Editorials
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Swallow hard, Dems, confirm Maldonado to fill Lt. Gov opening
For a job that rarely gets much media coverage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's nomination of Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado of San Luis Obispo for lieutenant governor is causing quite a stir. And it's got the Legislature's Democrats in a bit of a box.
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Mixed results on jobs
The good news is that the U.S. unemployment rate dropped significantly last month, from 10.0 percent to 9.7 percent. The bad news is that we still managed to lose another 20,000 jobs. How is that possible, you ask?
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PUC scores one for consumers
The state Public Utilities Commission deserves a round of applause for coming to the aid of consumers who've been having a tough time paying their utility bills.
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Mighty Kern River belongs to our entire community
In many ways, the starkly empty riverbed that winds through the center of Bakersfield defines this community: Substantial in potential, unrealized in actuality.
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A school's responsibility
What do you call a situation in which an adult takes aside a 13-year girl and instructs her not to tell her own mother about the sexual assault she has just endured?
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Welcome, Padre
There's always a temptation to look at the comings and goings of individual businesses in Bakersfield's long-suffering downtown district and cite certain transitions as evidence of a turnaround -- or a downturn. A recent string of failed retail stores on one street, a tiny, hopeful new art gallery on another.
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Money still tells tale of U.S. governance
It's been a sobering several days for Americans who believe that power should belong to the best qualified, not the highest bidder, the most effective fund-raiser, or the wealthiest. Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down longstanding limits on corporate political spending, effectively turning the 2010 campaign into a series of potential skirmishes between moneyed influence peddlers and rival moneyed influence peddlers.
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Supreme Court opens floodgates of influence
The U.S. Supreme Court has given us just what we didn't need -- more money in politics, more sway for lobbyists and moneyed interests, and less proportional value in the individual votes of ordinary citizens.
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Greetings from the rural village of Bakersfield
Bakersfield has been in the nonsports national news three times in the past two weeks. Nothing remarkable about that, except this: All three references provided new evidence that ignorance about this city is rampant.
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KHS must can Allied and take its lumps
Kern County taxpayers should be pleased to note that the Kern Health Systems board of directors voted last week to approve a new policy that requires the approval of the board and a cap on costs before contracts of $10,000 or more are signed.
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UC applications up; that's both good news and bad news
Good and bad news for a statewide university system that hasn't seen many positive developments in the past couple of years: Admissions at the 10-campus University of California have hit record numbers for the coming academic year.
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UC applications up; that's both good news and bad news
Good and bad news for a statewide university system that hasn't seen many positive developments in the past couple of years: Admissions at the 10-campus University of California have hit record numbers for the coming academic year.
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Boo to KHSD's travel limitations on student teams
The Kern High School District's recent decree banning students from most out-of-town competitions of more than 150 miles' distance doesn't make much sense.
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Hail to new BPD chief: Much to do
Congratulations to Capt. Greg Williamson, who was selected Tuesday to replace Bill Rector as chief of the Bakersfield Police Department. Roll up your sleeves, chief, because there's work to be done.
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The great debate of twenty-ten has no clear answer
I've often thought it would be fun, if I weren't so dignified and respectable, to climb into an aluminum-foil jumpsuit and re-create a scene from a certain sci-fi movie that persists in my memory:
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Governor's budget too heavy on fantasy
As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to saddle up for his ride into the sunset, it's apparent that his vision of California's future is as muddled as ever.
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TSA deserves break in honey-bomb case
Which type of armchair quarterbacking would most of us prefer? The kind in which we look back on an act of mid-air sabotage carried out by a terrorist we could have, should have, and in fact did identify prior to a tragic and preventable act of mass murder? Or the kind in which we criticize and ridicule the Transportation Security Administration for shutting down the Bakersfield airport over five suspicious bottles of home-packaged honey?
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Abernathy and those blasted FPPC rules
Politics is a dirty game, but Kern County's preeminent king-maker is in a class all by himself.
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Statistics questioned
Where does community columnist Lou Gomez get his statistics? ("It's hard out there for small-business owners," Jan 4.) He claims that nearly 90 percent of all workers in California are employed by small businesses.
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Here's to a saner, more prosperous new year
Across the nation, the sentiment seems to be almost universal: Good-bye, 2009, and good riddance. We must admit, we agree wholeheartedly.
