Veterans Day 2025 Address by Fr. Michael Plekon

By Dennis Mammana Week of June 28 - July 4, 2026 It was bound to happen: The heat of summer has arrived at my desert home. As I write these words, it's 115 F outside, and it's just the beginning of the blistering heat we'll experience for months. This is no surprise, of course. We're all quite familiar with this seasonal pattern; in fact, most of us learned in grade school about the seasons and what causes them, but you'd be surprised how little some people remember of those basic lessons. I was stunned when I first heard of a 1987 video in which filmmakers Matthew H. Schneps and Philip Sadler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics interviewed recent Harvard University graduates, faculty members and alumni — some with science backgrounds — and asked them a simple question: What causes our seasons? Twenty-one of the 23 people interviewed did not know the answer. This is Harvard, people. Harvard! If you can't believe it, watch it online here. Oh, sure, they offered elaborate explanations and tried to be convincing, but it's obvious they had no clue. The most common reason they cited for the summertime heat was that the Earth lies closest to the sun at that time of year, and the cold of winter is caused by our greater distance from the sun. Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it? But it's wrong. So very wrong. Now it is true that our planet orbits the sun not in a circular path but in an elliptical path, and that our distance from the sun varies throughout the year, but only by about 3%. What seems counterintuitive, however, is that we're closest to the sun not during our Northern Hemisphere summer but during our winter! In 2026, the Earth will reach its farthest point from the sun ("aphelion") on July 6, when we will lie 94,502,961 miles from our star. This occurs during the Northern Hemisphere summer. The Earth's nearest point ("perihelion") won't arrive until Jan. 2, 2027 (during our winter), when we'll be 91,406,556 miles from the sun. Of course, if you happen to live in the Southern Hemisphere, where seasons are reversed from those north of the equator, our planet's perihelion does occur during their summertime. But that's a story for another time. So, if our distance from the sun doesn't cause seasonal temperature changes throughout the year, what does? Well, as we all learned in third grade, it's the tilt of the Earth's axis. Our planet is tipped about 23.4 degrees to the plane of its orbit around the sun. From mid-March to mid-September, the Earth's Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, allowing solar rays to beat directly down upon us. During these longer days, heat accumulates in our atmosphere while having little time to escape into space during the much shorter nights. In other words, it's not our changing distance from the sun that causes the buildup of summer heat; it's the tilt of our planet that produces long days and short nights — just as it always has. Unfortunately, few still seem to understand this simple phenomenon, and I suspect if we did this same interview today, we'd see even less informed answers than four decades ago! Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com . Learn More About Borrego Springs

By Miriam Raftery - www.eastcountymagazine.org June 26, 2026 (San Diego’s East County)— The Society of Professional Journalists’ San Diego Chapter last night presented four Excellence in Journalism awards to ECM editor Miriam Raftery and associate editor Karen Pearlman. The awards honored ECM’s coverage of issues involving the El Capitan Dam in Lakeside, aerial firefighting readiness, the impacts of mass deportations, and our guide to travel in San Diego County’s desert regions. Raftery received a first place award for an audio feature titled “ Who will be there when they come for you ?” Hear the interview with immigration attorney Nora Milner, which aired on East County Magazine’s radio show on KNSJ. You can also read a summary of that interview by Alex Schorr. In the interview, Milner voiced alarm over blatant denials of due process for immigrants under the Trump administration, warned that even citizens are not safe, and offered tips for those concerned about being visited by ICE or detained for potential deportation. Pearlman took second place for investigative/enterprise story in the daily reporting category for “ Proposed Lakeside sand mine owner sues city of San Diego for damages from water release at El Capitan Dam .” Her investigative reporting detailed the dangerous conditions of the old earthen dam and the potentially catastrophic loss of life if it were to rupture. He report spotlighted how the city’s failure to repair or rebuild the dam necessitated releasing water which raised the water table, resulting in a downstream property owner suing the city for destroying the site’s sand-mining potential. Third place for investigative/enterprise reporting went to Raftery for her article, “ Does the San Diego region have adequate aerial firefighting capability for the coming season? ” Raftery initiated the investigative report after learning that Cal Fire’s Ramona air base would be closed for nearly a year and that an SDG&E air crane on which fire authorities had relied for aerial firefighting support was no longer available to the manufacturer declining to renew the lease. Pearlman and Raftery shared a third place award for travel writing for their comprehensive piece titled “ Our Guide to San Diego’s desert destinations .” The article was written as part of a series of regional guides for East County Magazine’s newly launched “ Visit East County ” section highlighting travel and tourism destinations in San Diego’s inland region.

Written bids are due July 20 for ongoing landscape maintenance services beginning Aug. 1, 2026.

Borrego Sun youth intern Mia Garcia shares a poem about courage and her first live performance.

FY 26/27 application and instructions will be available on July 1, 2026.