Recent Blog Posts: Bakersfield.com

Will you do something frivilous with your tax refund?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:47:16 PDT

This question does not apply to me. We have to pay through the nose.

But a USA Today-Gallup Poll says 62 percent of Americans will spend their refunds on bills or they will save it.

A story by Mindy Fetterman linked above suggest that might not be accurate because spending in America goes way up in March, April and May as people get their refunds.

I tend to believe that because back in the day, I spent at least some of my refund on vacations, clothes or material goods. In the bad years, I did pay off bills.

What will you do with yours?

Posted by Steve E. Swenson

A one-world language is a necessity

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:38:04 PDT

Unquestionably a common language is the “glue” that holds any society or nation together. The babble of tongues into which America has degenerated does not bode well, and every time someone comes out and openly expresses the fact America is becoming increasingly mongrelized and threatened as a result of this by catering to Spanish, by sensibly asking why any American should have to “Press one for English” they risk being called “racist.” But each time I write about this subject I know the agenda of wealth and power those that are attempting to force the Spanish language on Americans, those like Bush, politicians and their corporate masters that support slave labor from Mexico and building their constituency of the “Latino” vote.

It only worsens things for America when AG Gonzales so obviously favors Mexico and Mexicans over America and Americans with his boss’s blessing. But so many of the Bush supporters are now openly trying to distance themselves from the “bubble” he is living in as to be downright embarrassing; yet Bush doesn’t get the message, or in his own words he “doesn’t care” what anyone including We the People think. But, as he also said, he has God as his advisor. And that trumps any mortals attempting to advise Bush, especially, it seems, if they don’t speak Spanish.

But the absolute lunacy apart from the claims of Bush to have an inside track with the Deity remains of those that believe America can ever survive as a nation being pulled apart by things like mongrelization and open borders, the threat to our nation posed by the loss of a national language and identity as Americans would seem to be self-evident; but where money and power are involved such lunacy abounds. And few things are as detrimental to our survival as a nation as the failed attempt to accommodate a polyglot of foreign tongues. Bad enough the schools no longer teach reading and writing, but then to be forced to accommodate millions of illegal aliens that will never become proficient in English is totally destructive to the schools the Federal Triune Dictatorship and its ACLU makes such demands upon.

A pragmatic fact is that America cannot possibly survive as a nation without a national language, a national identity based on a common language. The Greeks called all those not speaking their language “barbarians.” But the Greeks did not use the term in the pejorative sense, but rather to properly discriminate on a national basis. The Apostle Paul pointed out the same thing when commenting on the need for speaking in a language all could understand. The Pentecost story in the Acts emphasizes the same thing.

Among the many fascinating stories in the Bible the “confusion of tongues” is one of the greater of these. After the Deluge, the generations of Noah’s sons is given followed by the account of Babel:

These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

This eleventh chapter of Genesis is the last time this particular plural form of “gods” is used in the Bible. It had been used in the beginning chapters up to this point as in the “let us make man in our image and after our likeness,” but for reasons unknown, though encouraging much speculation, here is the last time this plural of gods is used. And to read the many Biblical commentators on this point only adds to the mystery rather than any plausibly acceptable explanation for it.

A common language is essential to any work requiring the cooperation of a number of people, whether building a tribe or a nation, and the lack of a common language certainly has divided the nations scattering people as intended by the gods in Genesis. However the story originated as an attempt to explain the diverse languages of humankind, there is no doubt about it serving the intention of the gods as given.

However, to credit the account in Genesis raises the question of just who were these gods, and what exactly did they have to fear from mortals? Perhaps the myths of Sumeria, Babylonia, Egypt, and the Greeks have more to offer on this subject than what is found in the Bible. But imagine what the world might be today had there never been any “confusion of tongues,” but the whole world spoke a common language? Try to imagine what triumphs of art and science might humankind have achieved, but have been missed by the confusion of tongues. Even now, an entire world speaking a common language boggles the mind! But the story in Genesis has the gods fearing this kind of cooperation among humans. Why?

One area of speculation has it the gods feared the very kind of violence leading to the Deluge would once more prevail throughout the earth, that the building of the tower though probably metaphorical was with evil intent. Some years ago I wrote an article in which I asked the question why God did not know the very things leading to the Deluge remained with Noah and his sons, as was quickly evidenced

But since the Bible credits Satan as having dominion over the kingdoms of the earth, going to and fro throughout like a lion seeking prey, would he have a vested interest in the confusion of tongues as well? Certainly the need for a common language is essential for the progress of civilization worldwide, but what of a common language to the purpose of evil?

There is good reason to credit the Biblical account of the End Times that dwells on a one world government, of which we assume a common language will be needed. At some point for the sake of peace and commerce it seems logical that such a thing would be needed. As it stands English is a requirement of all international pilots and airlines, and most of the world’s commerce is conducted in English. Most of the technology in the world has an English base. But imagine what would be required to make English the language of the world. Most nations will never forsake their native tongues short of absolute force. And what would be the force driving English? One scenario would be that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX, even a monumental nuclear accident resulting in the deaths of millions would do it.

Right now America is desperate for a “strong man” to come to the fore and unite Americans once more as a nation. But it is increasingly obvious it will take more than money to satisfy the requirement; it will take the charisma of genuineness of character and virtue. We want to believe in someone, but it has to be someone that convinces us he is more interested in putting America first rather than other nations like Mexico and China.

The language of mathematics enables everyone of whatever language to understand 666. While most people understandably do not credit such a bogeyman, racism based on human nature remains a very real bogeyman. But no amount of left-wing rhetoric and laws, no amount of ACLU bullying will make people other than what they are concerning their wanting to congregate with their own kind according to race and language. A one-world dictator, a one-world government would soon have everyone talking the same language. Is this what the gods of Genesis feared? Even discounting any gods, the story certainly evidences a genuine human concern about a one-world language early in history, and it’s another of those moral dilemmas for which there seems no answer that would satisfy everyone. And where morality fails of an answer, it opens the door inviting force to enter.

But considering the many threats to America and the rest of the world, things like global warming for whatever reason, the threat of world famine and disease, the threat of contaminated food supplies as the latest pet food from China while we are “assured” the toxin hasn’t found its way into food for humans, there are many things shouting “Crisis!” and won’t simply go away by political rhetoric. Such things demand an answer. And when things reach the point of threatening the whole world, discounting the “Rapture” and those “Left Behind,” an answer will be forced upon us, moral or not. Lifeboat Ethics at that point will be more than just an academic discussion.

On the campaign trail: Dem's raise twice as much as Repub's in 1st quarter

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:52:00 PDT

Obama's total is in, a cool $25 Million. Both Obama and Hillary raise the most of all contenders for President. From Politico.com:

In the much-watched first quarter of presidential fundraising, the Democratic candidates raised more than twice as much as their Republican counterparts, a huge gap that is putting added pressure on a party already struggling to regroup after the November elections.

According to preliminary fundraising numbers released by the campaigns this week, the combined Democratic field raised about $80 million, compared with roughly $40 million collected by their GOP adversaries.

In 1999, the last presidential race without an incumbent in the race, Republicans raised $33 million in the first quarter, compared with $13 million by the Democrats, according to the Campaign Finance Institute. The disparity was also evident in 1988, when the Republican field reported $19 million in first-quarter fundraising, compared with $3 million by the Democrats.

How important is customer service?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:28:47 PDT

How does customer service impact your shopping habits? Have you stopped shopping at a particular store or restaurant after a bad experience or hearing about somone else's bad experience? What's your best or worst shopping horror story? Check out a story on customer service in The Californian on Sunday, April 15 and glance at a previous blog on customer service from last fall when I first started working on this story.

Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:04:20 PDT

Easter week seems a good time to ask this question — do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?

The question presupposes you believe in Jesus and he was both God and man.

So you can address those issues too if you want.

I found the following article helpful in analyzing this topic.

In a nutshell, it says the Roman soldiers had every reason including their own lives to protect the tomb, and the apostles were too scared to be seen out in public until Christ appeared to them. Then their beliefs were so strong, they became martyrs.

It also said Christ appeared to his number one enemy, Saul, and that led to Saul's transformation to Paul and one of the key writers of the Bible.

There are arguments against the resurrection. Here's one. It essentially says the resurrection accounts are based on hearsay and contradictory reports in the Bible.

Another one reports that Biblical accounts are unreliable and factually incorrect.

Posted by Steve E. Swenson

Sanjaya wins this round but hopefully not tonight!

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:03:26 PDT

Sanjaya is a contestant on American Idol, who has been getting alot of buzz because he is horrible. Howard Stern is telling everyone to vote for him because he sucks.
Voteforthe worst.com is telling everyone to vote for him also for the same reason. He is actually a big joke on the show and the judges make fun of him constantly. One thing he has is the tween fans and I think that makes a huge difference.....who can forget that tween girl that was crying the entire episode? Ha ha.

He has also had a lady on MySpace, just known as "J", that was starving herself until he was kicked off the show but she was unable to make it to the day he was! She lost 17 lbs and starved herself for 16 days. She said her doctor made her stop or she would have major health issues. She thinks she has made a dent in swaying people not to vote for him.
We will have to see tonight but for now Sanjaya won this round! Would you starve yourself for this kind of cause or any cause? What do you think of Sanjaya?

coroner investigator discusses time of death in hearing

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:58:28 PDT

The prosecution wants to question a coroner’s investigator to determine if he has the expertise to determine time of death.

Coroner investigator Kenneth Noach said in a report that the bodies had rigor mortis when he saw them on July 8, 2003, when the bodies were found. If the bodies were in the last stages of rigor mortis, that would challenge the prosecution’s time frame because a pathologist testified that rigor mortis, or stiffening of a dead body, goes away after 24 to 36 hours.

The prosecutor doesn’t want Noach to testify about time of death because he does not have the expertise to determine this.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush ordered a hearing outside the presence of the jury to determine if Noach has the expertise to testify on this issue.

Noach testified that he has numerous classes and training to become a coroner’s investigator. He was trained with the Orange County coroner. He has attended over 100 trainings. He 21 years he has been to about 3,000 crime scenes. About 5 percent of those were homicides, meaning a couple hundred.

He has had specialized training to determine time of death.

Noach explains what rigor mortis is and how long it remains. He was a physicians assistant in pathology.

He has also assisted in 6,000 autopsies. When he arrives at the scene, he is asked to determine time of death using lividity, the settline of blood, and rigor mortis.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green questions Noach if time of death is his duty. He said it is. He said it is a critical part of his job.

He initially said the time of death was estimated at 24 plus or minus a few hours. He was directed to take time of death out of his report. He said this is one of the few times he was ever asked to take out time of death from his report.

Green challenges Noach calling himself a physician’s assistant. He says that when he was a physician’s assistant, the educational requirements were different. Green believes a physician’s assistant is the same as a coroner’s assistant, but he said there is a different.

Noach agrees with Green that time of death is a complicated issue in this case.

He said he is not going to let eye-witnesses change his opinion on time of death.

He said he did not attend the autopsy of the Harpers.

“Wouldn’t you agree the pathologist is in the best position to determine the time of death,” Green asks.

He said they certainly have the training.

“I was at the scene, Dr. Dollinger was not at the scene,” Noach said.

Fixed rigor mortis was easily broken on Lyndsey and Marques, Noach noted in his account.

He has been to 3,000 scenes where he has had to determine time of death. He has been to the scene of about 150 homicide cases. How many has decomposition been an issue? Possibly 50.

Of those 50 cases where you expressed an initial opinion, how many times have you been asked to withdraw your opinion on time of death? This is the only time.

How many times have these opinions been reflected in the final report? He said he cannot remember. He does not know.

He has been asked to take information on other topics out of the reports, he said. He said that details have been removed at times because they are too descriptive.
Are you aware of how post mortem changes are different in a child? He said that rigor mortis disappears more quickly in children.

Noach said the heat has a lot of effect on post mortem changes. He also considered humidity. He said the last time the person was seen alice would be something he searched for.

Joanie Harper was in a more advanced state of decomposition. The children were in the early, early stages of decomposition, Noach said.

He noted some skin discoloration to her chest and abdomen. He does not recall seeing changes on her feet. The prosecution believes there was some decomposition on her feet, based on the pathologist’s testimony.

Rigor had passed with Joanie Harper, Earnestine Harper and Marshall. Why had the rigor mortis passed with them and not the other two. He also noted the heat in the room.

He said that adults have more bacteria and the children have less, which causes rigor mortis. The rigor is hastened by heat.

He did not examine Earnestine Harper completely, only her hands and her face. But he did notice a smell. He did not indicate odor in the report.

He did not take the body temperature of the victims. He said you would not want to do that. He did not note that Lyndsey Harper was purging from her mouth.

Green questions Noach if he used stomach contents to determine time of death. He said he did not attend the autopsy. He said he did not seek out any other information from the other reports regarding time of death.

Green points out all of the elements of determining cause of death he did not rely upon including stomach contents.

Noach said he did not consider things such as mail left un collected to determine the time of death. Noach said the clothes the people were wearing are important to determine the time of death. Does this change his time of death? He said it does not think so because he is looking at the changes to the body which are far more important.

Snorting dad's ashes just some blow

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:42:43 PDT

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is now saying he was just joking when he talked about snorting his dad's cremated ashes mixed with some blow (cocaine).

The above link will give you a snyopsis of the story.

But Rachel Legan on KGFM radio this morning asked the pertinent question about all this — considering how whacky Richards is, why wouldn't you believe his snorting dad account?

Just because it's outrageous, disrespectful to a stratosphere level or sounding like the guy was wasted on drugs — none of those reasons are enough not to believe Richards could have actually done this.

What does this say about our society, old rockers or habitual drug users?

Posted by Steve E. Swenson

Man in a Box

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:45:56 PDT

This isn't another David Blaine stunt. A scientist named Lloyd Godson is going to seal himself inside a box and drop the box underwater to become part of a self-contained ecosystem for 2 weeks. He'll be eating algae and using algae to process the air he breathes and using a stationary bike to get some exercise and create electricity.

I can only assume the electricity will be used in part to power the monitors he has set up to check on air quality etc. While this doesn't exactly sound like a fun vacation, it goes to show some of the possibilities in our future when we begin to fully understand just what it takes to create a sustainable environment.

As a person who has spent a lot of time working on buildings, one thing that strikes me over and over is how little people think about how stuff gets to them, or what happens when it leaves. In a building I managed, I had a tenant who had a crack in a brick wall. They would push their cigarettes out through the crack and they would land on the building next door. Of course, to the tenant, they were just pushing them "out" into the world, where apparently magical creatures would come along and make the butts disappear.

Here's another example: Many of you may have heard about the possible link between schizophrenia and cats. There is a book out now called Survival of the Sickest (I've included a link to their blog) that talks about the T gondii virus and how mice that are infected display some of the characteristics of schizophrenia, including lack of fear in dangerous situations. So cats eat the mice that don't realize that cats will eat them. However, now they are finding that sea otters are getting infected as well because people flush their cat litter down the toilet. The infection (which is picked up from clams and other filter feeders) causes "mental impairment" in the otters. Presumably making them easier prey for sharks.

All in all, I'm not sure how self contained Lloyd Godson's underwater box is, but we're all living in a bigger box where nothing is ever truly whisked away. The more we think about where everything we touch will be in 5 minutes and 100 years, the more we can start to look at how we want to start managing the planet.

The Icon is called The Bride Groom and reflects the Mystery of God, who emptyed himself to take the form of man. He has two natures and two wills, Fully God and fully man.

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:06:31 PDT

Holy Week
Недеља страдања

Behold, the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching; and again unworthy is he whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, lest thou be overcome with sleep, lest thou be given up to death, and be shut out from the Kingdom. But rouse thyself and cry: Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God, through the Mother of God, have mercy on us.

@ Art by Stamatis Skliris

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:19:52 PDT

Psyche, Soul & Scripture Series: Thread I:

If you think spring break is cause for celebration, try Easter.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Probably not. That would certainly date you. But I hope this song will transport you there, just long enough to appreciate the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus paid so that we could be declared free and so that we could be proclaimed children of the living God. Jesus carried your sins and mine, and, indeed, the sins of the whole world on his shoulders as he died on the cross. He carried the burden so that you and I could be set free. For those who have accepted the free gift of God's salvation, Easter is a very special time.

The first recording of this song was by Tennessee Ernie Ford. I was a young child. It touched my heart. Then I heard Johnny Cash's version, and of course, that came straight from his heart, so I was feeling it too. If gospel legend Andrae Crouch ever recorded the song, it would sound something like this. I'm not talking about the voice. My voice could never compete with his. But if you are familiar with the artist, you will recognize his stylistic fingerprints on the arrangement. That's not because he produced it. It's because growing up with his music had an unspeakable impact on me and inspired me as I recorded this particular number.

The Last Hurrah

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:31:48 PDT

My grandson, Ryan Mathews, played his last football game as a High School player last Friday night at Rabbobank arena in the Blitz Bowl. It wa sgreat to see him play again. He ran the opening kickoff back for a TD and didn't disappoint anyone all night with his play. The whole family was there plus quite a few friends, enough so that we took up two and a half rows of seats in one section. Obviously the Arena format is nothing like the traditional format, but a sensational player looks good anywhere! Ryan was actually having fun and didn't have his usual dour, serious gameface on as he stalked the sideline as he did during football season. When one of the family would shout to him he'd turn around and flash his winning smile whereas at the regular season games he might turn around and give you his "I'm working" look. He ran and caught all evening and put on quite a show garnering the MVP award in the process.

After the game, the media set up some tables so all the players could chat and sign autographs. It was really cool and it seemed that most of the players who chose to participate had plenty of attention, but it was Ryan woh had a line and a crowd gathered around him. I didn't even go there, but walked around chatting with and congratulating all the other players, even finding out that one of Ryans teammates was the nephew of a guy I work with.

As I walked around that arena I realized that it was the last hurrah for all these kids. They are all seniors and none of them will ever play another down for their alma maters. While Ryan is the only one I am actually linked to, all of these young men must have been feeling elated and nostalgic, or bummed, or whatever and that had an unexpected effect on me..I felt a little sorry for them all. I know hat they are going to miss next year, even the ones, like Ryan, who will go on to college will be leaving something they can never get back.

I am proud of Ryan and all he has accomplished, but I am proud of the other kids too. The ones I don't even know. That game will be something they will all be able to tell their grandkids about someday and that is a cool feeling. I guess I am just glad I got to be there for their last hurrah!

Several people sent in photos of a car fire Tuesday.

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:12:14 PDT

The fire happened at Mohawk and Truxtun Avenue. It involved a three car wreck and no one was injured according to fire and police.

And a lot of people saw it. The truck on fire put out really visible black smoke. We got a call from an off duty reporter and three people sent us photos. It''s really great to see so many people get out and record breaking news. Keep it up y'all.

The first four photos are from Sean Kenny, who appears to be shooting from the grass off the road from the fire.

The next four are from Waldo at Waldo's Pest Control. His job is to remove bee hives, he told me.

And the last shot is from Philip Smith, who is an air conditioning tech.

Potty Training Autistic daughter need advice...

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:48:41 PDT

We have been working with a Board Certified Behavior Analyst trying to potty train Chloe, she will sit on the potty but will not go. She holds her urine and BMs all day except for the occasional daytime accident. Usually Chloe only goes potty when she is in bed with a diaper on, early in the morning or late at night. Any suggestions?

Does anyone know of a good pediatrician in Bakersfield?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:43:57 PDT

Has anyone found a pediatrician who actually has experience with autistic kids? We usually go to Children's Hospital in Madera when we need anything. Any suggestions?

Video of Ryan Mathews touchdown..Blitz Bowl

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:31:06 PDT

Check it out... hopefully it will work.

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c250/ShortmanBH/?action=view&current=MOV00572.flv

Easter bunny outed by daughter. Help!

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:18:33 PDT

Help! My very smart, very self-assured 4-year-old daugther just spilled the beans on the Easter Bunny to her entire preschool class.

The teacher tried to brush over it, but after the class she pulled my wife to the side and implied in the nicest way that we need to get with the program and buy into the idea of supporting this myth.

And the real clincher: she's at a Christian preschool run out of a Methodist church! So basically it's a church telling us that we need to lie to our kids about something that we know they will eventually figure out and resent us for.

I think we'd just forget about the whole affair if it weren't for the fact that our daughter is traumatized by the experience for reasons that she refuses to talk about. We tried to explain that sometimes other people believe things that you don't, or that you don't want to ruin the "surprise" for the other kids (which is a strange way of putting it, since I have vivid memories of learning The Truth at the tender age of 6 and feeling deeply betrayed by my own parents.)

We asked her if the teacher, or some of the other kids, said something to her and she won't even have the discussion. To directly quote her: "WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME THIS OVER AND OVER? I don't want to talk about it!" (Yes our 4-year-old often sounds like a 14-year-old).

And before anyone jumps on my case for being the bad guy for telling her the truth, we didn't. We simply didn't make a big deal about the easter bunny. We figured others would tell her about it, and they did. She came to her grandma and asked if there was really a bunny that brings a basket of eggs to your house with candy, because that didn't make sense to her. She'd never seen a bunny carrying a basket, and not with eggs, so it seemed silly to her. Her grandma, a former second-grade teacher, responded in the most tactful way: "Maybe you should think about that through Easter and then tell us what you think!" Well, my daughter had already made up her mind. She decided that either her grandma or parents dressed up as a bunny and that they brought the eggs early in the morning. Instead of outright lying to her, her grandma just smiled and said "Maybe!"

This is such a new thing for us, so I have to ask:

1) If you're a parent, did anything like this happen to you? If not with the Easter Bunny, maybe Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy?

2) How would you recommend dealing with this problem? In particular, how do we get our daughter to talk about what happened at school?

3) How do we help her not continue to let other kids in on the secret while also respecting her keen intellect at having figured it out at such a young age?

4) And finally, do you think parents are lying by continuing the myth of the Easter Bunny, especially with kids who are smart enough to know better?

Barbecue Basics 1

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:10:45 PDT

First, we'll look at the basics: barbecues, fuel for the fire, and some basic techniques. Since true barbecue involves slow smoking at a low temperature, we'll examine the right tools for the job.

Smokers and grills come in all shapes and sizes, each best suited for a particular purpose. The same can be said of the fuel for the fire; there are several different fuels for a barbecue fire -- each, again, with its unique advantages.

Probably the most popular workhorse for the barbecue aficionado is the offset barrel smoker (shown below). Its off-set firebox (the smaller barrel hanging down and below from one end) provides a very indirect heat that is ideal for barbecue's low-and-slow cooking.

These are a little more difficult to find in stores than the typical burger- and steak-oriented flat grill, but Lowe's sells barrel-shaped grills with an optional firebox attachment that converts the unit into a true offset smoker.

Another widely used device is the water smoker or bullet smoker. Also available at Lowe's, it has one major benefit: it holds a large bowl of liquid inside that fills the cooking chamber with a flavorful steam that keeps moisture levels high -- requiring less effort to prevent the meat from drying out. Excellent for brisket, it's good for other meats as well; some barbecue teams rely solely on bullet smokers.

And -- for a little surprise -- don't belittle the basic Weber kettle simply because they are sold in K-Mart. The simple but effective smoker is used by competitive teams as well. It's strongly recommended that you buy one of the big ones, however; on small Weber kettles, it's difficult to keep the meat far enough away from the fire for even heating.

Beyond this, the realm of potential barbecue equipment is endless. A 55-gallon drum can easily be made into a smoker; these have been used in competition as well.

Next, you'll need fuel for the fire. Gas is off limits if you're going to get serious; it's forbidden in KCBS sanctioned competition.

Most familiar, no doubt, is the ordinary charcoal briquette. These will cook a meal, but you will likely want to incorporate other fuels as well. Hardwood charcoal, or lump charcoal, isn't pre-formed into briquettes, and has important advantages: It ignites more easily, making it easy to keep the fire going steady simply by gradually adding lumps, and it leaves much less residual ash than ordinary briquettes to accumulate in the bottom of the firebox.

While wood chips are often soaked in water and added to a charcoal fire to produce smoke, I prefer wood chunks. Baseball- and golf ball-sized hickory and mesquite chunks produce a steady stream of smoke for longer periods, and themselves contribute to the fire, producing useful heat as well as smoke. Some barbecuers rely solely on uncharred wood; I prefer a combination of wood chunks and hardwood charcoal. Another fuel used by some serious barbecuers is wood pellets (not shown).

Shown below are mesquite wood chunks that I'm about to add to the firebox as soon as I close the lid on the ribs.

To get the fire going, the chimney starter is a widely used essential. Since no lighter fluid is necessary, there is no risk of inadvertently cooking a lighter fluid flavor into the meat. Set fire to two full sheets of newspaper wadded into balls and inserted into the lower compartment, and the chimney starter takes it from there.

Moreover, chimney starters make it easy to pre-light charcoal and add it to a fire that is already burning. Since true barbecue requires hours rather than minutes, you'll need ways to keep the fire going -- and jump-starting a fire that has grown too weak. Shown below: chimney starter with hardwood charcoal.

Finally, you'll likely want to know just how warm it is on the cooking surface. Grill thermometers (shown below) make this information readily available, but you'll still need to make some mental adjustments.

The consideration that you'll need to make, if you want accurate knowledge of the temperature at the grill surface, is that gauges only read the temperature at the location of the gauge. The first few times that you'll cook, you may want to place an oven thermometer directly on the grill surface, and familiarize yourself with the difference between grill surface temps and the temps at the grill thermometer. In my case, I subtract about 35 degrees from the larger gauge's reading. The temperature at the cooking surface above is 215 degrees.

Accurate temperatures are important if you want to avoid cooking too fast or too slowly. Ideal temps depend on the meat in question, but barbecuing generally is done in the 200-250 degree range. Knowing the temperature accurately is vital if you have a timetable to meet -- whether it's dinner at six, or brisket turn-in to the judges at 3:30. If timing is less critical, you can relax a bit, and remove the meat when it is finished, whenever that may be.

This post covered the hardware and fuel: the next will cover food and seasoning basics.

Does Bakersfield have enough gyms?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:39:40 PDT

According to a market research firm Bakersfield now has nearly 50 fitness clubs, ranging from chains like 24 Hour Fitness and Body Xchange to smaller mom and pop operations and niche operators like Total Woman and Curves, which cater to women. Is that enough? Do we really need that many? Which fitness center or health club do you attend and why? And no, doing curls with a beer can don't count as working out.

Read The Californian's recent gym review and a blog about the sometimes difficult process of selecting a place to work out.

Cut off water, dry up Kern

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:34:20 PDT

PUBLISHED 4-4-07

Kern County will suffer severe economic and environmental damage if a court order that threatens to shut down the California Aqueduct is not delayed.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled the state lacked a permit to kill chinook salmon and delta smelt as a consequence of pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the Aqueduct.

Roesch gave the state 60 days to obtain the permit from the Department of Fish and Game or shut down pumping. He has scheduled a hearing Friday. State Department of Water Resources officials must convince Roesch not to follow through with his threat. They also must move quickly to obtain the permit.

The entire Central Valley will lose irrigation water from the State Water Project if the pumping is halted. The State Water Project accounts for about 21 percent of all the water used in Kern County.

Numerous urban water districts in the valley and Southern California will also be at risk of losing drinking water. The project pumps $300 billion into the state’s economy annually, according to Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources.

Environmental damage to habitat restoration efforts — specifically the Kern Water Bank — also could result if pumping is stopped, according to state officials. The Kern Water Bank stores water in wet years for use by various water districts in dry years.

Overall, Snow said he was “perplexed” by the ruling, adding, “Environmentally, it would be unacceptable to curtail all deliveries from the State Water Project. There are wetlands areas that would suffer from a loss of Delta water, and there could be overpumping of the groundwater basin.”

In a teleconference with newspaper editors, including The Californian, Snow made several points he and other officials said they would present to the court in seeking to have the order modified:

• It will be impossible to do the paperwork to obtain the permit within 60 days.

• In effect, DWR has met the requirements for justifying a permit through a series of operating agreements it has with the Department of Fish and Game in recent years.

• The court’s order doesn’t take into account economic damage that its ruling would have.

• The ruling fails to take into account numerous environmental initiatives that have been undertaken in recent years, yielding benefits that offset any adverse circumstances a missing take permit might have.

Those are compelling arguments. The flow of water from the delta must continue.

‘Abstinence’ not enough

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:21:35 PDT

PUBLISHED 4-4-07

Information about contraceptive practices, as well as abstinence must be included in public school sex education.

But states receive federal funding only for sex education programs that focus on abstinence. In California, schools must provide students with information on both abstinence and contraceptive benefits in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies.

There are three separate federal programs that fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. No federal funding is available for comprehensive sex education.

Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., have joined together to change that with their Responsible Education About Life, or REAL Act. It will offer federal funds for states to provide comprehensive and medically accurate sexual education.

Of the 19 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases annually in the U.S., almost half of them strike young people ages 15 to 24, Lee said. Approximately 50 young people a day — two young people every hour — are infected with HIV in the U.S., which has the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world.

Our children need a complete education. That includes a sex education program that emphasizes abstinence, but also provides information about contraceptives.

Defense questions FBI agent

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:33:12 PDT

Defense attorney Michael Gardina questions FBI agent Mark Safarik.

Gardina points out the many degrees that Safarik doesn’t have and areas where he is not an expert including DNA analysis.

Safarik says he believes Joanie Harper was not moved during or after the assault.

If the offender didn’t a key you would have to believe this woman who was obsessed with security would have left the sliding glass door unlocked, the wrought iron door unlocked and the dowel out of the sliding glass door track.

Could the offender put the chair under the door? That wouldn’t make any sense at all.

Safarik went to see the layout of the house, but he did not look to see if it was secured. He had no reports that a screen was ripped and the bolts loosened one of the bars over the window.

Was Joanie the biggest threat if Earnestine had a gun? If the person who killed the family knew the family why would he not go after Earnestine first? Safarik said no one knew Earnestine had the gun.

If you weren’t aware of the gun, Earnestine Harper was overweight and may have limited mobility? Safarik asked himself.

Could the television have been abandoned because it was heavy and awkward? No.

Safarik said he didn’t know that four people went into the house before law enforcement arrived. Safarik said the effect depends on what people did.

Safarik said he did not enquire into Earnestine Harper’s civil rights activities.

Safarik inspected the house in January 2007. He was not provided with reports that neighbors heard gunshots.

He enquired about crime demographics. Family anihilation is unusual, but if you have an area where there are a lot of homicides that might be important, Safarik said.

Bakersfield Police said this house sits between two crime statistic zones. He said there were few homicides in this are and that violent crime was relatively low although property crime was moderate, Safarik said.

Earnestine and Lyndsey were not covered with anything, Safarik said.
The agent said you cannot see Marques’ face from certain angles.

You Tube newbie

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:24:17 PDT

I confess~ I am a YouTube newbie as of today.There's so much there and for me at least. a tad confusing.I subscribed to a few politicians vidios..but iIknow several of you out there are regulars. Any favorites or advice for me? thanks in advance!

FBI agent explains his theory on motive

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:55:14 PDT

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green asks FBI agent Mark Safarik what is the motive.

He said some children could be killed because they are witnesses. But with the 2 year old and 6 week old, they could not be witnesses. What would a person gain by killing a baby? Safarik asks. He wondered if there could be a financial motive to someone.

There is nothing to indicate there is a sexual component to any of the killings, Safarik said.

Why would Earnestine Harper have her pantyhose down around her knees?

Safarik said other atributes indicate that is not what happened here. He also says that children are not involved with sexual elder abuse crimes.

Safarik considered if this was a crime where the killer could have some financial gain. He says there is nothing to suggest that.

Safarik says there is a lot of electronic equipment, cash laying out, jewelry. The only thing missing is a cellular telephone.

Safarik believes this crime scene was staged.

“Recognizing staging in crime scenes is important because it suggests some relationship to the scene,” Safarik said.

“When you see a crime, there is a flow to the crime, they make sense,” Safarik said.

The offender fails to carry out the staged crime to the logical conclussion, Safarik said.

The criminal does not do things in chronological order or a person may introduce things that do no belong there. The reason the offender fails to carry out the crime is they fail to bring the crime to the logical conclussion, Safarik said.

The movement of the large plasma screen television, 50 pounds, which is large, heavy.

If a person has engaged in the effort to lift the television of its stand, why wouldn’t a person take it? It is not taken it is laid carefully on the floor, Safarik said.

Safarik said if you’re going to search the purse why not dump them on the ironing board? The purse was dumped on the floor. Why would a person kneal down, Safarik asks?

“There is nothing taken from this scene, there is nothing of any value, even though there were items of value to take,” Safarik said.

He also believes the computer tower was also moved to another room, Safarik said.

Why fear holding God accountable?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:53:12 PDT

In the “Wizard of Id,” the king is observing a group of peasants marching outside the castle carrying placards reading “Give us liberty or give us death.” The king says to himself: “Some problems are easier to solve than others.” The State is a “trick” as Emerson pointed out, but how much more so humankind itself from which the State evolves. If the State is a trick, it is one people play on themselves where elected leaders like Bush trick Americans into war:

How phony letter drove Iraq war. Intelligence failures surrounded inquiry on Iraq-Niger uranium claim. By Peter Eisner, The Washington Post, April 3, 2007. It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous—later retracted -- 16 words: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush’s remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?...

I hope you will read the WP account in full, but how about this for a “trick.” A weeping Iraqi widow is shown on TV, her husband killed by “insurgents” leaving her alone to care for eight children. Iraq has no welfare system; she drew the bad card of not being born in America, or coming here as an illegal alien where welfare, American taxpayers, would be extorted to pay for her and the children. Even worse for the Iraqi widow, like most she is uneducated and has no job prospects. Islam punishes women, teaching they are inferior to men. But there are no prospects of changing this inferior status for women in Muslim nations. Though “human weeds” abound throughout the world, only in Muslim nations are women so treated as “weeds.”

Many have questioned the doctrine of the “divine spark” for good reason. It is all too obvious this fire of life we carry about in our bodies does not burn with the same intensity of brightness in all. The dull-witted visitor Thoreau mentioned that claimed though he was “deficient in intellect” supposed the lord cared about him as much as any other may not have been correct. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to attribute anything like a divine spark in most of humankind. And if in fact there is any such thing I would expect it to show itself in those who follow the “Golden Rule,” which by itself would eliminate most.

For me, the most poignant scene in “Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” is when the old blind man left alone to fend for himself asks to be shot. He tells Tommy Lee Jones he would shoot himself, but explains “I don’t want to offend God.” But Tommy Lee Jones refuses, replying he does not want to offend God either. It is quite a moral dilemma for both men. The obvious kindness of ending the old blind man’s suffering is denied by the possibility of offending God, leaving him to die miserably from thirst and hunger blind and alone. It is at this point the question leaped to my mind once more as it has many times why more people do not openly confess their thought it may be God who is offending us by being the cause of so much inequity and suffering in the world? The creature questioning the creator? You bet I do!

Was it not for this instinct to believe, I would happily join myself to atheists rather than continuing an intellectual struggle trying to make sense of the kind of moral dilemmas posed in the film. But unlike so many religious people I don’t fear questioning God, I don’t fear holding him to account for what I see is the many seeming insanities of life that results in so much suffering and inequities, especially those monsters in human guise that prey on women and children. Nor do I forgive those like Hawthorne and Melville for pretending they recognized evil but unable to put a face to the evil they wrote about for fear of offending God. A theistic dualism that would make God responsible for all Creation but would excuse him for evil simply will not do. A far more rational explanation would be the composite picture of God in the Bible, of war in the heavens brought to earth, of deities in conflict resulting in the suffering of humankind. But any so-called “systematic theology” that on the one hand calls God “Almighty” but exempts him from responsibility for evil begs the larger questions arising from the facts of reality.

Not a few of us have taken off on God like Robert Duval in “The Apostle,” ranting and raving over the enormity of cruelty and injustice we poor mortals are born into and live with, and I’m not as charitable of Deity as Job who would excuse God on the basis of accepting the good without blaming him for the bad. The rain falling on just and unjust alike does not do it for me; and I think Job’s wife has been the victim of bad press, her advice to “curse God and die” being the more rational and humane course given the circumstances. But for those that do not find themselves railing against God, perhaps there is a “fear of God” parasite resident in their brains, much like a virus or bug might infect a computer:

Human brain parasite alters fear. Scientists say discovery could shed light on how fear is generated, by Charles Q. Choi. LiveScience, April 2, 2007. Rats usually have an innate fear of cat urine. The fear extends to rodents that have never seen a feline and those generations removed from ever meeting a cat. After they get infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, however, rats become attracted to cat pee, increasing the chance they’ll become cat food. This much researchers knew. But a new study shows the parasite, which also infects more than half the world’s human population, seems to target a rat’s fear of cat urine with almost surgical precision, leaving other kinds of fear alone. This discovery could shed light “on how fear is generated in the first place” and how people can potentially better manage phobias, researcher Ajai Vyas, a Stanford University neuroscientist, told LiveScience...

Wouldn’t it be the ultimate trick, a parasite in the brain that has caused so many to believe in the various superstitions of religion throughout human history, especially in the followers of Islam where women are treated as a sub-human species and murder is applauded for the glory of Allah. Could such a parasite explain the history of humankind being one of insane violence and wars, Stalin and Hitler, could it explain those like Bush and Iran’s mad mullah, both of whom claim God speaks to them and they in turn speak for God?

Well, though I certainly don’t know whether a parasite is involved with my instinct to believe, I don’t think there is anything wrong in my getting angry with God, in asking God to take responsibility for the situation we poor mortals find ourselves in. It doesn’t fit into any religious framework but suppose enough of us expressed our anger with God, might things change for the better as in our Founding Fathers confronting King George? Jesus told the story of the unjust judge that feared neither God nor man, but gave the widow justice just to get her off his back.

Here is a suggestion, how about starting a religion that would have the believers demanding God take responsibility for this mess on earth, one in which the believers held God accountable for all the cruelty and suffering of humankind? Alas, I don’t think that would be any more successful than suffering humankind attempting to hold our human leaders accountable. One thing I know, unlike the children of Israel we don’t have 400 years to be delivered from bondage. But is there a fear factor involved that on the other hand we might provoke the King of Id’s “solution” to the problem? Seems we are headed in that direction whether or not.

Remember When Bakersfield...?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:13:45 PDT

Do you remember when Bakersfield had only one mall (the Valley Plaza) and it was basically a long hallway with long rectangular goldfish and/or Koi ponds in the floor? I remember throwing coins into those artificial indoor ponds and making wishes. There was actually a Thrifty's Store in the mall during this time!

How about that strange fortune telling vending machine in the San Francisco Cookie Company? You would put a quarter in and hold on to that bronze handle while those light bulbs would slowly rise to the top of that meter...you would get a FREE cookie if it went to the top.

I remember when White Lane was "in the middle of nowhere". You could see that gigantic green water-slide tube from the street...I miss those water-slides and those pads that they used to give us to slide down on. For some reason I would always hurt my knees in that tube; I think that the section-connectors were a little too bumpy. I would give anything to trade that Wal-Mart that now sits there for the Water Slides.

Do you remember how it felt when you saw someone on T.V from Bakersfield? You didn't even have to know the person...it was exciting to just see a native of Bakersfield on national TV! I remember screaming "Oh my God!, they're from BAKERSFIELD!"...then I would go get my siblings to show them this person. AND don't let someone say "Bakersfield" in a movie or TV show...for some reason that would cause me to tell everyone about the movie and/or TV show.

I remember when the Bakersfield Christmas Parade was a big deal. I was actually in it in 1989 and 1990...Thompson Junior High Band!

Whatever happened to GemCo? Today the store Target is there, but I remember when it used to be GemCo.

Or what about that store The Federated? It was right next to Roller Town off of Wible Road.

And you cannot forget about the Bakersfield Dodgers!

Does anyone remember when everyone was driving around with those little yellow signs in their car windows that said "Baby On Board"? LOL

Am I the only person that used to go to those dances at the YMCA on 17th street in the early 90's?

What do you remember about Bakersfield?

FBI agent explains his theory of killings

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:50:29 PDT

FBI agent Mark Safarik believes there is only one offender. He can’t tell the jury there is not more than one offender, but there is nothing at the scene that indicates a second offender. He said if there is another offender he is not engaging with the victims or the crime scene.

He believes the weapon was brought to the scene. Why would an offender bring a gun, Safarik asks himself.

The shots were done very specifically, Safarik said.

The intention of the offender is to kill the children, Safarik said. These shots are not random. It is a single shot for each of the children. This offender is driven to obliterate the people in this residence, Safarik said.

Earnestine is shot in the face because she is up and mobile.

Joanie is shot in the head, but she is lying down in the head in the master bedroom where the three children are located. There is nothing to indicate that Joanie ever got up off the bed. The blood spatter indicates she was lying on the bed as were the three children. Most likely she was asleep and can’t resist or confront the offender, Safarik said.

She is likely shot first and incapacitated and other shots follow. If she were up would she have defended children? Green asks. He would not expect her to remain lying on the bed if she were aware that someone was in the room, Safarik said.

Joanie hung up her clothes in the closet so she could wear them again. Marques’ clothes are neatly folded on the chair. Lyndsey and Earnestine are still wearing the clothes they wore to church.

Safarik recalls that Kelsey Spann found the sliding glass door open even though it is normally locked.

The offender came into the residence earlier through the garage and using a key entered the door between the garage and the house. Moving the wooden dowel. He believes the killer prepared the residence for entrance at a later time.

He is assuming the killer opened the garage door and unlocked the door. No force was used.

He believes Earnestine was in her bedroom napping with her pantyhose down to her knees. She was an obese woman who would pull her pantyhose down when she rested because of the pressure on her abdomen.

She could be in the bathroom, but the bathroom is adjacent to the bedroom. he doesn’t know for sure, but he doesn’t think it makes a differene because Joanie is the initial target and presents the biggest threat to the offender.

Joanie is shot initially and the offender move behind Lyndsey and shoots her in the back. The problem is the shots have allerted Earnestine. She is up and moving. She doesn’t bother to pull up her pantyhose because of the crisis of the situation. She arms herself with an antique revolver. She doesn’t get very far before she is immediately confronted and shot in an upright standing position.

It is unlikely Earnestine would have let someone in because she was security conscious and because she had her pantyhouse around her knees. She is logically responding to the gunshots.

Earnestine Harper may have been calling out and that might alert the offender she was on the move. To get to Earnestine in that short a period of time in the relatively cluttered house and in the strange configuration of the house, unless you’re familiar with the layout how do you find this location, Safarik asks.

After shooting Earnestine, the offender travels from where he killed Earnestine Harper back to the master bedroom where the shots have alerted Marques. Lyndsey doesn’t move from her position napping at the foot of the bed.

Safarik believes Marques was asleep, sat up and saw what was going on, but the offender did not have time to kill Marques because Earnestine is on the move. In that time marques bit down to the bone on his finger.

Marques is biting down on his fingers such that he has bloodied his lips and caused fairly significant injuries to his finger tips. While Marques is sitting up, the offender comes around the puts the pistol close to Marques face and he is shot in the forehead based on the stipling, unused gunpowder.

Marques goes down on the bed, Safarik said. The infant between Marques and Joanie Harper is shot last with a single wound to the infant’s back.

FBI agent explores risk of victims in Brothers case

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:21:31 PDT

FBI agent Mark Safarik said he thinks the Harpers had a low risk of being victims.

He was contacted in Aug. 2003 about the Harper case. He was given crime scene photographs, investigative reports related to crime scene, evidence, autopsy protocols from medical examiner and photographs, crime scene diagrams.

Safarik reviewed these items and considered victimology with regard to Earnestine Harper. She was an elderly woman. She was heavily involved in her church. She was religious and owned her own home. She was very security conscious, based on the way she secured her residence. She was well liked by her community. There was no evidence anyone had a grudge against her. She disliked and distrusted the police. He is not sure what caused that. She is security conscious. He doesn’t know why that is. He considers her a low risk victim.

Green puts up a photo of a chair under the door. Earnestine Harper put a chair under the door knob to ensure someone could not enter the locked door. Safarik said this is an example of her security consciousness. “It’s almost excessive behavior as far as the security aspect of the home,” Safarik said.

Safarik found there was nothing in her background meaning her risk level is low and the secure environment also makes it low.

He noted that this residence was more secure than other houses surrounding because it had bars on windows and doors, which some others don’t. The house is also on the corner, meaning it is visible from many angles.

“It is not a good target for someone who is thinking about breaking into a house for a burglary or a robbery,” Safarik said.

She does bolster her residence with chairs and bars, which is well beyond what most people do in terms of safety.

He also examined Joanie’s safety. She was an adult, fairly tall, a big woman. She was employed, held a steady job, she was a religious woman who doted on her kids. Nothing in her background suggests an elevated risk level. She was married, but they were separated at the time. There were no indications she had been threatened or followed by anybody.

Her risk level was low.

He believes the killing happened on Sunday July 6, 2003. He noted that people saw them at church that morning. A video from church shows what they were wearing. They went out to eat after church at Black Angus. They finished at 1:40 and left the restaurant and went back to the residence.

They were supposed to return to church at 6 p.m. that evening and they did not.

Safarik said Joanie Harper had no drugs or criminal problems. She was also in a secure environment. He accessed her risk level as low.

They are not good targets for becoming the victims of violent crime, Safariks said, so when we see low risk victims targeted the pool of potential offenders becomes much smaller.

High risk victims have higher offender pools.

As to the children, the children are so young they don’t have a victimology because they are not outside the confines of being with their parents. When he accessed the children he considered motive, not victimology because they don’t have a victimology.

He believes the primary target of the killings was Joanie Harper because she is the one who sustained the most injuries and injuries from two different weapons and there is a lapse in time between the shooting and the stabbing.

He is relying on coroner’s reports and criminalists reports to make these determinations.

The risk level for the offender is elevated. This is a sunny Sunday afternoon. He said there is a window of two or three hours in which the family was killed. A weekend is a problem is a residential neighborhood because people are not at work, they are at home. Offenders cannot control being seen going to or coming from a crime scene.

Reality baseball Opening Day

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:06:25 PDT

So it was Opening Day at the Priest household and thankfully, the Cincinnati Reds played in the early game and the Minnesota Twins played the late game. Or there might have been a fight over the remote control.

I'm a Reds from birth -- probably even conception (not to be confused with Reds shortstop Dave Concepcion).

My wife is a die-hard Twins fan. She even sings the Twins song during games: "We're gonna win Twins, we're gonna score ..." Only in Minne-SO-ta do they have a rally song.

So in order to keep peace, I've switched my American League allegiance to the Twins. Even bought a Twins hat when we went to a game at the Metrodome a few days after our wedding. She'd likely file divorce papers if she knew what AL Central team I use to root for.

And I think she's become a Reds fan. She'd better because our son is going to be a Reds fan, regardless.

Anyway, the potential squabble left me wondering how many marriages have a conflict over favorite baseball teams? We, at least, have come to a compromise with favorite NL and AL teams. But are there any marriages that have diehard Giant-Dodger allegiances?

FBI agent explains how he analyzes a crime

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:53:59 PDT

FBI agent Mark Safarik explained Tuesday to a jury in the Brothers case how he analyzes a crime.

He said the important this is to look at the totality of the evidence and not pull out one bit of evidence.

Safarik asks himself why that victim, why that time, why that crime, why that location. He looks at the history of the person, the social habits, do they have a job, what are their relationships.

“Looking at all of these aspects helps me understand why a person is the victim of a violent crime,” Safarik said.

What are they killed with, what is the weapon, is it up close and person, is it hands on or is it a distance weapon, Safarik said.

What does the injury tell us, is there a difference between someone who gets stabbed one time or 150 times? What types of injuries, life threatening or superficial injuries, Safarik said.

The vast majority of violence offenders are males, Safarik said.

He also considers motive, body disposal in a homicide, how does the defender handle the body, Safarik said.

He analyzes the victim’s risk and the offender’s risk.

Some victims are high risk. For these, the risk for the offender is low - hitchhikers, prostitutes, drug users.

Why would the offender raise their risk level? Safarik asks himself.

Prosecutor explores background of expert witness

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:17:56 PDT

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green calls to the stand Mark Safarik. He is a supervisory special agent in the behavioral analysis unit.

Before joining the FBI, he was a police officer in Davis, California. He has been an FBI agent for 23 years. He investigates 15 to 20 cases at a time, but he also does research. He has had 6 articles published in a peer-reviewed journal, not including one coming out in June in a journal of aggressive and violent behavior about elder abuse.

He also gives presentations to inform people of different issues. Safarik is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and other organizations. He also teaches law enforcement investigators in California.
He has worked on more than 4,000 cases.

He has had classes on blood spatter interpretation. He has qualified as an expert in crime scene analysis in court about 12 times including California.

Prosecutor details plea deal of witness

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:47:19 PDT

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green calls to the stand Deputy District Attorney Kate Zimmerman. She handled the plea agreement of a witness in the Brothers case.

The witness, Jasper Robinson, testified that he saw Brothers behind the Harper house on the day the prosecution believes the family was killed. Robinson did not come forward with this statement until he was in jail months later.

Robinson was charged with possession of cocain for sale and possession of cocaine Zimmerman said. There were .25 grams of cocaine, a quarter of a sweet n’ low package.

She said she would not file a possession of cocaine for sale charge based on this little amount of drugs.

Robinson had never been to prison before. She offered 16 months of prison time, which is the low term.

She did not know that Jasper Robinson was involved with Brothers and she did not discuss the plea deal with Green.

The plea was made in Oct. 2004.

Zimmerman said that on a drug charge people are eligible to be released after 8 months on a 16 month sentence, with good time and work time.

Defense attorney Michael Gardina questions the witness.

Robinson initially faced five years and eight months, but Zimmerman said he was mistaken about the highest possible term Robinson would face because she was new.

Robinson admitted buying the cocaine and said he was going to sell it, Zimmerman said.

She recommended three years in prison, initially.

A supervisor would have to approve the plea agreement.

Robinson had three misdemeanor probation cases for drugs.

Plea deal of witness examined in Brothers case

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:21:34 PDT

The prosecution wants a defense attorney to testify about a plea agreement from one of the witnesses who said he saw Brothers in Bakersfield around the time of the killings.

Art Titus, from the public defender’s office, said he does not want to waive the office’s attorney-client privilege on Mr. Brothers. The Kern County Public Defender’s Office briefly represented Brothers as secondary attorney at the appointment of a judge, but the office successfully fought the appointment in the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

Green said she will withdraw her request to have the public defender on the case.

The witness, Jasper Robinson, testified that he saw Brothers behind the Harper house on the day the prosecution believes the family was killed. Robinson did not come forward with this statement until he was in jail months later.

Robinson received a plea agreement on a drug charge and Green would like to prove that Robinson was not treated favorably in exchange for his testimony.

Defense attorney Michael Gardina said that in Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green’s opening statement, Green said an FBI agent will testify that the defendant confronted Earnestine Harper. The judge has ruled that the agent cannot testify that Brothers was the killer.

Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush said he assumes that was a slip of the tongue for Green. Green said she understands the court’s ruling, and acknowledges that she understands that the agent cannot testify that Brothers was the killer. But she does not believe she committed any kind of misconduct.

Bush reiterated his ruling.

The reason of the season.

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:20:47 PDT

HOMILY

About the great desire of God

"Who wills everyone to be saved" (1Timothy 2:4).

God wants that all men be saved, that is why He descended into Hades to save those who lived on earth before His coming. For, had He not descended into Hades, an enormous number of righteous souls would have perished forever. And yet, had He not descended into Hades, the main habitat of evil against God and the human race, Hades would have remained undestroyed. Therefore, the two reasons which motivated Christ, the Giver-of-Life, to descend into Hades in the Spirit are: First, to destroy the nest of the powers of Hades and, Second, to bring from Hades to Heaven, the souls of ancestors, prophets and righteous men and women, who have fulfilled the Old Dispensation (The Old Law of God) and, by that, pleased God. Before Satan was totally jubilant at gazing upon Christ humiliated and lifeless on the Cross, Christ appeared alive and almighty in the midst of Hades, the primary abode of Satan. What unexpected and dreadful news for Satan! For three years Satan wove snares against Christ on earth and in three days, behold, Christ destroyed Satan's kingdom and carried away the most precious booty in the form of a swarm of righteous souls.

O Lord, You want that all men be saved. We pray to You, save even us. For there is no salvation nor Savior outside of You. In You do we hope, You alone do we worship, You, the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always. Amen.

To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

From Prologue of Ohrid, by

St. Nikolai Velimirovic

Today's Word(s) of/for the day is . . . Got Answers?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:56:46 PDT

Have you ever needed info on or about something or some place?
Well, I thought maybe if we all put our heads together that we could possibly find what were looking for.

As for myself and a friend of mine, we both have been looking for this store that used to be in the East Hills Mall. They sold hair-pieces, extensions, and Salt City Candles, ect.
My friend told me that she herd they might be online now, I have not been able to find it.
The store was called Divine Boutique, I think. I know it was Divine something or another.
If you could help or know anything that would help me, I would deeply appreciate it.

How depressed are you?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:45:58 PDT

A new analysis has found up to 25 percent of people diagnosed as clinically depressed really are just reacting normally to stresses of life.

In other words, they are taking pills for a disease they don't have, and they are being classified as clinically depressed when they are just going through a sad time.

The analysis was based on a national survey of 8,098 people.

I am in no way an expert on depression. I get depressed when I miss a few golf shots. It goes away entirely when I hit a few good ones. Otherwise, I am by nature happy and upbeat.

But I think people talk themselves into depression. I think people are conditioned not to enjoy the pride of their accomplishments.

And thus, I think a lot of people feel they are depressed when they could work themselves out of feeling blue merely by taking charge of their own lives and feeling good about their effort and accomplishments.

What do you think? Do you think people are more depressed than they need to be?

Posted by Steve E. Swenson

Becoming Apparent: New Parenting Series: Issue One: Drops of Teen-age Tears

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:27:23 PDT

This song is a story about a father helplessly witnessing his daughter's first broken heart. It is something many fathers and mothers fear, and go out of their way to protect their daughter's from, but somethings are inevitable. Eventually children have to experience personal disappointment, heartache, and pain.

What are your worst fears as a parent? Are you afraid of your son growing up to be a drug addict? Are you afraid of your daughter's first heartbreak? Are you afraid that she'll get pregnant far too young? Are you afraid that your kids will become victims of peer pressure, or some bully's playground punching bag?

Whether you're a parent of your firstborn infant, or your children have left the nest, I'm hoping that Becoming Apparent, my new parenting blog series will have something to offer you. This is a blog n roll site, so many blog threads are accompanied by songs, mostly originals, tailored to the various issues introduced in my blogs. I hope the songs and the topics will spark your interest and allow you to become engaged in meaningful dialogue with fellow blog visitors. Welcome to BECOMING APPARENT!

Looking for Business

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:55:20 PDT

I am looking for the business that was located in the East Hills Mall. They sold hairpieces, wigs and candles. If you know how I can contact them please let me know. Thanks...

Just wondering.

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:29:03 PDT

You always hear the Mideast, Greece, and Rome mentioned as "ancient land" or "ancient soil." I 'm wondering how it got to be so much older than the land here.

Noveltown to host Business/Media mixer to promote new magazine

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:52:46 PDT

MUST R.S.V.P:
melody@noveltown.net

Noveltown to Hold Business/Media Mixer
to Promote New Magazine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Bakersfield, CA - Noveltown has gathered some of the finest literary talent from across America in a new magazine with multicultural flavor. A business/media mixer premiering The Noveltown Review promises to show off cultural literary arts in Bakersfield, CA, Thursday April 12th 7-10 PM at the downstairs bar in Benjamin's Restaurant, 1419 19th Street. Music will be sponsored by Bakotopia.com.

"The Noveltown Review is a new vehicle to promote literary arts. It's newsy and it's classy with a unique blog crossover aspect. Anyone published within the review is in great company. It will grow into its multicultural shoes. And it's a free magazine," says Noveltown publicist, Melody Saberon. "We want businesses to support this great cultural effort coming out of Bakersfield. So we're making the magazine available to them first."

The inaugural edition has articles by Cindy Wathen, author of Remembering Cesar. She's affiliated with Writer's Digest and the Yosemite Writers Conference. Riotous author of Futureproof, N. Frank Daniels is also on board as well as sultry author, Robin Slick, and big-time chick lit author, Lauren Baratz-Logsted who just released the historical fiction novel, Vertigo.

Fiction pieces within the Noveltown Review come from L.A. Times Bestselling author Brad Listi of Attention. Deficit. Disorder fame, Susan Henderson, who runs
www.LitPark.com out of New York, and Conrad Romo:
Latino author out of L.A. who runs Hollywood's Hotel Café Tongue and Groove poetry readings. Brad Listi also runs the popular blog, www.TheNervousBreakdown.com. Attendees can R.S.V.P. to attend the event by emailing: melody@noveltown.net.

The Noveltown Review will be distributed in Bakersfield, Fresno, Clovis, L.A., Hollywood, Baltimore, Atlanta, Philadelphia, London, and more…

Noveltown (www.noveltown.net) will soon be announcing the author of its next book in print, and is proud to be working towards leading the way in publishing in the Southern Central Valley… Noveltown's N.L. Belardes will be speaking at the upcoming Yosemite Writers Conference (www.yosemitewriters.com).
###

Noveltown at Yosemite Writers Conference

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:20:12 PDT

“The Yosemite Writers Conference is the best I’ve seen. You’ll find a terrific selection of publishers, agents and writers from which to learn. The conference participants are bright, serious and ambitious. All this, taking place in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, makes the Yosemite Writers Conference a dazzling boost to writers of all levels.”
--T. Jefferson Parker

The Yosemite Writer’s Conference last year was by far the most rewarding experience I’ve had as a writer. I was inspired. I learned so much about the publishing industry and about writing. I met and connected with so many wonderful writers and publishers including: Bonnie Hearn Hill, Cindy Wathen, Carole Sargent and Malcolm Margolin and so many more.

Noveltown’s own N.L. Belardes will be speaking at this year’s Yosemite Writer’s Conference. I managed to get him to sit still long enough to answer a few questions about the upcoming conference.

Here’s the interview:

Noveltown: N.L. I hear that you are going to be speaking at the Yosemite Writer’s Conference in August. Are you planning on teaching everyone the ins and outs of maintaining a controversial media blog?

N.L.: For those of you who don’t know. I’m getting interviewed by Matildakay. My hands are sweaty. Gulp. Oh, the conference? Blogging? Actually I will talk more about blogging in general, though media blogging will be included. I want to let people know how to get started, and how they can utilize their writing talents as a kind of community service rather than just an online journal. It will be a discussion rather than a lecture. We’ll talk about some of the leading blogs, what they do, and about myspace too.

I’m hoping by the time the conference comes that Noveltown will have 10,000 friends on myspace, and that people I speak to will be able to build some of their own networks with Noveltown already having paved the way a bit.

In a way, myspace is where more of the writers, publishers, bookstores, poets and organizations seem to be congregating. They like blogs, but they love myspace. Though blogs are a cool tool that authors can use to gain web traffic and a potential loyal following.

We hope to literally be hands-on and help writers sign up from the conference.

Noveltown: What topics will you be sharing with the conference attendees?

N.L.: I just asked one of the organizers, Bonnie Hearn Hill about that very question. I offered some panel topics. The conference organizers haven’t released all the titles of the panels… I’ll keep you posted. With that said you can expect industry tips from professionals, writing discussions by authors, and a lunchtime pirate table for any rebel writer wanting to talk shop with me and you, Matildakay. We might even have a flag this year.

Noveltown: Will you have a workshop on drawing bug cartoons?

N.L.: No, but I will be peddling The Noveltown Review at the conference and there’s a bug cartoon in there. When I listen to speakers I do tend to doodle lots of scavenger bugs. It’s a weird habit. If anyone asks at the pirate table, I will teach some bug drawing skills free of charge. I don’t do tattoos.

Noveltown: Will you be talking about Noveltown and Indie publishing companies versus commercial publishing companies?

N.L.: Away from the panels, most likely those conversations will constantly take place. People do need to know Noveltown is searching for authors, about our magazine, and about Indie presses. We’re not setting out to bash commercial publishing. We believe in it. Our magazine captures the spirit of both worlds. But we also believe in the DIY universe. It’s all very much as if Luke Skywalker and a hip Yoda could chill with stormtroopers in a smoky cantina.

Noveltown: Are you taking your pirate gear and will you be attending any swashbuckling pirate meetings again this year?

N.L.: Like I said, a pirate table is a necessity: somewhere you can speak your mind away from all the formalities of the event. Though I hope to sneak into some of the formal tables just to hear Bonnie Hearn Hill talk shop.

Noveltown: What products will you be taking with you and talking about at the conference?

N.L.: Wow, I could answer this so many ways using my lame attempt at comedy. In all seriousness, I will take a computer to show people the media blog and to help people sign up, the Noveltown Review magazine to show the print community side of what we’re building, and my book to promote how we do books and to talk about the fact that we’re looking for an author or two to publish… oh and to promote my own writing some… I’m going to enter their book contest! Sounds fun!

Noveltown: How exciting! Thanks N.L. for a peek at what we have to look forward to at the Yosemite Writer’s Conference in August.

If you want to meet literary agents, publishers, editors, and authors, the Yosemite Writer’s Conference is the place to be.

If you want to learn about the many facets of writing in today’s literary world, the Yosemite Writer’s Conference is the place to be.

Whether you’re a published author or just realized that you want to be a writer, the Yosemite Writer’s Conference is for you.

Noveltown is going. Are you? Register now online at www.yosemitewriters.com

************
2007 Partial List of Presenters

Keynote Speakers: Steve Yarbrough and David Morrell
Literary Agents: Katharine Sands, June Clark, Irene Webb, and Jeffrey McGraw
Magazine Editors From: Sacramento Magazine and Visalia Lifestyle
Editors: Meg Bertini of Dream Time Publishing, Kate Gale of Red Hen Press, Susan Chang of Tar Books, Farrin Jacobs of HarperCollins, Brenda Knight of Weiser Books, Steve Mettee of Quill Driver Books and Word Dancer Press, Melissa Manloe of Chronicle Books
Authors: N.L. Belardes, Hallie Ephron, BJ Taylor and Ginny Rorby
Yosemite Faculty: Rik Bollman, Hazel Dixon-cooper, Bonnie Hearn Hill, John Koontz, Sheree Petree and Cindy Wathen

************
Conference details

$370 Early Bird until April 15th
$380 April 16 to May 31
$390 after June 1

Registration fee includes: all workshop sessions Friday and Saturday, continental breakfast, two keynote luncheons and evening reception Friday and Saturday.

The registration fee must be paid in full by check or credit card in order to secure a space for the conference.

Registration fee does not include lodging.

The beautiful Tenaya Lodge is the official conference hotel. When booking your room, be sure to ask for the Yosemite Writers Conference rate of $189 per night. Call (559) 683-6555, 800-635-5807 or log on to tenayalodge.com to reserve your room.

Consultation: Confer with any of the agents or editors at the conference for only $30 per session.

Visit Yosemite Writers online for more details.
**********************************
www.noveltown.net

www.noveltown.net/blog

Not all immigrants illegal

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:07:14 PDT

Associate Editor Martha Martinez writes:

People are quick to assume that many immigrants are illegal. Many claim immigrants come to this country to take advantage of our welfare system and don’t pay taxes.

But a recent study shows that immigrants are becoming citizens at record high numbers — contradicting the popular belief that immigrants do not want to accept American values.

Of all the immigrants now living legally in the United States, 52 percent are naturalized citizens, while others are permanent residents or have some other immigration status.

To become citizens, immigrants must pass background and health checks, as well as tests to show they speak basic English and have a minimum knowledge of American laws and history.

Even though illegal immigration increased by 30 percent from 1995 to 2005, the number of naturalized American citizens climbed by 73 percent.

Could it be because immigrants fear being deported? Or the increased border security?

Whatever the reason may be, immigrants should not be looked at as criminals who are illegal and taking advantage of the system. Many are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. The numbers prove it.

NCAA Division I Mens Basketball National Championship, who wins?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:38:29 PDT

With Florida back at the big dance for the 2nd year in a row, they're looking to prove that last year's national championship wasn't a fluke. They are loaded with outside shooters and a tough inside game. Ohio State has a monster for a big man, Greg Oden, and a quick point guard Connely. Ohio State starts two freshmen, which I think will put them at a disadvantage against Florida in which their entire starting five is back from last year. Florida has much more experience and more weapons than Ohio State, so I'm picking the Gators.