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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?
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Sunday, October 29, 2006 at 04:35 PM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 11:05 AM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Monday, October 23, 2006 at 08:54 PM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 at 09:56 AM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Monday, October 16, 2006 at 07:05 PM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 12:05 AM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Saturday, October 7, 2006 at 01:02 AM
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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....
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posted by rightthinking on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 05:17 PM
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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...
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posted by rightthinking on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 05:14 PM
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