Wednesday we celebrated the greatest day in our national history. Sound ridiculous? Not to John Adams, who in 1776 wrote to his wife, Abigail: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. ... It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” At least he got the pomp and parade part right.

During this election season, thousands of Americans are registering to vote and participating in the political process for the first time. Their energy and enthusiasm for political change could help renew public engagement with the issues of the day.

In our State College service center, there is a set of four nails from the Mount Eagle Church of Christ building. A member of our staff, who attends that church, placed them there as a reminder of the meeting house he attended nearly all of his life.

Among the many dark tidings for American conservatism, there is one genuine bright spot. Over the past five years, a group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers has emerged on the scene.

When Barack Obama decided to throw off the constraints on campaign spending that go with the acceptance of public financing, he was rightly criticized for rigging the system in his own favor.

Do you immediately grab the On Centre section when the Centre Daily Times is delivered Monday through Thursday?

So all we know for sure is that something happened in Gloucester, Mass. What that something was depends on whom you believe.

WEYBRIDGE, Vt. — Last winter, which in Vermont is serious business, a gang of local teens — and a few people a little older — got a bright idea. The Homer Noble Farm in Ripton, famous as the summer home of Robert Frost between 1938 and 1963, stood empty. It struck them as just the place for a party.

“Cindy Unleashed” screamed the headline on the Drudge Report. Did Cindy McCain really go after Michelle Obama? Not exactly, but close enough. There was only one right answer to the question McCain was asked by Kate Snow on ABC’s “Good Morning America” this week about whether McCain was “insulted” by Obama’s comment some time ago that it was only with her husband’s run for president that she was “really proud” of her country. The right answer was the one Laura Bush gave: Leave Michelle Obama alone. Obama already has explained ad nauseam that she didn’t mean to say that she never had been proud of her country before.

Visit after visit to the Geisinger Medical Center in Danville for her child’s treatment got Donna Ireland, of Philipsburg, thinking.

On a planet ruled, often by whim, by kings, czars, emperors, ayatollahs, popes, sultans, rajas, caliphs and warlords, the very notion that "all men are created equal" and had "certain inalienable rights" such as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was radical in the extreme.

When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom spoke to the Sacramento Press Club a few months ago, his body language bespoke ambition.

A legislative staff analysis of Senate Bill 823 declares that during the 1980s, California acquired the reputation of being "the diploma mill capital of the world."

Californians will get a chance to make history this November, an opportunity to seize control of their government from the politicians, handlers and consultants who have rigged the game to serve their own interests.

So the new fiscal year begins without a state budget in place. So what's new?

The layer of smoke from hundreds of wildfires that covers much of the state is a dark reminder that while living in California has many benefits, Californians face perennial peril from fires, earthquakes, floods and other calamities.

California could soon become the first state to require employers to give paid sick leave to every worker.

California had about 27 million residents when Californians for Population Stabilization was formed in 1986 to raise alarms about the impacts of continued population growth in what was already the nation's most populous state.

Given California's infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it's rare for the state's politicians to undertake a comprehensive and expansive change of public policy.

As he so often does, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now finds himself in the middle between his fellow Republicans and the Democrats in the Legislature, this time on the question of whether California government needs a new spending limit to end its cycle of boom-and-bust budgeting.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators are searching – so far, in vain – for a solution to the whopping budget deficit that can pass political muster inside and outside the Capitol.

The Legislature's budget analyst issued a report last week on the chronic problems that the state's community colleges encounter in instilling the fundamental reading, writing and mathematics skills their students need to obtain college educations.

The abortive effort to recall Republican state Sen. Jeff Denham this year will occupy a niche in the history of California political oddities.

Consider this a warning: California's November ballot will be packed with divisive and confusing ballot measures with potentially huge social and economic effects that won't be fully evident before voters make their decisions.

Any realistic overview of California's campaign finances begins with a simple and inescapable fact: The men and women we elect to state office, from the governor down, wield enormous financial authority.

Gunplay continues: Used to be, the loudest thing you would hear in Fair Oaks Village was a crowing rooster. Or somebody whining about the famed/infamous fowl.

The state's whopping budget deficit is obviously a huge political headache for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators, and it shows no signs of being resolved quickly. But it's also an object lesson in unintended consequences.

What we call "public education" in California is an amorphous collection of countless specific programs, pots of money, governmental entities, political stakeholders, laws and regulations – not to mention, of course, about 6 million kids who are supposed to be educated to take their places in the adult world.

One big reason Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's drive to pass health care reform failed earlier this year was that many Democrats in the Legislature favored a Canadian-style plan instead. Under that kind of system, the government would decide which benefits people would get, determine how much to pay doctors, hospitals, drug companies and labs, and then collect the taxes needed to finance it all.

Eleven years ago, after much political and pedagogic angst, California adopted a historically rigorous set of academic standards for the state's K-12 students, one of which – and one of the most contentious – was that eighth-graders should learn the rudiments of algebra.