My two dear nieces honored me today with generous gift cards that make groceries and meal delivery (which I will save for post-surgery) very affordable for a short while. I know of so MANY senior citizens who have no one, it makes me feel SO very lucky to have them in my life.

This last twenty months have been difficult. My cost of living has increased 30% since The Felon who lives in The White House took office. As a result, I was forced to move to senior housing on the first of this month, which decreased my living space by 60%. As a claustrophobe, it is not ideal, but for the most part I am doing okay. The two-foot-square shower is my only real challenge in terms of space, so my showers are not leisurely.

With diminished space, I find I have too much STUFF, especially sewing supples, so my apartment currently looks like it is occupied by a hoarder. I mentioned to a friend in Washington State that I was going to have to find somewhere to which I could donate the majority of it and she told me she had given her daughter instructions to donate to a women’s prison upon her passing. Hearing that, I researched the possibility of doing the same here NOW and was happy to learn that the one women’s prison in my state is located on my island, so I shot off an email to the director of that program and have had a response that they will happily accept whatever donation I want to make and will even pick it all up.

As you may have noticed, subscriptions prices to my Substack are extremely high. That is intentional, because I do not consider myself a writer and most of what I post is reposts of the work of others. Plus, Substack forces one to join (yet another) payment acceptance system that takes too high a percentage of the revenue generated by subscriptions, which means that not only is Substack getting a cut, but so is another, UNNECESSARY, middleman. Before I raised the subscription rates to “unreasonable”, one person paid for a year subscription, which I refunded. To date, that person has not received a refund, so essentially Substack and its payment system stole $80 from that person. I have to wonder how many others to whom they have done the same. Substack could easily afford to implement its own payment system. Since I know that Heather Cox Richardson alone generates over six million dollars a year in subscriptions, Substack could most certainly afford to do so. So, as long as they allow free subscriptions, everyone gets to subscribe for free. Middlemen are what makes capitalism so bad. I hate middlemen.

That being said, I live on a very limited income and the cost of everything keeps going up. It is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In order to keep my health insurance, I have had to keep cutting back elsewhere. Food has been one of the biggest victims in that regard. My diet is not as healthy as it once was. So, although I rarely ask for it, if you can afford to do so, I would appreciate any donation that you would like to make to the GoFundMe that I set up a few months ago. So far, only one person, someone who I know personally, has donated (and I am telling that person here and now to not donate again). Here is the link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/standing-with-a-senior-facing-rising-costs . Thank you in advance.

Yesterday, my friend went to pick up my prescriptions and brought Panda Express for us to enjoy a meal together. This friend is actually the daughter of an old friend, who is recently deceased. We had never discussed anything remotely related to politics and when I told her the Democratic Socialists had moved me, she said, “isn’t Socialism bad?” I had to tell her she was confusing Communism with Socialism and that Democratic Socialism was not the same as Socialism. Because I didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening in this particular discussion, I told her that I would send her information comparing various forms of politics. So, lazy old lady that I am, I of course went to the internet to find an easy comparison. I like what I found and think it is worth sharing this with everyone. Maybe you will be able to use it to explain to others who are hearing what the Republicans are saying about Democratic Socialism, calling us Communists, when it is they who are closer to Communism than are we.

1. The son named Chase was treated badly by his father at every turn and the daughter named Savannah was treated with favoritism at every turn. It was no surprise to me that Chase became an alcoholic; a boy/young man can’t be told repeatedly over the course of his life how his father finds him lacking, no matter how many times said father says he loves him.

2. Much was omitted regarding the relationship of Todd Chrisley to his two children from his first marriage.

3. During the entire course of the original programming, no mention was ever made about Todd and Julie Chrisley’s political leanings, obviously so as not to alienate the non-MAGA part of the audience.

Amd then there is the “Back To Reality” show wherein:

4. Having been convicted of serious financial crimes, instead of proving that there was malice on the part of the prosecution, the favored daughter prevails upon The Felon who lives in The White House to provide full pardons to the criminal parents.

5. Suddenly upon receiving said pardons, every member of the family is wearing MAGA and 45-47 hats and clothing, when they had NEVER worn same before. Which proves to me that this family had been supporters of The Felon from the beginning. While I thought from the beginning that these were people who had too much money, I had no idea they were NOT the “good Christians” they represented themselves to be. Given the ongoing despicable, dishonest, and UNCONSTITUTIONAL actions of The Felon, there can be no other conclusion but that these people, too, are dishonest.

6. In the post-pardon episodes, the whiney favored daughter tries to convince the audience with an “oh poor me” persona. It falls short of believable, because she has treated her brother with the same disdain as has the father, Todd Chrisley. I ended with zero respect for anyone except Chase and the grandparents, especially “Nanny Faye”, who is a delight. For the most part, the original programming is an expedition of people with too much money, while the post-pardon programming shows them to be despicable supporters of the convicted felon, adjudicted rapist, and accused pedophile who has been ruining this country. Don’t waste your time on this programming; it will prove nothing but disappointing.

I am not a writer. Mostly what I do here is share the writings of others that articulate what I think/feel (or what I oppose) about current events. Sprinkled in here and there, are essays about things that I find interesting or amusing. I know you like my page because I am notified when you share my posts and when you subscribe to a writer because you found them posted here. It makes me happy to know that I am something of a “clearing house” where you know you can find the things that interest YOU, too.

Tomorrow, I am having a six-hour major surgery with a planned five-day hospital stay and an undetermined-length stay at a rehab hospital following that. Due to my advanced age, surgery is always risky, and due to the nature of this particular surgery, it is more so. Maybe I will be back on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday…and maybe I won’t be back. Time will tell.

Please, just do ONE THING if you never hear from me again: do everything in your power to prevent the current authoritarian regime from winning in the midterms in November. Actually, please do that even if you do hear from me again. I honestly believe that 2028 will be too late. It must be done NOW.

And hard times…very hard times…are ahead.

What needs to happen is for We, The People, to rise up and get rid of the people who are killing our country. One important thing is to vote against them, preferably for progressive candidates. But, calling/writing to the ones in office NOW and registering your opinion is also important. Plus, get active locally, on a city, county and state level…learn how to submit testimony about bills/statutes/legislation at all levels in your state. Do so regularly…daily, even. Support state laws that prevent this bs from happening. States are already preparing bills about ICE, voting by mail, and corporate money in politics. It IS everyone’s responsibility to know what is going on in their government and to ACT to ensure that lawmakers are doing what the majority wants.

And while I am ranting, let’s elect women to EVERYTHING! We are the majority, ladies. Unshackle yourself from the toxic male brain-washing. Let’s shut them down and FIX THIS. Let there be peace. And consequences.

My mother raised us to not have prejudices, to take each individual as just that, to not decide any group was as one individual we encountered. My early years were spent in a fully integrated lower middle class neighborhood in Detroit. I didn’t even realize there WAS prejudice against black people until I left home at 17. Oh, I’m sure our black neighbors were well aware of prejudice, but my white privilege shielded me from that information. I do wonder, as an adult, why no one ever told me. In our neighborhood we were just people. I played with black children whose mothers were always trying to feed me because I was scrawny and they were probably afraid I was underfed. Although, I didn’t understand it then. (Those mothers are probably responsible for the fact that I have the appetite of a stevedore even today, at age 76. I have to be careful now, though, because I am not so active physically anymore.)

As a younger adult, and in a different tax bracket, I recall the talk about “these people” at PTA meetings, Jaycee events, and general social gatherings...welfare queens, etc.. “These people” sure were causing a lot of problems in the world. I just walked away, afraid to challenge it, for fear of being distanced from society. But I never agreed with it. As my children grew up and I went into the corporate world, I began to challenge these kinds of statements openly. This made me widely unpopular at both work and home. I made a couple of close friends and kept them for decades; that was enough for me.

I recognized that THOSE people were not the villains in the story. The villains are the captains of corporations, the politicians, the ones who come from generational wealth. And today, THESE people are ruining my country. They are allowing a malignant narcissist to undermine what good there was in this country. It was never perfect, or even close, but there was SOME empathy and compassion. But that has mostly evaporated. They don’t even seem to understand that they are ruining the country in which their grandchildren will have to grow up. I keep thinking what is going on now is going to end up like The Hunger Games, with our own “President Snow” running the show.

We must get THESE PEOPLE out of our government. PLEASE encourage and support progressive Social Democrats running for office. But if there is no progressive Social Democrat running where you are, at the very least vote against any Republican candidate. And insist on voting by mail, which is a paper ballot that can be counted by hand, if necessary. Make sure your state is protecting your right to vote by mail NOW. Our future may well depend on a hand count, come November.

after 33 years of marriage, I got divorced. I moved almost three years ago and thought I could afford to die here, but now I wonder. My cost of living has gone up almost 30% just in the last 15 months. While I had never asked for, or accepted, help in any way, shape, or form in the past…even way back 50+ years ago as a single parent…I find that I now cannot exist without it. Last autumn, concerned that food security was a looming issue, I felt it necessary to apply for SNAP. Fortunately, I qualified, for $120/month. That has since been reduced twice, down to $83/month. Even that is helpful, though. The current regime is requiring everyone who receives SNAP to re-apply. (Please note that anyone under 65 years of age is now required to work! Being well over a decade older than that, I am not required.)

Yesterday, I spent nearly six hours at the processing center, waiting to be interviewed, so that I could get uninterrupted assistance. I recognize how fortunate I am. There are so many people who do not have food security. Especially now.

It was freezing cold in the waiting room, and even though I was wearing long pants and a sweater over my knit top, I got so cold that all of my arthritic joints were hurting…badly. I was finally glad to be told that I was certified for the next full year. If I am still alive next year, I’m taking a blanket.

We lived in a three-bedroom post-WWII tract house with 950 square feet of space…plus a full basement. I didn’t know then that the reason we (still) lived there was “Credit Life Insurance”, courtesy of the untimely death, at age 29, of my wonderful stepfather. Back in those days, Credit Life Insurance was often required for a mortgage. Credit Life Insurance was the reason I had three meals a day while growing up.

My mother was divorced from my (scoundrel) stepfather when I was six months old. She married my wonderful stepfather the year I turned five, and on the Fourth of July that year, we moved from “the projects” in Detroit to a brand new house in a lower middle class neighborhood in the suburbs. What was then the last suburb before “the country”. I enjoyed my fifth birthday in that house at the end of August. Christmas that year was incredible. We kids all received a multitude of presents, including bicycles. My wonderful stepfather taught me to ride mine in the basement. We didn’t get to keep him much longer after that. He developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma (then called Hodgkin’s disease) and was in the VA hospital for more than a year, passing before I was seven years old. (Hodgkin’s lymphoma is now 100% curable, thanks to science.)

A secretary, my mother worked for the Vernors Ginger Ale Company for a few years, then at Ford Motor Company until she retired. Secretaries were not exactly paid a living wage. Back in those days, a divorced and widowed woman wasn’t exactly considered available, so we spent several years with a single parent. We were happy. Extremely happy. We were poor, but we were incredibly happy.

But that single parent was strict. And the razor strop saw plenty of employment. It was kept in the broom closet. The broom closet that my mother seemed to make messy all week long. At seven or eight years old, it was my job to keep that broom closet neat. One Saturday, mom yelled at me that the broom closet was a mess and that I should clean it out and burn all the trash from there. That was back when you burned your trash. So I cleared all the paper bags that mom had crammed in the broom closet out, along with that razor strop, and took it all out to the bin to burn it. And I burned it all.

It wasn’t many days later that mom felt compelled to use that razor strop again, and when she couldn’t locate it, she yelled for me and asked where it was. I simply responded, “I burned it”. She was shocked. It took a moment for her to ask, “why?” I could only respond with the truth…”I don’t like it”.

She didn’t punish me. That time.

The Trump Administration is at war against the First Amendment and Free Speech rights. They are not only smearing their critics. They are attempting to criminalize dissent. At stake are the most critical democratic rights for people in the United States: to speak freely and engage in protest. There are tens of millions who find Trump’s policies an affront to human dignity, and he would like to silence them all.

As part of this war against free speech, the U.S. State Department has released a statement that openly attacks The People’s Forum and other organizations. This statement, shared by the Trump White House, is designed to suppress the voices of those who dare to criticize U.S. government policy. The false allegations, peddled through right-wing media and influencers, are not just an attack on our organization but on the fundamental right to free speech itself.

The People’s Forum strongly rejects these baseless accusations. The accusations leveled against us, claiming we are “vectors of foreign influence,” are recycled tactics from a not-so-distant chapter of McCarthyism in American history. By labeling our organizations as “agents” of “foreign manipulation,” the U.S. government seeks to demonize and suppress the legitimate grievances of people who are disgusted by the violent ICE raids and deportation of immigrant communities, the deployment of military forces and federal agents to cities and towns in the United States, the persecution of students protesting the genocide in Gaza and the endless military interventions and use of blockades and sanctions to create famines abroad.

The baseless claims against the People’s Forum that we “run cover for narco-terrorists” and other equally ludicrous allegations are a blatant and transparent effort to intimidate our supporters and delegitimize grassroots movements. Criticizing and opposing the U.S. government’s policies is not the threat to democracy. The real threat is the government that kills innocent protesters in broad daylight, surveils and represses activists, arrests journalists, demonizes and deports immigrants, and seeks to dismantle all forms of dissent.

The People’s Forum has an unshakeable commitment to continue organizing for a just world through education, culture, and international solidarity. We will continue to defend immigrants at home and build dialogue with other movements in the world, challenge policies of war and aggression, and defend the right to organize and express their dissent.

We call on all people of conscience to see this for what it is: a desperate attempt to manufacture consent for a new round of repression. We will not be silenced.

NO, it isn’t justified. NO, it cannot be excused. The Muslims who committed this crime are not following their faith and should be brought to justice. But we must UNDERSTAND how they got to where they are. I shouldn’t have to say how it could happen.

And we in the United States must STOP supporting Netanyahu and Israel. We must stop giving money and we must stop selling arms. We are just as guilty of this genocide as Israel if we continue to do so.

I’ve never been fond of cooling or cold weather and autumn holidays no longer hold my interest. 31 years in metropolitan Detroit made me decide to move to a warmer clime in 1981. The colors of autumn in the Midwest are lovely, but for the most part, the so-called “charm” ends there. However, there IS one thing that has always made autumn a pleasant experience for me…Bartlett pears. When I was younger and in a better place financially, I always looked forward to finding them in the market, taking them home to admire on the kitchen counter until they ripened to a slightly-yellow perfection, and then savoring that delicious flavor only a Bartlett can provide. My circumstances have changed now that I am 76+ years old. I struggle to pay rent, electric, health insurance, phone, and internet service (no cable). I receive a small stipend from SNAP, but it doesn’t begin to cover food needs and paying for laundry and cleaning products is difficult. I am able to get help from the food bank sometimes, but it is getting increasingly difficult to get an appoinment, especially since the shutdown started. BUT, last week, the food bank provided me with six fresh Bartlett pears and I have savored each in the ensuing days. I am so grateful to have received this gift of autumn and the memories provided.