A blog about Kern County, Politics, and Religion & Faith.
|
We must learn to live within our means Absence of newspapers hurts communities Once again: Harvey Milk Day is a bad idea Student's freedom quashed in college classroom Flood of hope Hold on to at least some library services Tech ed a big win for students KHSD belt-tightening riles up parents One crazy week for this conservative Why not enforce the smoking laws we already have? 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 Blog RollAsk The Californian Editorials Entertainment Eye of Bakersfield Faith Forum Fired Up! Inside Sports Neighbors Right Thinking Sound Off Talk of the Town 
RSS 2.0    Share!
|
|
|
The atmosphere in the Bakersfield City Council chambers was almost festive Wednesday night as council members unanimously voted to approve the hillside ordinance that will ensure the orderly development of the hills in northeast Bakersfield.
Not that council members swapped high fives, mind you. There was no triumphant fist-pumping in the audience, no unseemly victory dances in the foyer. But the relief over ending this six-year saga -- at least for the moment -- was palpable.
Hopefully...
I tried hard on this one. I tried to comprehend the Kern High School District's decision not to allow mock trial teams to practice on Sunday afternoons, a call they made at a special board meeting Thursday.
I've tried to understand the board's obstinate push for the no-practice-on-Sundays-rule, their insistence the policy has nothing to do with religious beliefs and their dogged determination to fix what wasn't broken in the first place.
Try as I might, I just don't get it.
Before the...
Bakersfield Realtor John Boydstun will proudly tell you he hails from a long and distinguished line of Southern "Jeffersonian" Democrats, a group that once believed "everybody should be fairly paid and shouldn't be given what they can work for.
But that was long ago, says Boydstun, who reached the voting age of 21 in time to cast his first vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth and final term as president. He voted for Truman, too, but in the years after World War II, he...
Parental notification for teen abortions is back on the ballot next month; a year after its narrow defeat in California's misguided special election.
Polls show this particular race is going to be close, so parents who believe it's their business when their teen-aged daughters undergo life-altering surgical procedures should be ready to go to the polls and say so.
Proposition 85 is nearly identical to last year's Proposition 73, the state initiative that lost 53 to 47 percent. The...
Eagle Scouts may be an endangered species in the United States, where scouting, or at least the values it exemplifies, appears to be dying off.
Photos:
Joel, Justin and Jonathan Black
But the Black family of Bakersfield is doing their prolific best to ensure the line goes on. And on and on.
When Joel Black and his brother Jonathan are awarded the rank of Eagle Scout today at the Park Stockdale Community Center, they'll join older brother Justin, father Bill, uncle Jeff Frapwell...
To hear political pundits up north tell it, attorney general candidate Jerry Brown is a changed man.
Editorials and commentaries in recent months have declared ad naseum that Brown is no longer the flaky “Governor Moonbeam” of yesteryear, but a hardnosed, git-er-done kind of guy when it comes to crushing crime in California.
Tell that to the people of Oakland, where Brown is mayor. Folks up there must be pleased as punch with their city’s crime rate, which includes the...
In case you missed it, and I'm betting most of you did, there was an anti-Bush protest in downtown Bakersfield Thursday.
Seeing as how it was such a lovely autumn day -- perfect for a protest -- I decided to drop by Jastro Park for the local kick-off of World Can't Wait Day, an all-day protest of the Bush administration, reportedly held in more than 230 cities around the world.
My intention was to blend in with the crowd, to try and make sense of their anger, their call for mass...
If Mary Kay Beard didn't have the mug shots to prove she was once on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, you wouldn't believe it.
Mary Kay Beard
Petite, grey haired and well spoken, she looks and acts every bit the genteel grandmother she is. But once upon a time she was a gun-toting, bank-robbing outlaw who was captured after a seven-year crime spree and sentenced to 22 years in an Alabama prison for burglary, grand larceny and armed robbery.
You'd never know it to look at her now....
It's a good idea, now and then, to step out of our quiet comfort zones to experience life as much of the world lives it, which is what I, and five others from Bakersfield, did recently during a two-week trip to the jungles of Bolivia.
Columnist Marylee Shrider with Elizabeth Coria, center, and Malena Taborga, teachers at Nueva Vida School on the Chapare River in Bolivia.
Our hardy little band was one of several short-term mission teams sent far and wide this summer by...
|
