Men's Health magazine, in another monthly survey, is taking Bakersfield to task for its lack of charitable giving during the holidays.

The magazine gave Bakersfield a D grade and a rank of 78 out of 100 cities nationwide. Our friends in Fresno fared horribly, earning an F and a 97 ranking. Los Angeles was 95th. Yonkers, N.Y., ranked last, while Madison, Wis., earned the only A+.

In determining its rankings, Men's Health measured:

• Which cities account for the largest online donations to charities (as measured by Convio, an online software provider)
• The number of donations to Goodwill for December
• The money collected via the Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign
• Number of toys donated to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation

What do you think of this survey? Do you donate through any of the four paths described above, or otherwise donate time or money during the holidays?

Our friends at KGET have a short story on so-called secret menus at local restaurants. 

Some of those menus -- such as In-N-Out and Jamba Juice -- aren't so secret given that their items are all over the web. In-N-Out's secret menu isn't secret at all, given it has its own webpage. Jamba Juice, to its credit, doesn't appear to have such a page on its site, although there are all kinds of other web references to secret flavors like Gummy Bear and Sour Patch Kid.

But KGET found menu items at four local restaurants -- Lie-N-Den, Sushi Kato, Mama Tosca's and Narducci's -- that's aren't so publicized. 

What "secret" menu items are you aware of at local restaurants?

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Fall brings Friday night football and halftime shows, but for the bands the hard work carries over into Saturdays at weekly local and regional competitions.

The Pep and Pageantry Arts Association of Central California has posted tons of videos from 23 Kern County high school marching bands performing at a variety of recent local competitions, including Saturday's big show at Stockdale High School.

PPAACC also hosts videos from Winter/Spring drumline competitions, which are an indoor version of halftime shows.

As those involved in the grind can attest, these performances are a testament to the hard work, discipline and pageantry that's occurring at local schools big and small.

File this under Mildly Surprising: Bakersfield ranks last among 26 California cities in a so-called Pedestrian Danger Index that measures “the relative risk of walking, adjusted for exposure.”

The rankings from a group called Transportation For America gave Bakersfield a 128.0 score, well above the next worst California city, Stockton, at 112.4, Fresno was the fourth worst, at 92.8. The safest among the 26 cities measured was San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles (15.4).

The scores were calculated by dividing the “average pedestrian fatality rate” (using data from 2007-2008) by the percentage of residents walking to work (data from 2000). The thinking is that cities with higher percentages of people walking to work will naturally have higher fatalitiy rates, so Transportation For America created the Pedestrian Danger Index to compensate for those differences. Clearly the different time frames for the two datasets flaw the accuracy of the rankings. but something tells me that while the score might change, Bakersfield would still rank near the bottom.

Bakersfield’s score was based on 39 pedestrian fatalities in 2007-08 and only 1.9% of workers walking to their jobs.

Incredibly, some cities were far worse than Bakersfield, with Orlando-Kissimmee and Tampa-St. Petersburg both earning scores above 200. Two other Florida cities – Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach and Jacksonville, ranked 3^rd and 4^th. Moral of the story: If you visit Florida, never leave your car.

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West High graduate Ryan Mathews currently leads NCAA Division 1 football in rushing, and at least one member of the media thinks the Fresno State junior deserves serious respect for college sport's top award: The Heisman Trophy, which is awarded to the so-called best player in college football.

Paul Loeffler of KMJ Radio -- the Bulldogs' flagship station in Fresno -- writes:

"Ryan Mathews gets no respect. That's right, the guy who opposing defenses see as danger on the field is the Rodney Dangerfield of college football."

Traditonally, the Heisman has been awarded to athletes at top football schools at or near the top of the rankings. Fresno State is neither, despite periodic ventures in to the Top 20 in recent years, including David Carr's senior season when the Bulldogs cracked the Top 10. So, Mathews realistically has no chance of winning the Heisman, despite having an incredible season.

If there's a consolation, Mathews is a finalist for other awards this season -- including the Maxwell Award as the nation's best player and the Doak Walker Award recognizing the nation's best running back -- but Loeffler maintains Mathews shouldn't be ruled out simply because he's not at a so-called top-tier football school:

"Mathews' results are legitimate and speak for themselves. Comparing apples to apples, he comes out ahead. My advice to Heisman voters? Don't fault Mathews for who he hasn't played. Look at the quality defenses he has gone up against, and how he's outperformed everyone else on those teams' schedules. There are still four games to go in the regular season, but at this point, no one has produced more effectively and consistently for his team as well as Ryan Mathews has."

Do you think Mathews has a chance at the Heisman?

A Bakersfield man with a past conviction for drug trafficking and several interesting skirmishes with the law -- including using a jackhammer on a neighbor's wall -- is in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar dispute between Chevron and Ecuador. 

According to The Washington Post, a group called Amazon Watch is questioning the integrity of former Bakersfield resident Wayne Hansen, whom Chevron says has evidence of bribery involving an Ecuadoran court. Chevron is fighting an Ecuadoran court order to pay billions in damages related to exploration work years ago. 

According to the Post, Hansen's past is colorful, to say the least. He was "found guilty and served jail time in a 1986-87 drug case for conspiring to import 275,000 pounds of marijuana. In addition, the group said, Hansen had a series of legal scuffles in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif. He lost civil lawsuits for an attack by his pit bulls on a neighbor and for damaging a neighbor's wall with a jackhammer, the Associated Press said."

One of the artists behind Mobile Haiku fond some inspiration while traveling through Bakersfield, burping out two posts that capture the weather and economy of our fair town.

The blog's tagline is "Seventeen syllables / is all you can cram into / such a tiny screen," a nod to what Webster's defines as "a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons."

Here are two posts from "levinebar" titled simply "Bakersfield" and "Bakersfield II":

"Bakersfield"

South of Cajon pass
I emerge into daylight
 as if waking up

Question: "Cajon" is not really close to Bakersfield. Maybe should be "Tejon"?

"Bakersfield II"

Dimly, through the murk
nodding donkeys slurp up crude
 must be Bakersfield

Not a bad visual description.

Finally, not sure if a subsequent post titled "damnation" was inspired by Kern or not, but it's an indictment on our desire to make green things that are not:

"damnation"
Dante keeps a place
 for those who carve golf courses
 out of the desert

Bakosphere knows that is probably a dangerous question, but do you have any refreshing haiku to share? 

Several new/reasonably new songs are doing more than name-dropping Bakersfield -- they're centered around the city, its roots and reputation, and its changing face.

First off, Social Distortion has been performing its song “Bakersfield” in concert for a number of years, but now come reports that the band has polished the song to the point they’re ready to record a version in the studio for release in 2010.

Social D and leader Mike Ness are regulars in Bakersfield, and although Social D is known as one of the best punk bands ever, the Bakersfield Sound and other country influences are everpresent in many of Ness’ songs. Ness was visibly touched when he first performed in Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace a while back, feeling humbled to be on stages in Buck’s house. 

A different take on “Bakersfield” comes from Jeff Williams, who chronicles the dust and changes in the city’s look, among other things in a Sept. 30 performance at the Kern County Fair.

Finally, you can expect frequent Bakersfield references in the “Bakersfield and Beyond” radio show. The latest show featured “Bakersfield Music” by Tim Has (from the album “Bushpilot Buckaroo”).

 

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Pedro Martinez on Saturday was taken back in time to his days in Bakersfield when an unidentified friend from Southern California gave him a memento from his days as a Bakersfield Dodger.

That memento, according to Delaware Online blogger Scott Lauber, was a baseball signed by the 1991 Bakersfield Dodgers, a team that also included fellow Major Leaguers Mike Piazza and Raul Mondesi. That's pretty good company.

Martinez, who is pitching against the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, thrived in Bakersfield but never found a groove in Los Angeles, LA later traded him, and he achieved greatness elsewhere. Now, nearly 20 years after his stint in Bakersfield, he's looking to beat the Dodgers for a small bit of revenge. As Lauber writes, the signed baseball served "as one of many reminders of what could've been."

Bakosphere has noted regularly that the regular stream of surveys, lists and the like that rank cities nationwide typically are fraught with goofy methodology, odd data sources and just plain bad info.

With that in mind, Bakosphere didn't even note the recent Daily Beast list that ranked Fresno last among "smart cities." For one reason, Bakersfield didn't make the list, which included only 55 cities. So, to Fresno's credit, 55 and last on a ridiculous list is better than 56 and lower.

But, the Contra Costa Times decided to travel to Fresno to document how the city is coping with the psychological impact of this horrific ranking and how it deals with the constant ridicule from other snooty locales (hmmm, wonder what that's like?).

OK, so far we're sympathetic to Fresno's plight in this Daily Beast silliness. ... until the end of the story, when the Times writer wonders, gee, is Fresno the end of the world or is there a place even they stoop to ridicule? Here's the predictable quote from Fresno Bee music columnist Mike Osegueda:

" 'Who do we make fun of?" says Osegueda, without hesitation. "Bakersfield.' "

Al Smith, president of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, laughingly piles on with a similar comment in the accompanying video (in which Osegueda actually comes across well; he also posted several takes on his blog and in a column defending the city).

So, here's our question: Who deserves our scorn? Is Fresno still our prime target or is it such an easy target that other places are more deserving of our ridicule?