Under the best of circumstances, tabulating the number, household size and ethnicity of 330 million people, spread across nearly 4 million square miles of prairie, desert, mountain and asphalt, is a formidable feat.
Reader: First, I love The Bakersfield Californian — the comics, puzzles, many great columnists, and of course, news. My father was a newspaperman also. He owned his own paper, lost it in the Depression and then worked for several other papers, including lastly, the N.Y. Daily News.
Retired Shafter farmer David Bell snapped a photo of what appears to be a young mountain lion as Bell was biking on the Kern River Parkway early Tuesday morning.
It is an exhausting time to be alive. There’s a pandemic, sure, but also civil unrest and so much political turmoil. Passionate disagreements fill our social media feeds and spill over into every crevice of our conscience, not to mention that many Americans’ livelihoods are on hold with the …
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
Hearing my maternal Grandma swear was as unusual as seeing a moonbow.
They’re coming home. His home and soon to be hers.
There’s something innately human in our need to create physical, lifelike representations of ourselves and our world. There’s something deep-seated and instinctive about our urge to fashion objects of commemoration or worship.
In last Sunday's newspaper, reporter Stacey Shepard and photographer Alex Horvath presented to readers a special report on coronavirus from inside Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. The headline summed up what readers could expect to read: "More anxiety, more sickness, more stress: Inside Bakers…
“You really ought to do something about your feet,” Sue said, looking at them, as if they were not feet but sea creatures that are normally found in the cold, dark muck at the bottom of the ocean and have no business floating to the surface.
I am old. And, I am getting older real fast, turning 81 in March.
A Kern County water agency is facing a wall of opposition against its plan to harvest up to 12,000 acre feet of water from the South Fork of the Kern River above Lake Isabella and bring it to valley farms.
Little dogs don’t eat much, which I should have known but didn’t. That explains their popularity. They eat lightly and not very often.
Has anybody else had trouble making sense out of the cascade of shifting advice and orders of what to do about this COVID thing? I feel like a pingpong ball in an international tournament. “Do this!” “No, do that!” And no matter what the order is, it is always announced in the most serious, …
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
Then it happens. One day, they are barely looking and the next they are looking out the window at the green, summery world as if they have been welcomed into the Garden of Eden.
We’re exactly 100 days out from the November election, and though we won’t see the full-on biennial deluge of advertising for another six weeks or so, the pace of hyperbolic, down-ballot finger-pointing should start catching up with the presidential contest any day.
To be Catholic is to be comfortable with mystery. It is a matter of faith that some of the things Catholics believe in, like the Trinity or the virgin birth or the transubstantiation of bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood, cannot be explained. The human rational mind cannot fathom the …
Reader: Thank you, Steven Mayer, for uplifting me with a hopeful and beautiful message of love and kindness that is the mural outside the homeless center in Bakersfield ("Artists painting mural at navigation center for homeless were once homeless themselves," July 24).
Jim and Pat Cowles emailed in regard to the column about dropping a birthday cake and how nothing beats a homemade cake.
Friday, I got out of bed. That’s a start. If you don’t get out of bed, you’re either unwell, unwilling or unalive.
Laura Arredondo was at work that morning when she received a call from an distressed employee at Arredondo Ventures. "He called me and he just said, 'Laura, come to Arredondo Ventures!' And I said, 'What? Why? What happened, Ali?"
I would like to lodge a complaint about wearing face masks.
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
Our granddaughter Lillian just turned 3. Her mother made her a strawberry ice cream cake. Her mother is Katie, our oldest, and Lillian is her daughter.
Should children — and adults — attend classes this fall in person, remotely from home or follow some kind of hybrid model as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to climb?
Readers may recall that in past columns I've mentioned being an old movie buff. I often use the website called Internet Movie Data Base, where it's possible to enter errors, or "goofs," that you might see in films.
When Cutco comes a-calling, it’s time to be home. Home and ready to listen. Home and ready to buy.
Is physical activity good for you?
My wife, Susie, and I returned home from a not too common mom-and-dad-only date night. When we arrived home our young children, Nikki, Brenna, Sean and Aaron, were sound asleep cuddled up in their favorite cozy spots in our living room. Twins Sean and Aaron were barely visible stretched out …
I still haven’t killed my first mosquito. I’ve had lots of opportunities but these little ___ (fill in your favorite colorful word) are turbo-charged and smart. It’s as if this species, Aedes aegypti, "an aggressive, day-biting mosquito, which has the potential to spread viruses such as deng…
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
A friend gave me a plate. Not any old plate, but a white plate with scalloped edges. It is toast-, bagel- or salad-sized.
How to start this column? Maybe with a proposal: If you are a white person who doesn’t believe white privilege is a thing, stay with me. Just for 900 words. I know that you have possibly sworn never to read another word of mine, but humor me. I can explain white privilege to you, because I h…
Like virtually all societies throughout human history, we Americans have always romanticized our wars. The more significant the war, the more vivid the romance. We build legends and traditions around the wars and paint the combatants in boldly contrasting colors of good and evil.
Reader: I am extremely disappointed in the misleading headline used to report the Supreme Court's decisions relating to Trump's attempts to keep his financial records secret.
On my desk is a quart-sized Mason jar filled to the brim with coins. The jar, as the label indicates, previously held Luigi’s Italian beans, which if you have not had them, are like money, better than money and whose flavor is more long-lasting than anything money can buy.
Ice makers don’t have a mind of their own. That’s giving them too much credit. That’s making it seem as if their inner workings are something we might understand should we put our minds to it.
We upgraded our wheels and purchased a double stroller to enjoy more outdoor time with our two small boys. If you have been reading this column for very long, you know we like to walk, and now we’ve been out even more. Since the pandemic hit, the car traffic around our home has been quieter …
A couple of weeks ago in my last “A Modest Proposal” article, I wrote about the idea of taking out the seating at the stage in Beale Park to allow for more people to participate in events and to increase safety in the park after hours. Today I wish to continue in a similar vein with another …
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
He isn’t looking for rainbows and ponies. Nothing sugarcoated. No Hallmark card with messages like “Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.”
When Dolores Huerta Foundation executives brought their plans for a $20 million downtown cultural center and organizational headquarters to city officials last year, they were met with great enthusiasm.
Many years ago when I was a student at North High School, I would spend weekends during pheasant season hunting with two of my teachers, Bob Newbrough and coach Jordan "Turk" Eliades.
In December, I thought I was going to die. Not die-die but die. “Die” meaning hurting.
Is it me or are the mosquitoes worse this year? If there was a year where mosquitoes would swarm like bad news, this is the one. Mosquitoes and pandemic go together like biscuits and honey or the opposite, because they are neither pleasing nor sweet.
It is refreshing and good to see young people once again getting actively involved in the ongoing struggle for social justice. There was a good turnout at this year's Juneteenth celebration at Yokuts Park marking the end of slavery in the United States.
Cop Tales are true stories as told by law enforcement officers from all over the country. The stories are told in the first person. The actual officer’s initials follow each story.
A friend is growing a beard. I’d never seen him with a beard, sideburns or facial hair, so I asked him what was up.
It had a special symmetry. 2020. The configuration conveyed order and balance, almost a harmony of sorts. Twenty on your side of the ledger, twenty on mine. In a society that bats around phrases like equal justice — never mind what the reality might always have been — its rhythm felt like a …
Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 22,626
Positive Cases Among Non-Residents: 10
Deaths: 171
Recovered Residents: 7,122
Number of Negative Tests: 113,214
Number of Pending Tests*: 666
Updated: 8/08/2020. Source: Kern County Public Health Services Department
*As reported by community healthcare providers.
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