Graph from U. S. Census shows decline in births from 2001-2021. Public domainThe Trump Administration is floating the idea of giving a $5,000 baby bonus to "every American mother after giving birth". This bonus is suggested as a response to a stark reality: despite a slight bump in the U.S. birth rate last year, the country still fails to produce enough babies to meet the 'replacement rate'. The replacement rate is 2.1 births per woman and the U. S. rate for 2024 was 1.6.

I have said many things in my life that I regretted. Never, though, did I make these statements in a speech. A prepared remark holds more weight than spontaneous speech.The people quoted below knew they would be quoted. Their words expressed their intent, at least when they spoke them (or wrote them). In some cases, a figure may have captured sentiments at a moment in time and then have had a change of heart, years later.

Most of us have heard the expression, The pen is mightier than the sword. The intent of that quote is obviously that ideas are powerful. They can be like a virus. Once they take hold, they are hard to stamp out.Socrates was put on trial only because his ideas offended the authorities of the day. When he refused to recant he was sentenced to death, and famously drank a brew of hemlock.

When I was in my early twenties my sister splurged and took me to a Broadway show for my birthday. I had talked at home about Bertolt Brecht, the playwright, because I had studied his work in my German class. The show she took me to see was The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui The play parallels the rise of Hitler in Germany. Brecht wrote it while he was in exile, waiting desperately for a visa to the U.S. Fascism was spreading rapidly across Europe. Not only had Brecht written plays critical of Hitler and the Nazis, but his wife was Jewish (which meant, according to the Nazis, so were his children). Germany was not a safe place for him or his family.

A couple of weeks ago I published a post in this community that featured the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. This week I returned to the Hatchery with my husband to take some pictures I wasn't able to snap on my previous visit.

Gillian raised his left arm and scratched his chin with the stump. He worked his way through the crowded aisles and looked for a booth that specialized in left hands.“Can’t really do a proper job getting at that itch with this,” he muttered, as he put his arm back at his side. He perused the display of hands perched on poles.