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Will Amtrak be the next victim of the high-speed rail project?
We at the Save Bakersfield Committee are alarmed by several new developments in the California Legislature. Besides proceeding with the vote to approve high-speed rail, the Legislature is considering two other bills. AB 1779 will create a joint powers authority. Under the guise of local control, the majority of the members of this authority will be from communities north of...
- Cory Booker's epiphany
- ANOTHER VIEW: Can we hate 'hate' campaigns without being labeled haters?
- Teamwork made success of Amgen Tour possible
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Saturday, May 19 2012 10:02 PM
It's scary out there: Today’s college graduates face an uncertain future
Next month, thousands of Cal State Bakersfield graduates in cap and gown will receive diplomas -- and launch themselves into a scary economy. Similar scenes will be repeated at campuses across America. In all, 1.7 million members of the class of 2012 will embark on the next phase of their lives. In one sense, these are the lucky aspirants to the good life in America.
But a future that looked promising four years ago has dimmed for many in the class of 2012. A disturbing number will join what has been likened to "a kind of B.A. bread line" of minimum-wage jobs or, worse, a forced return home. A relative describes the status of a daughter who graduated last year from a pricey New England college and at last found poorly paid work teaching English to ambitious Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City.
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Saturday, May 19 2012 10:01 PM
Lincoln's anti-slavery 'evolution' has modern corollary
Like Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, President Obama's declaration that gay and lesbian Americans deserve a right to marry is a historic statement of principle, even though its practical policy implications are limited because the states, not the federal government, hold most of the power to define marriage.
Obama's assertion that state-level prohibitions on same-sex marriage are morally objectionable but legally sound rings familiar to this Civil War historian. I can't help but notice a close resemblance to the pre-Civil War views of millions of white Northerners (and perhaps more than a few white Southerners) on slavery. Northerners understood that the Constitution protected slaveholding as a matter left to individual states, and for decades many had found this a comforting justification for their tolerance of an institution they knew should be intolerable. Slavery was a Southern problem, and as long as it could be kept a Southern problem, Northerners' thinking went, they would bear little moral responsibility. It was this North that elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
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Saturday, Apr 21 2012 10:02 PM
The 3 reasons Romney can win
The primaries have left the presumptive GOP nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, scrambling to catch up with President Barack Obama in campaign cash and organization. Romney trails Obama in most surveys largely because of high unfavorable ratings generated by attacks from other GOP candidates and the Obama campaign. Independent voters have yet to commit to his candidacy.
But while many pundits give the edge to the incumbent president, Romney is actually in good position to win the general election come November. Here are three reasons why:
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Saturday, Apr 21 2012 10:01 PM
Nominees for second-highest office must be presidential, too
As Mitt Romney slogs on toward the GOP presidential nomination, political talk is turning to his running mate. That discussion has focused on conventional political factors thought to dictate vice presidential selection. Should Romney select someone from a large swing state or target a particular demographic? Should he focus on energizing his base or on appealing to independents? Some of those factors may come into play, yet the recent history of vice presidential selection suggests that the key requirement for a running mate is whether he or she is presidential.
It's curious that this threshold factor is often overlooked. Most recent presidential candidates have recognized that good politics, as well as good governance, requires choosing a running mate who would be a plausible president. Since 1976, presidential candidates from both parties have almost always chosen running mates who would be plausible as president.
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Wednesday, Apr 11 2012 11:02 PM
Old letters bring us new insights on slavery
In 1846, when she was just 15 years old, the slave Cecelia faced a life-defining choice. Her mistress, Fanny Thruston of Louisville, Ky., had taken Cecelia along on a trip to Niagara Falls with her father. With Canada right across the river, Cecelia had to choose between the uncertainties of freedom in a new country or a return to a life of slavery, the only life she had ever known.
I first encountered the story of Cecelia some 10 years ago through a handful of letters archived at Louisville's Filson Historical Society. When Cecelia bravely chose freedom back on that spring day in 1846, it meant that she had to endure separation from her family because her mother and brother remained enslaved by Fanny's family back in Louisville. That separation prompted Cecelia to open a correspondence with Fanny during the 1850s.
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Saturday, Apr 07 2012 11:05 PM
Affordable Care Act a leap forward for women
The Supreme Court is again at the center of a highly controversial policy debate, having just heard arguments for the Affordable Care Act. There's been much discussion about the justices' supposed political agendas. I've heard fear-mongering about government takeovers and rumors of increased business costs.
But I haven't heard much about what's really at stake: the welfare of the American people -- specifically women. Women like my mother and the other mothers, wives, sisters and daughters who need preventive services to ensure that they are healthy.
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Saturday, Mar 31 2012 10:01 PM
Streamline the federal government
So much has changed over the past 30 years. The Cold War has given way to a globalized, interdependent world. Landlines turned into smartphones. The Internet is no longer a research tool for a few. In response, companies have re-engineered themselves for this new digital information era, and governors have redesigned and modernized their states' governments.
While change surrounds us, however, the federal government has stayed stuck in the past.
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Thursday, Mar 29 2012 11:04 PM
It's time for a national park to honor Chavez
Fifty years ago this Saturday, on his 35th birthday, Cesar Chavez made the decision to dedicate his life to organizing America's farmworkers when he quit his job and moved his family to Delano. Today he is recognized as one of the country's most important Latino leaders and founder of what is now the United Farm Workers of America.
Chavez recognized the injustices suffered by those working to provide food to so many Americans and decided to take action. With other important figures, including Dolores Huerta, he spent the rest of his life peacefully promoting rights for farmworkers, which led to improved working conditions and better lives for thousands of Latinos and other minority groups throughout the United States. To preserve his legacy, we now have an opportunity to recognize his achievements by establishing a national park site.
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Saturday, Mar 24 2012 10:02 PM
Campaign 2012: It's shaping up as the most important election ever
Most every campaign cycle, it seems, presidential candidates and political pundits claim this election is the most important one ever. It's become something of a cliche in American politics. This time, however, they just might be correct. Rarely before in modern times has the divide between the two parties been as stark.
That division largely revolves around the debate that has roiled American politics for much of the past century: What is the role of government in the lives of the American people? Republicans have generally sought to minimize the federal government's role and responsibilities, particularly on economic issues, while Democrats tried to expand it. But the two parties have generally coalesced around broad areas of consensus on the basic elements of the modern welfare state.
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Saturday, Mar 24 2012 10:01 PM
Obama's silence on Afghan war sends wrong message
Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, testified last week before the House Armed Services Committee. After a month of increased tensions, the American people and Congress understand the many obstacles to success. But I believe that Allen carries a message of hope and progress that reflects the true nature of this war.
He is a no-nonsense career Marine with a reputation for straight talk whose testimony set straight Congress and the American people. Counterinsurgency is the toughest type of war for a democracy, and these past few months have put American will to the test.
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Sunday, Mar 18 2012 11:02 PM
ANOTHER VIEW: What the fertilizer industry is doing to reduce groundwater pollution
The fertilizer industry is very concerned and engaged in the issue of nitrate contamination in California's groundwater supplies ("Find strategy to improve drinking water," Our View, March 15). Regarding the recent UC Davis study on the issue, the fertilizer industry acknowledges the problem of nitrates seeping into California's groundwater, but we feel the need for the public to understand that the fertilizer industry has been addressing this issue for many years.
Granted, the study did note the scope of the problem and the numbers of those people affected by nitrate pollution, along with pointing out financial remedies to deal with the situation, but the general reader might not know that industry has been working with agriculture and state agencies in tackling this problem over the past several decades.
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Wednesday, Mar 14 2012 11:02 PM
ANOTHER VIEW: Anthropogenic global warming a 'dubious theory'?
In his Feb. 26 Sunday Forum piece, "AB 32: A misguided state law based on a dubious theory," Dr. Girish Patel provided a multitude of points that he apparently believes argue against the likelihood of man-caused future warming. Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not care in the least about any of the points he raises. As an atmospheric scientist, I can assure readers that Mother Nature tends to behave in accordance with the science's best estimates and not in accordance with our political or economic preferences.
The Earth can be envisioned to contain two very different forms of carbon. We can call one of these "geological carbon," or GC. GC includes relatively "inert" substances such as the fossil fuels (including coal, oil and natural gas) and various inorganic substances such as calcium carbonate (limestone). These forms of carbon tend to stay put in and on the Earth essentially forever if they are left undisturbed.
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