Meeting today to discuss school funding
A town hall-type meeting will be at 6 p.m. today at Harrisburg Middle School. Discussion will be Senate Bill 1, the evidence-based school funding model. The meeting will share facts about the bill and how it provides districts with the adequate, equitable and sustainable funding they need for their students to experience a quality education. The state is in debt to Harrisburg schools for more that $900,000. It is difficult to run our schools without the funding we should be getting. Questions will follow the presentation. If you want to know what the state can do, and must do, to keep our school healthy, attend this meeting.
Even though night starts to lengthen, the amount of possible sunshine reaches its zenith, and the percentage of totally sunny days is the highest of the year. The Corn Tassel Rains begin as June draws to a close. They normally last through the first week of July. Sycamore bark starts to shed, and thistle flowers change to down, marking the center of the year. Black raspberries decline quickly in warmer years; the best mulberries have fallen. Japanese beetles are reaching major levels in roses and ferns.
A 5 a.m. on July 3, the Earth reaches aphelion, the point at which it is about 153 million kilometers (its greatest distance) from the sun. Venus remains the morning star in the east throughout the summer. Jupiter is the evening star in the far west. Saturn lies below Hercules at sundown and then disappears into the western horizon after midnight. Mars is not visible in July and August. Cassiopeia and the Milky Way lie on the northern horizon in the late evening. Cygnus rises from the northeast, Ophiuchus from the east, and Sagittarius and Libra from the southeast. Centaurus and Corvus are low on the southern horizon. Hydra snakes across the southwest, Monoceros is setting in the west, and Capella and Perseus are disappearing into the northwest. (Countryside)
On Facebook, you are asked to like something that is posted. I would like a chuckle, an oh yes, or, at the very least, a smile.
"My wife and I own a Toastmaster Automatic Popup Model 1B14, which was made by the McGraw Electric Company in the late 1940s or early 1950s. We got it with the camp we bought in eastern Maine nearly two decades ago. It makes toast. Perfectly. Every time. You put in two pieces of bread. You press the Bakelite handle down. The toast pops up less than three minutes later, and the bread is crisply and evenly browned on both sides. Apparently it's been doing that for longer than I've been alive. This strikes me as a small miracle, given that every new toaster I've ever bought has been flawed in one or more ways: striated toasting, requirement of repeated down-clicks, passive-aggressive rebellion against the repeated down-clicks, far too much standing around and finger drumming. And still these often make toast that somehow fails to match the replicable standard of being crispy on the outside and pliable on the inside. Also, the new toasters that I buy invariably stop working after a few years, and require replacement. I understand we are in a golden age of technology, yet it appears we've lost the ability to produce machines that can consistently make toast." (Wayne Curtis)
The discussion of moving the Fourth of July holiday to the first Monday of July, so that we can have another three-day weekend, has arisen again. It does so whenever July 4 falls on a day other than a Monday or Friday. Personally, I don't want it to move. I wasn't in favor of moving Memorial Day from May 30, but I wasn't asked and didn't have a vote. I rather liked having a day off in the middle of the week. I am not a traveler or camper, preferring to stay home when the crazies are on the road and the airports are full.
And, as we know from Memorial Day, it is no longer a time of family, cemeteries and thanks. It is now a three-day weekend that really has no meaning.
The only signers of the Declaration of Independence - the reason for the Fourth of July celebration - to later serve as president of the United States were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. James Monroe died on July 4, 1831. He was the third president in a row to die on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, was born July 4, 1872. He was the only president to have been born on Independence Day.
Happy Fourth of July. May it be filled with family, fun and laughter, and a pause to remember those who gave us this day to celebrate. Be safe!</group><group id="96E0FC00-6AAA-4975-92C