Today is April 14, a day most Americans know as the day in which they madly scramble to finish their taxes before the deadline for filing tomorrow, April 15. But something of great moment happened on this day, a long time ago.

Here is something to remember! Next Sunday we leave Daylight Savings Time, at 2 AM local time. So don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour at that time or you will be really early to Church that morning! 

I sit tonight watching the beginning of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. The New York Yankees are tied one game apiece with the Texas Rangers, and tonight’s game is in Yankee Stadium.
The place is packed and the excitement is so thick you can cut it with a knife (well, almost!). It is so easy for all of us to be excited and motivated by the competition of sports.

A new book caught my eye this week, or rather my ears, as I first heard about this new tome while listening to a radio interview with the author, Eric Foner. You would think that with the vast plethora of books available about Lincoln that we would scarcely need another ( there are more books about Lincoln than almost any other person who ever lived!). But in this case, the author has provided something very useful by examining the course of Lincoln’s thinking about slavery and about African Americans in general, and how that thinking changed over time. I highly recommend “Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World” by Eric Foner. Here is a great review - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Reynolds-t.html

Great news today, especially for those of you looking for school assemblies in California or in general on the West Coast.

If you are looking for ideas for school assemblies that are relevant to the curriculum then one good plan is to try and tie things to the calendar. I like to think of these as “seasonal” programs.