In July 2021, the Watson Institute of Public Affairs at Brown University reported that since September 11, 2001, 7,057 US military personnel have been killed in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Civilian contractor deaths reached 8,000, although the institute admits this is an estimate considering many contractors were not US citizens, so some deaths went unreported.

Our vacation airline tickets in September were funded by accumulated miles on our Alaska Airlines credit card. While on vacation this summer, my brother-in-law graciously hosted eight of us for dinner. He tried to downplay the generous hospitality by saying he had just gotten his “cash back” award from his credit card company. The “cash back” credit card had accumulated a tidy sum of money, paying for a very nice dinner.

Milei’s administration in Argentina has gone through its first month. It could be argued that it is too early to make an assessment but so many events have taken place this first month that a prudent review is warranted.

The phrase “great replacement” has been increasingly thrown around by both conservatives and progressives in recent years. Conservatives claim the “great replacement theory” explains deliberate efforts by regime operatives to replace non-Hispanic whites with various groups of Hispanics and non-whites. Progressives, on the other hand, claim it is all a racist conspiracy theory. 

Acronyms—LOL, PIN, ASAP, CAPTCHA, RADAR, LASAR, SCUBA, and others that combine the initial letters of other words, the whole being pronounced as a single word—have become part of the English language. Let’s coin another one: WAITT (no, that’s not a misspelling of WAIT), an acronym for “We’re All in This Together.”