A blog about Kern County, Politics, and Religion & Faith.
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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? 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 
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My recent column on smokers and California's ongoing harassment of them garnered a variety of reader responses ranging from "Your columns reek" to "Your columns are the equivalent of journalistic car wrecks."
Most of the responses were not so succinct. But each expressed outrage over my stand that government efforts throughout California to ban smoking in public parks -- one of the last places outside their own homes where smokers may indulge their habit -- is a...
Public employee unions and the elected officials who cozy up to them have, for years, denied the growing crisis that is California's ponderous
pension system.
It's a system that may yet break taxpayers' backs, but few in Sacramento are willing to stand up to union leaders who insist that plush pensions are their due.
So private citizens will have to do it for them.
One of those citizens was in Bakersfield last week with the good news that voting taxpayers may soon have the chance to...
The night Hank Aaron broke what many believed to be an unbreakable home-run record, I was 17 and didn't give a whit about baseball.
Even so, I was swept up in the national euphoria over the milestone event, celebrating what TV and a major case of goose bumps told me was a magical moment.
On Tuesday, when Barry Bonds smacked his 756th homer into the stands to break Aaron's record, the television was on, but the goose bumps -- the human body's involuntary, can't-fake-it reaction to sudden...
On a cool fall morning about 10 years ago, my husband puffed his last Camel, slapped a nicotine patch on his shoulder and never looked back.
Good thing, too. Had he not quit, the tendency by today’s paternalistic busybodies to harass and ostracize adult smokers might have given him a heart attack.
California is apparently full of such meddlers, whose sensibilities are so delicate that the mere sight of a cigarette or the faintest whiff of tobacco smoke is all the reason they need...
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