An apology, a note to my readers, and a special Thank You to Joe Biden and Elon Musk

I haven’t posted anything lately, mainly because I’m planning to retire next year and I’m trying to get my financial and emotional shit together. Frankly, it hasn’t been easy.

It didn’t help matters any when I learned that my main retirement plan, Ohio Public Employees Retirement System(OPERS), had taken a hit when Silicon Valley Bank went down. Just a couple of weeks later, I got the notice that my monthly retirement benefits, if I retire at age 66—the first year I can get the max of my Social Security benefits thanks to Joe Biden!—had been reduced by(my math sucks) between 5 and 10%.

Thanks to people like Richard Wolff, I know exactly why and how this happened, but Joe Biden has once again presided over the groping of my wallet by capitalists. I may not be able to totally empathize with Tara Reade because I’m a man, but my wallet could if it were sentient.

Plus, my wife and I took a few short road trips and made a lot of wonderful discoveries in western New York. There sure is some pretty scenery in them there hills.

I also had the problem of just not knowing WTF to write about because things are happening so fast. So I apologize to my readers for just ghosting myself on Substack, though I have been around on Twitter. That will now change, thanks to Joe Biden and Elon Musk.

Joe, you’re the President and at least your last name doesn’t sound like something a sailor would expect to smell in a cathouse, so you’ll go first. Thank you for focusing my attention like a laser on the fact that your Administration may well be the most incompetent one in American history.

In fact, you make some pretty shitty Roman Emperors look kind of good in comparison, so it is my duty as an American citizen and former member of the Children of the American Revolution to denounce your wanton disregard of your constitutional duties and your criminal unfitness to hold any office, public or private.

Elon, were it not for your purchase of Twitter and brief flirtation with actually honoring the First Amendment, I may never have joined Twitter. Furthermore, if it was not for your ancien’ regime French aristocrat-level petty viciousness towards Substack and Matt Taibbi, I may never have heard of Notes.

Which DOES look exactly like Twitter, only faster, and without the incessant ads and promoted tweets of people and things that I either have no interest in whatsoever or things that I really don’t like much at all. So thanks, Elon!

And finally, it occurred to me that instead of writing my own stuff all the time, I can post videos and other people’s articles, say what I think, and ask for some serious discussion. Which I see a lot more of here on Substack than I do on Twitter or Facebook.

And I’ll post them to Notes, and hopefully a lot of us will have some fun and maybe actually learn some Useful and Important Things.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see more of you soon.