It was quite the year. A war in Europe, Roe overturned, the country’s gun mania on full display, and more extreme weather events. And that’s just what makes headlines.

Farther down the page, we noticed the remarkable protests, led by young women, in Iran. The fierce pushback at the ballot box against invading women’s privacy and election and climate denialism. And the faster-than-we-thought adoption of renewable energy.

So, pick your trend line. At Furthur, we focus on up-and-to-the-right. One we like is the off-on switch for Bobby’s January trip to Mexico with Dead and CO. Last year it was off; this year it was very much on.

Nothing like a nearly successful insurrection to get your attention. This year we’ve decided to run things a little bit differently. We are not waiting until year-end to make grants. This is because, as you may have noticed, there is a radical effort to limit the ability of voters to get to the ballot box.

Furthur friends, we have a problem. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the US as a “flawed democracy” in 2021, thanks to “the decline and trust in government”–no surprise there–and what they called “issues related to the electoral process.”