I lost the big sixth-grade spelling bee by blowing the word "vacuum." Who knew some word could have two letter u's in a row? I sure didn't. (I do now, though.)
But ask Mrs. Vydra, the teacher, which pupil dominated Show & Tell sessions in her class that year, and I'm pretty sure my name would come up.
I have always loved telling stories in class, in the prep-school newspaper, in the college-daily newspaper, in a couple big-city daily newspapers on opposite coasts and here at RedState. Over the years, many thousands of stories in many kinds of media — newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, social media, 10 nonfiction books, video documentaries, and now here.
One of my favorite go-to sources for ideas was the Census or some serious study. I would find an interesting development buried in numbers and then go find a real person living a seemingly ordinary life who actually was a living example of some trend. I wrote here in a previous Memory about the profile of the healthiest American one year.
This post is different in that there is no one person who embodies the story. That's because, for once, it's about something that isn't happening.
Americans are having fewer babies, about 9,900 a day every day. That seems like a lot. And it is, if you're thinking diapers and onesies.
But that's too few to maintain a stable population, to fill the available jobs in service and manufacturing industries, and to support their own families and the elderly who are no longer working.
Until recently, American couples were doing just that. But now, for a number of little-known but complex and fascinating reasons, Americans are no longer producing enough babies.
That is the topic of this week's brief audio commentary, which you can hear by clicking on the U.S. flag. And don't neglect to leave your own thoughts and opinions in the Comments section below.
There's always a lot of politics going on in this country on all levels. The political events in Washington, filtered through the liberal minds of national media huddled there and basking in the reflecting self-importance, get the most attention, of course.
But the political stuff underway in New York City is truly ominous long-term. Not that we care that much about that place.
But the naive voters there, fueled by more than a million foreign-born immigrants, have fallen for the false, empty promises of a Muslim immigrant. He, like a growing number of others there, calls himself a Democratic Socialist, which they think is an effective cover word for communist.
Already, Zohran Mamdani has revealed his true commie colors through the radical and, of course, expensive policies he's promising to deliver. Policies like multiple millions spent on government grocery stores, free city buses, and potentially seizing the private property of landlords who are not cooperating.
But now Mamdani is endorsing fellow thinkers, and those same New York City voters just elected a number of them to the House of Representatives in Democrat primaries.
Then this week, wouldn't you know, Colorado voters dumped a 15-term House Democrat and replaced her with another Democratic Socialist. I think 30 years in Congress is too long. But care is needed in selecting replacements. Is there a vaccine for this?
This week's Sunday column explores how this happened and the broader political and social implications of this turn to radicalism.
The most recent audio commentary was a fun one that focused on the surprisingly grand time that foreign tourists are having here as the long-running World Cup games and events play out. You gotta love wide-eyed normal folks sharing their experiences via ubiquitous social media posts about the kind people and abundant joys they are discovering across our vast land.
Joys like free soft-drink refills that we have come to take for granted. "You mean I can have as many glasses as I want?"
Or, "No, no, I didn't order rolls." They're free, sir.
I had some thoughts on all this.
