The month of September 2025 has simultaneously
flown by and dragged on endlessly. It has been almost too much
for me, and maybe it has for you as well. Chaos swirls around us,
and now more than ever the U.S. seems on the brink of disaster on
multiple fronts, such that it's often difficult for many of us to
maintain even a semblance of hope for the survival of American
(and world) democracy.
Things look especially grim now in light of today's infamous forced gathering of top U.S. military brass in
Quantico, where the worse than
incompetent secretary of the department formerly known as
defense, Pete Kegsbreath, railed on and
on about a new "warrior ethos" while Cadet Bone Spurs, the
illustrious Commander in Chief, officially directed the entire
U.S. military to wage war on "the enemy from within" --
in other words, any American who doesn't bow down to the regime.
Top defense officials -- or should that now be "war
officials?" -- were appalled. They weren't
the only ones.
And that's just one event in the endless deluge of
shock-and-awe-and-nausea to which we are continually subjected,
almost certainly by design.
Even so, I haven't given up hope entirely, and one of my hopes is that you haven't either.
But there's also this: I am in the midst of a major upheaval in
my life that involves one of the biggest moves I've ever made. And
I'm doing it for the first time in decades without my partner and
soul mate, Ron, who died earlier this year.
Accordingly, even though I am still keeping up with events both
in Scamworld and the larger world, I haven't had the focus and
energy needed to churn out much content on this Whirled. And I
refuse to let AI do it for me. So I hope you will bear with me
for another few weeks; I promise to be back as soon as possible
with actual substance. (And for those of you who are wondering
when I am going to turn my attention back to something more
closely related to this blog's original beat, such as tracking
the latest grifts of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, I hear you.
Don't give up on me.)
I'll see you again soon.
Before you leave...
While money cannot make some
nightmares go away, be they political or personal, it can make
them far easier to bear. With my husband Ron's passing in
February 2025, I have experienced significant income loss and am
scrambling to find more work, but in an industry increasingly
being taken over by AI, it has been a challenge. And now that I
am making a major move, which is never cheap, donations are
urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to
do it:
- New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
- New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
- Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.
NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please
specify that your contribution is for "friends and
family," which will waive PayPal's substantial transaction
fee.
Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this
Whirled. Stay strong, and stay hopeful.
