There are two sides to every story. There is a flip side to all the hoopla over the SmartMeter technology and energy rates. What about conservation? What about people actually paying for it because they use it? People need to quit squaking.  Energy, like many other things, is not an infinate resource. Its simple economics people-when demand rises-supply falls and prices rise. If we want energy prices to go down, we have a responsibility to use less energy. It's that simple.  PG&E is just following the supply and demand laws of pricing. But certain politicians want to make a name for themselves by bullying the utility into following unsound business practices simply because the rate payers are selfish and fail to see the big picture-which is when supply is stretched, prices go up.

        & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;         ;                 & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;         ;      By Patrick

Is the lunch box becoming an endangered species? I scratch my head every day I walk into the breakroom at lunch and see my co workers walking in with McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Subway. Yours truly is breaking out last night's leftover lasagna and a soda pop from the fridge. We are just one of those weird families, I guess, who spend ungodly amounts of money each month stocking our pantry and fridge. Why spend eight to ten dollars on A BURGER, FRIES, AND A DRINK, when that much in groceries might feed me for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner? Why even GO to the supermarket when your just going to end up hitting the drive through anyways?

I pondered this. Does anyone ACTUALLY pack their lunch, or have we sold our souls to fastfood. I have nothing against fast food, don't get me wrong. It's a wonderful way to reward yourself or your kid for a job well done. It acts as a wonderful break from the routine and mundane, but I object to it becoming such a MAINSTAY of American life. The Big Mac and the $4 Starbucks Mocha have replaced meatloaf and the good old fashioned home coffee pot.  How frivilous! I wonder sometimes how wasteful we have become when we spend hours at the supermarket, spending HUNDREDS of dollars to boot, then a day later (before the ground beef you bought at 5 bucks per pound is even frozen) spend money on fast food. It doesn't taste any better persay. Its just wrapped up in fancy packaging (more cr@p for the landfill).  I couldn't believe my eyes when I say the cafeteria menu for my 6 year old son. When I went to school, it was salisbury steak and french bread pizza.Now, I kid you not-now its Taco Bell Burritos and Pizza Hut Pizza! What is the world coming to?!?!?

No wonder why Americans are in debt. They've allowed the good ole fashion lunch  box to die a slow death? What has lead to this trend? Could it be the demise of teaching Home Economics in school? The McDonalization of society? A combination of those factors and others? What are your thoughts? WHO KILLED THE LUNCH BOX?

I'm calling out a certain writer who recently submitted a letter to the editor that disgusted me. John Stoll spent 20 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. For those of you that are Bakersfield natives, as I am, you remember the molestation ring cases of the 1980's. Lives were destroyed. The writer states that she served on one of those juries. Well, guess what? You were deceived. You were made fools by a legal and social welfare system that cared little about children's welfare and more about being able to put a notch in its belt. I know a thing or two about all of this.The only abuse that took place was the cohersion that was perpetrated by officers and social workers. That's right. NOT TECHNICALITIES-COHERSION. Officers and social workers told these children that if they told them what THEY wanted to hear, they would let them go home, but if they didn't, they would never see mommy or daddy again. Case after case would go to trial, despite the fact that no physical evidence could be produced evidence would be hidden from defense lawyers or evidence like tapes would magically be 'lost' or 'destroyed'. Interview techniques were used (read up on the disgusting joke officer's they called the 'feather test') that had been disproven as nonsense were admitted into evidence by judges that would just assume 'hangem' high' as well. Technicallity denotes that procedural errors were made. I'm sure that the appears judges on these cases would contend that there was a complete breakdown of integrity and validity by the County of Kern: everything happened from cohersion to tampering of evidence on those cases. To top that off, most of the victims, including the ones in the Stoll are saying 20 years later that the MOLESTATION NEVER HAPPENED!. The victims are recounting vividly how they were interrogated and manipulated by the system. How dare you, Mary Stanley, remark that John Stoll got off on a technicallity! The true vicitms were the families that were destroyed by our DA's malicious pursuit for notoriety!

I can respect the belief that schools should be focusing in on the core subject (reading, writing, and arithmatic), however there are a few other vital subjects that all fall under the umbrella 'Life Education'.  We need to mandate sex education for ALL high schoolers. Parents are crying 'hey, that's a parent's job'. Yeah! Great job parents! Kern County has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates of any county in California. The dinner table conversation is obviously leaving something out. Some of these parents don't even know where their kids are half the time. We might as well arm them with the knowledge they need to keep themselves safe. On a grander scale we need to not just teach our teens about sex, but about relationships in general. Teach them about self respect and respect for their partner. Despite being California's Bible Belt, domestic violence, rape, and divorce are just as much a part of this community as it would be in Los Angeles, or other 'heathen' city. Bad relationship choices have both social and economic consequences (single parenthood is rarely by choice). A bad decision in a relationship can have more dire consequences than not understanding a quadratic equation. Also, a semester of budgetting and finance should be a hs graduation requirement. Many of our hs graduates are being sent out into the world with a credit card, having NEVER been taught to balance a check book. Lets face it people: basic life skills should be REQUIRED curriculumn-age appropriate of course-and waiting until these kids are 18 is abuse of the age appropriate claus. What do you all think? Do you have other ideas of one of these 'life' issues that could be taught in school?