Beech Tree News Network

Thursday, March 24th was World Tuberculosis Day, commemorating the approximately 1.5 million people killed by the disease each year.

Opponents of charter schools coming to Kentucky are pro-choice after all.

At least that’s how it would have appeared to a casual observer during the recent hours-long debate in the Kentucky House of Representatives over legislation funding these public schools in the commonwealth.

Charters can innovate because they’re not constrained by regulations hobbling teachers and administrators in traditional public schools.

Continuing with my cover series, we next hit upon “Do Ya” is a song written by Jeff Lynne and was originally recorded by The Move.  The song became a hit for ELO (Electric Light Orchestra”.  The group, lead by Lynne, was originally a side project of The Move.  Lynne wrote the song in 1971.  It was one of two songs on the b-side of the hit “California Man”, credited to The Move.  The other was Roy Wood’s “Ella James”).  In the U.S., the b-side proved to be more popular than the A, so the song became more popular than the A.  It was also The Move’s only hit in the U.S., albe

Week 10

As time springs forward, so too has the 2022 biennial state budget as various state budget bills (executive, legislative and judicial) crossed significant milestones in week 10.

The state Senate officially placed its fingerprint onto the most significant budget related bill, the executive branch’s two year budget, which is House Bill 1. HB 1 alone allocates $26.3 billion of your taxpayer dollars and the Senate’s priorities reflected in the Senate Committee Substitute 1 (SCS 1) to HB 1. 

When I was a kid, people didn’t say, “Stop being so dramatic,” if you were overreacting to a situation.  They would say instead, “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill.”  Evidently, the moles in my front yard didn’t get the memo, because the earth there is rising into sizable mounds of dirt.  For a while, I thought groundhogs had taken up residence.

            Something that men have observed for many years is the fact that words carry power. In 1839, playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Though memorable, this sentiment is not original to him. In the early 17th century, Robert Burton wrote, “A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.” Before Mr.

House Bill 8 offers a responsible approach for eventually eliminating Kentucky’s punitive personal income tax, using one-time budget-surplus dollars to cut the tax’s rate from 5% to 4% in 2023 and then ensuring adequate revenues exist before future cuts are triggered.

The bill makes up some of the revenue by expanding the state’s sales tax to services deemed as “nonessential” like watercraft docking and cosmetic surgery.  

Somedays you don’t want to get out of bed.  Let’s get under the covers.  Our first cover is “Rainy Night in Georgia”.  See what I did there with the under the covers? “Rainy Night in Georgia” was written by Tony Joe White in 1967 and popularized by R&B vocalist Brook Benton in 1970.  It was originally released by White on his 1969 album called Continued, on Monument Records, shortly before Benton’s hit single was issued. 

How do animals survive the winter? My daughters and I were texting about this subject recently. So, I did some reading about various animals’ winter survival methods. Although I knew much of what I read, I found a few details that I had forgotten or never knew.

Friday morning, as I reached for my daily reading on the lower shelf of my bookcase, I said out loud, “I need a column.”  As if on cue, a half-empty box of Whitman’s assorted chocolates fell from the upper shelf and hit me on the head.  I laughed then decided to write about the chocolates and the role they have played in my life since childhood.