Right Thinking - rightthinking's Blog - Bakersfield.com

We must learn to live within our means

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 08:08:26 PDT

It seems to me the best way to survive the current economic crisis is to heed the advice of those who survived the last one. The big one.

It's a concept many of our state and federal leaders, including our new president, apparently fail to grasp, given their predilection for higher taxes and $800 billion spending sprees.

Some who struggled through the Great Depression wonder why policymakers dismiss common sense policies like less government and lower tax rates — policies that give folks the best possible chance to work, save and invest.

After all, it worked for them.

Mary Collup of Bakersfield was born in 1933, the year 25 percent of the nation’s workers were unemployed. Losing the family home — or the family farm, in Collup’s case — was an even greater threat than it is today.

Collup, who was born in Oklahoma, says her young years were hard and profoundly influenced her future work ethic and spending habits.

“We knew we had to work to have something, because nobody was handing anything out,” she says. “We were poor, but everybody was, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

Collup’s mother sewed her children’s clothes, grew her own fruits and vegetables, created meals that “weren’t centered around meat” and used the cardboard from saved cereal boxes to resole her children’s shoes.

And we think it’s a big sacrifice to pass up our morning mint-mocha-chip frappuccino.

In 1935, Collup’s dad loaded up the family’s Model T and joined the great “Okie” migration to California, eventually finding work in a Watsonville rock quarry. The rest of the family followed a year later, after Collup’s mother had scrimped and saved enough “egg money” to make the trip by train.

Those early years left a lasting impression on Collup, who started working at 14, taking her high school lunch break to work the Woolworths’ lunch counter. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school and worked all her adult life until she was disabled by a stroke 16 years ago.

I met Collup recently at a luncheon, to which she wore a striking simulated-tiger-skin-and-leather jacket. When I asked where she’d found the chic garment, she leaned in close and, with a conspiratorial glance over her shoulder, whispered “the Bargain Box on Q Street — I paid $3 for it.”

Collup, whose husband of 51 years died three years ago, says other than basic “30-day bills,” like gas and electric, she lives debt free. She’s lived in the same house for 20 years, runs her dishwasher and laundry during nonpeak hours, guards against unnecessary purchases and never, EVER uses credit cards.

“You have to be creative to make it through the hard times,” says Collup, who believes much of our current economic angst “is of our own making.”

“Today, it’s a world of expectations and entitlements,” she says. “If we just live within our means, we can get along all right.”

Wow. Live within our means. What a radical concept. I wonder how low we’ll go before policymakers finally figure that out.

•••

There are more words to write on this issue and many more issues to write about, but I’ll leave those for others to tackle.

Except for an occasional visit to the opinion page, this column will be my last for The Californian.

There are a number of reasons why — my full-time work for a local nonprofit, other writing projects, a family I’d like to see more of. For those who suspect my departure is part of a left-wing conspiracy to rid the paper of a pesky conservative, I assure you the decision to resign the column was mine and was reluctantly accepted by editors and colleagues at the paper.

Hopefully another conservative voice will soon fill this space. For me, the gig is up.

It’s been a privilege and a pleasure. Many thanks.

Absence of newspapers hurts communities

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:46:55 PDT

When you’re 70-something and your day starts before dawn and the world is hushed and the coffee’s hot and you walk out your front door and — rats! — there’s not a newspaper in sight — well, your morning is pretty much shot.

That’s what the nice lady said a few years ago, when her call found its way to my newsroom phone, instead of circulation. We talked for 10 minutes about late papers, cold coffee, disappointment and dashed hopes. After promising to notify circulation, I hung up, impressed with the significance of the local newspaper.

That was then. And then wasn’t that long ago.

Newspapers these days are threatened by the economy. Even here, The Californian has gotten smaller. Californian

Publisher Ginger Moorhouse is adamant that “we’re not going anywhere. We will continue to evolve and change, but we’re here for our community and here to stay.”

These days the number of people who care about hometown newspapers is falling fast, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which found that only 58 percent of Americans say they would miss reading their local paper if it weren’t available in print or online.

Among people who regularly read newspapers, more than half said they would not only miss their local paper, they believe its absence would hurt the civic life of the community. A lot.

They’re right, it would. Sure, there are those who seethe through their morning reads — bashing the local paper is a daily ritual for some — but does anyone truly want it gone for good?

Imagine a day without Dilbert crossword puzzles and the obituaries, one of the most read sections of this or any local newspaper.

How would we celebrate our young athletes, actors, musicians and scholars, if not in the pages of our local paper? You think the Associated Press gives a hoot about our mock trials, our band competitions, our all-area athletes? Of course not — that’s for us to care about and we do — in frames and scrapbooks and dresser drawers.

How about the Sunday paper, truly one of life’s great pleasures, with its columns and travel stories and ads? Sure, you can cherry pick your way around the Internet, but can you curl up on the couch as you Google your way around?

In a recent column on Internet influence, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts noted he was reading less and scanning more — a bad habit he’d picked up bouncing around online, he said.

He’s not the only one. It’s a habit I’ve picked up myself in recent years and, like Pitts, am trying to break by forcing myself to finish every article, magazine and book I start.

Newspapers in general deliver the news in a way that sound bites and Internet snippets don’t, providing greater depth of coverage and compelling the reader to look beyond the single story that fills the screen.

Love it or hate it, the local paper is the personality of a place and its people; a presence that aggravates, uplifts and informs. A presence many won’t appreciate until it’s gone.

Once again: Harvey Milk Day is a bad idea

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:15:58 PST

Didn’t we just do this?

Wasn’t it a mere six months ago that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation designating Harvey Milk’s birthday a day of “special significance in California’s public schools?

Indeed it was, yet the bill has risen once more, buoyed by a gold statuette and a lawmaker determined to harangue California voters into submission.

The last bill — AB 2567 — was to have established May 22 as Harvey Milk Day in honor of the San Francisco supervisor and gay activist who was gunned down in 1978. The bill would have designated the date as a day where teachers would be “encouraged” to conduct “suitable commemorative exercises.”

Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure in September. The bill’s author, Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco, introduced a nearly identical bill this week in an attempt to capitalize on the best-actor Oscar win for Sean Penn, who portrayed Milk in the film of the same name. In a news conference Thursday, Penn and Leno told reporters they were confident

Schwarzenegger will pass the bill this time around.

“If there’s one thing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger understands, it’s box office, and Harvey Milk now has box office,” Leno said.

I gather, by Leno’s comment, he expects California parents to suddenly shake off their convictions and demand that Schwarzenegger approve the new version of the bill, now that folks have seen the film and know the truth, sort of.

I’ve got news for Leno. If “box office” is the measure by which the governor decides to veto or not to veto, then Harvey Milk Day is going down for a second time.

The film “Milk” may be a critical success, but movie goers aren’t exactly breaking down doors to get in. Released in November, the film’s domestic take thus far is only about $30 million — not much of a profit for a film that cost $20 million to make.

If box office truly was a standard Schwarzenegger took seriously, he would surely take note of one of the top-grossing films so far this year. Just seven weeks after its January release, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” a silly farce of a film, has already raked in $129.4 million.

Oscar material it ain’t, but it is age appropriate for young ones. Too bad we can’t say the same for Harvey Milk Day.

Leno did try to sugar-coat the bill’s intro a bit, saying the bill would urge — but not require — schools to conduct commemorative exercises. He was also quick to assure taxpayers the bill would “cost no money whatsoever.”

Well then, who’s supposed to plan, carry out and supervise these commemorative exercises — parent volunteers?

Should the bill pass, teachers would naturally whitewash the life and times of Harvey Milk (as some critics suggest the film has done), but may find defining such terms like “homosexual,” “bisexual” and “transgender” a bit of a stretch. But such issues are irrelevant to gay rights activists who are desperate to link the martyred Milk to the Proposition 8 debate now before the state Supreme Court.

A Harvey Milk Day in public school? It was a bad idea in September. It’s a bad idea now.

Student's freedom quashed in college classroom

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:55:27 PST

Think freedom of speech is alive and well on California's college campuses

I’m starting to wonder.

It was in fine form back in 1992, when, as a returning student, I took a speech class at Bakersfield College.

It was obvious my political and social views differed from those of my professor’s, but that difference never interfered with my freedom to speak or her ability to fairly grade my efforts.

Jonathan Lopez, a student at Los Angeles Community College, should be so lucky.

Lopez, a Christian, filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the college earlier this month after being mocked for his faith in Speech 101, of all places.

According to the suit, Lopez and his fellow students were instructed by Professor John Matteson to give informative speeches on any topic. Lopez talked about how God had changed his life in a speech that included two Bible verses and a dictionary definition of marriage.

Before Lopez could finish his speech, however, an incensed Matteson cut him off, calling the 22-year-old a “fascist bastard” in front of the class and telling the other students they were free to leave if they were offended by Lopez’s remarks, the lawsuit says. When no students left, Matteson dismissed the entire class.

Later, when Lopez asked his professor to grade the speech, Matteson refused to do so, instead handing Lopez an evaluation form on which was written “proselytizing is inappropriate in public school” and a terse “Ask God what your grade is.”

That form — along with further examples of Matteson’s intolerant behavior toward Lopez — is now in the hands of some of my favorite people, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group that filed the suit on Lopez’s behalf.

David Hacker, ADF staff counsel, says the case is part of a nationwide epidemic of vague and overbroad campus speech codes that allows “administrators and students to punish other students for anything that’s subjectively offensive.”

“Colleges are supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, but have really become islands of intolerance,” Hacker says.

It must be especially intimidating for students when that intolerance is directed at them by those in authority over their academic success, which is why I was relieved to read Cal State Bakersfield’s philosophy regarding academic freedom in the school catalog.

“The expression of different points of view in the classroom by faculty and students is not only a right, but also a responsibility,” reads the policy. “Having an ideological divergent opinion does not constitute grounds for punitive action.”

Good to know. I trust it’s a philosophy our local academics take to heart. Maybe one of them should fax a copy of the CSU philosophy to Allison Jones, dean of Academic Affairs at LACC and Matteson, who wasn’t in his office when called for comment.

In a letter responding to the ADF lawsuit, Jones wrote that the school considered the “classroom incident to be very serious in nature” and that she had already started “the progressive discipline process.”

Great. But Jones just couldn’t resist including in the letter statements by two of Lopez’s fellow students who felt Lopez “should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom.”

Matteson’s assault on Lopez should have been blasted without qualification, but including the students’ remarks surely reflects Jones’ belief that the professor’s censorship had merit.

So a couple of students were offended by another’s “ideological divergent opinion.” So what? Perhaps it’s time these young adults learn the right to free speech is not theirs alone.

And perhaps it’s time for freedom-crushers like Matteson — who, by the way is still in the classroom — to find another line of work.

Flood of hope

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:15:42 PST

A couple years ago, a Bakersfield church gave a few of its members a bit of seed money with instructions to “get out there.”

Now, every Saturday night downtown, the hungry are fed, the friendless are befriended and lives are transformed.

Anybody wondering how we will communally survive one of the worst economic downturns in our nation’s history should consider the works of Flood Ministries of Bakersfield, an all-volunteer, faith-based nonprofit group, whose simple purpose is to help people through hard times.

If a few souls are saved along the way, so be it.

The Flood gates open Saturday afternoons at Garden Community Church in the old YMCA building on 22nd Street, where the haves and have-nots start to gather by 4:30.

Training for the dozens of volunteers that show up each Saturday lasts about 20 minutes before they break to mingle with “clients” in the Garden’s community center for a rock-concert of a worship service. Afterward, there’s dinner — prepared and dished up by one of the several local churches that support Flood — followed by a food pack distribution.

During a recent Saturday night visit I noticed attendance at the pre-dinner worship service was not mandatory — a dozen or so clients opted to wait it out on the church parking lot. But inside the church, it was standing-room-only, with worshipers singing, praising and even dancing with joy.

Looking over the crowd, I noticed few appeared more joyful than 53-year-old Denise Johnson one of Flood’s client-volunteers. Hands and voice raised in praise, Johnson kept one eye on the crowd, pausing to direct latecomers to empty seats or to comfort clients overcome by the moment.

There wasn’t a trace of self-pity in her telling of her life story, so much like the life stories of many who frequent Flood.

Abandoned by her mother at age 3, Johnson grew up painfully shy, but always wanted to be a nurse. She joined the U.S. Army at age 22 hoping to exchange military service for an education, but blindness in her right eye rendered her unfit for duty and she was honorably discharged.

Bitter and alone, Johnson escaped into drugs, a path she followed into a 30-year addiction. She was led to recovery, she says, by the pastor of the church she passed each day on her way to buy drugs.

She stayed clean for years until June 2008, when, in a midst of a depression, she “used for five days.” Fortunately, she says, she was arrested. The arrest cost Johnson her state certification as a nurse’s aide.

Now battling a third round of cancer, Johnson goes to court soon in hopes of getting her certification back. In the meantime, she’s staying clean and is grateful for the Flood ministry, which offers substance abuse classes, parenting and anger management classes and unconditional love.

“I never fit in anywhere, but I fit in when it comes to Jesus,” Johnson says. “Now I’m a greeter here and I know Flood is here for me.”

More than 300 of Bakersfield’s poor and homeless were treated to dinner and a sack of groceries the night of my visit, though the reigning one-night record “stands at somewhere over 500,” says Kim Albers, the cherub-faced co-founder and president of Flood Ministries.

Albers and husband David were among those challenged two years ago by Bridge Bible Church to take that seed money and make a difference.

The money given to the couple and their small home group — about $2,300 from an anonymous donor — has multiplied like the biblical loaves and fish, thanks to the growing number of volunteers and churches who partner with Flood.

People loved. Lives changed. Souls saved. All because a few faithful heeded the call to “get out there” and get it done.

Learn more

By phone: 32-Flood (323-5663)

On the Web: www.floodbako.com

Saturday Night Outreach, 900 22nd St.: 4:30 p.m. volunteer training; 5 p.m. celebration; 6 p.m. dinner and grocery distribution

Photos:

Photo by John Harte / The Californian

The Flood is a large volunteer group that feeds the hungry, needy and homeless every Saturday night. The location at 900 22nd St. was bustling Feb. 14 as dozens of volunteers prepared plates of food and care packages for hundreds of guests.

Photo by John Harte / The Californian

Greg Hubbard, who lives on Social Security disability benefits, receives a prayer to go along with a care package. He has been coming to The Flood gatherings for about six months.

Photo by John Harte / The Californian

The Flood is a large volunteer group that feeds the hungry, needy and homeless every Saturday night. On Feb. 14, volunteers David Souza and Mary Jo Thompson were in overdrive as they worked a trailer moving care packages to the needy.

Hold on to at least some library services

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:01:30 PST

A bit of friendly advice: Don’t mess with librarians.

They have words and they know how to use them.

I was reminded of that this week after I unintentionally conveyed in a recent column that library services on our high school campuses are superfluous.

I didn’t actually say that, but my suggestion of a temporary suspension of library services as part of district budget cuts prompted a flood of choice words from local librarians. Words like “disappointed,” “saddened” and “dismayed.”

I couldn’t help but notice the librarians’ letters were markedly different from the virulent, grammar-rules-optional type of e-mails I often get from those who don't share my views. Armed with elegant prose and stacks of statistics, librarians are their own best argument for keeping libraries in the Kern High School District.

That being said, the cuts are coming and libraries aren’t the only candidates for cuts. So, I asked some of the letter writers, what would you cut if the choice was yours to make?

What programs and activities are MOST crucial to a well-rounded education? And what programs will keep our kids in school?

Receiving no response from the heretofore chatty librarians, I paid a visit to veteran teacher/librarian Catherine Henry at Ridgeview High School to pose the same questions.

What programs, I asked, are most important? Music? Sports? Libraries?

All are important, she said.

OK. What programs would you cut, if the choice was yours to make, I asked.

None, she said.

“Anybody who hopes to avoid all cuts isn’t paying attention,” Henry said. “But cutting an entire program? The students may have to do with less, but doing with none cheats them.”

No argument there.

A former drama teacher, Henry believes a well-stocked library, with a credentialed literacy educator, is as crucial to a student’s education as music or sports and she has the stats to back it up. She admits this is the worst economic crunch she’s seen in her 34 years with the KHSD, but believes some library services can be saved.

I hope she’s right. Especially after talking with Sherry Gomez, deputy director of libraries in Kern County.

Gomez agreed with Henry’s contention that the county’s 25 public libraries and two book mobiles simply don’t have the resources for the district’s 35,000 high schoolers if library services get the ax.

“School libraries are there to support the curriculum and instruct students on how to do research and evaluate what they find,” Gomez said. “The public library has a broader mission, purchasing materials on all subjects for all age groups and points of view.”

OK, we agree. Our students’ education will surely suffer if library services are cut. But weighing those services against other programs — programs that may be as or more likely to keep kids engaged in school — is a valid exercise.

There’s no nice answer to this one, Henry told me. True. It’s gonna hurt. But if district officials can figure out how to hang on to at least some library programs, our students will be well served.

Tech ed a big win for students

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:41:17 PST

At last.

Tech Ed is back.

It’s been a long time coming, but career technical education will soon return to many Kern County high schools as a graduation requirement thanks to some progressive thinkers on the Kern High School District board of trustees.

Trustees voted this week to proceed with their Career Technical Education Pathways plan. As a result, those kids thinking of dropping out — those who lack the interest or ability or family support to finish high school — may now have a reason to stay.

Or even go on to college.

The Pathways plan brings back to our schools technical courses some students once took for granted, like wood shop and auto shop — courses that, 30 years ago, fell under the umbrella of “Industrial Arts” as I recall. Depending on the school, students may now also take courses as varied as computer application, welding or architectural design.

The plan was pioneered by trustee Joel Heinrichs, who campaigned and won his board seat on his promise to do just that. In an opinion piece he penned this week, Heinrichs wrote that “extensive educational research” shows that quality CTE is a boon to students across the board.

And so it does.

A study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that a single year of technically oriented coursework at a community college increased the earnings of men by 14 percent and women by 29 percent. Numerous studies found that students at schools with “highly integrated” quality CTE programs scored higher in reading, mathematics and science than do students at schools with less integrated programs.

The plan requires student to take either a college prep or career prep pathway.

The best part is the plan gives students more areas in which to succeed, including an individualized program that allows highschoolers to take both career prep and college prep.

Another plus? The district already has the “equipment and space available to accomplish phase one of the plan,” trustee Chad Vegas says.

“With phase two we don’t, which is why we didn’t put it in right away,” he says. “By the time we hit phase two, we will.”

It’s a win-win all around, but there was still some grumbling at the Monday night board meeting. Mitch Olsen, president of the Kern High School Teachers Association, said while the union is excited about bringing tech education to the high schools, it’s unhappy with the make-up of the Pathways Committee and thus are taking a “wait-and-see” stance.

“We didn’t feel like the committee included enough of the stakeholders in the district,” Olsen says. “You didn’t have parents, you didn’t have teachers, you didn’t have CTA teachers.”

Considering the board has discussed the plan practically nonstop for two years and a number of stakeholders were included on the plan’s subcommittees, it’s a pretty tiny nit to pick. But I guess somebody has to.

We’ve fretted for years over our dropout numbers. We’ve been on the KHSD for years to do something about it. Now they have.

The Pathways plan may not be the magic cure for all that ails our schools, but it’s sure a promising start.

KHSD belt-tightening riles up parents

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:00:53 PST

Budget woes are nothing new for our schools, but impending budget cuts really have parents talking.

“Did you hear?” one anxious mom asked me this week. “Stockdale High School cut their band.”

Shocking if it were true, which it absolutely is not, says Stockdale band director John Biller, who started Stockdale’s music program when the school opened 18 years ago.

“Wow, I hadn’t heard that one,” Biller said on Thursday. “There’s a lot of gossip going around about cuts, but, no, it’s my understanding they won’t be disbanding our band.”

Parents worried over whether their budding Mozarts and Picassos will still have creative outlets next year have reason to be concerned, but not panicked. Not yet.

The rumor mills were so on fire this week, I called Kern High School Superintendent Don Carter for the final word on the matter. According to Carter, no decisions — I repeat, no decisions — have been made in regard to who or what will be cut. The cuts, however, are coming. They promise to be the subject of considerable debate in the coming days as teachers, parents, administrators and union members line up to make their case.

It’s hard even to imagine the Kern High School District cutting art, music and drama programs in our schools, which, as one veteran music teacher once told me, have always been “an oasis” in California for high school fine arts programs. And so it has, dating back before I was in the South High School marching band some 35 years ago.

It was with that memory in mind that I scanned the Kern High School District’s list of “items for consideration” after its recent unveiling. Some of the items — like the elimination of the entire athletic program — were over-the-top extreme, while others nearly leapt off the page as obvious first cuts.

By obvious I mean those that come after the glaringly obvious, like the principal partner’s day breakfast, whatever that is. After that, the front-runner would have to be home-to-school transportation, a cut that would save the district an estimated $4.1 million.

Yes, jobs will be lost and parents will be inconvenienced, but the bottom line is student transportation is a courtesy, not a requirement. And cutting that courtesy will be no excuse for cutting school.

“Parents and kids can carpool, ride the GET bus and figure out their own transportation,” says Trustee Ken Mettler. “In very rural areas Kern High School District bus service overlaps those from elementary districts, so we should find ways to eliminate duplicate routes.”

Again, no decisions have been made, but, keeping in mind what’s best for the students — access to art and athletic programs — there’s another service on the list the students could survive without.

Library service. It pains me to say it, but with easy access to the Internet and our beautiful public libraries, on-campus library service is a luxury we can suspend, at least for now.

Studies by the National Center for Education Statistics, among countless others, show that students who participate in music and other arts routinely score “significantly” higher proficiency levels in math and verbal skills and earn more academic honors and awards than non-music students.

The arts are as essential to a well-rounded education as math and English. The impact of music, drama and other forms of self expression cannot be underestimated. Kern County educators know this, which is why the arts have been part of our children’s lives for so long.

“The arts is the place where students are free to express themselves,” Biller says. “It’s in our creative expressive side that we find our humanity.”

One crazy week for this conservative

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:19:46 PST

What a week.

What an exhilarating, surprising, maddening week.

Our new president was ushered into office in a celebration so moving and so historic that Americans of all races wept as Barack Hussein Obama promised to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

It was a day to set aside partisan differences and most of us did.

But the honeymoon will soon be over and the man elected to lead — not by virtue of a proven record, but by a vague promise of change — has his work cut out for him.

If election coverage is any indication, we can rest assured the mainstream media will hold Obama and his administration accountable with the same impartial attention it gave the just departed President Bush and his GOP.

Speaking of improbable scenarios …

Californian columnist Lois Henry, an esteemed colleague and one of my favorite liberals, took some environmental groups to task on Sunday, dismissing their sky-is-falling rhetoric over our “filthy air” as “hooey.”

Noting numbers that didn’t ring true, Henry did some meticulous reporting and found, among other things, a claim by Cal State Fullerton researchers that 800 valley residents died last year due to dirty air was flat-out false.

Our air, she found, is cleaner that it’s been in three decades and pollution isn’t causing us to keel over. It’s just that not everyone wants you to know it.

Environmental issues are as politically charged as they come, so I imagine Henry’s in-box this week was clogged with messages from “enviros” furious with her for bucking the activist line. The column did, however, lead at least one conservative pundit to praise Henry for looking “beyond the press releases of special interests” and that she “deserves a Pulitzer Prize for science and honesty.”

She deserves kudos at the very least, but there will be none from some no matter how convincing the facts.

Speaking of intolerance …

Proposition 8 protesters showed up outside Saddleback Church in Lake Forest again this week, this time to vent over Obama’s selection of Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration.

Seems the protesters were peeved over Warren’s faith-based conviction that marriage is between a man and a woman, a conviction they felt disqualified the pastor from having a role in the inauguration. Never mind that Obama himself has repeatedly said he harbors that same conviction.

The difference is Warren really believes it. Obama, who says he opposes same-sex marriage, but also opposes Proposition 8 and a federal marriage amendment, really doesn’t. And gay activists know it.

Speaking of games politicos play …

Why is our governor making up six-figure jobs and giving them away to termed-out legislators? I mean, Nicole Parra’s endorsement of Republican Danny Gilmore for her 30th Assembly District seat wasn’t THAT big a favor, was it?

Wasn’t it Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who said, not two weeks ago in his State of the State address, that California is “in a state of emergency” and that our massive budget deficit is like “a rock upon our chest?”

Yes, I believe it was.

A couple six-figure jobs may not amount to much in the bottomless bucket that is our budget deficit, but doling out such jobs at a time when state workers are taking leave without pay is unconscionable. Bad form, governor.

What a week. If this week is any indication of what we can expect in the coming year, hang on. It’s gonna be quite a ride.

Why not enforce the smoking laws we already have?

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:41:45 PST

Yet another report came out this week, confirming that Kern County is a miserable place to live.

Just last week, Bakersfield made Forbes.com’s list of America’s 10 most boring cities. This week we have the news that we were fourth in the nation in property foreclosures in 2008, and, on Thursday, the American Lung Association of California gave Kern County a big fat “F” for its failure to protect its people from second-hand smoke.

Honestly, how do we live with ourselves?

The Forbes list is a bit of fluff based on the amount of media coverage cities get, so, by that measure, boring ain’t so bad.

Our number of property foreclosures is indeed a sad reality, but are we really, as one Associated Press story opined, “a haven for Californians yearning to light up in picnic areas and on athletic fields?”

No, we’re not. But we may be a haven for Californians yearning for small government and personal freedom.

Kern County already supports and adheres to state smoking laws, which even the ALA acknowledges are among the “strongest in the nation.” Granted, there is room for improvement, but if ALA’s most recent report card, and media coverage of it, conjures up images of Kern County hayseeds all but blowing smoke in children’s faces.

As always, when commenting on the subject of smoking, I must mention I am as repelled by the habit as anyone else. But let’s try, at least, to be fair — the ALA report card, which graded 297 cities in 30 counties, is so rife with Ds and Fs, it’s simpler to report who passed and how they did it.

In the entire state of California, only one city earned an overall grade of A — Glendale, in Los Angeles County. The county itself earned an overall grade of C, having, like Kern County, failed miserably in the Smokefree Housing category. Glendale, however, was awarded a B in housing and an A in Smokefree Outdoor Air.

How does a city or county earn an A in the category of Smokefree Outdoor Air? By simply declaring a complete ban on smoking in parks, beaches, sports fields, on trails and other recreational areas, with NO designated smoking areas.

Never mind that smoking, while nasty, is still legal.

A perusal of the report card shows while cities and counties, including Kern County, are making strides in reducing the sales of tobacco products, officials are not so quick to impose ordinances that will restrict a legal activity in areas where the possibility of harm is next to nil.

Which is exactly why such proposals didn’t get anywhere when brought before Kern County Supervisors in 2007.

“The way the rules were last presented to us restricted a legal behavior even when it wasn’t harming anyone else,” says Supervisor Mike Maggard. “If it begins to harm someone else, then that’s a different story.”

We can do better, but we can do that by enforcing the laws we already have. Smoking is already prohibited within 25 feet of “tot lots” and playgrounds. So how about we post a sign or two that says so, for dolts too dense to know it?

Selling tobacco products to anyone under 18 is also illegal, so bringing the hammer down hard on those who do might go a long way in raising that overall grade.

Imagine — enforcing current smoking restrictions while protecting personal freedoms. Sounds like an A to me.

Businesses that remember customer service will survive

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:52:16 PST

News alert: We’re in the midst of an economic meltdown and consumers aren’t spending like they used to.

I only mention it because there are retailers in Bakersfield who don’t seem to know it.

You know the stores I’m talking about. The ones where stone-faced sales clerks are clearly annoyed by people wanting to give them money in exchange for merchandise. Where clutter clogs the aisles and where, even with receipts, returns are an exercise in humility.

Where customer service is a quaint, but antiquated idea.

No doubt you’ve shopped at a few of these stores during the holiday shopping season, as I did. Personal highlights include one memorable afternoon at Kohl’s, where I gingerly plucked a slip from a rack jammed with what appeared to be the store’s entire annual slip inventory. The slight movement unleashed an avalanche of slips, a couple dozen of which cascaded to the floor in a silky heap.

Later, when I suggested to a sales clerk that the women’s dressing room probably wasn’t the most appropriate place for a male employee — or some dude trying to look like one — she looked back at me with dull, uncaring eyes and mumbled something about mentioning it to a manager.

Then there was Sears, where I visited a week or so before Christmas to finalize a prearranged purchase on behalf of a local nonprofit. It was my third trip to the store, after selecting a pair of mattresses, box springs, frames and several hundred dollars worth of bedding. When it came time to buy, however, management had an abrupt change of heart, refusing to accept my checks, despite the nonprofit’s sterling credit check.

“I don’t know why we can’t accept them, but we can’t,” the manager told me.

“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You want me to take my business elsewhere, is that right?”

“Yes, sorry, it is,” the manager replied.

Alas, the Sears of my childhood, with its two-inch thick Christmas catalog, well-stocked shelves and superior customer service is no more and we have parted company for good.

Not that Sears gives a hoot. Which is precisely the problem.

There a lot of reasons why businesses fold, but those that survive this economic slump will surely have one thing in common — customer loyalty.

Companies that inspire such loyalty don’t subject customers to bored, boorish clerks, cluttered stores and mediocre merchandise. It’s a buyer’s market out there and the savvy business owner knows it.

“You have to keep your service level up and go above and beyond for your customers,” says Mike Olcott, part owner of Olcott’s at The Marketplace. “It’s not about creating wealth; it’s about creating an ambiance; a warm place to meet people and shop.”

Despite the less-than-stellar holiday shopping season, Olcott’s remains determined to offer services that keep customers coming back, like free gift wrap and a bridal registry with free local delivery.

“You also have to get involved in the community and you do have to give back,” Olcott says.

Not that giving back always means giving large. Last week I drove my car to Cruz Thru Carwash, where I was greeted by JoAnna Smith, a cheerful 19-year-old assistant manager.

Our exchange was brief. Smith asked how I was and offered me one of those tiny trash bags for my car. Before ushering me on through, she turned to me with a bright smile and said, “I hope you have a beautiful day.”

As corny as it sounds, it was a ray of sunshine on a damp and dreary day.

It was also typical Cruz Thru employee behavior, says owner Frank Hobin, who evaluates his greeters several times each month and awards bonuses for superior customer service.

Hobin gets it. So does Olcott. Which is why they, and others who know how to treat customers, will still be standing when this crisis is over.

Americans in Romania? It's a God thing

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:43:53 PST

Christmas is still a few days away, but DeAnn Sampley already has what she asked for.

DeAnn Sampley, a Bakersfield College professor and founder and former president of Children to Love International, volunteers in a Romanian government care center. She visits with Daniel, who suffers from hydrocephalus, commonly known as water on the brain. His last name is not known. (Photo courtesy of DeAnn Sampley)

Exhausted after returning Thursday from Romania, the Bakersfield College professor was utterly spent in the name of the one whose birth we celebrate next week.

It was just the gift she wanted.

It’s what she always wants when she goes to Romania, where she and her fellow short-term missionaries hold and hug abandoned kids of Bucharest until their arms ache. As a founder and former president of Children to Love International — the Bakersfield-based ministry outreach to Romania’s abandoned children — Sampley has made the trip to Bucharest a couple dozen times at least. Only this time was different.

Bucharest has changed some since CTL showed up 15 years ago, Sampley says. The many orphanages, for instance, are no longer called orphanages, but are known more eloquently as government care centers, where the city’s most impoverished families place children they cannot afford to raise.

On the upside, American missionaries are no longer needed to run CTL Bucharest, which is fully staffed by Romanians who minister each week to about 800 children in eight orphanages.

With the ministry’s day-to-day operations well in hand, Sampley and her team, including Wendy Wanner, a pediatric occupational therapist, were free to go where most Americans would fear to tread — the rehab hospital of a government care center.

It’s there the government houses some of Bucharest’s most severely disabled children and where, two years ago, Sampley met Daniel, a young boy suffering from hydrocephalus, commonly known as water on the brain.

“I was with him for eight straight days, from sunup to sundown,” she says. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Naturally, she just had to go back.

This holiday season, though, she went back with the prayers and generous support of Bakersfield College students, many of whom were motivated to help after a flier with a photo of Daniel — whose massive head dwarfs his tiny, 15-year-old body — was circulated around campus by one of Sampley’s sign language students.

“Students I don’t even know would come in and say ‘Can I give you $20?’” she says. “With the money we collected we bought baby food, soap and milk.”

Students and friends also collected trash-bags full of warm socks, beanies, scarves and mittens for Daniel and other abandoned children.

Sampley struggled to put into words what it was like to work with the severely disabled and parentless children of the rehab hospital.

“It was really difficult,” she says. “To see children in those circumstances is hard when we want to help and make sure they get the best care possible.”

But CTL is making a difference, she says. The organization is welcomed and respected in Bucharest and recently received full accreditation from the Romanian government — sort of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval for non-government agencies.

Best of all, Sampley “was excited” to meet Kathy, Daniel’s new Romanian caregiver who will look after the boy when he’s moved to a new and improved facility.

“The timing was perfect for Wendy to teach Kathy some new methods of occupational therapy she can use with Daniel,” Sampley says. “Then, the new facility chose four kids from the hospital and Daniel was one of them. To me it was a God thing.”

A God thing. Always the best thing about Christmas.

Courageous teen speaks out about mental illness

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:53:52 PST

There she sat, smiling up at me, her sweet spirit intact, her proud mom by her side.

Ashley Nommensen

Ashley Nommensen has fought hard against bipolar disorder for four years, but when I bumped into her last week amid the hustle of the holiday season, she looked positively joyful.

I hadn’t seen Ashley since last December, when she was the topic of a column I wrote about her struggle; about the grief the disorder caused her family and about the shortage of mental health resources for children and teens in Kern County. If Ashley’s name doesn’t ring a bell, it may be because her mom asked last year that I not identify her daughter to protect her from the stigma of mental illness.

Stigma? Who cares about some stinking stigma?

Not Ashley. Not any more.

The pretty Stockdale High School senior doesn’t have time to worry about other’s misinformed opinions on mental disorders — she’s too busy making straight As and changing her world. And she’s busy helping other teens change theirs.

Her condition now controlled with medication and determination, Ashley is a founding member of Outspoken Young Minds, a peer support group for teens and young adults struggling with mental health issues and a project of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Kern County.

In the year since the program began, Ashley has become an energetic advocate for OSYM, speaking to civic groups and high school counselors, even appearing on a public television special on high-risk teens in South Carolina, where her older sister attends college.

“She captivates an audience when she tells her story,” says Russ Sempell a local therapist and president of the Kern NAMI chapter. “They’re absolutely glued to her when she tells her story about when she first got sick.”

Ashley was only 13 when a series of traumatic events, including a cruel hoax perpetuated by a classmate and the departure for college of her much-loved older sister, collided to catapult the bashful girl into a full-blown psychotic episode. Five months later, doctors at the child psychiatry department at UCLA diagnosed early onset bipolar disorder.

Ashley says her ultimate goal is to make a difference in the lives of other teens who are “suffering and ashamed because of their brain disorders.”

“I’m still trying to get the confidence to be wholly me, but I’ve never been ashamed to talk about it,” says Ashley.

Good thing, too, because she’ll talking about little else when she, mom Mickie Nommensen and Sempell present their new program at the national meeting of NAMI in San Francisco in June.

OSYM is the first and much-needed youth program of its kind in the country, says Sempell.

“There are more than 37,000 kids in the Kern High School District and we figure up to 8 percent have some kind of mental health condition,” he says. “Up to now, there’s been no outreach for these kids, who feel damaged and often don’t talk to anyone about it.”

There are only 12 young people in OSYM at this time, but there is room for more, says Sempell, who screens referred clients before inviting them to attend.

As for Ashley, she plans to enroll at CSUB next year and major in — what else? — psychology. In the meantime, she promises to keep spreading the word that mental disorders are no cause for shame and that “normal is just a cycle on the washing machine.”

“There are too many kids who have issues that still need help,” she says. “For us, OSYM is awesome.”

Outspoken Young Minds

A support group for people ages 15 through 25 who live with mental health issues. Meets every third Monday at 6 p.m.

For location and more information, call Russ Sempell at 303-1416 or e-mail RUSSMFT@aol.com.

Watchdogs keeping eye on taxes

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:39:31 PST

If the phone rings in the next week or so and it’s Americans for Prosperity calling, don’t hang up.

They don’t want your money. They want you to hang on to it. More of it, in fact.

The grassroots watchdog group, like a lot of us taxpayers, is weary of “the governor and Legislature treating California taxpayers as their own personal ATM machine” as a means to solve the current budget crisis.

The AFP showed up in Bakersfield this week to drive the point home, propping up its trademark visual aid — a giant, inflatable ATM machine — in front of the bankrupt-and-closing Mervyn’s department store on California Avenue.

This wasn’t AFP’s first visit to Bakersfield, but the group returned this week to show its ardent opposition to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and the Legislature’s most recent proposals to tax the already-taxed-to-the-max people of California.

Schwarzenegger’s proposal to close the state’s budget deficit called for $4.4 billion in tax hikes, along with $4.5 billion in spending cuts. The governor’s plan included a three-year, 1-cent jump in state sales tax, a sin tax of a nickel a drink and, just when you thought it was safe to get back in the car, a 10 percent tax on oil pumped in California.

In special session, Democrats did the governor one better, proposing to bring back and triple the vehicle license fee Schwarzenegger dumped when he took office. In the end, lawmakers couldn’t seal the deal, with Republicans saying no thanks to higher taxes.

The governor says he plans to call another special session once newly elected lawmakers are sworn in.

When he does, AFP wants those new legislators to know exactly how Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer feel about the proposed hikes, which is why you may be called one night next week and asked to participate in a virtual town hall.

The organization will randomly call 25,000 to 50,000 local homes, looking for folks with ideas on how to solve the budget crisis. I may be reaching here, but I’m guessing ideas not included will be: a) hitting already strapped taxpayers with more taxes and b) spending money we don’t have.

Those participating in the virtual town hall will be asked to share their comments and ideas about the budget crisis, which will then be forwarded via e-mail and voicemail to the governor and Legislature, says AFP spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns.

“We’ve had a lot of people suggest we just cut everything 5 or 10 percent across the board,” Kerns says. “A lot of people talk about what they’ve done in their own households to cut costs — the common sense thing really comes through at these town halls.”

Common sense things, like cutting waste before raising taxes and living within our means.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature have proposed some deep cuts, to be sure. But that gets us only halfway home and higher taxes will only force folks to hold tighter to pockets and purse strings in a time we need to grow our economy, not shrink it.

If you get a call next week, stay on the line and tell ’em so.

In trying times, cross walker keeps eye on horizon

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:56:58 PST

Why does he do it?

Why does Tom Alexander take to the streets of Bakersfield each morning, lugging a 60-pound cross on his back?

You’ve seen the man. Somewhere along the highways and byways of Bakersfield, you’ve spotted him, towing his cross, waving to passersby and smiling. Always smiling.

Alexander figures he and his cross have covered nearly every main and not-so-main street in Bakersfield at least once, from 7th Standard Road south to Taft Highway and from Weedpatch Highway west to Nord Road.

He walks the streets each day, five days a week, starting around 8 a.m. He walks all morning, takes a two-hour break in the afternoon and is back at it, putting in a total of 10 to 12 miles before his day is done.

He talks with people he meets along the way, sharing prayers with those who want them.

Burly and fit at 61, Alexander started his journey more than two years ago, when he was led to create the 5-by-10-foot cross, mounted on a tire from a child’s old bicycle.

His destination is everywhere, he says, because that’s where people are hurting.

“I have 329,000 reasons for carrying this cross,” Alexander says of Bakersfield’s ever-growing population.

Some of those reasons wave and smile back when they spot Alexander and his cross; others pull their cars to the curb to ask for prayer and counsel. One grief-stricken mother, he says, approached him recently with the news that her young teenage son had just been charged with murder.

“The woman’s face was fraught with pain,” he says. “Tears streamed down her face when she said ‘I needed to see that cross today.’”

That’s all the encouragement Alexander needs to keep walking, stopping often to hoist the cross upright and pray. He prays in front of schools for kids and their teachers, outside the police department for officers’ safety, and at strip clubs for the dancers inside. He stops by government offices to pray for city and county leadership and he prays for the unknown inhabitants of the homes he passes each day.

A former weight lifter and surfer, Alexander “gave up the long board for the long cross” when he started his Bakersfield Street Church more than 30 years ago, ministering to and praying with prostitutes, gang members and the homeless.

The Cross Walk, he says, was a natural extension of the street work he’d done for years, but with a higher profile.

The thing is, a higher profile isn’t always popular these days, especially in places like, say, Palm Springs, where such a display of faith may draw a hostile crowd. One irate reader of this column wrote in this week to compare cross carriers at recent protests to “Nazis showing up at a Jewish rally.”

Alexander hears that and shakes his head in sorrow.

“The cross is God’s plus sign, pointing the way to Jesus Christ,” he says. “There’s nothing negative about it.”

Still, he doesn’t hesitate to take his cross where others fear to tread.

“If I’m only willing to walk where people like me and my cross, that doesn’t say much about my commitment,” he says.

So Alexander walks on, with an eye on a broader horizon. God and finances willing, he plans to take his cross on a walk across California in 2009.

“I don’t go to condemn, but to share God’s truth,” he says. “I just want to talk and I want to defuse some bombs along the way.”

Gay marriage debate just getting started

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:05:01 PST

You didn't really think it was a done deal, did you?

Sure, more than 6 million Californians voted to add the words “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” to the state's constitution. But did you really believe proponents of gay marriage were going to let anything as piddling as the voice of the people derail their cause?

Gay marriage supporters are not about to admit defeat, especially with BFFs like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mainstream media backing them up.

It was downright surreal watching Schwarzenegger in a Sunday CNN interview matter-of-factly shrugging off Californians’ right to determine public policy in their state.

“It is unfortunate, but it's not the end,” said Schwarzenegger of the Prop. 8 win. “I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there.”

Schwarzenegger also had words of encouragement for same-sex marriage advocates, saying “They should never give up; they should be on it until they get it done.”

This from the man who twice vetoed same-sex legislation “out of respect for the will of the people.”

Schwarzenegger has never made a secret of his liberal social leanings, but at least pretended, for a time, that Californians have some say in whether or not the government may redefine marriage in their state. Now, he and at least 44 state lawmakers are clamoring for the courts to overturn the people's vote once more.

Aside from the governor, the gay rights activist's most dependable ally is the like-minded mainstream media, whose support of gay marriage is evident in its sympathetic coverage of the issue and increasingly violent Prop. 8 protests throughout the state.

A news video captured one of the more frightening incidents that took place in Palm Springs, where protesters roughed up 69-year-old Phyllis Burgess outside city hall.

The sight of Burgess carrying a cross angered the protesters, some of whom shoved Burgess nearly to the ground while wrenching the cross from her hands and stomping it to pieces.

The mob encircled Burgess, screaming invectives inches from her face as a TV news reporter attempted an interview. Burgess remained calm throughout the ordeal.

Video of the incident, covered by a KPSP Local 2 news crew, is making the usual rounds on the internet and with good reason. While watching the violence unfold from the safety of his studio chair, news anchor Kris Long remarked of the scene, “there is a lot of anger and a lot of hate, quite honestly, on both sides.”

Really, Kris? On both sides?

I called Long to ask what the matronly Burgess had done that was so hateful. I mean, besides show up.

“I was able to discern that she said people who support Prop. 8 are guilty of infidelity,” Long said. “I think that shows some degree of enmity. That's certainly not love is it?”

How Long was able to “discern” that is a mystery, since it's all but impossible to hear Burgess' few comments over the screams of the protesters, most of whom are red-faced with hysteria.

Gee, I wonder how Long voted on Prop. 8?

In the days since Proposition 8 was approved by the voters, churches have reportedly been spray painted and vandalized; their parishioners bullied by protesters intent on forcing the acceptance of gay marriage.

In Riverside, “Yes on 8” signs were arranged to form a swastika on the grounds of a Catholic church and, on Thursday, letters containing “a suspicious white powder” were sent to Mormon temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.

These are criminal acts that, if perpetuated against gay rights activists, would surely be condemned as hate crimes by the media, who have been uncharacteristically quiet on such matters of late.

Not two weeks ago the people of California voted, for a second time, to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Those opposed to that definition are, for a second time, counting on the Court to undo it.

You thought it was a done deal? Hang on. We're just getting started.

Illness, fire don't dampen farm family's spirit

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:12:41 PST

Vickie Murray didn’t shed a tear over the fire that incinerated her three-acre hay maze the day before Halloween. Heck, she barely raised an eyebrow.

Photo by Felix Adamo/ The Californian

The Murray family from left, Katie, Sean, mom Vickie, dad Steven and Steven, at their farm Friday.

Photo by Felix Adamo/ The Californian

Vickie Murray holds a "Budda's Hand" inside the barn at the Murray Family Farms.

Photo by Felix Adamo/ The Californian

Boxes of apples are displayed at Murray Family Farms.

Photo by Henry A. Barrios / The Californian

Most business owners would be more than a little upset to watch one of their main attractions go up in smoke at the height of their busiest season, especially when it’s a fire Kern County Fire officials call “suspicious.” But Murray, who, with husband Steve owns Murray Family Farms east of Bakersfield, simply shrugged it off.

She’s grateful nobody was hurt. It could have been a lot worse considering the blaze started in the middle of the day and the farm was swarming with kids playing and picking out pumpkins. Some of those kids were wending their giddy way through the hay maze when it caught fire.

So the loss of a little hay is nothing, Murray says. A slight inconvenience. A blip.

Murray has a knack for keeping things in perspective, something she developed while raising three kids while building the popular pick-your-own-fruit farm. It’s been a labor of love for the cheerful redhead and her affable husband, who could have avoided a lot of hard work and frustration by selling their fruits and veggies to grocery chains and at farmers’ markets.

No way, says Murray, who wants local kids to know the thrill of eating fresh-picked fruit.

“We decided we wanted to sell directly to the customer,” she says. “We loved it when a little old lady bit into a cherry and, with tears on her cheeks, said ‘This is how a cherry is supposed to taste.’”

The Murrays bought their prime piece of property off Highway 58 and General Beale Road in 2002, after pleading for six years with the previous owners to sell. The couple broke ground on their 365-acre fruit farm, despite some sound advice from Al Bussell, whose own pick-your-own place served Kern County residents for 30 years before his death in 2004.

“He warned us it was a high-risk business, with a low return,” Murray says. “He told us not to do it.”

They did it anyway, selling produce from a small trailer on the property while jumping through every bureaucratic hoop the county could come up with. Four years later, the couple finally opened the doors to their big red barn of a market in June 2008.

Along the way, the Murrays and their three children had worse things than bureaucracy to battle.

At age 8, the Murrays’ eldest son, Steven was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism that often manifests itself in socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior. A gifted child who could memorize cities, states and countries on wall maps near his desk, Steven couldn’t tune out distractions to “plug into what the teacher was saying.”

With the help of his determined parents and teachers, Steven began to take control of his illness in high school. Now 22, he’s a stellar college student with a gift for languages.

Around the time Steven started to turn things around, his sister Katie was diagnosed at age 11 with a debilitating kidney disease. By age 18, Katie’s kidneys were completely destroyed and she underwent a kidney transplant at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University.

A year later, doctors removed that kidney, rejected and infected, from Katie’s tired body. Now 20, she’s been on dialysis three times a week ever since.

But not for much longer, says her hopeful mom, who expects to donate one of her own kidneys to her girl in January.

“After two years, she’s better to the point where she’s ready for another transplant,” Murray says. “If the doctors say I’m able, it’s going to be mine.”

The Murrays think the person who torched their hay maze may have been a disgruntled visitor with a match and an attitude.

Fortunately for those of us who are fans of fresh-picked fruit, country farms and dogged determination, it will take more than some pyronut to unhinge the Murrays. They’re settling in for a nice long run.

Mettler not to blame for sign scuffle

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:23:41 PDT

It’s been a great week for gay-rights activists, Prop. 8 protesters and the local media, all of whom are simply giddy over the infamous sign scuffle at a recent Friday-night rally.

Eight days after the incident, they’re still happily making hay over the video of Kern High School District trustee Ken Mettler punching protester Rob Badewitz.

And who can blame them? I mean, how often does such a gift fall into your lap?

That the video was shot and delivered to newsies by a crony of Badewitz’s and that it conveniently captures only Mettler’s part in the scuffle and that the police are still investigating the incident is apparently irrelevant.

Mettler got the trouble he was asking for, say critics, who are demanding apologies, talking recall and scouring public records for signs of a criminal past.

There isn’t one, save for an accusation six years ago that Mettler vandalized a campaign sign during a re-election run for the Rosedale Union School District. The matter went before Judge Sidney Chapin who threw the frivolous case out of court in under an hour.

In other words, Mettler has no criminal record. But that didn’t stop editorial writers from making the connection anyway, calling it “the same sort of act that enraged him to the point of alleged assault” in regard to the recent scuffle.

Enraged? Mettler? Did anyone actually watch the video?

The video shows Mettler calmly wading through a mob of vulgar, profanity spewing protesters to pick up a pile of “Yes on Prop. 8” signs — signs the protesters are heard to say they paid for, which is weird since the signs are free to anyone who supports the cause. Mettler says it wasn’t until he heard aggressors approaching from behind and spotted Badewitz at his side, that he reacted.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a punch coming,” he said. “I leaned backwards to avoid it and felt the signs pulled from my hands — I threw one punch to defend myself.”

Both men walked away from the fracas uninjured, save for a bruise on Badewitz’s cheek. Judging from media reports, though, one might get the idea Mettler stabbed Badewitz with an ice pick, so outraged and fearful did the incident leave local Prop. 8 opponents.

“If he can’t keep his own temper, I’m worried about what the ‘Yes on 8’ people will do now,” said Whitney Weddell, Bakersfield leader of the “No on Prop. 8” campaign.

Oh, that’s right, I nearly forgot — this Prop. 8 thing is all about victimizing gay people, though Weddell admitted to a reporter that some of the younger members of her group went to the California Avenue rally because “they wanted to be more confrontational” with the “Yes on 8” crowd.

Maybe what Weddell should really worry about are fellow gay-rights activists who believe the law and rules of civility don’t apply to them.

The northwest corner protesters, by virtue of their youth, I suppose, get a free pass for their behavior, which, in recent days included harassing Mettler, mooning Vietnam veterans on the pro-American-troop corner and chasing a couple of Spanish-speaking Prop. 8 supporters up California Avenue.

“I was screaming in Spanish on my megaphone for the sisters to come to our side of the street, but they couldn’t hear me and don’t understand English,” says Pastor Novar Hernandez of Gethsemane Church. “The protesters chased them a quarter block up the street.”

As for that young rascal Badewitz, details of his recent criminal past are gradually making their way north from San Diego, where he was convicted in 2007 for felony drug possession. He also has a restraining order against him, according to court records, the result of a domestic violence case.

All of which, according to local media, was somehow irrelevant to recent events. Now, if the 21-year-old Badewitz had been convicted of, say, felonious assault on a campaign sign, well, then you might have some relevant reading.

Mettler’s decision to walk among the brutes for the sake of a few yard signs wasn’t the best idea he’s ever had — no doubt about it. But how about we set aside the tar and feathers for just a bit and give the police time to finish their investigation.

Mettler, a dedicated public servant who has served our kids and schools for 14 years, says he fought back in self defense.

Badewitz, an out-of-towner with a colorful rap sheet, says otherwise. Why is it that Mettler must bear the full burden of blame?

It’s quite a cost for just crossing the street.

Prop. 2 preys on naive city slickers

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:33:14 PDT

We city slickers are such suckers.

Flash a photo of a dead chicken before our eyes and our collective lower lip trembles, so easily convinced are we that the sins of a few farmers are the standard for most.

Which likely explains why Proposition 2, the Standards for Confining Farm Animals initiative on the ballot this November, is getting widespread support among voters, according to recent polls.

Proposition 2 is a well-meaning measure that would require “calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their wings and turn around freely.”

Sounds reasonable enough. But veal and pork production in California is small, so we’re basically talking about egg production — an already heavily regulated industry that will face dire consequences should the measure pass.

If Proposition 2 commercials are to be believed — with their photos of dead chickens and that hideous, but irrelevant video of the dairy cow and its fork-lift tormentor — animal cruelty is standard operating procedure among California’s egg producers.

Being a city slicker myself, I might have bought into the hype had I not actually visited one of California’s largest egg-producing facilities, which happens to be right here in Kern County.

Demler Enterprises, a respected name in the California egg industry, houses about one million laying hens at its facility in Wasco and another million at its Delano operation. That 2 million, plus the 2.5 million hens housed at Demler family farms in Southern California, account for nearly a quarter of the state’s total number of laying hens.

I visited Demlers’ Delano farm in 2003, at the height of California’s exotic Newcastle disease epidemic. It was a scourge that forced state authorities to destroy more than 3 million chickens and backyard birds, yet Demler’s flocks survived unscathed, due largely to the company’s high standards of cleanliness and care.

Those standards are still in force at the farms, where Demler keeps about 100,000 chickens per hen house. There’s no question the quarters are close, but the chickens are caged with enough room to sit, stand, turn and flap wings, though not all at the same time. The birds are fed and watered daily, are checked regularly by veterinarians and are safe from predators in housing that’s kept at a comfortable 80 degrees year round.

There’s no debeaking at Demler farms, where lights are kept low to keep the chickens calm. It appears to work — the only sounds I heard while there were the contented cluck-cluck-clucking of thousands of chickens.

“If they live well, they produce well,” owner David Demler says. “If they were miserable, production would go down and mortality would go up and we’ve never seen that.”

Should the measure pass, Demler will be required to refit his buildings to allow the birds run of the floors. Such a drastic change would not only force Demler to cut back the number of chickens per house by about 40,000 each, it would make for less sanitary conditions.

The American Veterinary Medical Association agrees with Demler, saying in statements against the measure it would increase the risk of Salmonella contamination in eggs by “putting hens and their eggs in direct contact with feces and other fluids.” Yuck.

The cost to keep chickens in a state of bliss may eventually drive egg producers out of state and will most certainly be handed down to consumers.

Proposition 2 supporters, an idealistic bunch who apparently don’t do much comparison shopping, say the increased cost of eggs would be negligible, but a July study by the University of California Agriculture Issues Center reports that costs could “rise substantially, by at least 25 percent.”

All one must do is check the price of free-range eggs at Albertson’s to know it’s true.

The measure is supported by Kern County’s Sen. Dean Florez who, Demler says, was invited to tour the farm, but never responded.

Proposition 2 is another unfounded attack on California’s farmers and a burden to families already struggling through a tough economy. Don’t buy the hype. Vote no on Proposition 2.

Proposition 8 no civil rights issue

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:48:53 PDT

What was I thinking?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself more than once since I agreed to participate in the Proposition 8 debate last week at Cal State Bakersfield. I am, after all, an ardent supporter of the California Marriage Protection Act and the debate was co-sponsored by the school’s Gay Lesbian Straight Student Alliance.

I suppose I thought the students might actually be interested in civil discourse on the issue. In my naiveté, I thought all that tolerance liberals are so proud of might be extended to me and to Ken Mettler, my partner on the dais.

I thought as an invited guest I might be treated like one.

I thought wrong. To say the crowd was hostile is an understatement. Suffice it to say I was relieved that night to find they were serving popcorn and not pie.

I had hoped by participating I might finally get answers to questions I’ve repeatedly asked in regard to the legalization of gay marriage. And by answers I mean responses that are not convoluted, confused or dismissive.

When the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June, it stipulated that same-sex couples can’t force religious organizations to marry them against the organization’s faith beliefs. Does that mean, I asked the crowd, that members of those organizations are also guaranteed the free exercise of those faith beliefs without discrimination?

I asked those assembled to consider growing evidence that we are not.

• A same-sex couple in New Mexico asked the owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque to photograph their commitment ceremony. The business owners declined the job, saying their Christian beliefs conflicted with the message communicated in the ceremony.

The end result? The same-sex couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, accusing the photographers of discrimination. The court found for the same-sex couple and ordered the photographers to pay more than $6,600 in the couple’s attorney’s fees.

• The Boston Globe reported that Harvard Law School opened the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Law Clinic “to address unique legal dilemmas” raised by the state’s legalization of gay marriage.

Among those dilemmas is “how to deal with school systems that refuse to use books and curriculums that address gender diversity in families.”

• Here in California, two Christian physicians declined to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient, citing their faith beliefs. Instead, they referred the woman to the doctor who was able to help the woman get pregnant and even offered to pay any extra costs.

Not good enough. The woman sued the doctors for discrimination and won. In September the State Supreme Court upheld that decision. The list goes on. But my question was shrugged off by the crowd and my No-on-Prop-8 opponents, who simply said if a service is offered it must be offered to everyone.

In other words, faith beliefs and parental authority be damned.

My second question was likewise dismissed. And dissed.

“Where’s the justification,” I asked, “in changing the boundaries of traditional marriage to include homosexuals, but to continue to exclude other groups?”

After all, if marriage is merely a matter of consenting adults who love each other, why are, say, polygamists denied the right to marry?

The question was immediately labeled a red herring by the crowd and the opposing side, who said the business of administering polygamous relationships in California was simply too difficult, too “unworkable.”

Unworkable? Says who? With enough political clout anything is workable. Even changing the definition of marriage for all people for all time.

One thing made clear at the CSUB debate, besides the fact that tolerance is something for the other guy to worry about, was that the audience was firmly convinced Prop. 8 is an attack on civil rights, yet equality under the constitution ensures that every woman enjoys the same right to marry any man she wants and vice versa.

A woman from the audience illustrated the point when she stood at the microphone and angrily recounted the discrimination she’d recently suffered in a local emergency room when hospital staff wouldn’t allow her child's “other mother” to join her at his bedside.

“It was because we’re gay,” she shouted, near tears.

Odd. My husband and I have taken our injury-prone son to the emergency room no fewer than 10 times in the past 20 years. Each time, without exception, one of us was asked to remain in the waiting area, while the other stayed with our son.

The one-visitor-at-a-time rule is in place so doctors and nurses can tend to patients without wading through mobs of wigged-out relatives. In my experience, it’s a reasonable restriction that applies to everyone.

But the angry woman wasn’t satisfied with what applies to everyone. She wanted more.