Western Officials Increasingly Pushing "Peace Talks" + War Updates

It seems every day there’s a new bombshell as the Ukrainian project tailspins out of control. The new one making waves is from NBC, which has broached what was already being ‘whispered’ of in closed circles:

There were several reports I’ve relayed in the past few weeks which spoke of “secret” ongoing negotiations. For instance, this video of Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen from two weeks when he spilled the beans to the famed Russian pranksters about secret talks:

‼️Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen said that zelensky is preparing for negotiations with the Russian Federation.

A secret negotiation process is underway on Kiev’s agreement to part with the territories.

“This discussion is taking place among European states, and France plays a leading role in it. I think that at a certain point the President of Ukraine will correct the situation and say that the time has come to start negotiations,” Rasmussen emphasized.‼️

The NBC article begins by confirming this with the admission that European officials have begun ‘quietly’ talking to the Ukrainian government about what exactly the peace talks might entail—this is all according to a “senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.”

The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said.

But most of this news is passé as always. The real nuggets are the small, sometimes indirect, revelations like the following:

Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply, officials said. Ukraine is also struggling with recruiting and has recently seen public protests about some of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s open-ended conscription requirements.

This is an important one that dovetails with a lot of recent discussions, including that of Zaluzhny’s new article, regarding Ukraine’s very serious demographic and recruitment problems.

One new report even states that Ukraine’s attempted mobilization failed massively, with only 13% of goals reached:

The mobilization that started in Ukraine this summer failed completely. Out of 200 thousand people, only 30 thousand were recruited.

In the Poltava region, the plan was fulfilled by 13%, in the Cheras region-by 11%, in the Chernivtsi region-by 9%, and so on. Zelensky's office has expanded the draft categories - the Armed Forces of Ukraine now recruit women and disabled people to serve in the rear.

In the test mode, a set of three women's battalions is launched. To begin with, they will also be used in the rear and if the experiment is considered successful, they will be transferred to the front line in emergency cases.

This is uncorroborated, of course, so we can’t be 100% sure, but it does ring true, given the uptick in footage and reports we’ve seen of new levels of extreme desperation in recruitment; things like Zaluzhny’s planned “combat internship”, huge uptick in women recruited including several new videos showing female commanders leading squads, increased coercion and brutality in the recruitment methods, like checkpoints on roads, recruitment from hospitals, and new digital recruitment that sees people get tracked down via various apps.

Logic dictates that such escalatory tactics would not be seen if it weren’t for a vast shortfall in recruited bodies. Also, recall the numerous videos we’ve seen recently where actual Ukrainian officers, officials, etc., openly vocalize these issues and state that they’re simply “running out of men.”

This was highlighted in another recent video from a Ukrainian blogger:

The article goes on to state:

President Joe Biden has been intensely focused on Ukraine’s depleting military forces, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

"Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” one said. The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, this person said, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good”

The fact is, these are all indirect admissions that Ukraine’s losses are far, far greater than they admit. Now it’s accepted to say 100k dead for the AFU, but with the caveat that “Russian dead are 300k.” In reality, this is all cover for a much more unspeakable truth. There wouldn’t be such dire shortages of men, entire officer corps wiped out, if it wasn’t for the fact that Ukraine has in fact suffered hundreds of thousands of losses or more.

Another new shocking statistic states that a whopping 63% of all Ukrainians can now name one close relative or friend who has died in the war. There are likely talented mathematicians that can derive some equation estimates, but when 63% of 20-30 million people know someone close who died in the war, that seems to speak of ungodly losses.

63% of Ukrainians now say they know at least one close relative or friend who have died in the war, with the average number being three.

This is a huge increase from the last survey in February, which found only 17% of Ukrainians reported a loss, while the figure in September of 2022 was just 9%. This firmly suggests the Bakhmut Meat Grinder did its job and that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is going as poorly as previously thought.

Also of note is that deaths are concentrated regionally: 69% in the West, and just 52% in the East. This implies heavier losses from the main bastions of Ukrainian Nationalists. The implications of that are pretty obvious.

Original survey https://archive.ph/Jj9r8

Russia’s losses continue to be minor. For instance, one big recent revelation came by way of MediaZona, which revealed that the so-called “heavy losses” in Avdeevka were just as I had thought—completely made up.

In fact, you can see the October losses for Russia are literally the lowest of the entire war:

Recall this is a pro-Ukrainian project which would love to exaggerate every loss they can get, so they cannot be accused of propagating some “Kremlin narrative.”

But how can they be so low when we’ve seen so much destroyed Russian armor in Avdeevka? Like I said, most of it was already there from years of battles and Ukraine showed the same few successful hits over and over from countless different angles. That’s all right—both sides do it, Russian sources showed the infamous Leopard column destruction from 50 different angles too; it’s par for the course. But the difference is, in the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” they ran out of armor and switched to meat tactics which resulted in massive losses. In Russia’s case, the environment is far more favorable because they’re not trying to cross dozens of kilometers of open land. Russia’s objectives are a mere 1 or 2 fields away in Avdeevka—like getting to the Coke Plant, or to Stepove, etc.

But getting back to the NBC article.

The next revelation from the article is so groundshaking that I’ll paste it directly from the article so it can’t be said I’m making it up:

Well—it’s not groundshaking to those who’ve followed events closely, exactly. Because this is the exact timeline I already reported on many months ago, when officials ‘whispered’ that Ukraine would have to the end of this year. But it’s still an eye-opening revelation given recent developments because it confirms the plan is still on track and wasn’t just some unfounded rumor.

What’s interesting is that this also dovetails with another “bombshell” statement from Arestovich, where he confessed to spewing propaganda to the Ukrainian citizenry in order to keep hope alive. Now, he says, he’s going to stop in order so that Ukraine can survive.

This post, from his official Twitter, was in response to the actual NBC article above, so it’s particularly pertinent:

It is true that a significant share of responsibility for the faith of the average citizen in our quick and beautiful victory lies with me personally.

But I am not running away from this responsibility.

I created the illusion at that time so that we could survive.

Today I am destroying it so that we can survive further.

Many people took offense to the fact that I offered NATO in exchange for territories (although I did not offer territories in exchange, but who reads up to this point).

So I will tell you a little secret, dear readers.

Half a year or two more of such a "successful" policy as we are pursuing now, and we will be able to forget about NATO.

We will be talking only about some "...guarantees without joining".

It is already going on - see carefully the material of NBC:

And in another year - there will be none of that.

There will be another Minsk agreements - under a new name.

But all of this can be fixed.

Think.

Another layer of added pertinence is the fact that he’s apparently jockeying for the upcoming presidential elections, which the latest reports from Zelensky’s office claim are still tentatively being planned—but more on that afterwards.

Above, he admits to creating “illusions” in order to keep hope alive, but now he must shatter them to give Ukraine a chance at survival. But we were talking about timelines before. Here he states that “half a year or two more” joining NATO can be forgotten. Then a year after that will be a new Minsk.

So according to him, the timeline he foresees is that two years from today is when a new Minsk will be signed. That’s an extremely flattering timeline for Ukraine and the only question is, does he actually think Ukraine will last that long or is he still doing the magician’s act of burying new ‘illusions’ within his feigned dispelling act.

So now, Zelensky has issued a sharp rebuke. Firstly, Zaluzhny has allegedly been ‘censured’ for his own grim article, which I covered last time. The accusation was that it added unneeded demoralization. Now, Zelensky has come out against the latest ‘rumors’ of negotiations.

Some are speculating that Arestovich is whom the U.S. will get behind to displace Zelensky in the upcoming elections. Recall that the Ukrainian March 2024 presidential elections are being saved as a final “get out of jail free card” by the U.S. It’s their chance to yank Zelensky and quickly replace him with a more ‘amenable’ figure, if the situation calls for it.

As of now, they’re likely thinking it may soon call for it because Zelensky may be beginning to go off-script in sticking to victory absolutism. Remember that the situation is always complicated and multi-sided. For Zelensky—on one hand the U.S. may want to replace him if he refuses to make peace overtures; but on the other hand, Zelensky has very dangerous nationalist backers who have hung a sword over him, and may outright kill him, should he even think about stopping the war that the nationalists have dreamed of for so long.

If you were in his shoes, what would you fear more? Biden “replacing you” in an election, or Nazi terrorists assassinating you and your family? Therein lies the rub.

But why would the U.S. want him to stop the conflict, you may ask. Doesn’t it serve U.S. interests to keep throwing Ukrainian fodder at Russia forever to weaken Russia as much as possible? Why not keep it going until the AFU is completely exterminated, dealing maximum damage to Russia’s economy, its own manpower resources, etc.?

The answer is this:

If you allow Ukraine to keep fighting in this increasingly diminished state, you risk Russia achieving a decisive, total victory wherein Russia will assume full control over Ukraine, its resources, etc., and will take control of all the sought-after regions like Odessa and Kharkov. This would be an incalculable boost to Russia’s power.

For U.S. planners, it’s much better to cut their losses and freeze this thing at a point where the U.S. can still retain control over a fairly dangerous Ukrainian rump-state that can be parasitized to continue wounding, destabilizing, and fencing in Russia perennially.

Plus, it gives them the chance to massively rearm and refit Ukraine for the future, while stripping it of its assets to enrich Western stakeholders, allowing them to relaunch the war at a future date to continue bleeding Russia.

If Zelensky takes it “all the way” he risks the total capture of Ukraine by Russian forces—all those untold hectares of fertile land earmarked for BlackRock and co., etc. It would be a catastrophe for the West and would signal the rebirth of the Russian Empire, to many extents.

Brzezinski’s famous quote:

But back to the NBC article.

The final section asks the question whether Putin would be up for negotiations, for which they have no real answer. In his writeup of the NBC piece, B of MoA believes Russia will agree to peace talks, but only to give the appearance of diplomacy while demanding more than they know Ukraine would ever agree to give:

Russia will likely agree to peace talks. But it probably will demand more than Ukraine is willing to give. At a minimum that is the full control over the five oblast it has annexed, including Crimea, and no NATO relations with Ukraine. The current Ukrainian parliament will probably reject those requests which will then lead to further Russian demands.

The problem when it comes to this big question—which is the biggest one of all—is determining who truly has the final say in Russia.

There are typically two camps: the first believes Putin has monarchical, absolute power and has the final say on all things political or geopolitical. Then there’s the other camp—into which I personally lean—that believes the situation to be far more complex and nuanced than that. Putin’s siloviki and in particular the generals and old guard intelligence carryovers carry major sway, if not the majority sway in this situation.

The fact is, it’s difficult to imagine that this seasoned old guard would allow any compromise, particularly because they have signaled to the contrary ever more vocally. There are old scores for them to settle, and I don’t think they will allow Russia to leave this conflict without receiving its pound of flesh in the form of all required new territories and concessions from Ukraine.

But all that said, it’s still likely too early to call the game. Some are already rejoicing that Russia has ‘won’. I believe Ukraine remains dangerous (not in the sense it can win the war, but rather create unneeded casualties and prolong it) and continues to have enough combat potential to carry it for quite a while longer. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible that a sudden collapse or unexpected change of circumstances can occur. But barring that, particularly if it adopts a very defensive posture, the AFU can still likely hold out for quite a while—at least 1 to 1.5 years.

I’ve explained the reason before, but I’ll verbalize it again in summary: in modern warfare, defending has become in some ways extremely profitable and easy due to the ISR afforded by cheap, ubiquitous surveillance drones. Given that strategic surprise is no longer really possible to obtain, this gives a large compounding effect to the defender’s arsenal, which allows a smaller, weaker force to go much longer than normally would be the case as per ‘classical strategic theory.’

Also, the tools necessary for defense—like ATGMs, mines, shovels for digging fortifications—are precisely those not in short supply in the West; it’s the offensive tools the West is running out of.

Either way, even if Ukraine could hold out for that long, the question is whether Washington will allow it to infringe on the 2024 election cycle. Given that Ukraine’s increasingly deteriorating situation will be like an open sore on the establishment’s side, it’s difficult to believe they’ll allow it to continue into, let’s say, summer of 2024 on the eve of the election.

Even as of this writing, some “confirmation” reportedly was announced (which I haven’t verified yet) that Zelensky will in fact hold the 2024 Ukrainian presidential election. This will be Washington’s chance to completely throw him under the bus, particularly given that public sentiment towards him has already given entree to that.

From Russia’s perspective, they wouldn’t mind seeing the war drag on at least through 2024 as it will deal devastating image blows on the ruling establishment, both domestically and on the world scene.

All we can say is that, particularly if Biden’s major funding doesn’t come through, then the next five or so months leading to the March 2024 Ukrainian presidential election will be extremely painful for Ukraine, such that it’s nigh-unguessable how poor public sentiment and military morale will have gotten.

Lastly, it’s important to note how this ties into the big revelation from the TIME article of last week: that Zelensky is increasingly, unprecedentedly isolated—to the point that his own aides said, off the record, that he’s like a messianic mad man who won’t take no for an answer, and fails to see the intractability of the situation.

If that stark isolation is actually true, it will play heavily into upcoming events, as the U.S. ‘handlers’ will use it to easily wrest control of the regime by simply playing to all those disaffected lackeys around him, who’ve likely had enough. If Zelensky is alone, it means there will be no one to back or defend him when the time comes to “pull the plug.”

However, I will say that this new RT article makes an interestingly compelling case for the opposite—that Washington has lost control of Zelensky and will be unable to replace him because he remains the most popular politician by far, more than all other opposition combined, despite his downtrending support.

The author makes an interesting proposition: that Russia should instead foster and “protect” Zelensky, the thesis being that the U.S. will be desperate to get rid of him in order to end the war. By keeping him in power, Russia can bring Ukraine closer to collapse:

Of course, all this is to our advantage: the longer Zelensky remains in power, the longer Ukraine will continue to fight, bringing its collapse closer.

Therefore, we should take care of Zelensky, and protect him as best we can.

The cracks are seemingly starting to show in that Russia is now advancing on virtually every front. But they are small, inching advances—a death by a thousand cuts style of envelopment that can grow into an unbearable maelstrom over time.

Just in the Kupyansk-Kharkov front, for instance, there are small incremental advancements being made on at least 6-7 different axes—from Seversk (Spirnoe) and Belgorovka, to Torske in the Krasny Liman direction, and 4-5 different axes on the Kremennaya-Svatove-Kupyansk line.

Yes, they are very small advances but there’s a growing sense that Ukrainian defenders are starting to become overwhelmed. One of the reasons is that reserves were pulled from many of these directions to shore up Avdeevka, as well as plugging some other crucial holes.

Meanwhile, massive strike losses continue to be suffered by the AFU, draining their key manpower. The most serious was yesterday’s attack on an awards/medal ceremony for the 128th mountain brigade from Transcarpathia, being held not far from the frontline in Zaporozhye:

The gruesome aftermath can be seen here.

The entire pro-Ukrainian world was aflame with outrage:

In fact the above KIA tally has now been confirmed as much higher, over 50 dead and counting, many more seriously wounded. Zelensky himself was forced to make condolences on video. And Ukraine’s new Minister of Defense issued words as well:

The blow was extremely painful because it was specifically the artillery section, with many top artillery officers killed, including the Lt. Colonel of the brigade:

These are devastating losses for a region that needs artillery most of all.

And what’s more is that this was only one of three or so major Russian strikes on rear personnel concentrations in the past few days.

Another one was dealt to Mirgorod airbase in the Poltava region. First the Gauleiter tried to say only civilian assets were hit, though he at least provided confirmation of the strike:

But then news began to pour out of actual losses and obituaries. For instance this Ukrainian post mentions 47 killed, the target being the 831st tactical aviation brigade—which does check out to Mirgorod airbase upon search—and includes a sergeant Nikolai Zavada:

For a country suffering a terminal personnel shortage, these come as demoralizing setbacks.

And there were even other such strikes, on Dnipro for instance:

But let’s briefly move on to Avdeevka itself. There are just a couple key reports I want to focus on.

Firstly, while the fighting continues to be bitter, Ukrainian forces have confirmed that Russia broke through in the north, past the railway toward Stepove—we just don’t know exactly how far they’ve gone.

What that means in practice is that Rus forces have likely embedded themselves into the treeline on the opposite side of the railway. You see the yellow line marks the railway, but it’s abutted on both sides by hedgerows. Russia’s previous positions had dug into the hedgerows on the right side, now they’ve likely dug in on the left side which gives them a strong springboard to potentially start attacking Stepove itself:

UA accounts also confirm that Russia is trying to storm the AKHZ or Coke Plant, but they report no success thus far. Ukrainian source (Avdos = Avdeevka):

They report that Russian columns are no longer ‘running across the field’.

But the two most critical reports are the following. Firstly, top Ukrainian milblogger Butusov wrote this urgent note which says there’s a “real threat of losing the city”, with other good details:

He confirms that Russian forces have crossed the railway in two places, Stepove and near the Coke Plant. In a new post afterwards, he even writes the addendum:

“Avdiivka is the most important defense line in the Donbas. All available resources and reserves are primarily needed here today.”

This gives us an idea of how significant this quadrant is for the AFU.

But there was another report which made the rounds which seemed to echo Butusov’s urgency:

First he says there’s already evidence of Russian troops storming the fence of the Coke Plant. Then he say the city can hold only a maximum of 2 weeks at this rate, before being lost.

That is obviously a highly questionable estimate, but there were a couple frontline Russian reports which seemed to confirm that there’s a possibility for a rapid collapse of Avdeevka. Understand—this is probably not going to happen, and Avdeevka could end up lasting for several months. But it shows the urgency and potential of collapse depending which side plays their cards right/wrong.

Right now there’s rumor that Russian forces are regrouping for another much larger push, so this could be a pivotal breakthrough attempt.

For that matter, an update from Vozhak Z, Russian soldier on the south Avdeevka front:

Today it was loud and smoky at Koksokhim (Coke Plant). The aircraft were deployed, it looked like they had blown up the ammunition depot - thick black smoke stood for a very long time. The tank crews worked efficiently in our area. They are not allowed to work for long. 3-5 minutes after the first salvo, and then a German kamikaze (FPV) arrives. But the guys got used to it and did a great job. Of curiosities. The crests changed the frequency on Baofeng (Radios) and ended up on ours. In Baofeng, no one has had important conversations for a long time; everything is based on passwords and code words. One could hear something along the lines of “Mykola, come here quickly.” Finally, one of our people got tired of it and said on the air: “Khokhols, you’re sick of it already, change the frequency.”

I won’t write reports every day, depending on the situation and situation. Crests in public pages are no longer beating their chests; they are gradually realizing that we will take Avdiivka.

My call sign is Leader.

Victory will be ours!

In the meantime, Ukrainian troops were seen allegedly in the underground vaults of the AKHZ plant:

A deja vu moment of the Azovstal days.

A few sundry items:

New satellite photos show that Russia’s Minsk landing ship, which was hit by Storm Shadow missiles last month, is already well into its repairs:

1. The ship is out of drydock and has been floated nearby, which means it has no trouble on the water, nor holes in its hull.

2. Its entire superstructure has been stripped off in the process of likely swapping it out with a donor landing ship, of which I believe Russia has several in the area

Recall the Ukrainian side claimed the superstructure had fallen into the hull, destroyed everything, etc. All disproven. In fact, on a landing ship, the superstructure is no where near as complex or expensive as on proper warship, because the landing ship has no real weaponry apart from some basic air defense, which means it doesn’t have all those dozen plus radar station trees and various high tech effects.

In fact, on the expert pro-UA naval accounts, I’ve seen commentators “shocked” at how fast Russia has already reached this level of repairing the ship. I’m not expert enough on naval matters to opine at the speed, but the experts believe it’s making surprising headway.

The Kilo class sub on the other hand is still an unknown, as it’s undergoing work beneath a tarp covering, which can be seen in the right hand side of the photo above. But it does appear to be undergoing repairs, which further refutes pro-UA theories it was “completely destroyed.”

Next:

I’ve been covering the ongoing development of Russia’s artificial intelligence upgrades, particularly to their latest Lancet drones. This week we have two new prime samples.

Here a Lancet clearly using new AI targeting takes out a Leopard 2A6:

Note, this is the same Leopard which was killed in Avdeevka, near the Slag Heap, recently. Apparently Russian forces decided to finish it off for good measure.

And here is another sample of the Lancet taking out what was claimed to be an RM-70 MLRS truck. You can see the new AI sensors modeling the target:

Recall that the West recently acknowledged new Russian AI capabilities being actively used in its drones.

Next:

Speaking of interesting tech developments, here a Ukrainian soldier makes the startling claim that Russia’s new North Korean shells are so silent you can’t even hear them come in, making them far more deadly to the frontline troops:

The shells Russia received from the DPRK are very quiet.

Maxim Nesmeyanov, a soldier of the combined detachment “Lvov” of the State Border Service, spoke about this.

“Soviet shells can be heard, but when this Korean shell flies, you can’t even hear it on video. When there is wind in the forest, you won’t hear it,” he said.

Next:

The USNews website made huge waves by declaring that Russia has now moved up into the #1 ranking for world’s strongest military, overtaking the U.S.

They cannot be accused of bias as they have Russia fairly low on the rankings of most other categories.

However in “most powerful country” ranking—which consists of countries that have the most influence to shape global economic factors, etc.—they have Russia fairly high at #3:

This is an erudite acknowledgment that Russia’s military achievements in the SMO have in fact raised its stature, rather than lowered it, given what Russia is up against—the entire combined power of NATO.

Next:

Remember those strange rumors about Russian forces digging some kind of “tunnels” in Avdeevka? We finally got confirmation of what they are, as Pyatnashka Brigade commander Akhra Avidzba explained to Wargonzo’s Pegov:

Most of the Donetsk region’s fighters are miners; they know their way around a pickaxe and can build quick tunnels on the fly. It turns out they’ve dug some tunnels as long as 160m under the most impervious of AFU’s positions, then blew them to the moon, sending up a Ukrainian ‘astronaut’ as the commander explains.

Next:

A new France24 article illuminates on the situation’s degradation in the AFU.

The 35-year-old fighting near the war-battered town of Bakhmut went further than comments from Ukraine's most senior military official, who conceded this week that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate.

"I've been saying that for some time now already. Step by step we're losing the war," the serviceman, who uses the call sign "Mudryi" (Wise), told AFP.

"The longer this static war continues, the worse it is for us," he said in a phone interview.

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Lastly, two small bits of housekeeping.

First, if you have Twitter/X please follow me at https://twitter.com/simpatico771

I’ve decided to start using Twitter more widely and will be expanding coverage on there, particularly of subjects and things that would bloat these reports if I fit them all here. Particularly as Twitter/X rolls out promised new long-form-oriented features, I intend to dabble in that as well with some secondary content. Have no fear, this platform will always be primary. It’s simply that, as everyone well knows, it’s dangerous to limit yourself only to one outlet in the era of deplatformization, so I’ll always be looking for way to ‘diversify’ my audience to the extent that I can never be wholly ‘erased’ in one swoop by TPTB, and can be reconstituted like a virus.

The truth is, the top criticism I get here is length, and I too would love to trim my reports down a hair. I realized this the other day when I was searching an older report for something and my hand nearly numbed from the scrolling. I thought to myself, Jeez, did I write all that? That’s why it’ll be good to offload some of the less important stuff to X posts, and I’d love it if you all can join me on there, particularly now that it’s vastly improved in terms of censorship and such.

The second thing is just a small appeal for anyone that might be considering pledging/subscribing to a membership here, to please consider doing so. The churn rate right now is at its highest, particularly given the highly divisive ongoing events vis a vis the Israeli crisis. I’ve had several angry cancellations damning me for not taking Israel’s side, and things of that nature.

It’s not a major issue but does put a slight damper on my growth outlook, so I’d ask anyone who’s able and willing to come and join us here in The Garden. In the future I’ll have to consider doing some occasional paywalled articles just to fight the churn rate—though they’d be some sort of additional thing, rather than the primary reports which will remain free. I’ve held off for now, but my ‘colleagues’ think me crazy because the internal Substack ‘guidance’ recommends for us to do 2 free for every 1 paid article to “maximize paid subscriber growth.”

To be honest, I never started this to make money. In fact, I began writing here without even realizing people can “donate money” without my having approved it or set it all up, and I hadn’t even thought about it being a “monetized” account. But after a few articles, ‘pledged payment’ notifications began rolling in even though I hadn’t connected the account to a bank or even considered the whole payment thing. I think it was a month or two later that the pledges accumulated to the point where I finally said, Gee Golly, I can hit the ‘accept’ button and begin taking these awfully generous offerings.

But now it’s of course gotten to the point where I’ve chosen to commit to this full time, so the matter of money is no longer an optional concern. But don’t take this rant to mean the situation is dire—no, quite the opposite, it’s going great and I thank you all who’ve subscribed. I’m simply explaining that given that it’s now my full-time vocation, I have to concern myself even with the small prosaic matter of fighting the churn rate—which is the natural ‘seepage’ of cancellations that occur on a daily basis for any number of reasons.

So, it’s not an emergency call but rather a mild nudge for anyone able and willing to subscribe, I’ll be eternally grateful for your help. And a big thanks to those who continue helping on the Tip Jar service, you’re not forgotten either as that’s a major help.

Thanks again to all, and let’s keep the show rolling.

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