SMITHTICITY
Join this novel effort to get kids reading
The "My First Library" book drive is starting to reach cruising speed. Readers of The Californian have been arriving at the newspaper's front door on Eye Street loaded down with children's books to
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Government roundup: Stimulus funds to widen Highway 46
The Kern Council of Governments directed $16 million of federal stimulus money toward the widening of Highway 46 Thursday, overruling a committee recommendation that would have sent the money into Ba
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Councilmen, supervisors to talk recycling
A disconnect between Bakersfield and Kern County over the issue of recycling will be a subject of a joint meeting Monday. The last time the Bakersfield City Council and the Kern County Board of Sup
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Do you have something to say?
We believe it's important to provide a variety of community perspectives on our news pages. That's why for the past four years, Marylee Shrider has written a column for us that offers a conservativ
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PG&E adds electrical capacity
To increase electrical capacity for agricultural customers hit hard by the drought, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is installing two new circuits out of its Tupman Substation in northwest Bakersfield, an
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New water allocation figures out
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has updated its allocation for water users supplied by the federal Central Valley Project water system. Agriculture south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta still wi
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We must learn to live within our means
It seems to me the best way to survive the current economic crisis is to heed the advice of those who survived the last one. The big one.
It's a concept many of our state and federal leaders, includin
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Mettler not to blame for sign scuffle
It’s been a great week for gay-rights activists, Prop. 8 protesters and the local media, all of whom are simply giddy over the infamous sign scuffle at a recent Friday-night rally.
Eight days a
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Prop. 2 preys on naive city slickers
We city slickers are such suckers.
Flash a photo of a dead chicken before our eyes and our collective lower lip trembles, so easily convinced are we that the sins of a few farmers are the standard for
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Proposition 8 no civil rights issue
What was I thinking?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself more than once since I agreed to participate in the Proposition 8 debate last week at Cal State Bakersfield. I am, after all,
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Say yes to Prop. 8 and no to PG&E
It's good to be the king. Or PG&E.
When you're king, or a fat-cat near-monopoly like PG&E, it's OK to goose your subjects, then pooh-pooh the protests.
Or so PG&
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Absence of newspapers hurts communities
When you’re 70-something and your day starts before dawn and the world is hushed and the coffee’s hot and you walk out your front door and — rats! &m
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Once again: Harvey Milk Day is a bad idea
Didn’t we just do this?
Wasn’t it a mere six months ago that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation designating Harvey Milk’s birthday a day of “special significance
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Student's freedom quashed in college classroom
Think freedom of speech is alive and well on California's college campuses
I’m starting to wonder.
It was in fine form back in 1992, when, as a returning student, I took a
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Flood of hope
A couple years ago, a Bakersfield church gave a few of its members a bit of seed money with instructions to “get out there.”
Now, every Saturday night downtown, the hungry are fed, the fri
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