They've politicized Social Security

 Last week I received a rare letter from the Social Security Administration.

From the same agency which I entrust my life's savings from years of working and sending money to be refunded when I retire...

Photo of the email as received, and I copied the text directly from the email with added red type for the political campaign messages.

This weekend, America celebrates its 250^th birthday. For over 90 of those years, Social Security has provided financial freedom for America's seniors. President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Administration are not only protecting Social Security, but we are providing meaningful and immediate relief to older Americans who have spent decades contributing to our nation's economy.

Just last year, on July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. This historic legislation included a tax cut that allows Americans 65 and older to keep more of their hard-earned Social Security benefits. Thanks to President Trump, over 35 million American seniors received an average of $7,500 in relief this tax season.

If you did not take advantage of the President's signature tax cut for seniors, I encourage you to review eligibility requirements through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website for next year's tax filing season.

Under the leadership of President Trump, we are protecting and strengthening Social Security while providing world-class customer service:

• In SSA field offices, we've reduced wait times by 30 percent;

• On the phone, we've answered calls 75 percent faster;

• We're meeting the needs of seniors in the digital age with 24/7 access to online my Social Security accounts;

• We've increased the number of personal my Social Security accounts to over 100 million users and have processed over 100 million more transactions this year;

• For disability claimants, we have reduced processing times by 25 percent; and

• Our efforts to prioritize efficiency, streamline our processes, and decrease wait times are saving Americans time while delivering the highest quality service.

Put simply, America's seniors are winning! I'm honored to be in your service.

Happy 250^th birthday, America!

Frank J. Bisignano
Commissioner
Social Security Administration

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The Red Ink is mine, just in case you miss the political campaign statements, many of which are borderline false. (I will leave it to others to give corrections.)

This is crass campaigning on a legitimate government business agency. Isn't that illegal? Would the IRS allow it? Or the Veterans Bureau? 

I'm just sick! 

And angry!

And something beautiful to just show that the universe does offer beauty still!

Colorado columbine, aquilegia caerulea taken by a very good photographer.

My two memes delayed and combined

 For Saturday's Critters...a bit late to the table due to the holiday!

Some photos of my 3 sons and myself (with curls and a bandana) and my ex-daughter-in-law.

Not sure which grandbaby is shown here, but likely William. The kittens are Tiny Patches, Garfield and probably their mom, Patches.

Sharing with Saturday's critters!

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And for Sepia Saturday...another favorite meme that I sometimes contribute to...usually a day early, and seldom on topic...

How about free art?

A clay puzzle piece, size 14 x 22 inches. Backed permanently on a piece of board...it is rather heavy and ready to hang...with a wire attached on the back. This is more or less the true color.

But I don't want it any more. And so I gave it to the local thrift store Kiwanis.

I meet the theme of this week on Sepia Saturday by having a sepia art work in clay. Sepia, I tell you! Sepia!

In everyone's life, at some time,

our inner fire goes out. 

It is then burst into flame 

by an encounter with 

another human being. 

We should all be thankful 

for those people who 

rekindle the inner spirit.

Albert Schweitzer

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

 -Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885)

Savor moments big and small,

Let worries go then watch them fall.

With open heart, dear grateful soul,

In every breath let joy unfold.

                      blogger Cloudia 

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Climate Change notes:

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re already well into a hot summer - and Reuters just launched Climate Monitor, an interactive globe showing how much hotter (or colder) today’s temperature is compared to what was typical on that date between 1961 and 1990.
 
I spent a few minutes on the site. Where I live in Dallas: 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 2.6C) above normal this past week. Toronto, Ontario, my hometown: 19.6F or 11C degrees above normal. 11C above normal is incredible to me, and in case you didn’t know, Toronto’s one of the World Cup cities with an outdoor stadium! That stopped me in my tracks.

Yesterday, Philadelphia cancelled their 250 year celebration parade as the heat index soared to 118F, and in DC, temperatures 22F above normal led to the closing of the Great American Fair on the Mall.
 
This week, take just a minute and look up your city. Look up where your parents live, where your kids go to camp, or somewhere currently experiencing a heat emergency. And don’t stop there. Talk about it! Share what you find out — not as a lecture, but as a conversation starter: “Did you know it’s 6 degrees warmer than normal here right now? I just found this tool that shows you in real time.” 
 
Abstract statistics about global average temperatures are easy to dismiss. But when someone sees that their hometown is running 8 degrees hotter than usual, or that the town where their grandchildren live is having its warmest July on record, it hits differently. Climate change stops being a headline and feels personal. 

Thanks  Katharine Heyhoe

Fighting for freedom

  

Continental Army’s North Carolina Brigade marching through Philadelphia on Aug. 25, 1777

This is a great drawing of the American Revolution, showing women and children in the wagon, taking their parts in the conflict.

This 250 year long experiment in democracy by a republic called the United States of America is not doing so well at this time.

Whether it shall long endure has become a question in many people's minds. In the months until the November election there are strange and awful possibilities to be thrown at the world from the current authoritarian clown.

We shall see...

Me visiting my second son and his family in Atlanta for the Fourth sometime in the  early 2000s. This year he and his family will be in Philadelphia at a World Cup Soccer game!

The frequent and well populated demonstrations show that many many Americans are opposed to the actions coming from the White House.

What is the United States of America? See Rebecca Solnit's article in The Guardian.

that article link is worth reading!

Independence Eve

 This is the beginning of the celebration  of this 250 year experiment, which has abjectly failed in the last 2 years. But then again there were more than a third of us who didn't bother to vote in the presidential election that got us into this situation...

Of course the experiment which our "forefathers" envisioned didn't include people of color. But with amendments available to the constitution, there have been efforts to rectify that shortsightedness. Unfortunately the laws don't govern day to day bigoted people. They may attempt to, but too many people just blatantly ignore the law, including those who make changes to laws.

This was actually published before the War with Iran in 2026.

Lest we forget!

Heartbreak and hope are not mutually exclusive. We can be angry and sad and filled with longing for something we cannot have, and simultaneously we can be grateful for what we’ve got — aware, for reasons we’d never choose, of what really matters and what doesn’t.

LENNON FLOWERS

Hodge-podge day

 

Posted to Southwest US on Facebook. I don't plan to be hiking much, but it's nice to know that others can!

These pop-together toys were only available for a while, and I saved this one for my inner child to play with.

An old saying (don't know who wrote it or drew the sketch) which I liked enough to keep in  spite of the damage.

My Uncle Jimmy sketched me when I was about 10 years old. He was an accomplished artist for an insurance company in Wisconsin. I used that knowledge to study art for years myself, hoping that I could have some of his talent in my genes.

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I'm so sad from the recent Supreme decision that will put so many immigrants in jeopardy. The political situation will probably hit me one of these days...from losing some programs which help me live to maybe infringing on my voting rights. I will sure make a lot of noise, if that happens. But I also make a bit of noise now, though I feel pretty powerless. The least I can do is to say something here.

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An old photo of my ex hubby's family, with our two sons as kids. Only the 5 people to the right are still alive, my ex (with the beard) and his sister and her hubby, as well as the kids. My ex just turned 87. 

Sharing with Thankful Thursday

"Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much."

 -Sarah Vowell, author and journalist (b. 27 Dec 1969)

Happy July everyone!

 Whoohoo! Summertime is here for sure!

Hot days bring everyone to the pool. So the parking lot is mobbed and us seniors either have to hike a ways to get to classes and lunch, or get there really early since the pool doesn't open all that early. Speaking of parking. The other day...

My trunk is packed with folding chairs. I've loaded my picnic lunch in its cooler into the car, as well as a big shopping bag of things to give Teresa, who I'm meeting for lunch.

BUT, the recycle bins haven't been emptied yet. And the maintenance guy put them out where the truck could easily access them without banging them against the sides of the car which is parked facing the little corral where they are usually kept.

The trash corral on another day.

So I texted Teresa to come pick me up. In the mean time, the maintenance guy moved the bins enough for me to back out. I texted Teresa never mind, I could get my car out now. She didn't get that text, because as I back out she arrives, and follows me driving down the hill where I turn around and go back to my original spot. And maintenance guy shouts, the recycle truck just arrived anyway.

So I park and make sure to leave space for the bins to be taken back to their corral, while MM tells Teresa the recycle truck just arrived, and then I unload my stuff into Teresa's car, while she waits right behind mine...after the recycle truck had done it's duty.

I could just imagine the entertainment factor for the seniors in the rockers on the porch across the way. I felt like the keystone cops had just arrived.

We had originally intended to do a Blue Ridge Parkway drive up to Mt. Mitchell for our picnic...and to give me a chance to breath at higher elevation. But it looked partly cloudy, and that would have kept us from seeing any views from the highest mountain east of the Mississippi. So we went to Lake Tomahawk instead, and ate in the picnic pavilion with a great breeze off the lake. I didn't take any more photos.

Then there was the  fiasco of the ironing board.

I had asked the maintenance man how to dispose of several items, a lamp which had shorted out, and the ironing board, which was metal. I asked if I could put it out to recycle. Nope, he said it should go to the household items pick up on Friday...the next day. These things, including beds and furniture, are placed at the foot of the hill of our parking lot. He offered to take things from my front porch for that pickup.

So the lamp, a couple of indoor/outdoor rugs, and the ironing board, and a whole plastic milk crate full of old VCR tapes were put on my front porch before I went picnicking.

He didn't take the blue recycle bin, perhaps because the ones here are green. I can use it to pack something in anyway.

I mentioned to Teresa that I was giving away the ironing board, and she said she really wanted it. She does something called slow stitching. OK, I was pretty sure I could ask the maintenance man to give it back. I didn't get to see him, but mentioned it to the landlady, who passed it on to him, and within a few hours he brought it back. 

I wonder if the porch sitting elders got to see the ironing board go down the hill and then back up again within a few hours. And then Saturday Teresa came back and loaded it and some Christmas wrapping paper into her car. I certainly don't plan taking rolls of wrapping paper out west with me!

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Another note is to wish family members much joy as they attend World Cup games in Atlanta and Philadelphia. Here's a quote from a UU minister who writes a daily newsletter, shared on Substack. 

Keith Kron from Keith Kron What Really Matters

My favorite part of the World Cup happening here in the US is that people from other countries are rediscovering that the American people is not reflected in its government’s political rhetoric. The tourists are reminded that the Americans have more in common with them than Americans do with their own currently elected federal officials. The people of the United States are reminded of how much in common we have with people in the world. Tourists love our ranch dressing. Americans love the competitive fight of players’ loving their countries, the raucous joy of Norwegian fans rowing like Vikings and the drinking ability of the Scottish fans. We love the polite kindness of the Iranian team and their notes of appreciation to the people of Los Angeles. We root for underdogs like Cape Verde when they advance and the accomplishment of being here for countries like Curacao, Haiti, and Jordan, and Uzbekistan. We feel the mutual love and admiration that Lawrence, Kansas, and the Algerian national team have developed for each other.

The world can be amazing and be a place of hope. Thank you World Cup fans for bringing hope for the humanity of the world this month. As you’ve embraced us, we’re grateful to have embraced back.

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Is it June or July or January?

 I thought it was already July. Nope, a few more hours of June.

It has actually been quite busy. But I'm focused upon the actions that I'll be gearing up for at the end of July. Like an athlete training for a race...I'm in the final days here.

OK, goodbye June. You've been good to me. Thanks for the memories. I sure spent as much time as possible with friends this month. It was almost daily seeing someone for some reason or another. I'll miss them so much.

This is a unintented photo...as I was walking along carrying the phone, leaving the Lakeview Center's lunch program last week. I like the colors though.

Not my photo, and I am not sure where it came from... while the moon is actually just past full tonight. Last night it woke me up, shining in my eyes.

Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.

   Bruce Lee

Suzanne and I have frequently had Sunday lunch dates by the Flat Creek on Ole' Guacamole's patio. The water wasn't too high last week while there was steady rain.

I also ran into Tina, Dawn, Jeff and Tim, who have befriended me many times while living for the last 19 years here in Black Mountain. I met all of these friends through the Unitarian Universalist Congregation here. 

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I posted my experience of my friend's husband's recent death over on my other blog, Inner Workings.

What kind of oak is it? (plus Alligator Alcatraz news)

 

A friend shared her photos of a grandmother oak where she visits at Emberlight. Her husband is staying there (in Swannanoa) while Hospice cares for him. But we don't know what kind of oak this might be.

Any ideas? (my iPhone kept saying a red oak...mmmm?)

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Before

Aerial image of the site before any construction shows a “before” comparison with the newly paved area to the west of the runway. Friends of the Everglades.

I shared my feelings about Alligator Auschwitz on a Before and After blog earlier.

June 26 Facebook postings tell this...