I can't look at the stars

All those times we looked up at the sky
Looking out so far, we felt like we could fly
And now I'm all alone in the dark of night
The moon is shining, but I can't see the light

~ "Stars" by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

 * * * * *

I pray for the strength to accept
that lives most often end in tragedy,
that quests don’t always work,
that understanding is a long and lonely hunt,
that I can't reason my way to love,
eat gold,
or live forever,
And that none of this matters.

I pray to understand that I am here to find my way back to
God, whatever that takes, and all the rest save love and duty is
an illusion.

~ John Taylor Gatto, educator and author, New York
From the book, Prayers For A Thousand Years

Let me say right off the bat that this still-newish year of 2025 has been, so far, very rough for me. It has not been the fresh beginning that most of us are indoctrinated to believe, or at least to hope, nascent years should be. To the contrary, 2025 has been a continuation of the utter suckfest that was 2024. For me it has been a double whammy not of fresh beginnings but of sad endings.

First there has been my ongoing experience, shared by millions of others, of being witness to the accelerating demise of American democracy, which contrary to the Washington Post slogan is not dying in darkness, but is being hacked to death bit by bit in broad daylight. And on a much more personal level, I am dealing with the death of my soul mate, my best friend, and the love of my life, Ron Kaye.

Ron, also known as Reverend Ron, Rev Ron, or simply The Rev (on his own blog and on this one in its earlier days), passed peacefully on Monday night, February 24, 2025, a little before 11:00 PM. He and I had been together for going on 32 years.

I am, to put it mildly, devastated.

Ron had been struggling with Lewy body dementia, which while perhaps not quite as well known as Alzheimer's, is far from rare. The late actor and comedian Robin Williams was also a sufferer of LBD.

The disease was a total nightmare for both Ron and me because he suffered from hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia in addition to the cognitive and functional issues more commonly associated with dementia, such as memory loss and a significant decline in skills. The hallucinations and delusions and paranoia increasingly caused erratic behavior that at first was merely disruptive in dozens of different ways, but later became frightening, violent, and dangerous. It came to the point where it was no longer safe for him to live at home with me.

Accordingly, for the last few months of his life, Ron was in the locked memory care unit at a nursing home, through arrangements made by the VA, under whose care he had been. Despite his deteriorating cognition, he remained surprisingly healthy physically, and he was constantly trying to find ways to escape his confinement.

But in more recent weeks he developed serious medical problems that he'd not had before, and he was in and out of hospitals. Some of the problems he faced towards the end were a sudden and very puzzling loss of his ability to walk, serious heart rhythm issues, and life-threatening respiratory problems brought on by a combination of blood clots in his lungs and pneumonia.

It became more and more apparent that he was not coming back from this, so during his last hospitalization I signed him up for hospice care. That was on Saturday, February 22, and that evening he was discharged back to the nursing home, where he died two nights later.

My world will never be the same. Right now if feels as if I will never be happy again.

* * * * *

Ron was a kind and gentle and brilliant person, until the brutal disease snatched almost all of that away from him. Even towards the end, however, up until the point that he would no longer open his eyes, I could look into their depths and see that he was still in there, somewhere. But it was also painfully clear that he knew, at some deep level, how trapped he was in his dysfunctional brain and increasingly malfunctioning body.

I was in despair, knowing that he knew, and knowing also that despite his problems he could possibly linger on for years, with his brain continuing to deteriorate. What kind of existence could that possibly be? Just thinking about it was horrifying. So it was not lost on me, nor on the other people who love him the most, that the numerous medical crises that hurried his passing were in their own way a blessing.

It seems forever ago that I wrote this blog post about Ron back in 2009, in observance of Veterans Day. It barely scratched the surface of the kind and gentle and considerate and brave man he was. In due time, I will have more, much more to write about him and about this sorrowful road we stumbled down together until we reached the inevitable pass that he had to go through alone. I have plans to start a separate blog or a Substack, not only with the narrative of our own journey, but also with information and links that I hope can help others who are facing the same ordeal. I will link to it when it's launched.

For the time being, though, I am alternately numb and deeply weary and overcome with grief, which comes in waves. I let the waves wash over me as I hold on to something sturdy and then continue trudging through the hours and days, knowing that there is a way past grief, eventually, but that, like so many things in life, the only way past it is through it.

I would be remiss were I not to acknowledge the people who have helped and are continuing to help me through my grief: Ron's beautiful daughter; close friends who have been Ron's and my family of choice; and many other friends whom we only knew from social media. I love all of you.

Then of course there is the team of providers who recognized what an essentially lonely journey this is and did everything they could to make it a little easier: the kind and compassionate doctors, physician's assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, technicians, sitters, aids, and social workers at the DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston; the staff at the nursing home; and the hospice care providers, the latter of whom I only knew for a few days but whose professionalism and kindness helped make Ron's passing easier for both him and me. These people all deal with tragic stories every day of their professional lives, and yet they act in the knowledge that every story is different, and that the individuals living through that story are more than just names and numbers in a file.

There will come a time, I know, when I will be able to walk out at night and look up at the stars again without being overcome by the vast and terrible sadness of Ron's absence, and without the inevitable flood of "where-are-you" questions. Or when I can bear to simply watch one of Ron's and my favorite movies, and there are quite a few that we viewed so many times together over the years that we practically knew the whole script by heart. And maybe there will even be a time when I can get through a whole day and night without crying. But I'm not there yet.

For now, I need rest, so much rest. There's too much to deal with in this new life without him, from emotional issues to scary financial ones. With lots of help, I think I'll be able to handle them.

But I miss you, Ronnie Kaye.

Related on this Whirled:

• For those who have served (November 11, 2009): I'm linking again here to my tribute to Ron, written on a long-ago Veterans Day. He was always a little embarrassed by this post, and it wasn't false modesty; he just didn't like people making a big fuss over him. From my perspective, however, I didn't make enough of a fuss over him.
• Veterans Day: Those who have served will be ill-served by Trump and Project 2025 (and/or Elon & Vivek's austerity cartel (November 11, 2024): Vivek is long gone, but E(vil)on is still out there running wild and slashing and burning, and Trump and the Trumpublicans are going right along with it. Ron no longer has to worry about this, but I fear for the millions of veterans whose care will either be seriously compromised, or cut altogether, if the wrecking crew has its way.
• Election Day musings: overall the US is actually better off than it was 4 years ago, but it will be much WORSE off if 45 becomes 47 (November 5, 2024): By the time I published this, I was pretty sure that 45 would indeed become 47, but I thought there still might be a smidgen of hope left. In this post, I recap a conversation I had with a small group of veterans on a VA shuttle bus. They were all in for Trump. I will probably never see these gentlemen again, and in any case I would never tell them, "I told you so," because I didn't actually tell them so (they'd already early-voted for Trump). But I fear for them now.

Before you leave...
While money cannot make some personal nightmares go away, it can make them far easier to bear. With Ron's passing, I will be facing 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. Now more than ever, 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.

Year of the Snake: a reptile dysfunction, redux

Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate it. It's the Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese zodiac, though not all countries that observe the holiday follow that zodiac. But since we're on the theme of snakes, I think it's a good time to recycle the song lyrics that I originally wrote and published back in 2016, shortly after the disastrous election that rocketed #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump to undeserved power the first time. I've only changed a few words in order to update it.

As you may know, this was inspired by Trump's abiding obsession with a poem -- actually song lyrics -- about a tender-hearted lady and a nefarious, deadly snake. Trump always loved to read it on the campaign trail, taking pains to ensure that his audience understood that the snake represented immigrants. If you want to sing along, here's a video of Al Wilson performing the snake song.

The Orange Snake*
by Cosmic Connie

On the road to ruin one morning
Down the path along the lake
Some angry voters came upon a huge and leering snake
His skin was orange and glowing and he wore a bright red hat
"Oh my, " the voters cried, "Here’s something new! Let’s vote for that!”
“Vote me in, o angry voters
Vote me in, for heaven’s sake
Vote me in, unhappy citizens,” smirked the snake.

They welcomed him so warmly even as he bared his fangs
They cheered his glowing orangeness and his odd combed-over bangs
They clapped and cheered at every hateful diatribe he spewed
For they believed that under him the realm would be renewed.
“Vote me in, unhappy voters
Vote me in, for heaven’s sake
Vote me in, you angry voters,” grinned the snake

And they did so with malicious glee. “Our hero!” they all cried
"If Kamala had won, our dear Republic would have died!”
They cheered the huge orange reptile till reality intruded:
They saw he’d granted favors but that they were not included.
“Stop your whining, loser voters
Suck it up, for heaven’s sake
I’ve made our country greater,” leered the snake.

“We loved you, " cried the voters
“And you've screwed us so, but why?
You know the things you’re doing might just make our nation die!”
“Oh shut up, stupid losers,” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well just what I was, but voted me back in
You bought my lies, you losers
Every lie, for heaven’s sake

And now I’m here forever,” jeered the snake.
© 2016, 2025 by Connie L. Schmidt

Unfortunately the prediction implied in my lyrics, regarding Trumpcult members becoming disillusioned with their idol, never came to pass during that first disastrous term. In a sane world, they would have awakened en masse back then -- or at least at some time during the four years he was out of office but continued to wreak chaos and incite violence -- and we wouldn't have been where we unfortunately are today. And the final line in my lyrics, regarding the snake being "here forever," would have been moot.

This time around, however, there are signs of a growing possibility that some Trump voters are maybe beginning to experience voters' remorse as they see him and his new, much more powerful, well-funded, and meticulously organized wrecking crew at work destroying America.

At least some Trump voters are expressing shock at what he and his cartel of thugs are doing, for they're seeing that his cruel policies and actions could very well ruin their lives, not just the lives of those they hate and fear.

Take immigration, f'rinstance. Although scads of hateful MAGAs are nearly orgasmic because Trump appears to be keeping his promises and threats to rid the republic of the "illegals" who are "poisoning the blood of our country," there are some Trump supporters who are saying, "Oh, shit."

As God Himself put it in a January 29, 2025 piece about Trump supporters getting deported or fearing that they or loved ones will be, "Leopard, meet face." That of course is a reference to the popular social media meme about people voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party and then expressing shock that the hungry cats are coming for their own faces.

Then there's the totally illegal funding freeze that Caligula and the Cost Cutters attempted to foist upon the American people, to the potential detriment of millions -- including some of the poorest of the Trumpy poor. Despite a court injunction to delay the freeze, the wrecking crew apparently opted to go full speed ahead with it, but blowback was so fierce that the White House actually pulled back -- for now, anyway.

But don't think that this battle is over. It will very likely rise again in some form -- indeed, the White House claims that their pullback is merely a rescission of the original memo issued on the evening of January 27. Moreover, even that surprise move was enough to cause widespread panic and confusion and chaos, even among republicans. In any case it's all straight from the Project 2025 playbook; indeed, Trump's choice to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Ross Vought, is one of the chief architects of Project 2025. Despite the cabal's cover story about reducing government waste, freezing many billions of dollars in aid and benefits is actually in the service of centralizing power to the president in dangerous new ways.

And let's not forget Trump's outrageous wholesale pardoning/sentence commutation of the violent January 6 offenders who tried to overthrow the government, defaced the nation's Capitol, threatened the lives of lawmakers of both parties, tried to murder the Vice President, and viciously attacked numerous police officers for doing their job. Even the largest cop unions, who for the most part had been reliably Trumpist, were appalled by the pardons.

All of the above are just a few of the atrocities that Mango Mussolini has perpetrated, or tried to perpetrate, in his first week and a half back in office (follow that link for more).

Given all of this, a growing tide of disillusionment with Trump -- even among the more devoted MAGAts -- is not completely beyond the realm of possibility. They may even acknowledge that yes, the horrors were Trump's doing and not that of Biden/Obama/the Democrats et al. And perhaps (oh, we can dream, can't we?) the devotees will finally rebel in numbers large enough to actually help move the country away from disaster.

Unfortunately, if Trump and his thugs have their way, the uprising, should it happen, may very well be too little, too late. The damage will have been done, and much of it may be irreparable. It's too early to say. But make no mistake about it, these guys are hard at work plotting to fix it so that they stay in power indefinitely, transforming the land of the free and the home of the brave into an oligarchic, white Christian nationalist Turd Reich. One particularly devoted Trumpanzee, Representative Andy Ogle of Tennessee, is so serious about it that he has proposed to amend the 22nd Amendment to allow his idol to serve a third term.

"And now I'm here forever," jeered the snake.

* No offense is intended to actual snakes, which serve a useful purpose in nature.

Darkness falls as #NotMyPresident Trump and Nazi Co-president Musk begin their reign

"Hello, darkness my old friend..."

Paul Simon's famous lyrics -- covered here by (appropriately) Disturbed -- have never been more pertinent than they are now.

As of today, January 20, 2025, the coup is complete, as The Racket's Jonathan Katz put it. #NeverWasMy President Donald John Trump, apparently without a hint of irony, took the oath of office. It is of course an oath that he has no intention of keeping, which might explain why, contrary to the cartoon in the graphic above, and in contrast to his former coronation, he didn't actually place his tiny paw on the pair of Bibles offered by his Hamburglar-hatted helpmeet.

Cantaloupe Caligula is not by any stretch of the imagination a godly man, notwithstanding the cynical branding efforts by some of his most power-hungry allies (not to mention his own laughable branding efforts). But it's possible that he harbors sufficient religious superstition to fear that the holy books might burst into flame if he came in contact with them while uttering a bald-faced lie. Or perhaps in a rare moment of public candor he was simply expressing his genuine disdain for God's Word. Or maybe he just resented the fact that his own grift bible wasn't the prop of choice.

In any case, contrary to the desperate hopes and speculations of some, there's no Constitutional requirement that a president put his hand on a Bible or Bibles during the swearing-in ceremony. Which on the one hand (so to speak) is good, because it confirms the essentially secular intent of the founders. But on the other hand, it also means that Trump has now been legitimately empowered to dismantle and reassemble the republic according to his and his broligarchic allies' wishes.

* * * * *

The coup might be complete, but the guest list at today's momentous ceremony was apparently incomplete, most likely to the deep disappointment of the newly crowned Lord of All. From the Katz piece (here's that link again):

Today, Donald Trump took the oath of office inside the Capitol his supporters ransacked four years ago, backed by every living former president and the gazillionaire CEOs of every major U.S. tech platform. But one powerful ally who’d really liked to have been there was not in the crowd. Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, was stuck at home, under arrest and indictment for a raft of alleged offenses, including money laundering and trying to instigate a January 6-style coup attempt of his own¹ . The Brazilian Supreme Court denied a plea to reinstate Bolsonaro’s passport; his wife was expected to attend instead.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, another Trumpy president—Yoon Suk Yeol² —is also in custody and facing trial for his declaration of martial law in what appeared to be yet another failed self-coup. Yoon was, unlike Bolsonaro but like Trump, the sitting president at the time of his attempt. In fact, he is still the president, though his powers have been suspended and he is facing possible removal. In South Korea, trying to overthrow democracy in plain sight is considered a grave enough threat to justify throwing a sitting president in jail. How quaint.

Katz's point, with which I must reluctantly agree, was that President Biden and allies could have done so much more than they did to possibly prevent today's lamentable coronation.

...the simple fact is this: Other countries have found ways to hold their anti-democratic presidents accountable and prevent them from taking office again. America did not.

And because America did not, we have not only Trump in power but also much greater evils, most notably, Co-President Musk, who shamelessly and repeatedly performed a Nazi salute during an afternoon rally today, while thanking Trump supporters for saving civilization. (That tracks; Musk has expressed his support for Germany's far-right (neo-Nazi-adjacent) AFD party.)

And tomorrow the wholesale destruction of America begins in earnest. Actually it has already begun, with a flurry of executive orders intended to further enrich the broligarchs, ruin the environment, and give the shaft to ordinary Americans and marginalized groups such as immigrants and LGBTQ communities. Oh, yes, and Trump is freeing thousands of the J6 convicts who stormed the Capitol in 2021 in an attempt to overturn the government. Nice.

I would say that it's going to be a long four years, but my fear is that we're in for many more years of hell than that.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made...
~ Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence"

We are all stuck with that garish god, including, unfortunately, the many millions who always saw him for what he truly is and always voted accordingly. But even as grim as things look now, I refuse to give up hope. And it is my hope that you feel the same.

January 6, 2021: NEVER FORGET

 

"The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay."
~ Donald John Trump, January 7, 2021

It's done: Vice President/Should-Have-Been-President-Elect Kamala Harris performed her Constitutionally-defined duties with dignity and grace, certifying the most tragic and disgraceful presidential election in modern American history. And she did it on the fourth anniversary of America's national day of shame, the 2021 Trump-incited Capitol riot/insurrection.

January 6, 2021 was a day of atrocities, and to state otherwise is either idiocy, willful blindness, or gaslighting. Most of us recall that in its immediate wake, J6 was widely acknowledged not only by the news media but also by both political parties for the horror it was. Even Trump himself condemned the Capitol Hill violence the day after it happened, although he did so only after intense pressure, delivering his message in that robotic, completely TelePrompter-dependent style utilized when he's mouthing words he doesn't actually believe, and he completely avoided mentioning his own role in inciting the mob. (Here is a link to his (falsehood-imbued) statement.)

Of course we also know how quickly the J6 Trumpublican narrative changed, with Trump aggressively plowing forward with the Big Lie (which he has never abandoned) and ultimately praising his violent mob as heroes and patriots, and with most republicans of any note falling on the side of J6 whitewash and denialism. As William Kristol and Andrew Egger wrote on The Bulwark today, the shock of what happened four years ago has been replaced by the shock of how that day has become accepted by so many.

...The January 6th truther-in-chief will be our next commander-in-chief. And his administration will be staffed by individuals who range from January 6th apologists to January 6th celebrators.

Meanwhile, the ranks of Trump’s party are full of such people, as is suggested by the fact that the leadership of the Republican House has refused to install a plaque honoring Capitol Police officers for their brave actions on January 6th, as required by a federal law signed in March 2023.

It is in a way fitting that one of the first acts of the new Trump administration will be presidential pardons or commutations for many of the January 6th felons. Why not? Their leader will be president. Why should they languish in prison?

Jonathan V. Last, also writing on The Bulwark, observed that all of this adds up to a tragedy worthy of Euripides. Last framed his opinion piece around a comparison of the roles of then-Vice President Mike Pence in 2021 and President Joe Biden in the intervening years.

Now maybe no president could have subdued Trumpism. I’m open to that possibility. But we don’t get to run the counterfactuals. We can only judge based on the results. And the result is that President Biden succeeded in nearly every aspect of job—except in the one that mattered most.

Mike Pence enabled authoritarianism. But succeeded in stopping Trump’s coup.

Joe Biden returned normalcy to political life and governed wisely. But he presided over the resurgence and total victory of the forces of Trumpism.

It’s a uniquely American tragedy.

Last is no fan of Pence and in fact is an admirer of and advocate for Biden, so this was undoubtedly difficult for him to write. He does make some valid points, however, and lists a few things that Biden could have or should have done that might have prevented Trump's victory. But we'll never know if even those strategies would have been enough to stem the toxic tide of Trumpism. In my more cynical moments I tend to doubt it.

Forgive and forget?
It remains to be seen whether or not Trump will in fact pardon and/or commute the sentences of January 6 insurrectionists on his much-touted "Day One." To do so would be a profoundly disgraceful act, and anyone who supports it cannot truthfully claim to be a backer of law and order or of those who risk their lives to preserve law and order. In a January 6, 2025 opinion piece published on The Hill, former Capitol Police Officer Aquilino Gonell, who was seriously injured by J6 rioters, wrote:

My colleagues and I who protected the Capitol that day don’t have the privilege of forgetting the Jan. 6 riot. To me, it still feels like it was yesterday.

I served in the U.S. Army and witnessed violence in combat, but I never thought I would see similar brutality inside the U.S. Capitol. I was assaulted by rioters for five hours. I was barricading the tunnels with my body, receiving blow after blow from rioters using makeshift weapons and stolen police gear. By the end, I was covered in my own blood. Exhausted, overwhelmed and trampled, I did not know whether I would make it home to see my wife and child. Those horrible memories are seared into my brain. I will never forget that feeling.

Like many other officers who served that day, I’ve spent years in mental and physical therapy — and have undergone two surgeries to heal from those wounds — but that feeling has never truly left me. It has altered the trajectory of my career and my life. Trump and his rioters not only stole my health but also the livelihoods of me and my fellow officers. 

According to Trump and MAGA Republicans, Jan. 6, 2021, was a “day of love.” If being beaten and trampled by a violent mob is love, then Trump and the insurrectionists who attacked me under his banner nearly loved me to death. While serving that day, I wasn’t focused on the implications of the attack. I was simply doing my job.

Let me be very clear: Republicans in Congress do not support law enforcement if they support the pardons of those who attacked police officers and attempted to overthrow our government — the antithesis of law and order. 

Rewriting history can't change what actually happened
What is clear now is that there is an enormous cultural divide between those who see J6 for what it truly was, and those who think it was no big deal.

Some go beyond thinking it's NBD and apparently even find it cause for hilarity. The reich-wing satire outlet Babylon Bee recently produced a mockumentary, The Most Deadliest Day, which conveys the message that J6 coverage was driven by leftist hysteria and that the event itself was indeed NBD. I get that this is satire and that satire can be offensive, but this particular satire misses the point because its underlying premise seems to be that those who were appalled by J6 considered it to be the worst day in human history. None of us ever said or implied any such thing; we only said it was one of the worst events in modern American history -- an event that shook the guardrails and truly imperiled democracy in a way that we'd never seen in our lifetimes.

And yet Trump and his allies continue to work very hard to rewrite that history. From a January 6, 2025 opinion piece in Newsweek, written by David Faris, Associate Professor at Roosevelt University:

Trump's years-long Orwellian disinformation campaign justifying the riot as legitimate political expression and lionizing the perpetrators as heroes suffering from unjust persecution succeeded in muddying what should have been crystal-clear waters. After getting wound up with one of Trump's patented speeches featuring a firehose of lies, non-sequiturs and bombast, thousands of brainwashed MAGA die-hards descended, lemming-like, on the United States Capitol Building, scaling the walls, roaming the halls and creating violent mayhem. Some of them were armed with guns, carried zip ties and had plans to capture and possibly kill members of Congress. Others likely believed they were along for some kind of twisted joyride and seemed to be having the time of their lives.

But no sentient person illicitly roaming the halls of Congress—while elected officials and their staffs ran for their lives and hid from them—could possibly have believed that what they were doing was acceptable or legal. Four rioters died or were killed at the scene, a U.S. Capitol Police officer lost his life the following day after sustaining injuries during the melee and several other officers committed suicide in the days and weeks that followed. One hundred forty other police officers were injured in the mayhem.

Faris also rips apart the common MAGA whataboutism argument that the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter rioters weren't treated nearly as harshly as the J6 perps:

The comparison also happens to be...factually wrong. More than 17,000 people were arrested during the summer 2020 protests, and more of them have served actual jail time than the Capitol rioters. Importantly—and I can't emphasize this enough—this is in spite of the fact that none of them were seeking to murder the vice president of the United States. If you can't accept that trying to kill members of congress is worse than smashing a window at a Cheesecake Factory, I just don't know what to tell you.

Remember and resist
All spin aside, January 6, 2021 was in fact a day of shame, and millions of us will never forget, even though for years we have been scolded and told we need to "get over it" and "move on." With King DonOld ascending the throne on January 20, there will almost certainly be even more of an effort to sweep the atrocities of J6 under the rug, coupled with attempts to retaliate against the bipartisan committee of true patriots who investigated January 6, held hearings, and issued a massive report about what really happened. Regarding the threats of retaliation, J6 committee principal Jamie Raskin, one of my personal heroes, has said, "Bring it on."

“We welcome any further investigation of Jan. 6 that they want to engage in,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol recently. “I've not seen an attack on even the smallest detail, so if they could come forward with a couple of those, then I might be able to accept what they're saying is something other than just idle political rhetoric.”

Few of us have the large platform of a Jamie Raskin or a Liz Cheney, but I think that all of us who believe in the truthful telling of American history can do our part to keep the Trumpublicans from rewriting that history. And in so doing we can possibly help push back the rising tide of authoritarianism/fascism that threatens not only America but the world at large. But it's up to us, as "God" Himself wrote on His January 6, 2025 message:

The problem isn’t just Trump—it’s the machine propping him up. It’s the money, the corporate media, and the revisionist storytelling that’s erasing what actually happened on January 6th. And if this is how we deal with an insurrection, what happens next?

No one is coming to save us. Not the corporations. Not your elected leaders. It’s truly on us. We have to unite against the billionaire class that is just fine with using fascism and propaganda to keep us all at each other’s throats.

Amen to that, God.

Related on this Whirled

July 6, 2021: Day of Rage: The most in-depth look yet at pro-Trump riot on January 6, 2021
Published on the 6-month anniversary of J6, this post highlights a must-see documentary that truly exposes the horror of the Capitol Hill riots. The embedded video is no longer available, but the YouTube link works, although the video is now age-restricted due to its intensely graphic nature. It's worth the effort to go through the steps of confirming your age in order to view it.

Before you leave...
This past year has been a nightmare for me on several counts. While money cannot make some personal nightmares go away, it can make them far easier to bear. Now more than ever, 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 of my husband, 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 a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

Breaking: James Arthur Ray, infamous "sweat lodge" guru, is dead

Notorious McSpirituality/selfish-help guru, star of the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, and (in more recent times) devoted reich-wing conspiranoid Trumpster James Arthur Ray -- best known for his infamous deadly "sweat lodge" in Sedona, Arizona in 2009 -- passed away on the evening of January 3, 2025 [or more likely January 2; see January 7 update below]. Ray's brother John announced it on a pinned post on Ray's Xitter timeline. No cause of death was given; the brother only said that Ray passed away "suddenly and unexpectedly."

If I had to guess the cause offhand, I'd say that long term anabolic steroid use finally caught up with him. But that is pure speculation on my part, so don't quote me. I really do not know. I will update when/if I find out. I did notice that Ray's brother said that Ray's wish was to be cremated and that he didn't want people to make a big fuss about his death. I wonder if there is even going to be an autopsy, and if not... why? That might be something worth exploring, though at this point it's a little early.

So far, as I'm writing this at nearly 10:30 PM Central Standard Time, the news media do not seem to have gotten wind of the news; if you Google or Bing "James Arthur Ray death," you just get scads of results about the deaths he caused and for which he was convicted and imprisoned for a couple of years, not his own death. Nor is Ray's passing mentioned yet on his Wikipedia page.
[NOTE: SEE UPDATES AT THE END OF THIS POST. ~CC]

But some folks were paying attention, and that's how I learned about Ray's demise. Through their organization, Seek Safely, the family of Kirby Brown, one of Ray's Sedona death lodge victims, made a statement, which said in part:

While there could be some small measure of relief in knowing that Ray will no longer be able to harm anyone, it is, truly, very little comfort. It became clear to us early on after Kirby’s passing that Ray was just one operator in a multi-billion dollar per year industry built on the exploitation of those who would improve their lives and find fulfillment. The rot in this industry has always been much greater and more complex than the actions of a single so-called “guru.” James Ray was one among countless exploitative and dangerous self-help providers. SEEK Safely was founded in this reality—that an entire industry, not just one man, was responsible for Kirby’s death.

Greater than any sense of relief is a feeling of disappointment that Ray could have played a unique role in helping to define both the problems and the solutions for this industry. But rather than demonstrating true transformation, he remained stuck in the paradigm of an industry built on manipulation and mistruth.

We can only, at this juncture, remind seekers that no “guru,” or program, or mindset is larger than life or without fault. That a journey of self-improvement is noble and vulnerable. That we must always remain in charge of that process of growth and change, rooted in our values, our worth, and our right to seek free from harm.

That's exactly right. Ray's death won't clear an entire industry of its rot, any more than Trump's eventual demise will, after all the years of damage, clear America and the world of Trumpism/fascism. There are no neat and tidy endings.

While it would be inaccurate and certainly crass for me to say that I am giddy about James Arthur Ray's passing, it would also be inaccurate for me to say that I'm sad about it. Ray had many chances to try to redeem himself after causing the deaths of his followers; instead, he never stopped making their deaths all about him and the wrongs he had suffered because people were unfairly blaming him for "a tragic accident." Now, on the surface it may have seemed that he took responsibility, especially since the introduction to a book he penned a few years ago, The Business of Redemption, began with the sentence, "I am responsible for the deaths of three people." Then he goes on to write about how deeply this hurts him every single day.

But instead of actually taking responsibility, he found ways to crapitalize on his imagined status as a drawn-and-quartered martyr: a survivor of a trial by fire (literally and figuratively) who was abundantly qualified to guide others, for a hefty price of course, on their own journeys from darkness back to light. And he was still flogging that hero narrative to the end. In December 2024 he was featured on a conspiranoia/alt-health podcast called The Ripple Effect, hosted by a guy named Ricky Varandas; the blurb for the promo clip on Varandas' TwitterX page read, "From Prison to Purpose: My Hero's Journey to Redemption." Gimme a break.

I know that Ray had people who loved him. But again, I would be lying if I were to say that I'm sorry he's gone. 

UPDATE 5 January 2025:

• Some of the Arizona news media have picked up on the story since I published this post last night (January 4, 2025) at 10:43 PM Central Standard Time. NBC affiliate 12 News (KPNX, serving the greater Phoenix area) posted news about James Arthur Ray's death on Saturday night, January 4, at 10:25 PM Mountain Standard Time (11:25 PM my time), and updated it at 11:10 PM MST (12:10 AM January 5 my time). No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time. News 12 cited the same sources I did: the Xitter statement by Ray's brother John, and the Seek Safely statement.
• AZ Central (Arizona Republic) posted a brief story as well today, January 5, at about 3:30 PM my time (2:30 Mountain Standard Time). As was the case with the 12 News story, the only sources cited were the Xitter statement by Ray's brother, and the Seek Safely statement. No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time.
• The Wikipedia page for James Arthur Ray was updated on the morning of January 5, 2025, and now mentions his death, but only the date; the source cited is the Arizona News 12 story listed above. No cause of death has been mentioned as of this time.

UPDATE 6 January 2025:

Some former followers who knew James Ray personally have privately speculated to me that his death might have been due to drug overdose or interaction. And some folks, myself included, have not been above wondering, if only in passing, if perhaps Ray was in some deep trouble and, with the help of his family, faked his own death. That sort of scenario is normally a little bit conspiranoid for my taste, but sometimes you just wonder...

In any case, AP finally got hold of the story today, and mentioned only this regarding cause of death:

In a post on X, his family announced that Ray died “suddenly and unexpectedly” late last week but didn’t specify the cause...

...Stephanie Wheatley, a spokesperson for Clark County in Nevada where was Ray residing, said it had received a death report of a man matching Ray’s name and age.

I'm a little busy right now, but anyone who wants to pursue this further might try the Clark County NV coroner's page, which will direct you to a PDF that you can perhaps fill out online and ask for more detailed information. Good luck! Let me know if you find out anything.

UPDATE 7 January 2025:

I got a few free moments and decided to send an email to the Clark County NV coroner today, asking for confirmation of James Arthur Ray's death, and inquiring whether cause of death was known yet and if there would be an autopsy. Here's the reply I received:

Hi Connie,

The Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner does not have jurisdiction over this case. I can only confirm the CCOCME did receive a report of a decedent with the name of James Ray, age 67. The date of death was 1/2/25.

Not all deaths in Clark County are CCOCME cases. Some examples of non-coroner cases include those where the decedent was in the long-term care of a doctor and/or had extensive medical history.

I'm guessing there won't be an autopsy, and if he's really deceased there won't be a body to poke, only embers.

I thought it was interesting that according to the email, the report the Clark County coroner's office received said the date of death was January 2, 2025. But brother John's tweet was dated the morning of January 4, and he clearly said that James had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly "last night' -- which would have been January 3, not January 2. It's possible that John was just copying and pasting an earlier message that had actually been written on January 3, and when he posted to James' Xitter feed on January 4 he neglected to edit it to reflect the actual date of death. In any case, Wikipedia has his date of death as January 3, 2025, but the source they cited was probably using the post on James' Xitter feed as a reference.

But to me the main issue is the cause of death, and the mystery continues... And I do need to state that in general I respect a family's right to privacy, especially regarding medical matters. However, when a public figure like Ray brands himself as an expert on physical as well as mental and emotional and spiritual health, and then dies "suddenly and unexpectedly," his public has a right to know what killed him.

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