A bit of news plus a huge amount of thanks

News tidbots:

#1: The strange ex-president’s tax returns will be released Friday though past media reports indicate there’ll be few surprises beyond our worst suspicions. Here’s one:

While his third wife was pregnant, he had sex with porn star Stormy Daniels. To conceal it from the public while running for president, he paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. The hush money was listed as a business deduction from his taxes. So US taxpayers paid to get him laid.

In addition to all his tax records will reveal, it’s a great reminder that every corporate lobbyist and dark money rich person who helped create every tax shelter and loophole in the tax code should also be roundly horsewhipped with a box of ramen noodles - uncooked - because the ex president is only one of many getting away with this kinda shit.

#2: Former NY real estate agent Chaya Raichik, using the name Libs Of TikTok was posting covid falsehoods and stolen election lies before targeting LGBTQ people. She’s accused at least a dozen US hospitals of performing sex organ surgery on minors causing the facilities to become targets of homophobic and transphobic hate groups. Some doctors, nurses and administrators have been threatened, some hospitals have received bomb threats and in every instance, she was creating and spreading outright lies. She’s done the same to teachers and school librarians, accusing them of grooming children to make them homosexuals, and some have quit due to the harassment and threats they’ve received.

Last Spring, a Washington Post reporter, Taylor Lorenz, reported her identity. Raichik claimed Lorenz doxxed her which is also a lie as Taylor didn’t publish her address, phone number, etc. But it just got revealed that an aide to Governor DeSantis of Florida quietly reached out to Raichik, offering her free lodging at a guest house by the Governor’s Mansion to stay in to avoid protesters.

#3: Unlike past plutonium poisonings of Kremlin critics, there’s been a fresh rash of critics dying under suspicious circumstances. In September, an oil exec fell from a hospital window. On Dec 23rd and 25th, two other wealthy Russians died at the same hotel in India. One purportedly died of a stroke after heavy alcohol use. The other fell from a hotel window. All these mega wealthy men have been critical of Putin or Putin’s war.

A comedian on Twitter offered this:

#4 The trolling of climate change activist Greta Thunberg by former champion kickboxer Andrew Tate was a terrible mismatch. We first heard of the autistic Swedish gal when she was 14 and challenging world leaders to do something useful to limit the terrors of coming climate changes. She’ll be 20 next Tuesday.

Read the story yourself in its original form. Seriously, you hafta. Tate waited all day before coming up with a video reply that demonstrated he lacks the capacity to lose gracefully as he resorted to self-defecating humor.

A Scottish comedian then followed taking a good shot at Tate, too.

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Thanksgiving this year proved to be one of the best ever. It began as my effort to visit my eldest sister and her husband as I hadn’t seen them in 8 years. One of my daughters flew in and spent a few days prior to the holiday, then all my living siblings decided to join in, along with an assortment of their kids and grandkids. Though it wasn’t at all a full family reunion, it was pretty large with 26 in attendance.

It included one active duty military guy, a retired military vet who worked his way up to VP of one of the country’s largest commercial banks, my big sister (a retired RN/nurse administrator), two long distance truck drivers, an accountant, two working in the biotech industry, an accountant, a teacher’s assistant, a retired carpenter, the head of a housing authority, at least 4 musicians, a librarian, a radiology tech, an airlines pilot, a hair designer, a cannabis grower, college students and more. All of them delightful, above average, witty, beautiful/handsome, bearing all the available pronouns and ages and aches and appetites.

One niece - a delivery driver and food bank volunteer - and her husband - a car repair head mechanic - cancelled out at the last minute after contracting covid, though I visited them before and after turkey day. My daughter was pleased to meet cousins and an uncle she’d never met before since we’re a multi-coastal family. She also got to see some of Cape Cod for the first time where I sort of grew up.

We laughed, ate, played games, related stories about other family members in Florida, California, New York and Massachusetts, living and post-earth ones, with all the reverence and irreverence they deserved.

So yeah, I was and am thankful for each and all. In spite of the things they say about me behind my back. I’m thankful for my other kids and grandkids, in Oregon and Wisconsin, in spite of the things they say about me behind my back.

There’s so much more I thought of to be thankful for. My roommate, my Oregon friends, my online friends (some of whom I’ve met face-to-face in New York, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, California and Washington), cousins, and in-laws.

And I also thought back to last December. Less than two months into adapting to my new principal task as a caregiver, after moving two households, going through a riotous time of buying furniture and furnishings, changing my living and nutrition routines, with a parked car hit by a stranger, meeting new neighbors, trying to get a semblance of order to that holiday, I was physically worn thin, mentally exhausted and financially strapped. Several online friends urged me to do a gofundme to alleviate the cash crunch. I resisted, convinced that I could muddle through, then finally relented. I figured if I raised $500-$600 I could squeak by.

I was rather shocked at the response. A little more than a dozen friends stepped up, most of them people I’ve only known online. From Virginia to California, including one in Canada and one in Mexico, I accepted contributions beyond my goal. It alleviated the crunch, got the car repair done, took a huge weight off my shoulders and provided a rainy day fund that I was able to thriftily manage up through this household’s bout of covid in September. I was even able to pass a little forward to strangers in desperate need last December. And I bought a $55 hat for myself for last Christmas.

So yeah, I have so MUCH and so many to be thankful for. And I really, really am. Despite the things you all say about me behind my back.

Upon my return from the 11 day vacation - my longest vacation ever - with the added big surprise of another sister unexpectedly gifting me by covering the travel cost - the news came that a sister in law had passed away, a woman I met when I was in junior college. I was at the hospital when her first kid was born. She was at the hospital when my middle kid was born. Fifty years of shared memories, triumphs and disasters. I’m thankful I got the chance to know her and she leaves behind nieces and a nephew I’ll get to enjoy more.

Our politics is a mess but I’m thankful we have a sane president again who’s done much to be impressed by. I’m struck by the courage of Ukrainians and the young people of Iran, struggling to throw their shackles off. I feel damn lucky to be standing still in reasonably good health near the age of official oldness.

What Lviv, Ukraine used to look like.


Thank you, one and all. You’re pretty wonderful. I hope you’ve had a fair bit of fun or relief during these holidays too.

Note: pictures? Sure. The next newsletter - today - will be mostly pictures, to complement this one. And through the first, memes and YouTube videos will abound. Words will be at a minimum, as a gift to you, as will political crap.

If you enter 2023 laughing, smirking or humming, my 2022 efforts will have succeeded. Despite the things I say about you behind your back.