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Almost perfect presents Look around and be thankful Charities need a break in these tough times A unique way for government to fight blight Schools must cash tech check Adjust system, not just bosses’ salaries City must respect its own history Green jobs can rebuild economy Democrats in power must not overreach Needed: More election staff 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 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 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 3/30/08 ---
It is with gratitude that Bakersfield homeowners, developers and taxpayers should greet Kern County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Twisselman’s ruling regarding the city’s hillside ordinance.
Earlier, Twisselman determined the city failed to study the environmental consequences of the ordinance, which imposes rules for building on hillsides and bluffs in northeast Bakersfield.
In a subsequent ruling signed just days ago, Twisselman allowed the ordinance...
PUBLISHED 3/28/08 ----
Having been an elite athlete himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger knows a little about international sport. Having talked trade with California’s Pacific Rim neighbors, he has developed a feel for the mind-set of Chinese leaders.
And having exhibited evidence of a conscience, the governor has no doubt considered the Beijing Olympics in the context of China’s record of human rights abuses, its dominance of Tibet and recent rumblings in the West about a limited...
PUBLISHED 3/27/08 ---
It is one of the most volatile issues in the relationship between parent and school administrator: What, when and how to teach students about sex. Or, for many parents, whether schools should teach about sex at all.
California’s State Board of Education has quietly adopted its first-ever set of “health education content standards,” unanimously selecting specific curriculum requirements after almost two years of debate and many drafts.
Students...
PUBLISHED 3/27/08 ---
You would have to be really dumb to be bamboozled by this bit of twisted logic coming out of Sacramento. Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, has introduced a bill to help “too-dumb-to-remember” Californians remember to refill their prescription drugs.
Calderon’s legislative magic, SB1096, would allow pharmaceutical companies to buy information about the drugs we take and our illnesses from pharmacies.
With this information, pharmaceutical companies...
PUBLISHED 3/26/08---
We know what alcohol can do to the body. We understand the short-term effects, the addictive properties and the symptoms of withdrawal. Research on the subject is thorough and wide-ranging.
So it’s all the more startling to realize how little we know, comparatively speaking, about another widely used drug: marijuana.
Public knowledge of marijuana is often based on anecdotes, personal experience, urban myth and pop culture.
Now a California researcher is...
PUBLISHED 3/26/08 ----
Bolt the doors and break out the Bunsen burners: The folks who offered a $10 million award to the first group to build a successful, privately-funded manned spacecraft are at it again. And this contest could have more immediate ramifications for society at large.
The X Prize Foundation is offering $10 million for a production-ready vehicle that gets 100 miles per gallon.
Some 60 teams from nine countries have already signed up for the competition, including a Bay...
PUBLISHED 3/25/08 ---
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls it a kabuki dance. Most Californians call it petty partisan gridlock. Whatever it’s called, Republicans digging in their heels to just say no to new taxes, and Democrats issuing blanket rejections of program cuts are not solving the state’s budget crisis.
On a statewide tour, the governor stopped in Bakersfield Monday to meet with business representatives and The Californian’s editorial board to prod Republicans and...
PUBLISHED 3/23/08 ----
What is it worth to you to have water in the Kern River as it meanders gracefully through metropolitan Bakersfield?
According to the thousands of people who participated in Vision 2020, a community planning exercise that first convened in 1999, it’s a big deal. It means a lot.
Next to having clean air to breathe and decent roads to drive on, it ranks right up there as a top priority with people who live in Bakersfield.
Let’s face it, in the summer,...
PUBLISHED 3/21/08 ---
The fifth anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq brought a flurry of speeches this week.
President Bush stumped for his justification for going to war and his perception of the progress being made in Iraq.
Opponents, particularly Democratic presidential contenders, continued to press for the war’s end.
The Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain, spent the anniversary in Iraq — some say to campaign, others say to witness...
PUBLISHED 3/20/08 ----
Department of Defense officials are quietly opposing efforts to beef up the G.I. Bill, the program that helps members of the armed forces attend a university when their military commitments end.
Why would fighting men and women want to reenlist, their reasoning goes, when they have greater incentive to quit and go to college? One unidentified defense official told Stars and Stripes that congressional efforts to enhance the education benefit was a “retention...
PUBLISHED 3/20/08 ----
It is hard to believe that Wendy Wayne is seriously ill. Wayne has been the one to extend her strong hand to help the helpless here in Kern County and throughout the world.
As a Peace Corps volunteer she helped build a struggling African nation in the 1970s. Over three decades, she has been an advocate for Kern County children and their families, most recently stepping in as executive director of First 5 Kern. She brought credibility to a problem-plagued agency that...
PUBLISHED 3/19/08 ---
At least three major California cities, eager to develop alternatives to landfills and motivated to find new sources of electrical power, are exploring various proposals to turn garbage into energy.
Soaring energy prices and fast-approaching global-warming mandates have inspired Sacramento, San Jose and Los Angeles, among other cities, to shop around for projects involving any of several technologies.
But there’s not much out there to substantiate...
PUBLISHED 3/19/08 ---
It’s Wednesday. Do you know where your legislator is? On vacation. It’s Easter break. And despite Gov. Schwarzenegger’s mighty pleas, despite him flexing his political muscles before the media, hoping to shame lawmakers into sticking around to fix the state’s fiscal crisis, they beat feet out of town anyway.
Who could pass up chance to go on a junket or to slather suntan lotion over their plucky little bodies? Off they went, with the governor...
PUBLISHED 3/18/08 ----
The act of sitting down alone at a computer and cruising the wide, varied world of the Internet might seem like a private, anonymous diversion. It’s not.
A new study of online consumer data reveals that Internet giants Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL and MySpace are keeping close tabs on where we go, what we read, and how long we stay — to an extent few Web users could have imagined.
These over-the-shoulder practices are designed to keep tabs on our...
PUBLISHED 3/18/08 ---
Remember when kids played sports because they were fun, and not because dad envisioned a full-ride scholarship to USC?
Most of us always knew that those expectations, while possible, were not particularly realistic, even for talented, dedicated aspirants.
Now, a report in The New York Times makes it abundantly clear. Parents who sacrifice their weekends chauffeuring their athletic children to far-away tournaments and specialty camps in hopes of securing that...
PUBLISHED 3/16/08 ----
Some 63,000 U.S. jobs went poof last month, evidence that this “is it or isn’t it” recession is growing increasingly painful. That’s the fastest single-month loss of jobs in five years. It virtually assures that the country’s January unemployment rate of 5.4 percent will go up further before it goes down.
Kern County’s January unemployment rate of 9.9 percent is almost double the national figure.
Good thing we have federally...
Published 3/14/2008 -------------
Give us back our stuff.
It was tough enough when the feds came after the California National Guard, sending state troops (virtually all of whom had civilian jobs and civilian lives) to Iraq and Afghanistan, and then keeping them there longer than anyone could have anticipated.
Now we realize the Pentagon also borrowed half the California National Guard’s equipment, from Humvees to helicopters to radios.
That’s the same equipment...
PUBLISHED 3/13/08 -----
The terms are usually straightforward. You agree to make regular payments, and after a period of 30 years or so, the house is yours.
Sure, certain approaches can complicate things. Adjustable-rate mortgages are risky, and shorter-term loans will yield higher payments.
But, barring an unforeseen disaster, such as sudden unemployment or a medical crisis, home mortgages are an obligation worth meeting. When homeowners do their financial duty, they maintain their...
PUBLISHED 3/13/08 ---
This is nuts! For Fresno State President John Welty and California State University Chancellor Charles Reed, appealing two discrimination rulings might make legal sense.
It stalls paying out millions of dollars to female faculty members who successfully argued in court that they had been discriminated against and otherwise treated reprehensibly.
It also sends a message to others: Even if juries hand down unanimous verdicts backing your claims, even if judges...
Published March 12, 2008 ----------
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger very cautiously and somewhat reluctantly pulled his head out of the sand and tentatively endorsed the idea of closing some tax loopholes to help correct California’s huge budget deficit.
He then attempted to thrust his head back in, to no avail. Schwarzenegger was already on record as having spoken logically.
Schwarzenegger admitted Feb. 28 that some of California’s $16-billion budget gap could and probably...
Published 3/12/08 -------
When you’re checking into that resort hotel this summer, you might want to set down the sun-tan lotion and put on your reading glasses long enough to digest the fine print on your room contract.
Hotels, among a great many other businesses in America, are increasingly charging consumers for all sorts of ordinary conveniences, such as towels, bellman services and groundskeeping surcharges.
Many hotel companies, airlines, banks, credit card companies, cell...
Published 3/7/2008 -----
An aggressive, well-functioning convention and visitors bureau that recruits business and promotes tourism is vital to Bakersfield’s present and future.
A well-honed bureau attracts convention groups, creates a demand for hotel rooms and helps direct money into the local economy. An effective bureau also helps establish the city’s image.
But the Bakersfield Convention & Visitors Bureau has struggled, actually stumbling last summer when its chief...
Published 3/6/2008 ----
For years now, school administrators across California and the nation have been sending inadvertent messages to high school journalism students.
The First Amendment, that tenet of free speech that differentiates America from the darker, less unenlightened corners of the globe, stands as a bulwark against censorship. Except when we withdraw it.
Too often school administrators have used the implied threat of endangered job security against journalism...
Published 3/6/2008 ------
Tax time is a painful time. But it also can be a time when taxpayers painlessly make a difference.
Gov. Schwarzenegger is encouraging all Californians to participate in state’s voluntary tax check-off program, which allows taxpayers to make a contribution to one or more of the 11 participating charitable funds.
“I encourage everyone filing their California tax return to consider checking off a few boxes to fund some great causes,” the...
Imagine you’re a stranger in a town of 2,000. There’s a bar every few hundred feet and a 24-hour dice game at a centrally located casino. Residents drink alcohol freely as they walk the streets. Law enforcement? None. In fact, the nearest duly sworn officer can be, depending on the day, hundreds of miles away.
Imagine no more. This is the world of the cruise ship, a floating community of carefree frivolity. Decorum and lawfulness are largely self-monitored. On-board company...
Thank goodness George W. Bush has the opportunity to chat periodically with the White House press corps. Were it not for his recent conversation with reporters who actually pump their own gas, the president might not be fully aware of one of the harshest realities of our tumbling economy: the increasing unaffordability of gasoline.
When a newsman broached the subject last week, Bush seemed to have no clue about the latest predictions relative to gas prices, that most symbolic of economic...
PUBLISHED MARCH 4 -----
The precedent is solid: Public employees’ salaries are public information. Courts all over California have confirmed it time and again — most notably, for us here in Kern County, in the cases of county firefighters and Bakersfield City School District employees.
Yet public employers and, more recently, government workers’ unions, continue to try to block the release of that information, at great expense to taxpayers and union members.
Most...
PUBLISHED MARCH 4 -------
Arnold Schwarzenegger has been fighting American obesity for years, since long before he ever publicly professed an interest in the governor’s office.
The former bodybuilder, who signed legislation last year that will take trans fat-laden foods out of school cafeterias and provide new funds for additional physical education teachers, had an opportunity to strike another blow for good health last year when a bill came to his desk that required larger...
Published March 2, 2008 ----
In the argument over illegal immigration and its ravages upon the American landscape, many have accepted it as indisputable fact: U.S. jails are overflowing with Mexican nationals — scofflaws who have forded the Rio Grande or staggered across the Baja desert in order to rape, rob and pillage.
The reality, it turns out, is much different. Immigrants — illegal or not — are far less likely than the average U.S. native to commit crime in...
By ROBERT PRICE, Associate Editorial Page Editor. Published March 2, 2008.
When I heard that a Washington, D.C., attorney was pushing to have the visage of Frederick Douglass etched into Mount Rushmore, I suspected politics at work. But then I always suspect politics at work.
America is looking at the very real possibility of a black man becoming our next president. This time next year, a portrait of Barack Obama could be tacked to classroom walls across the country alongside John Adams...
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