “The Walker” by Fitz and the Tantrums. Came out in 2003. It entered my morning mental music stream today after I made my colonoscopy appointment. November 3 and 10 were offered first. But those are the Tuesdays after my next two BCG washes, so no thanks. The colonoscopy calls for a limited diet for the four days before the surgery, and the BCG can afford mood, energy, so on.
“The Walker” also fit my mood (and The Neurons’ thinking) because we’re closing on the national 2026 midterm elections. It’s like, here we go, just next Tuesday. Trump is already stumping that anytime someone he endorses loses, it’s a fake or stolen election — or ‘something smells’. Never offers any evidence, because there isn’t any. Now Donald Trump is offering money for reporting voter fraud.
Trump offers $1M rewards for reporting voter fraud in midterms
It’s another Trump stunt, another facet of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
In effect, Trump is begging voters, “Please don’t judge me on my record. Don’t judge me on the desultory Iran war I began. Don’t judge me for not releasing the Epstein files. Please, please, don’t judge me on the affordability crisis and rising prices. And don’t judge me on the many lies I’ve made or the money my family and I made while in office. Don’t judge me for the pardons and the pay to play that’s going on.”
Trump was especially upset by how much better former President Barack Obama is polling compared to Donald Trump. Former President Obama is so much more popular than Trump! Showing how hurt and angry he is, Trump threw a fit on social media, ranting about Bill Maher. “Distraction, distraction, look at me, listen to me, love me!”
Trump’s justice department is trying to bring cases they failed to win before, and judges are slapping them around.
And Donald Trump is out there, trying to tell people that there is no inflation while grinning surrogates explain there is no inflation if you adjust for inflation.
Brace yourself, brothers and sisters. Here we go.
Sample Lyrics
Ooh, crazy’s what they think about me
Ain’t gonna stop ’cause they tell me so
‘Cause 99 miles per hour baby
Is how fast that I like to go
Can’t keep up with my rhythm
Though they keep trying
Too quick for the lines they throw
I walk to the sound of my own drum
We go, they go, we go, hey yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, here we go
Feel it in my soul
Really mean it, mean it, so go
Gotta feel it, honey takes control
Really mean it, mean it
May this October day find you healthy and well, no matter what your season is.
Cheers
Monday’s Theme Music — Another day
Ashland, southern Oregon — Monday, October 26, 2026.
It was a chilly wet day in our valley. Layers of clouds thwarted the sun. Sunshine sporadically broke through but had little staying power. The asphalt roads were black and shiny wet, reflecting golden leaves. It was impressively spectacular on the large oak tree that resides across the street.
Today’s high was in the mid 50s. Now it’s in the low 40s F. That’s where it’s supposed to stop for the night.
Rolling out of bed and into another day’s light, I basically thought, “Here we go. Go check the phone calls and text messages and see what’s happening with Mom. Read the news, see what Trump and the GOP are up to. See if another war has been started. Get ready for another appointment, dress for another day, and so on.”
Yeah, still feeling a little weary, I’m afraid. I blame it on the rain.
The Neurons collected all this and set up “Day by Day” from “Godspell” in my morning mental music stream. I’m not religious but I understand the song’s sentiment. But for me, the song’s bottom line is the refrain, “Day by day.”
Hope your day was satisfying and rich with peace, joy, good news, and good health.
Cheers
The Trump Divide
I read a USA Today article about recent poll results and what each party says it values.
Divided nation: Republicans prize patriotism, Democrats equality – poll
The article carefully tiptoes through the results of recent polls that show a growing divide in the United States. Republicans value ‘patriotism’.
I’m not surprised. Republicans like to bark things like, “These colors don’t run.” Funny that they support noted draft dodger Donald Trump, isn’t it? Donald Trump, also known as TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out.
Just as interesting, Republicans in this poll valued ‘responsibility’ and ‘honesty’ as the second and third highest prized values.
And they select Trump as their leader.
It’s headshaking to me, but that’s probably why I’m not a Republican. How could I prize patriotism, responsibility, and honesty, and then support someone who doesn’t exhibit any of those traits? It’s like those traits are virtually meaningless to the GOP.
In a way, it is. What the GOP — especially the MAGA component — has done is change the way those words are perceived. To them, Trump’s lying is ‘unvarnished honesty’ because he says others will not and ‘shakes things up’.
This is because of the ‘framework’ through which they view things.
Yes, I call bullshit. They’re okay with Donald Trump making billions but they were in a tizzy over the idea that Hunter Biden — who is not an elected official — made money through Daddy. Yet they’re fine with Jared Kushner and the Trump children getting richer and richer off of Trump.
That’s why there’s a divide in this country.
This fascinating paragraph is in the article’s middle:
“But the inclination to see the other side as lacking basic principles − even as being a danger to democracy − has grown over the past decade, studies have found. The assumption that the other side is acting in good faith has been eroded by the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, attacks on the legitimacy of elections, allegations of the weaponization of governmental powers and more.”
Hmm. Interesting. Riddle me this, AI.
- How many times has Donald Trump claimed that elections were stolen or manipulated? How does that compare with other politicians and leaders?
- Who was POTUS during the Jan. 6 assault on the capitol?
- What White House occupant uses the DOJ to persecute political opponents? Which one has purged Federal employees and asked for loyalty oaths to him?
Donald Trump calls himself a unifying president but uses incentives specifically designed to divide the country via his support me and vote for Republicans technique. But that’s okay, I guess, because that’s the GOP framework: all for them, nothing for Democrats.
Trump likes to vilify Democrats, reporters, other nations, the news media in general, and anyone who doesn’t agree with him. Donald Trump, who wants to be remembered as a ‘peace president’, gleefully cheered when a protestor was punched at one of his rallies.
Trump also said multiple times, “I would never condone violence.”
Under the GOP framework — supported by their values of patriotism, responsibility, and honesty — these competing views of approving and encouraging violence and claiming he would never condone violence is acceptable.
Of course, we have seen MAGA and the GOP break with the framework several times. They broke when they voted for immigrants to be deported only to find themselves or their family to be one of the deported. They broke when Trump’s war increased gas prices. They broke when Trump said that he doesn’t care about Americans’ finances. They broke when they found how much more things are costing them as the affordability crisis grows under Trump’s economy.
That’s how their framework works. It’s ironclad until it personally affects them.
Republicans say that Trump is demonstrating peace through strength. Sure, and he’s showing unity through division, honesty through stealing, and responsibility through lying.
Republicans in the poll then expressed the view that Democrats were more immoral. That’s funny in a darkly bitter way, given that the person who leads them is a convicted felon who has been documented lying tens of thousands of times, and who promises the world and delivers little.
That person is Donald J. Trump.
Hey Republicans. Get Trump to release the Epstein files, end the Iran war, and give back the billions of dollars he’s made since taking office in 2025. Get him to stop lying and breaking his promises.
Then we can start a conversation about good faith, morals, and values, and the divide in this nation.
