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This, that, and the other, August 2026 edition

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Tuesday, 11 August 2026

Written by Margaret Dickson

U.S. Vice President JD Vance and I do not have much in common and do not share many of the same views.
I did not go to Yale Law School. Nor was I mentored by one of my law professors audacious enough to write a book on child-raising entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I do not support aggressive immigration enforcement by ICE or tariffs on nations that have historically been our friends.
We do agree, however, that our country is on the brink of a population bust and probably sooner than most of us expected.
Americans have long read about declining populations in various European and Asian nations, with South Korea currently holding the title of the lowest fertility rate in the world at approximately .08 lives births for women of childbearing age. The bottom line is that South Korea and many other nations are nowhere near replacing their population the old-fashioned way, not including immigration. Sociologists point fingers at high costs of living, economic stressors, and changing social priorities as causes for foregoing parenthood.
The United States is joining the ranks of population-declining nations, with a birth rate of 1.6 prospective live births per mother, considerably below the 2.1 figure considered the replacement level.
Political immigration policies have dramatically lowered the number of people entering the United States, accelerating our race to the population cliff. Current projections are that the US population will stop growing sometime in the 2030s, with the actual decline beginning in the 2050s.
If we want to avoid falling off this cliff, demographers say we need to support the needs of young families for housing, child care, cost of living, quality public education and affordable health care. Otherwise, the cliff looms.
It is worth noting that JD Vance and his wife, and one-time law school tutor, welcomed their 4th child this month, doing their part to avoid the cliff.
It is also interesting that the Vice President, who, as a federal employee, has paternity leave available, is not taking it, leaving mom with 3 children under 9 and a newborn infant.
What sort of role model is that for would-be fathers in a culture not nurturing of young families?

Several weeks ago, I wrote about tattoos, the most recent in a long line of columns on that topic, which has fascinated me for years. Tattoos are ubiquitous in today’s American culture, so reader response was—well— ho hum. No one pays much attention to tattoos these days.
That said, I did have this unexpected, unusual, and very positive reflection from one reader.
“Margaret, appreciate your column, and decided to respond to your tattoo article. As an aging lady, I found myself losing color in my face. I couldn’t keep eyeliner on. It would be faded before I left the bathroom after applying it most mornings. So I consulted Dr. T for my 60th birthday, and his wife tattooed eyeliner for me. Doctor gave me numbing shots, so no pain. Fairly quickly finished in a few hours. I needed a second swipe, but was rattled by the laser, so never returned. At nearing 85, still looks good, very pleased with it. Can’t say that I’ve saved enough by not buying eyeliner to have paid for it as yet. But happy with my birthday gift. Thank you for your efforts to inform our community and keep us connected.”
Nothing like a happy customer!

And, finally, brace yourself.
We are fewer than 100 days away from our much-anticipated—and in some cases, dreaded—midterm elections. We in North Carolina are hosting one of our nation’s marquee US Senate races and all that comes with it. Ours is not as fraught as Senate contests in Texas or Maine, but millions in advertising dollars are coming our way as the outcome of North Carolina’s race will be an important factor in which party controls the Senate and how difficult life will be for its minority members.

Explosive diarrhea is better than radioactive cheese

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Wednesday, 05 August 2026

Written by Pitt Dickey

What’s a little explosive diarrhea among friends? Lettuce prey. Nothing to worry about. Our highly qualified public servant, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is on the case. He has taken time off from his busy schedule of retrieving road kill, downplaying the resurgence of measles, and discouraging the use of vaccines to announce that the outbreak of explosive diarrhea is “under control.”
Now, don’t you feel better? We may not quite yet be in the Golden Age of America that tariffs and our new Middle East war with Iran will surely bring, but at least we are now in America’s Salad Days.
What does Mr. Science say about our exciting, brave new world of explosive diarrhea? It originates from a cute little parasite called Cyclospora. His name sounds suspiciously like the Cyclops in America’s summer movie, The Odyssey.
The boys around the biolabs actually call him the Cyclops parasite. (Author’s note – MAGA is getting rid of the lady persons from the biolabs because only Boy persons can be scientists. The lady persons should get back into the kitchen and rattle some pots and pans.)
Now back to Mr. Science. The Cyclops parasite gets into humans in several disgusting ways. Human sewage gets into irrigation water, or from workers pooping in the fields (because it costs money to provide them with porta-potties), or from contaminated water used to wash veggies. Once Cyclops finds you, he takes a couple of weeks to wake up to start your gastric engines.
What to expect when you become a host for Cyclops? Stick around near the bathroom.
Cyclops is not kidding about producing localized explosive diarrhea. You will get as dehydrated as Death Valley in August. Dehydration is double plus ungood. If your body runs out of water, it is like running a car without oil. Bad things can occur. Call RFK, Jr at home and ask for advice.
The FDA has determined that Cyclops is like Schrodinger’s Cat in a box, which was both alive and dead at the same time. Cyclops was initially determined to be sourced from Mexican farms operated by Taylor Farms until a representative from Taylor Farms met with White House officials.
After this meeting, the FDA backed up and announced that the Taylor Farm sample was a false positive for Cyclops.
So, Schrodinger Catlike, Taylor Farm was the source until it wasn’t the source of Cyclops.
If you are confused by this, ponder the fun times with facts back in the 1920s & 1930s when radiation was discovered and marketed for its health bringing properties.
Remember Radioactive Cheese?
What?
You don’t?
Keep reading.
Radium popped into America’s consciousness in the 1920s in a big way in the form of adding radium to food and drink.
You could spoon your way to health and happiness like Lucy Ricardo’s 23% alcohol Vitameatavegamins by eating radium-infused butter and cheese. Drinking radium-spiked water was a thing.
Gulp down enough Radithor energy drink, which was water infused with radium, and all your troubles would be washed away. You could radiate good health. You would never poop out at parties.
EC-zine was an ointment with radium sold as a cure for “eczema, pimples, ringworm, and blood poison.” You could make radium drinks at home by keeping tap water in a Revigorator, which was a crock made of radioactive material.
This would infuse your iced tea with real live radiation. Radium Limited’s ad read: “Radium Therapy for the preparation of radioactive water in the hospital or in the patient’s own home.
The apparatus gives a high and measured dosage of radioactive drinking water for the treatment of gout, rheumatism, arthritis, neuralgia, sciatica, catarrh of the antrum and frontal sinus, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, glycosuria and nephritis.”
The activator inside the earthenware “contains an insoluble preparation impregnated with radium. It continuously emits radium emanation at a fixed rate, and keeps the water in the jar always charged to a fixed and measurable strength from 5000 to 10,000 Mache units per liter per diem.” Yum. Better than Johnstown Kool Aid.
A competitor, the Mandis Sales Company, sold a lifetime radium water jar stating “it aids nature by increasing the number of and building up the red corpuscles of the blood. Eliminates poisons from the system and causes the best of digestion of your food. Nature then cures you.”
It cures “anemia, arthritis, female trouble, gastric ulcers, gout, goiter, chronic peritonitis, high blood pressure, hay fever, lumbago, prostate disorders, or any other common ailment.” Sounds great.
Unfortunately, it turned out radium killed more than it cured. It was taken off the market. But now, explosive diarrhea doesn’t sound so bad in comparison, does it?
Take it from RFK, Jr. – nothing to see here. Move along, people. Cyclops is under control. What dressing would you like on your salad?

(You are what you eat. Illustration by Pitt Dickey)

On Road Funding, Something’s Gotta Give

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Tuesday, 11 August 2026

Written by John Hood

Fred Astaire is one of my favorite entertainers of all time. For one of his later films, the romance Daddy Long Legs (1955), Johnny Mercer wrote Astaire a fantastic song entitled “Something’s Gotta Give” that has since become an often-covered American standard. “When an irresistible force such as you meets an old immovable object like me,” the song begins, “you can bet just as sure as you live — something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give.”
When it comes to romance, perhaps so. When it comes to funding highways and streets, definitely so.
The irresistible force in question is North Carolina’s continued growth and development. Over the past decade and a half, few states have attracted more net migration than ours. According to the latest Census Bureau data, the population of the Tar Heel State grew by 145,907 last year — a larger gain than all but two states (Texas gained 391,243 residents and Florida 196,690). Adjusting for preexisting population, the number of North Carolinians grew by 1.3% last year, faster than all but South Carolina (1.5%) and Idaho (1.4%).
With more people comes more workers, consumers, creators, taxpayers — and travelers. Increases in highway usage aren’t proportional, of course. Only some North Carolinians are daily commuters. Others work remotely or part-time, or are students, caretakers, or retirees. People increasingly do some of their shopping, playing, and congregating online. But to say demand for highway use in the 21st century doesn’t rise in direct proportion to population growth is not to say it doesn’t rise it all. Newcomers are still moving around, mostly on powered wheels. And shopping online for clothes, gifts, household supplies, and food doesn’t eliminate the need to deliver most of these goods by car or truck.
In other words, so long as North Carolina remains an attractive place to live, work, invest, and rear children, highway usage will go up.
As is now evident in Raleigh, Charlotte, Wilmington, and other fast-growing cities, however, there is a seemingly immovable object in the way: an outmoded system for building and financing roadways. In a recent cover story, Triangle Business Journal reported on a troubled project just outside my office window: a planned widening of Six Forks Roads near Raleigh’s North Hills development. Initially projected in 2020 to cost $31 million, its price tag had tripled to $93 million by the time it was nixed in 2025.
One reason was the skyrocketing cost of the asphalt cement used in North Carolina’s road projects. From 2020 to 2026, it increased 55%. The cost of other imported materials shot up, too, as did land-acquisition and labor costs.
Competing bidders, supply constraints, tariffs, threats to shipping through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf — all are factors. But so is the longstanding mismatch, in North Carolina and most other places, between the demand for new capacity and the revenue required to meet it. As vehicles grow increasingly fuel-efficient or electrified, states collect few fuel-tax dollars per mile traveled. As motorists hold onto their vehicles for more years, states collect fewer taxes on auto sales.
To say state policymakers have ignored the conflict between rising demand and inadequate supply would be grossly unfair. Over time, the General Assembly has raised the motor-fuels tax, significantly reduced diversions of its proceeds to non-highway programs, redirected sales-tax revenues from auto parts to the Highway Fund, and changed the way the Department of Transportation sets priorities for highway construction and maintenance.
North Carolina is one of the best stewards of highway dollars in the United States, according to annual rankings by the Reason Foundation. Among the country’s 10 most-populous states, only Georgia fares better. Admittedly, some may deem this a form of damning by faint praise, given the competition. Other big states such as Illinois (37th), New York (47th), and California (49th) are transportation basket cases.
But our reforms haven’t gone far enough. Demand continues to rise. Our revenue and construction systems can’t keep up. Something’s gotta give.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Publisher's Pen: Democrats, save your party!

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Wednesday, 05 August 2026

Written by Bill Bowman

I believe in America. I believe in American values and traditions. And I believe in the Constitution and the two-party political system—all of which are just a few of the rudiments of American achievement that have allowed us to reach and celebrate our 250th anniversary.
America is the greatest nation on Earth. So why would we allow discontented immigrants and failed far-left-wing fanatics to attempt to destroy our nation?
The American Democratic Party needs to step up and sound off about the inherent privileges, rights, and freedoms we all share as Americans, and send a resounding message to the emerging demagogues of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Many of my closest friends and associates are members of the Democratic Party. They are not fanatical left-wing extremists. They love America and have no desire to destroy it. In fact, they are intelligent, hardworking, caring, and loving people—each successful in their own way, raising families, and enjoying the American way of life while pursuing the American Dream.
I know for a fact that they understand our civilization cannot survive in an environment of a lawless utopia that steals from the rich, exalts criminals, and victimizes the poor.
Sure, the socialist soundbites sound intriguing and desirable to the uninformed: free universal healthcare, affordable housing options, free groceries, free transportation, free babysitting services, universal rent control, and publicly owned social housing.
Free always sounds good to the uninformed. However, eliminating the Senate, packing the Supreme Court, defunding the police/ICE, opening our borders, and welcoming and harboring hideous criminals while overtaxing the wealthy are certainly not the answers. Socialism—a.k.a. communism—is not the answer. Honorable members of the Democratic Party, great Americans, know this and must make their voices heard. They know that the platform the DSA is promoting will not work and has never worked anywhere in the world.
True Democrats need to step up and ask the DSA demagogues just one simple question—and demand an answer:
Q: Based on the stated DSA platform, name just one community, state, or country where socialism has been successful.
A: There are none.
Socialism 101: A topic conveniently eliminated from young people's education.
Only the national Democratic Party can save itself from extinction and from being transformed into the DSA, which advocates for expanding immigrant voting rights, abolishing the U.S. Senate, and restructuring federal governance to increase direct democratic control (this is communism).
In closing, let me reiterate that I love this country. I love everything about it. As one of four children raised by a single working mother supported by Catholic Charities, she instilled in us the power and grace of God, along with the benefits and rewards of being honest and working hard. I have experienced the American Dream firsthand: the compassion of humanity, a well-rounded education, the privilege of serving in the U.S. Army, creating several successful businesses, and marrying and raising a wonderful family. I owe it all to God and a country that allowed me to be all that I wanted to be. This is the AMERICAN DREAM.
Please don't misinterpret my intention. Democratic Party members do not need to become Republicans or conservatives; they just need to be good Democrats! Don't lose your Party.
Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.