Let's see if the AI blog police will go after me here once again. Don't big mainstream publications have more important things to do now than to harass an 88-year-old lady? I've just been using a very few photos from other sources on the blog, not for any widespread distribution nor any for actual monetary gain. In fact, I'm just giving those sources a little free publicity right now. I'll keep my very modest mom and pop readership posted on what actually happens next regarding photos. Because of my small, rather private readership, the blog is really nothing more than a group email after all. It's just for my friends, most met on travels all over the world,, commenting on current news and my own life today. I've drastically reduced the use of photos on the blog because of so many complaints from the mainstream press, so are those folks out there happy about that right now?
When my son and I were out earlier in the evening (Friday, Oct. 16), just driving around from one park to another, letting our dog out for a run, we then saw a lovely rainbow out there in the sky.
Is a rainbow actually a good omen? I'd certainly like to think so. We are long overdue for more hopeful news. But any good news has yet to appear. Rather, just the opposite.
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In fact, this very morning (Saturday, Oct. 17), I got up feeling dizzy. This has happened before--with everything spinning and twirling, quite hard to stay balanced. I have to keep on sitting up or lying down, or just holding onto my son's arm to walk anywhere, even inside our own home. Once it had even happened to me in Honduras. In the past, it has just gone away on its own. I don't recall how long it had lasted then, maybe several hours or for a whole day, even overnight.
Google says: Vertigo can come on suddenly without warning. Though vertigo attacks can feel scary, they go away quickly most of the time. If you experience severe or prolonged vertigo, your symptoms could indicate another medical condition.
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Here once again the shooter, a special needs student with a special grievance, had brought a gun to school from his home. This has happened elsewhere many times before. We would need the fingers of both hands to count the various incidents of school shootings in the US in recent years. Now the shooter in Oregon is dead and so are 4 others as well. This as the tragic legacy of "the right to bear arms," as guns really have no place in unreliable civilian hands.
Shooting is the 21st mass killing in the U.S. this year
This terrible event is part of the brutal, unnecessary, and sadly too common legacy of the so-called "right to bear arms," something which fortunately does not afflict other modern nations. The NRA's "good guy with a gun" is never right there on the scene, ready to stop a mass shooting. Rather, an impulsive teenager, like this same 16-year-old boy (always a boy) with newly surging male hormones, simply grabs the family's hidden pistol down off a high shelf to settle scores with his foes, either real or imagined. Now that same young boy and several others are dead. This tragedy could easily have been prevented.
Just as a 16-year-old boy should not be out driving the family car all by himself until he is somewhat older, he should not yet have easy access to a firearm just to seek revenge. In a few short years, he would then settle down and become a law-abiding citizen, which is when the gun ownership question might be reconsidered, if at all.
A reader might question why I say a mass shooter is always a boy, as haven't some girls been mass shooters as well? The answer is both yes and no. The US and Canada have seen a few mass shooters identifying as female, but they were always born male, only later "transitioning" to become female. I challenge anyone to name a person born female who actually has become a mass shooter. It is simply not in her own DNA.
Seatbelts and other protections have greatly reduced traffic deaths. Now is the time to tackle US gun deaths and to buy out both the NRA and the gun manufacturers,
Guns should not be kept in private homes in any case, as they are certainly not protective, but actually quite dangerous both for those living there and for everyone else. Just look at the numbers.
And what about the right of all the rest of us to just go on living our own lives? The "right to bear arms" is actually a license to kill. The NRA's traditional doctrine is sadly out-of-date. Nor are guns still needed for hunting, as that's not how we get our food anymore, and wild animals actually need protection, having almost been hunted to extinction.
The American revolution occurred 250 years ago, when guns in private hands may actually have proved useful in the fight for independence. Now let's take some common sense measures to reduce gun violence in the modern age, including the many gun accidents and suicides, by abolishing the "right to bear arms" and by restricting firearms' use to law enforcement and the military, as is done in other developed nations. That's what actually works best, rather than allowing private gun ownership, which, year after year, has caused so many casualties here. American lives depend on reversing the old practice of keeping a gun in the home, as that is now a serious risk and is not actually protective at all. Americans would be far safer with allowing fewer guns among our citizens. I've already mentioned in an earlier post how my then-11-year-old son was shot in the foot by a pistol dropped by another boy after finding it in a neighbor's bedside drawer. That injury still bothers my son today, but fortunately he was not killed.
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Times and fashions do change, even where human rights and family size are involved.
It's been quite interesting to see that women's rights' organizations are no longer touting "abortion rights," as contraception has been quite effective, perhaps too effective, and, actually, more babies are needed now right now in our own country, not fewer. And single motherhood is no longer taboo--in fact, many American women are now single mothers, even by design. These days in countries like China and South Korea, and also in some placed in the USA, incentives for childbirth are being offered because not enough babies are being born. This is Malthus in reverse, but the incentives don't seem to be increasing the birth rate as much as keeping it from falling even further. Many women are stopping after having no children or only one, while 2 seems a popular limit, not an average.
In 2024, the U.S. recorded its lowest ever fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman, following a downward trend in fertility rates starting in the early 2000s, consistent with a global decrease in fertility rates. Data from the United Nations Population Division show that global rates were down to 2.2 births per woman in 2023, compared to 5.3 in 1963.
This trend has been going on for quite a while now. Since 2007, the number of Americans having babies has dropped 23 percent. And that means not enough kids are being born to replace older workers or those who die. If this trend continues, or unless immigration levels change, our own nation will have eight million fewer residents by 2055.
South Korea has the world's lowest birthrate at less than one child per woman of
childbearing age.
China now offers a nationwide universal childcare subsidy of 3,600 yuan (about $500 USD) per year for each child under the age of three.
China once had a policy of forced abortions and fines after the birth of one child when infanticide of baby girls was common and Chinese girls were being adopted here in the US.
Back then, Chinese couples wanted their one child to be a boy to carry on the family name, thus leading to an excess later of single men unable to find a wife. I chaired an adoption agency that facilitated many adoptions from China at the time, including among single women here, eager to become mothers. One of our agency's single mothers even adopted 3 Chinese baby girls. But now times have changed
AI Overview
Key Statistics (2025 Data)
- Total Births: 7.92 million births, down from 12 million in 2020 and 9.54 million in 2024.
- Total Fertility Rate (TFR): Below 1.0 child per woman, well under the replacement level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population.
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Pope Leo, 71, Released from the Hospital 4 Days After Lung Cancer Surgery
The pontiff had the lower lobe of his right lung removed on Oct. 13.
Although never a smoker, Leo, like many others, still contracted lung cancer. He was released from the hospital 4 days later.
- Globally (Both Sexes):
- Lung cancer (~2.5 million cases)
- Female breast cancer (~2.3 million cases)
- Colorectal cancer (~1.9 million cases)
- Prostate cancer (~1.5 million cases)
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Here's an appeal now from Catholic Charities, to which I contributed when I live back in Washington, DC, and I also acted as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking clients there.
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When friends my own age (88) no longer answer emails or phone calls, they are very likely to have gone on to their heavenly reward: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As mentioned, I recently found out that my long-time former DC neighbor, Carol Euston, has died at age 90. I once had photos of her but can no longer find then. We were next-door neighbors in DC for more than 50 years,
So at age 88 myself, I am not very far behind Carol at all. My mother died at 92, so I may have perhaps 4 more years? My Dad died at age 81. I certainly have no desire to live any longer than any of my kids or my grandkids. I've already lost my older son (not in a gun accident).
Men, on average, are taller, stronger, and can run faster than most women. And yet women are the only ones giving birth to children, no easy task. My paternal great-grandmother gave birth to 12 children who all lived to adulthood. Yet women everywhere, even after giving birth, have usually lived much longer than most men for a great many reasons, including having longer telomeres and 2 X chromosomes, not just one as men do. The oldest person in the world is always a woman.
- The Gender Ratio: For Americans aged 100 and older, the sex ratio plummets to about 32.7 men for every 100 women. This translates to roughly 3 women per man specifically at age 100.
- The Over-100 Population: Looking broadly at the entire centenarian pool (everyone aged 100+), women make up roughly 79% to 85% of the population, meaning there are close to 4 to 5 women for every 1 man.
This gender balance at older ages is in stark contrast to birth demographics, where boys actually outnumber girls by a ratio of roughly 105 to 100.
Due to biological traits, immune resilience, and different lifestyle risk factors over the lifespan, women gradually take the majority starting around age 47 and dominate the demographic split by the time they cross into the triple digits.
Ladies, let's face it, except for the lucky few still living with a husband, those of us now in our 80's and beyond who are widowed or divorced are unlikely to find another male partner. I feel quite fortunate to be living now with my son. He is separated from his wife and has 2 sons himself living elsewhere, with whom he keeps in regular contact. He is one of those increasingly scarce American men now over age 50.
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Since Donald Trump has become our US president now for the second time, I've noticed that friends met on my many travels abroad are no longer so eager to come here any more. Under Trump, our country no longer seems like a welcoming haven of freedom and liberty nor a bright beacon of hope and opportunity. Those who had been saving money to finance their journey here are now staying home instead. Trump's presidency has also been quite challenging for most of us Americans, as well as for so many others all over the globe. He has completely upset the world's social and political order. He often achieves surprising outcomes by unexpected and untried means. Other people, both in this country and elsewhere, never know quite what to expect. Sometimes that unpredictability has actually proved quite helpful for Mr. Trump and his political cronies.
Donald Trump will not soon be forgotten as our president. It's actually never tedious or boring with him now in office, as he is so impulsive and unpredictable. It's been like riding on a roller coaster, but we still worry about a crash. Only a little over a year remains in Trump's presidential term, but then will we be able ever go back to "normal"? Or is this the "new normal," from now on and just going forward?
I'd once considered former president GW Bush to be quite quirky and rather risky. But having retired to his Texas ranch after taking up portrait painting as a hobby, he now seems benign, even completely harmless. GW Bush and also former president Joe Biden have both lost major influence because they no longer have made any effort to maintain it. They seem to prefer complete retirement. But Donald Trump doesn't seem very eager to retire anytime soon.
Here I was back in Honduras, 3 years ago, holding up a welcoming sign given to me. That was back when Covid facemasks were typically being worn. Art, a former Peace Corps volunteer, appearing there on the left, has actually retired now to Honduras and keeps on encouraging me to just do the same.
If not for my kids and grandkids, I might actually be tempted to live there right now, as so many Hondurans have been inviting me. I could just travel around, visiting one family after another. If my own kids and grandkids were not already living here in the US of A, I'd be quite tempted to move back to Honduras, where I have so many friends inviting me to stay and where, of course, I already speak the language on an equal par with English. (Some Hondurans speculate that I was born in Latina America, since I don't have a gringo accent.) I've actually considered going back there, but let's see what happens here first after Trump's presidency now ends. Maybe I need to stick around to try to make things better all around here. Each of us is only one person, and even Donald Trump is only one person. He is only as influential and powerful as each of us allows him to be.
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