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Voters shunned the June ballot NASA to the rescue! Governor, it’s time to kick some legislative booty Slowing down makes sense Kudos to our K-9 teams We should honor our leaders Good, bad in valley college trend Help nurses teach Chad Vegas didn’t really mean the oath he swore Facts tortured to justify decision June 06 July 06 August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 June 06 May 06 April 06 March 06 February 06 January 06 December 05 November 05 October 05 September 05 August 05 July 05 June 05 May 05 April 05 March 05 February 05 Blog RollAsk The Californian Editorials Entertainment Eye of Bakersfield Faith Forum Fired Up! Inside Sports Neighbors Right Thinking Sound Off Talk of the Town 
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PUBLISHED 12-2-07 -----
The humiliation is bad enough. But the damage that has been done to Kern County government’s credibility and public trust is the real tragedy.
A former, powerful Kern County department head has gone missing, just as the Board of Supervisors and state officials want to question him about his use of taxpayers’ dollars.
Last week, Kern County supervisors directed their attorneys and staff to play a twisted version of “Where’s Waldo”...
PUBLISHED 12-2-07 ----
They are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters. They are mothers and fathers. They are sacrificing much and risking their lives to serve us.
They are the men and women in our armed forces who are serving in such dangerous places as Iraq and Afghanistan. They are also military personnel who are stationed in safer places, but who are lonely — away from their families during this holiday season.
The Californian’s Opinion section invites...
It’s a distressing byproduct of the foreclosure epidemic: abandoned homes, surrounded by ragged, brown lawns, dying trees and withering shrubs. All too often, there’s a murky, green pool around back too, a potential breeding ground for West Nile virus.
Between January and October, some 2,174 Kern County homes entered foreclosure, the vast majority undoubtedly in the Bakersfield metro area. Thousands more were on the verge.
No one has counted the number, but many of...
Tragically, government agencies that promise to install additional safety barriers at rural rail crossings move much slower than the trains that keep killing motorists.
Monday morning, a 37-year-old Delano man, who was the brother of the city’s mayor, died when his pickup truck was struck by a freight train north of Shafter.
Martin Ayon Rios was driving a pickup truck pulling a trailer westbound on Merced Avenue, near Highway 43. A fast-moving freight train slammed into...
Here’s a Christmas gift worth considering for the teen in your life: A book.
Sure, he or she may force a tortured smile and place the book next to those socks that weren’t exactly at the top of the wish list, either. But then that underscores the point, doesn’t it?
Teens aren’t doing enough reading for pleasure, as a report released last week by the National Endowment for the Arts revealed. Chalk it up to television, iPods, cell phones and instant messaging.
...
You may still be picking turkey out of your teeth and cursing the roll of fat that expanded last week around your waist.
You fear the Thanksgiving waddle you have mastered will carry you into the holiday season, adding even more pounds to your quickly rounding body.
Push away from the dinner table and resist the sweets scattered about your workplace. You don’t have to wait until Jan. 1 to make that weight-loss resolution. You don’t have to consider the fatty consequences of...
The U.S. Supreme Court will attempt to solve the constitutional dilemma: “What were those Founding Fathers thinking?”
The quandary is over the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an amendment that has long generated debate, passion and conflicting interpretations.
Early next year, the high court will review an appeals court decision that struck down a 31-year-old ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. The justices’ decision is likely to influence gun laws...
PUBLISHED 11/25/07 ----
California is tinderbox dry — ready to explode into fire. Firefighting equipment was placed around the Southland this Thanksgiving weekend as Santa Ana winds were in the forecast.
October’s devastating Southland wildfires, which killed 10 people, injured 130, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and caused more than $2 billion in damage, triggered a new round of second-guessing local government decisions to allow homes to be built in fire-prone areas.
...
PUBLISHED 11/27/07 ---
The restaurant letter-grading system implemented last July is working.
No, that “B” posted in the window of your favorite eatery does not tell you everything you might need to know about the kitchen staff’s safety training or dedication to cleanliness.
It can’t. It’s a letter.
That letter can give diners only the most cursory indication of what’s going on behind the swinging doors....
PUBLISHED 11/27/07 ----
Republicans portray themselves as defenders of morality and protectors of children, family values, law and order, sobriety, propriety and decency.
Why, then, would a Republican official — representing the conservative Central Valley, of all places — try to stand in the way of a policy intended to keep alcohol out of the hands of teens?
Though it seems inconsistent with his party’s values, that’s what Bill Leonard did recently when he...
PUBLISHED 11/23/07 ----
The annual Christmas-spending dilemma is upon us again. Which approach is best:
Spend like you’re using Monopoly money and deal with it when the bills come due next year, or actually pay attention to the family budget?
Lavish loved ones with all of the goodies listed in their “Dear Santa” letters, or remain cognizant of the fact that people are starting to toss around the “r” word (recession)?
The benefit of filling your...
PUBLISHED 11/22/07 ----
On this traditional American day of contemplation and gratitude, we offers thanks for our community’s great abundance, both material and intangible.
And we really mean it, even if our tongues occasionally slip into our cheeks.
We’re thankful that the federal No Child Left Behind Act will likely get a makeover next year, and hopeful that the new version leaves behind its constricting emphasis on tests, preparation for tests, and preparation...
Dave Weirather, a fire plans examiner for the Bakersfield Fire Department, delivered a sobering message to city planners this month in the wake of October's devastating wildfires in Southern California.
It is risky to build in fire-prone areas, such as northeast Bakersfield. But if planners allow developers to do so, they must demand safety measures be taken.
In briefing the Bakersfield City Planning Commission, Weirather noted the requirements of the city’s hillside ordinance,...
PUBLISHED 11/21/07 ----
William Zachary Drakos, 18, received major injuries earlier this month when the car he was riding in drove up an embankment on westbound Highway 178, east of Oswell Street, and hit a tree. The car flipped upside down and caught on fire.
The driver of the car, Billie Ryan Atchley, 19, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. He received minor injuries.
Drakos and another passenger, Martin Micheal Lopez, 18, were seriously injured. Reportedly Drakos and...
PUBLISHED 11/21/07 ----
This one is too big even for the Little Dutch Boy. Isabella Dam is one of the country’s six most at-risk dams, and government agencies at all levels must immediately step up to address it.
We’re not just talking about ruining everyone’s carpeting. We’re talking about six feet of water in some parts of Kern County. We’re talking about injuries, evacuations and fatalities.
According to a recent independent review of conditions at...
PUBLISHED 11/20/07 ---
What areas of the country have the highest high school dropout rates? Who, exactly, are these dropouts? And can better identification help educators deter them from leaving school early? Good questions, made all the more difficult to answer because of inconsistencies among the states in determining graduation rates.
Florida includes GED-certificate recipients in its diploma count when its calculates its high school graduation rate. Most states do not.
...
PUBLISHED 11/20/07 ----
You’ve got to love the trend in nutritional research in recent years. Dark chocolate is good for you. Red wine has benefits. That second cup of coffee won’t kill you.
Moderation is the key, of course, but recent findings about an assortment of foods are encouraging — especially for those of us who dislike brussels sprouts and carrot juice.
Now the mother of all it’s-not-all-bad research: That tummy isn’t as unhealthy as you...
PUBLISHED 11/18/07 ----
One in eight Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home over the Thanksgiving holiday, 80 percent of them by car.
The American Automobile Association estimates that a record 38.7 million of us will travel at least an hour by car to our holiday feasts — despite the fact we’ll pay about 90 cents a gallon more for fuel than we did just one year ago at this time.
As crazy as the highways might be by late Wednesday, however, travelers can expect...
PUBLISHED 11/18/07 ----
There’s only one way to liberate yourself from the stress and aggravation of Thanksgiving-weekend travel: stay home.
A record number of travelers will be on the road, on the rails or jamming airport ticket counters starting Wednesday.
If you expect to be one of them, here, for the sake of your sanity, are some tips:
• Lower your expectations. You might breeze through security, arrive at your destination on time and have your duffel be the first...
The spread of democracy, we are told, is one of the chief aims of American troops fighting in Iraq.
Military action is not the only way to convince totalitarian nations to adopt American political ideals, however, and it’s certainly not always the most effective.
Nothing beats mutual economic back-scratching — of the type practiced by American companies doing business overseas — for its ability to help Americans evangelize about the value of openness and incentive, two...
PUBLISHED 11/15/07 ---
Maybe the Bakersfield City Council is correct: it’s “premature” to foist universal recycling on a dubious public.
It is now incumbent on local government to help make people less dubious, and the promised advertising blitz seems like a good place to start.
Last week, the city council decided not to apply for a state grant to buy equipment to bale recyclables, because the grant would have required that every house in the city pay $36 a year for...
A recent study by the nonprofit California Budget Project suggests we all need to rethink our assumptions about the income levels that represent wealth, poverty and that vast chunk of the population in between.
A yearly household income of more than $70,000 might sound comfortably middle class, but in California it’s really no better than a bare-bones existence, according to the organization’s latest study, “Making Ends Meet,” released in mid-October.
A family of...
One of the great political dramas of the previous century arrived at a truce last month.
Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter who helped break the Watergate story — and, in the process, brought down President Richard Nixon — toured the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda. A decade ago, such a visit would have been unthinkable.
Bernstein’s tour was made possible by the facility’s director, Tim Naftali, who in July presided over the...
PUBLISHED 11/13/07 -----
An epidemic of valley fever cases at Pleasant Valley State Prison has temporarily shelved plans to expand the western Fresno County prison.
The expansion was a critical part of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s and the Legislature’s $7.9 billion plan to solve California’s inmate overcrowding crisis by adding 53,000 beds. Without adding the beds, California may face a court order to release inmates.
Construction of a state mental hospital next to the...
PUBLISHED 11/13/07 -----
Should we be shocked by the Schwarzenegger administration’s “out-of-the-box” idea for training new nurses? Or should we commend the governor for going the extra mile to get Californians the medical care they need?
Whatever the response, the still- developing proposal for taxpayers to send bilingual students to Mexico to study to become nurses shows how desperate we are.
With the looming retirement of baby boomer nurses and the increasing...
PUBLISHED 11/11/07 ----
With obesity and diabetes at near-epidemic proportions among Californians, you might think HMOs are paying special attention to nutrition and other lifestyle variables among subscribers.
You would be wrong.
The Health Care Quality Report Card, which grades the state’s major health maintenance organizations, as well as some 200 medical groups, says California’s HMOs and many of the state’s physicians need to do a better job of tending to those...
PUBLISHED 11/11/07 -----
Kudos to the Kern County Board of Supervisors and District Attorney Ed Jagels for agreeing to create a fund to investigate and prosecute real estate fraud. A $2 fee, tacked on to all real estate transactions, could raise as much as $250,000 per year to fight fraud — money well spent if the district attorney and other agencies manage to cooperate effectively.
The $2 fraud-fighting fee, authorized a decade ago under state law, has paid dividends for more...
The Bakersfield Police Department won’t say if there’s a connection, but we can assume with some degree of certainty that the Oct. 26 DUI checkpoint on Stockdale Highway had a specific source of inspiration.
The traffic checkpoint at St. Philip the Apostle Church was almost surely in partial response to the traffic death of 60-year-old Barbara Keyser Blair, whose car was struck just 200 feet from the church parking lot 12 days earlier.
These checkpoints are sending the right...
Dear federal courthouse guy:
How are you? We, in Bakersfield, are fine. We sure hope you will be winding up your work soon and approving a downtown location for a new federal courthouse.
So do Congressman Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Barbara Boxer, big supporters of this project. We are sure you have been hearing from them, too.
No offense at the fuss we made earlier about your plan to locate a federal courthouse on the outskirts of town. But we just didn’t think that was the...
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez isn’t passing the smell test these days.
Last week, news reports out of Sacramento revealed the Los Angeles Democrat used a small charity as a conduit for about $300,000 in large donations from corporations needing Nunez’s help with legislation.
These corporations and other groups included AT&T, Verizon, Blue Cross of California, Zenith Insurance Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co., California Hospital Association, public employee...
The great poster debate has been solved once and for all. By placing the two national mottos, “In God We Trust” and “E Pluribus Unum,” alongside images of three founding documents on a single taxpayer-financed poster, the Kern High School District’s board of trustees has helped further the cause of “civic education.”
At least that’s what the posters themselves say.
In a 4-1 vote taken Monday night, the board modified a proposal by trustee...
PUBLISHED 11/6/07 ----
Calling it censorship might be a little strong, but it seems odd that White House officials would so ruthlessly edit the testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control, who spoke to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week on the health impacts of climate change.
Administration officials sliced six pages of text from Gerberding’s testimony, excising portions that warned of greater risks and frequency of...
PUBLISHED 11/6/07 ----
Business and government need an educated work force. That’s why many leaders create educational incentive programs for their employees to upgrade skills by allowing them to take college courses and complete advanced training. Often continuing education is a requirement for an employee to be considered for promotion.
Last month, Bakersfield City Council members balked at expanding the educational incentive program for city employees. Up for consideration was...
PUBLISHED 11-04-07 -----
The time to start fighting the next big Southern California fire is now.
The blazes have been extinguished, the winds have calmed and the combustible vegetation in many of the West’s most vulnerable places has burned away.
But there’s more fuel where that came from. There always is.
The fires of mid-October — two dozen of...
PUBLISHED 11-2-07 -----
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino seemed downright offended by FEMA’s “fake press conference” last week.
“A bad way to handle it,” she told actual, accredited news reporters.
Perino was referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s short-notice, televised Oct. 23 news conference at FEMA headquarters, focusing on the Southern California wildfires. Members of the press were excluded from asking questions,...
PUBLISHED 11-1-07
Good catch, federal Judge Gary Feess. If you want the tab paid, itemize your bill.
It’s a minor victory in a bigger war over Southern California’s dumping of its sludge on Kern County. But for the moment, we will savor it.
And call it poetic justice in a legal war that has seen Kern County outgunned by the fat wallets of Los Angeles and Orange County.
Sick of gagging on the fumes and dust, and worrying about groundwater pollution from millions of...
PUBLISHED 11/1/07
Here is today’s nutrition quiz: Which food item contains more added salt: a bag of potato chips or a package of chicken breasts?
If you’re like most Americans, you guessed the potato chips. But if you make a habit of reading nutritional labels, you probably know the sad truth: they’re roughly equivalent in added salt content.
Many poultry processors inject chicken products with saltwater or seaweed extracts, sometimes equal to 15 percent of the...
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