So we were visiting my parents in LA this weekend, and I was flipping through the Sunday Los Angeles Times when what should I see but our own Michael Fagans' photograph of city councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan holding up the "In God We Trust" poster she and KHSD trustee Chad Vegas want to put up in every district classroom.

Thanks to Sullivan's In God We Trust - America nonprofit's crusade to place the national motto on display in every city hall in the state (and then the rest of the nation) and her role in our latest local brouhaha, Bako's again made the news in our neighbor to the south.

The story, by Times staffer Steven Chawkins, took up a good portion of page B3 on Sunday, Oct. 28, and was headlined thusly:

She wants a higher power at City Hall
Five years after getting Bakersfield to place "In God We Trust" in its council chambers, a conservative activist takes her motto campaign national.

The piece uses the current fracas (and Vegas' running battle with this newspaper) as a jumping-off point to talk about Sullivan and her foundation's ongoing mission.  Localizing the issue, the story mentions the campaign's success in Hawthorne, a small city south of LA in an inland part of the area called the South Bay.

The best part was Chawkins' closing, though:

"When asked whether she'd tried such liberal hotbeds as Berkeley or Santa Cruz, she paused.

"'Well...' she said.  'You're joking, right?'"

--Jason Sperber

AP Architects of Bakersfield is hosting its 11th annual pumpkin-carving contest, and the 19 entries are something to see. This is a far cry from the hack jobs I do at the last minute with my kids.

And here's the fun part: you too can vote, through an online interface. You can click to see detail shots of the entries in daylight and lit at night.

But here's the deal: Voting is only between 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Pacific time TODAY. So, get your vote in!

Winners will be unveiled on Oct. 30.

--Logan Molen

LA media writer Mike Schneider, whose blog, Franklin Avenue, I read daily to get a taste of my old 'hood, posted a round-up/critique of SoCal newspapers' front page coverage of the wildfires in a post called "Covering the Fire Coverage: Battle of the Screaming Headlines."

Compared side-by-side with nine other papers, I think we came out good.  At least I think how Mike described our cover was a compliment.  Heh.  Though you gotta go click thru to see what he said, because it includes some language that, yes, you can hear everyday on primetime television but, as our regular bloggers never get tired of hearing me remind them, doesn't quite square with our site Terms of Use.  Oh well.  Enjoy!

--Jason Sperber

Looks like Carolina Panther's quarterback Jake Delhomme is out for the season. That leaves Bakersfield native David Carr as the main QB.

Pretty lucky for a guy who was a bust in Houston and looked like he might be riding the pine for the rest of his career.

Now if he can just overcome this back injury he got in the New Orleans win maybe he has a chance of turning it around.

--Davin McHenry -- Web editor

ABC23 has an interesting story and video about a local photographer's decision not to honor a gift certificate for a family photo shoot because a grandfather and grandson don't fit the business's definition of a family.

Jennifer Grogan bought the Fahey Photography gift certificate at a charity auction. She gave the certificate to her parents but her mother died of cancer before the certificate could be used. That's when Grogan decided she wanted to have her dad and her son photographed together.

Fahey said the grandfather and grandson didn't fit his business's requirements for a family portrait. He instead offered to shoot a photo of Grogan, her husband, grandfather and grandson, but he said Grogan refused. 

Fahey said this complaint is the first he's received in 35 years of business, during which time he said he's donated $100,000 in services to local charities. Fahey said he has no plans to change the policy, which he put in place to ensure consistency in shooting family photos and to avoid discrimination. 

Meanwhile, another local photographer stepped up and donated a photo shoot.

Webster's New World Dictionary has a variety of definitions of "family," several of which support Fahey's policy. But it just seems kind of weird to push the issue on something like this.

Note: This post was updated on Tuesday, Nov. 9, to include some detail from Kevin Fahey.

--Logan Molen

ABC23 has a story and video about a local guy who bought some peanut clusters at a 99 Cent store only to find out they were infested with maggots! Ugh.

Leno made fun of the guy seeming to be satisfied with the "full refund" from the 99 Cent store.

KBAK, Channel 29, is reporting that four Bakersfield men are among the nine people involved in a fire at a Colorado hydroelectric plant. The station is reporting that five of the men have been killed. Here is a quote from the story:

"A family member has identified one of the men killed as 48 year-old Gary Boyce Foster of Bakersfield.

Rushing to the scene-- dozens of rescue workers were all focused on one thing... saving the lives of five contractors trapped 2000 feet below ground between an unscalable height and a raging fire.

Rescue teams had been in two way communication with the trapped contractors since the accident happened. "

-- Davin McHenry, web editor