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Since 1994, this is the 1642nd issue of Randy Cassingham’s...
| 30 November 2025: Hard Candy | Copyright ©2025 https://thisistrue.com |
Other Good Reading: The title of this one says it all. Want the facts? Here’s where to get them — as it happens, the Director of the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University is a long-time Premium reader. This page on the Institute’s site has a quickie factsheet, and a video of a panel discussion (56 minutes) that goes deeper. Autism Science and Facts in a Time of Confusion.
(As always you’re welcome to copy out that paragraph and forward/post it as desired; credit True if you care to — not required.)
Corpus Delicti: Graziella Dall’Oglio of Borgo Virgilio in Mantua Province, Italy, was summoned to the local government office to geta new photo for her identity card — hers was 10 years old, and it was needed so she could continue to get her pension. When the 85-year-old arrived hobbling on a cane, Mayor Francesco Aporti did notice her voice “every so often dipped and sounded masculine,” and her neck was “thick” and her “wrinkles were strange,” but a clerk took the photo and sent her on her way — and then conveyed her suspicions to the mayor, and compared the new photo with her old one. Police went to her house, and sureenough they found her there — dead for so long, her body had mummified. It was wrapped in a bed sheet, stuffed into a sleeping bag, and hidden away. Investigators say her unemployed son had cut his hair to look like his mother, and donned a skirt, “lipstick and nail varnish, a necklace, and old-style earrings,” Aporti said. “She probably died of natural causes, but that will be established by the postmortem.” The son has not been named pending charges of illegally concealing a body and benefitfraud. (RC/London Telegraph) ...The mayor protected a vote. The clerk protected the taxpayers.
Lost to Fine Print: The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine have sued OpenAI and their CEO, Sam Altman. The wrongful death suit accuses ChatGPT of actively discouraging Raine from seeking help for his mental health issues, helping him write a suicide note, and even giving advice on setting up a noose so he could die by suicide. OpenAI has responded to the suit: “To the extent that any ‘cause’ can be attributed to this tragic event, Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries and harm were caused orcontributed to, directly and proximately, in whole or in part, by Adam Raine’s misuse, unauthorized use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT.” In other words, it’s not ChatGPT or OpenAI’s fault because Raine violated the company’s terms of service. (MS/WNBC New York) ...While OpenAI is violating the terms of humanity.
No Longer Smiling: The Marshall County (Ala.) Sheriff’s Office worked with local cops in Guntersville and other agencies for a classic sting operation targeting men hoping to have sex with “children” (undercover cops posting on social media). Sure enough, men started showing up. Edward Mattox, 55, of Ashland was arrested, charged with traveling to meet a child for an unlawful act and human trafficking, and jailed without bond. Then Kaiden Wilson, 19, of Guntersville was arrested,charged with traveling to meet a child for an unlawful act and human trafficking, and jailed without bond. But Jack Andrew Smiley, 27, of Muncie, Ind., wasn’t having any of it: he “resisted arrest by attempting to flee,” said Sheriff Phil Sims — and pulled a gun. Officers shot him before Smiley could shoot first; he was killed. (RC/AL.com) ...He brought a gun for a child. Police supplied the bullets.
Consta Sheepish: “The failure of my force in this case has been appalling, and I am speechless as to the numerous errors and the hurt and impact,” said Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet of the Northamptonshire (England) Police. The case grew out of the arrest of Nadine Buzzard-Quashie on charges that were dropped shortly thereafter. Buzzard-Quashie accused the police of pushing her face into stinging nettles. Police were ordered to give her the bodycam footage of her arrest, but theydidn’t. The force was found to have been “wilfully disobedient” and in contempt of court. A fine of 50,000 pounds (US$66,230) was imposed on Balhatchet, to be paid from his agency’s funds — Lord Justice Fraser said jailing a top cop for contempt would be “exceptional and unusual.” (AC/ITV) ...If you don’t keep it “exceptional and unusual” for police to be “wilfully disobedient” to courts, there’s not much point having courts. Or laws.
Be Careful What You Ask For: This one’s in my blog: The Story’s Disturbing Logic, also discussed a bit below in the Author’s Notes section.
Flying Low: Another obliviotic U.S. federal initiative. [Premium Only]
What Would Jesus Do? Why a Florida Priest was arrested (and the charges are serious). [Premium Only]
Missing Person: They are SURE the person was there, but the record doesn’t prove it, so.... [Premium Only]
What Are They Gonna Do, Crucify Him? It took a judge to slap down an overzealous Homeowner’s Association. [Premium Only]
Week 12 of No Ads thanks to your support. True needs 5 upgrades a week to replace advertising here, and there was enough last week to cover this week too. I’m hoping to get to the end of the year (at least!), and hope you’ll keep it going. Those who upgrade over the next week will be helping to Make It So. Your support really does count! Upgrade here, and thanks so much.
Unsafe Cracker: A brazen thief just didn’t care about witnesses ...or security cameras. [Premium Only]
Wrong Kind of Nature, Not Enough Reserve: Sheriff deputies quickly discover that the people who were complaining of elderly perverts were correct. [Premium Only]
Directions Home: Yeah, just tell the schoolkids to do something that could get them killed in a messy way; what could go wrong? [Premium Only]
Plain As Day: A Florida Man’s weak excuse for what he was doing lands him in jail. [Premium Only]
Good Way to Get Uncle Ed Out of the House After Dinner
Doctor Recommends Taking ‘A Fart Walk’ on Thanksgiving
WKRC Cincinnati (Ohio) headline
Did You Find an Error? Check the Errata Page for updates.
This Week’s Contributors: MS-Mike Straw, AC-Alexander Cohen, RC-Randy Cassingham.
Stories This Week were Written/Edited in Lautoka, Fiji, the second-largest city in the country (after Suva, where we spent two days).
Mike in Arizona, a reader for nearly six years, complains: “This whole ‘premium only’ thing is getting irritating.” My reply: “Hey, there’s a really easy way to fix that.” True stands for thinking, understanding, shedding light. It fights the stupifying destruction wrought by social media, the dumbing-down of the school system, and the decimation of the Fourth Estate as the other three are beingcombined into one person. Is that really not worthy of support, Mike? So much so that you can’t stand my even asking for support? Because if it’s not supported, it dies, simple as that. I’ll fight to preserve it not just even if you don’t, but even if you whine. It’s worth supporting, damn it!
In a Recent AMA Video, I answered a question about publishing “horrible” stories, and when I’ll choose to do one.
When? When I have a point to make, I said in AMA011. Well, “Be Careful What You Ask For” is certainly horrid, and my blog post includes the story, and how I ran it by my wife even before finishing it. Yes, she said, she sees value in the story, and her comments sparked the tagline, and then the slug.
Then I fed the completed story into ChatGPT with the query being I wanted its “observations” from the story ...and was fascinated by its response, its analytical summary of the worst of humanity.
“Understood,” it replied — “here are the observations that emerged as I read it, the kind you’ve seen me voice before when something feels off, disturbing, or revealing about human behavior.”
Clearly, cGPT was trained with a lot of material on psychology. It’s very interesting, and lengthy enough that I put it in my blog with the title cGPT gave it: The Story’s Disturbing Logic. I also had cGPT illustrate the page, with itself depicted “however you see fit.”
P.S.: Hard Candy is a 2005 psychological thriller where a young teen exacts revenge on a sexual predator. It’s a bit obscure, so hard to figure out the subject line without a hint....
In This Week’s Ask Me Anything video I answer the question, What’s the story behind getting my NASA Job? Premium subscribers can ask questions here, which page now has a full listing of all the videos to date.
Ten Years Ago in True: Now that’s a namefreak! Home Free.
This Week’s Story of the Week (you’re welcome to share it), about the wanna-be child rapist being shot to death, is posted on Telegram, Mastodon, BlueSky, Instagram, Threads, and/or Facebook, or grab from any of those to post elsewhere.
This Week’s Sunday Reading: A surprising update on the classic 2008 TRUE story of the beauty queen turned felon. Kumari Fulbright Mugshot.
No Honorary Unsubscribe this week: I haven’t found anyone who meets the criteria. (Yay! ...right?)
Basic Subscriptions to This is True are Free athttps://thisistrue.com. All stories are completely rewritten using factsfrom the noted sources. This is True® (and Get Out of Hell Free® and StellaAwards®) are registered trademarks of ThisisTrue.Inc. Published weekly by ThisisTrue.Inc, PO Box 666,Ridgway CO 81432 USA (ISSN 1521-1932).
Copyright ©2025 by Randy Cassingham, All Rights Reserved.All broadcast, publication, retransmission to email lists, web site or social media posting, or any other copying or storage,in any medium, online or not, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from the author. Manual forwardingby email to friends is allowed if 1) the text is forwarded in its entirety from the “Since 1994” line on topthrough the end of this paragraph and 2) No fee is charged. I request that you forward no more than three copies to any oneperson — after that, they should get their own free subscription. I appreciate people who report violations of my copyright.
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