Fireworks!

Before I start, Thanks Pat.  It's good to hear from you and even nicer to get the compliments.

I had forgotten how elaborate and beautiful the Lake Sherwood fireworks display is!  Now, I wouldn't go so far as to use "breath-taking," as a local broadcaster said about another display, but it was very cool.  (I think this is the same woman who said, on the same show, that the state police are in the midst of a crackdown on "drinkers who have had alcoholic beverages."  Of course, she meant "drivers."  It reminds me of another one of them who said the other day, "They have went....")

I tried to calculate, but I think this is the first Independence Day we've been home in  5 or 6 years.  Two or three of those years we were in Las Vegas.  One year we were in San Francisco and two others in the UP and on Torch Lake, having just returned from Las Vegas a day or two before.

I don't know what Lake Sherwood Asso members pay for the display, but it is the equivalent of cities' and counties' displays.  The only think missing was the whistler fireworks; I was a bit disappointed at that.  But it was a wonderful display.

Several airplanes circled the light show.  I wonder how it looked from them.  And, I always wonder about the animals at the state park across the street.  How do they respond to the loud booms!!!!?  Are they frightened out of their wits?

It lasted about half an hour and was a lot of fun to watch.

On another note, I read an article last week bemoaning the debt graduating college seniors are often facing.  Sometimes it's tens of thousands, or for graduate/med/law students, hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I fully agree that's daunting and needs to be addressed, not just "bemoaned."  I don't favor, however, "student-debt forgiveness."  To quote Herbert Hoover, when asked if the US should "forgive" Allies WW1 debts, "No, they hired the money, didn't they?"  Imagine the billions of dollars lenders would have to eat/swallow if Congress did, not what's right, but what's popular?  Talk about a banking crisis!  We need to look at the reasons for a college education costing so much, almost $20,000 a year at public schools and nearly triple that or more at some elite private colleges, alas, like Amherst.  I read this week that several of the state universities have upped tuition by 3-4% for next fall--isn't the cost of college the fastest rising expense the US has faced over the past decades, outpacing petrol?  I'm not sure, but it must be close.  What to look at to try to reduce costs?  First, how about getting the federal government out of the loan business?  Every time it gets involved in something, something becomes more expensive.  We should look at the amenities provided by the colleges.  I sometimes think it's a marketing game rather than a chance at an education, colleges competing for students by providing perks.  Many of these dorms provide nicer living facilities than I have here at home.  Of course, one might argue that colleges much keep up or risk losing students to other colleges that have wonderful living quarters.  Someone must start somewhere.  Also, what's the deal with full-time professors often teaching just one or two classes a semester, only two semesters a year?  That's six or eight hours of class time.  I don't understand why a full-load is considered 12 to 16 hours a term for these full-time professors, although many of the tenured ones teach one or two.  Yes, they must grade papers (Hey, don't a lot of them have grad assistants to do that?  And aren't more and more of them using Scan-Trons and other electronic things that grade papers for them?) and prepare for classes, at least I hope they are still preparing.  But if there's an hour or even two for these for every hour in the classroom, that still leaves only 18-24 (I used my calculator!) hours devoted to teaching.  And if they are doing research the rest of the time, if they earn money from that research, shouldn't it, at least part of it, go to the colleges which are still paying them to do it?  Most public school teachers, K-12, are in class 25-30 hours a week, with students.  Then add in the paper-grading, the preparation, the often-ludicrous paperwork, etc.  And many colleges overexpanded in the '80s and '90s, creating bigger campuses, building more dorms, classrooms, gyms, etc.  Those mortgages must be paid and guess who's paying them??????  I think there are solutions to the high cost of a college education.  Does anyone want to tackle them?