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PUBLISHED 9/28/08 ----
Ordinary taxpayers have every right to be outraged by the prospect of the proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, even if they may reluctantly agree that such action is necessary.
Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe Congress should go ahead with the unprecedented intervention President Bush formally proposed to the nation last Wednesday, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll. But they have every right to be angry about it, and are correct to...
PUBLISHED 9/26/08 -----
The government’s proposed bailout of Wall Street merits the attention of every legislator, economist and administration official in Washington. That doesn’t mean two senators can’t pull away from it for a half a day to take part in another important piece of the people’s business: the electing of a president.
Sen. John McCain suggested he and Sen. Barack Obama postpone tonight’s debate in order to weigh in on the nation’s...
PUBLISHED 9/25/08 -----
Lord knows, Kern County can use more jobs. And the money poured into the local economy from expansion of the Big West refinery would be a godsend in these dire economic times.
But the economic benefits of the refinery’s expansion cannot outweigh concerns for public safety.
The refinery has existed for decades on Rosedale Highway. Once on the outskirts of town, the refinery is now surrounded by homes, stores, schools and businesses.
Under its new owners,...
PUBLISHED 9/24/08 ----
The inappropriate exchange of money and favors between representatives of the oil industry and the U.S. Department of the Interior led to one of this country’s most memorable scandals.
Kickbacks and questionable loans from oil executives worth $5 million in today’s dollars led to the downfall and ultimate imprisonment of the Secretary of the Interior in the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s. Had President Warren G. Harding not died before the scandal...
PUBLISHED 9/23/08 -----
Few can argue that animals, including farm animals raised to be eaten or to produce our food, should be treated humanely.
But Proposition 2 on the Nov. 4 ballot threatens to decimate an entire industry and substantially add to consumers’ sticker shock at the grocery checkout counter.
The initiative’s ballot summary:
Requires calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand...
PUBLISHED 9/21/08 -----
Do we like it? No. Was it the right thing to do? Yes. On a 5-2 vote, with Sue Benham and David Couch voting no, the Bakersfield City Council last week renewed a long-term franchise agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that will add a 1 percent surcharge to utility bills in the city.
The “new” money will be earmarked to help pay the city’s share of a massive construction project to unsnarl metropolitan Bakersfield’s roads.
At that...
PUBLISHED 9/18/08 ----
Ten years for a man’s life.
That’s a pretty good deal for Demitris King, the 15-year-old punk who incited the lethal assault on 81-year-old Ezequiel Jimenez Perez three months ago. Perez was out on an early-morning walk, collecting aluminum cans with a friend when King and his fellow thugs jumped him for the fun of it and beat him beyond recognition.
At least King will serve time — albiet in a facility for young...
PUBLISHED 9/17/08 ----
Three years after the state Legislature enacted new laws requiring water breaks, shade structures and other safety and sanitation protections for field workers, employees continue to be at risk and employers keep coming up short on their obligations.
In the wake of four heat-related fatalities this year (including three in Kern County) and seven other suspected heatstroke cases, the state of California has stepped up surprise inspections of outdoor work sites....
PUBLISHED 9/16/08 -----
The Ladies Professional Golf Association swung and missed when it threatened to suspend golfers who do not speak fluent English. The golf organization quickly backed off, leaving us relieved but still troubled: What were they thinking?
It’s reasonable, in most cases, to expect employees of U.S. companies to speak English. Customer service and worker safety considerations come to mind. It’s important for U.S. citizens and green-card holders, no matter...
PUBLISHED 9/14/08 ----
In 1991, professional baseball’s facilities standards went into effect, establishing minimum guidelines for minor league stadiums and igniting the biggest ballpark building boom in history. More than half the teams in the minors now play in parks built or substantially renovated since that time. Bakersfield is not among them.
Bakersfield still plays in 67-year-old, bare-bones, backward-facing Sam Lynn Ball Park, indisputably the worst minor-league stadium in...
PUBLISHED 9/12/08 -----
This is the third time in four years California voters have been asked to place a “notification hurdle” in the way of minor women obtaining an abortion.
Twice California voters have said NO. They should do so again.
Proposition 4 — referred to by proponents as “Sarah’s Law” — would require the parents or guardians of “unemancipated minors,” or unmarried women under 18 years of age, to be given 48-hour...
PUBLISHED 9/10/08 ----
Green card holders have many of the same rights as U.S. citizens. Permanent residents can typically live in the United States as long as they like and work for almost every kind of employer. So, considering all of those benefits, is the time-consuming process of getting one’s citizenship really worth the bother?
That’s a question green-card holders answered in the affirmative in record numbers last year. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...
PUBLISHED 9/9/08 ------
A Fresno assemblyman wants to stick Central Valley residents with a $30 surcharge tacked on to car-registration fees. There’s clearly a connection between the valley’s bad air and residents’ choice of transportation options, but this course of action sticks in our craw.
Why should San Joaquin Valley drivers foot the entire bill for a problem that rightly belongs to the entire state? The valley’s ozone and particulate-matter problem is...
PUBLISHED Sept. 7, 2008 ---
Eleven months ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation into law that expanded the valley’s air-quality board from 11 to 15 members.
These new members were not to be political cronies or retired legislators looking for plum review-board assignments, but people with either specific expertise in relevant fields or a vested interest in the health of their community’s lungs.
We’re still waiting. The San Joaquin Valley Air...
PUBLISHED Sept. 5, 2008 ---
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has painted himself in a corner by pledging not to sign any new bills until the state Legislature resolves its history-making impasse and passes a budget.
Schwarzenegger granted himself an exemption last week and signed a bill that puts clearer, more specific language into the text of Proposition 1, funding and route-planning for high-speed rail.
Now, was that so painful?
Lifting that pen from his pocket was pain-free...
PUBLISHED Sept. 4, 2008 ---
Come on, guys. Let’s get serious! Kern High School District voters elected trustees to guide and improve the education their children receive.
They didn’t elect them to hijack the district’s board of trustees to further their personal, religious and political agendas.
Overseeing the education that high school students receive is a big job. And by no stretch of the imagination can anyone argue that KHSD trustees are excelling in that job....
PUBLISHED Sept. 3 ---
Is Kern County recession-proof when it comes to the film industry? No such luck. But this unique and topographically varied corner of the world -- the setting for hundreds of major motion pictures since before talkies -- has remained popular with Hollywood, even as others have slipped.
Two-thirds of studio-financed features were filmed partially or entirely in California just five years go. The state's share has been cut in half since then to just 31 percent as many...
PUBLISHED Sept. 2 ---
For a bunch of really smart people, the 128 college presidents who recently signed the so-called Amethyst Initiative seem lacking in common sense.
These presidents and chancellors, from such institutions as Duke, Dartmouth, Tufts, Ohio State and Santa Clara, have called on authorities to consider lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. They assert that the current drinking age has led to a "culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking" on...
PUBLISHED Aug. 31 ---
We cannot afford to sprawl any more. The cost of new infrastructure is just too high, the price of gas too exorbitant, the impact on air quality too devastating.
Despite the obvious benefits of compact development, cities like Bakersfield continue to struggle with it. Developers are reluctant to build anything but the conventional, big-yard homes they insist buyers want, and municipal officials are loathe to burden builders with fees commensurate with the broad impact...
PUBLISHED Aug. 29 ---
The last big getaway of the summer vacation season takes place this weekend when America celebrates Labor Day.
Too often these three-day weekends are anything but celebrations for some families. Traffic deaths routinely spike when people take holiday road trips.
This year may be better than most thanks to the silver lining in recent high gas prices. Four-dollar gas is keeping people close to home.
U.S. traffic deaths declined last year, dropping to the lowest...
PUBLISHED Aug. 28 ---
Many people are opposed to the practice of using animals in scientific study, including medical research. Activists can and often do voice their concerns to the institutions that participate.
But conscientious objection and the First Amendment right to protest do not include the right to kill, injure and intimidate. And that is what's at the heart of an Assembly bill soon to come before the state Senate that would give academic researchers, including those who carry...
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