The worst year of our lives. At least of mine.

I don’t want to remember 2024. I want it to be over. There’s a decent chance 2025 will be worse, but we have nothing to gain by clinging to its predecessor. Let midnight come, then let’s get on with it.
~ Timothy Noah, New Republic, December 31, 2024

Oh, my fu--ing god, good riddance to 2024, which has been, as far as I'm concerned, the worst year in recent memory for America (including for basic American decency), as well as for world democracy -- in addition to being the worst year ever for me personally. For me this has been a year of profound losses, some of which I am not yet ready to write about publicly. Suffice it to say for now that for the first time in my life, I feel like a... survivor. Because that is what I am.

Still, I'm old enough to know that the end of one year and the beginning of a new one does not automatically mean a fresh new beginning. As I noted in a Christmas Eve post I wrote seven years ago, with the exception of mayhem committed by bad actors who plan their atrocities around holidays or other special dates, the shit that happens has absolutely no regard for the calendar. Moreover, 2024's exit brings us that much closer to the second coronation of King DonOld, so there's that.

Still...I haven't given up, and I have no intention of doing so. Regarding the collective malaise, we resisted eight years ago and are simply going to have to resist harder this time around. There are still causes and people worth fighting for, and we gotta do it.

As for my personal dramas, I am stumbling through them the best I can, my dark path brightened immeasurably by the support of dear friends. Y'all know who you are.

For now, I'm signing off until next year, which for me is just a few hours away, and depending upon where you are on the planet, it may already be next year for you. I hope 2025 is as good a year as possible for you. I even dare to hope that those of us who are facing the new year with trepidation actually experience some pleasant surprises for a change. Hey, it could happen.

So as Timothy Noah at New Republic said in his eulogy for 2024, "Let midnight come, then let’s get on with it."

Thank you for visiting my Whirled, and I'll see you again soon.

Before you leave...
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.

Good riddance to a very bad year

There's much to write about
Believe me, I've got plenty
But all I want to say right now
Is, "F--k you, 2020!"

I'll be back next year with some actual substance, possibly including some startling news that a lot of you aren't going to like very much. (But some of you will be thrilled.)

For now, after this flustercuck of a year, words mostly fail me. Or maybe I have failed them. I know that I've broken a few promises about posting more frequently, but I'll make up for it eventually. I thank every one of you who has visited my Whirled this year, and every other year. May 2021 hold peace and comfort for those sorely in need of it, and hope and promise for all of us.

Twenty-Eighteen: good riddance

Is there anything good we can say about 2018? Only this: It got us out of 2017. But even that didn’t work out as we hoped.
~ Dave Barry, Dave Barry's Year in Review 2018

I don't always make a big deal of New Year's Eve/Day on this blog, though I did make a halfhearted attempt to do so three years ago, in the service of figuratively showing 2015 the door. Sadly, I think that 2018 has easily topped 2015 in terms of general and specific suckiness, and I sincerely hope that the door hits it hard in the ass on its way out. But despite the year's suckiness and attendant distractions, and contrary to appearances, I haven't forgotten my essential blogly duties, to which I'll attend one more time before the Old Year passes.

One of numerous items I neglected to write about when it happened was the September death of one of the founding fathers of Scamworld: Rich DeVos, who not only co-founded one of the original MLM scampires, Amway, but also helped launch the modern religious right in the US. On December 30 Politico's Zack Stanton wrote:

Not for nothing was the company named Amway. For DeVos, the “American way” meant a country that embraced the free-enterprise system, exalted God and held true to conservative Christian principles (“This country was built on a religious heritage,” he wrote in Believe!, “and we’d better get back to it.”). It meant a country where the only limit to what one could achieve was how hard one worked (“I think being poor is something many people do,” he said in a 1966 speech. “It sort of has to do with being poor by choice.”). And it meant a country where personal responsibility and belief in yourself were two sides of the same coin.

While it is true that some on the left-ish side of the street have had cozy relationships with hucksters (e.g., Bill Clinton and Tony Robbins, as mentioned in this July 2018 Whirled post (under the sub-head "Left, right, left right")), Scamworld and the religious right have long enjoyed a very special bond. Apropos of that, I paid tribute to the DeVos dynasty on this blog not long after the disastrous 2016 presidential election. In that post I noted the DeVos' Amway connection, and I brought one of this blog's favorite subjects, imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, into the mix.

As many of you may know, the aforementioned Kevin Trudeau has a background in Amway, which I wrote about on this April 2013 post (under the subhead, "MLM fever"). In that post, I linked to this 2004 piece, "Amway, Republicans & That Old Time Religion," which has some information about the cozy relationship between Scamworld and right-wing (Republican) politics. The two have been cozying up to each other for a very long time.

Trudeau also played a starring role in an even earlier (March 2016) post about politix and Scamworld. Trump starred there too, of course, which is only appropriate, as Trudeau is such a devoted Trumpster. And as I've written about several times, ever since the Mad King ascended the throne, Trudeau has been pleading, and having minions plead on his behalf, for a presidential pardon and commuted sentence. That doesn't seem to be forthcoming. But hope springs infernal...

The Politico piece I cited above breezes through the history of the DeVos scampire and its connection to religious right-wing politics.

By the late 1990s, the family was “the largest single contributor of soft money to the Republican Party,” Betsy DeVos wrote in a 1997 op-ed. In the 2000s, the DeVos family bankrolled school-voucher campaigns and charter school efforts throughout the country. “The church,” son Dick DeVos said in 2001, “has been displaced by the public school.”

Those efforts culminated in Betsy DeVos, Rich’s daughter-in-law and Dick’s wife, being appointed secretary of education by President Donald Trump—another indefatigable salesman, but one who lacks the mooring in religious and political beliefs that defined DeVos’ life.

Ahead of the 1980 election, radio host Paul Harvey, whose show was sponsored by Amway for many years, floated Rich DeVos as a potential candidate for president. DeVos declined. A huckster as president? It was impossible.

As I noted in my own DeVos post back in November 2016, "And so it goes in Scamworld as in politix... no neat and tidy endings."

But at least there is a tidy ending to a calendar year, and I'll be glad to close the book on 2018. Here's hoping for a much, much better 2019, for all of us.

* * * * *

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Twenty-Fifteen: Over and Out

Fast away the Old Year passes
But the scammers still are a$$es*...

* * * * *

Should evil hucksters be forgot
And never brought to trial?**...

Oh, dear me. My mind is so scrambled that I can't even whip out a good song parody. But hey, I got you started; you can finish one or both of them if you're so inclined. Make a music video and send me the YouTube link.

This has been a whirlwind of a year, with good things happening but -- I won't lie -- a few sucky things as well. One sucky thing that happened turned out good for me but not so good for the filthy little sack of unmitigated evil that unsuccessfully sued me (and a few other parties, both real and imaginary). But you're probably already quite familiar with that story. If not, start here... and then go to here... and don't despair if you see that the Salty Droid links don't work right now. His blog has apparently been attacked yet again but he's working on getting it back up. You can't keep a good fake robot down. And while you're waiting for @SD to come back up, hop on over to Longdog's blog, if you've not already done so, and read his short, pithy but always spot-on posts about the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld. (Here's Longdog's take on the flawsuit of the year.)

Now, all evil and suckiness aside, I did have quite a good and busy November/December and a wonderful clump of holidaze (Thanksgiving/Winter Solstice/Christmas)... and the wonderfulness is still ongoing. What got my brain so scrambled were work deadlines (now safely met) and a stubborn case of bronchitis/flu-ishness that is getting better (a few more days of rest, some Emergen-C and some hot Broncaid tea should do the trick). But I didn't want to let the whole month slip by without stopping in and making another promise to start blogging something substantial again. I know you've heard that before, but you'll just have to trust me. I'm good for it.

What I really want to say, once again, is this: Thank you as always for your support through this year and all the years preceding. And I really will be back next year with more.

In the meantime, in an effort to offer something a little more substantial, so you won't go out partying on an empty brain, I'll grab this opportunity to dredge up some Ghosts of New Years' Eve/New Years past:

• New Years Day 2008 -- The deep personal loss mentioned at the beginning of the post was the death of my mom (I still haven't really been able to write about her); she died three days after Christmas 2007. But in an attempt to quash my sadness I turned, as I often do, to silliness.
• New Years Eve 2009 -- Some of the battles in the "Whirled Wars" have all but been forgotten by now, but many of the issues are still relevant. BTW, "Major Snarget" is Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, and "Minor Snarget" is his former b.f.f. Pat O'Bryan. The two haven't been joined at the hip for a while now. I still do not care to mention the real name of Angry Blogger because... anger.
• New Years Eve 2011 -- Something to celebrate: Death Ray in jail. Unfortunately that didn't last.
• New Years Day 2014 -- I really did hit the ground running on that New Year... so much Katie news was whirling around at the time.
• Shortly after New Years Day 2015 -- Our Katie is still pooping out those nuggets in a desperate effort to get you to donate to his legal fund (and I promise to have more about THAT soon, if not sooner).

Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve, a hangover-free New Year's Day... and always, always keep your boots and protective gear on, because there are "nuggets" everywhere, and very few of them are in fact made of gold.


* As usual, no offense intended to actual jackasses. I love donkeys, as it happens.
** Unfortunately most of the hucksters never WILL be brought to trial, and even those who are -- and are convicted -- won't get nearly the punishment they deserve. See: James Arthur Ray.