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If you need a poster boy for the most hateful man in America, one of the nominees surely would be Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.
Phelps is becoming notorious for taking a band of protesters to disrespect and disrupt the funerals of more than 100 soldiers. The pastor and his followers have decided that grieving families should be the ones to pay for his tirade against homosexuals. The thread of logic for this hatemongering tribe is hard to follow, but basically, the church members — mostly members of Phelps’ family — say American soldiers are evil because they died defending a country that tolerates homosexuality. So they’ve decided that picketing, demonstrating and chanting hateful slogans at military funerals is the way to persuade people that they are right.
Thankfully, this tactic has disgusted most everyone, even other Baptists. Phelps is also known for screaming “God hates fags” at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay man who was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming. The perverse pastor still stages celebrations on the anniversary of Shepard’s death, to express joy at his “entry into hell.”
Some states are fed up with his antics and federal legislators have have introduced bills that would make these protests a felony. For example, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Scripps-Howard Newspapers last week he plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit protests at national cemeteries for an hour before or after a service, and require protesters be 500 feet from the gravesite.
There is not a First Amendment issue here, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, because the bill only limits expression in cemeteries and they are not a public forum. However, some of the other bills introduced specifically to deal with Phelps are more concerning because they restrict speech in front of churches and public sidewalks.
However indecent the rhetoric, it is generally best to pound perverts like Phelps with more free speech, not less. For example, during the Shepard controversy, one of the most dramatic responses to Phelps and his group was known as Angel Action. During one of Phelps’ hate-spewing protests, his group was quietly surrounded by a dozen counter-demonstrators in flowing white angel costumes with 10-foot wingspans rising seven feet high. The angels turned their backs on Phelps, smiled and effectively blocked him from the view of passersby. It was a display so stunning it was featured in two movies, “The Laramie Project” and “The Matthew Shepard Story.”
A similar group has organized to protect the veterans families. A squad of peaceful, motorcycle-riding veterans known as the Patriot Guard now makes a show of force at the military funerals. They shield the grieving families with a wall of 3-by-5-foot American flags so that often they don’t see or hear the offensive picketers. They use the roar of their motorcycle engines to drown out the hateful chanting. In just five months, 16,000 cyclists have joined the effort, according to ABC News.
Clearly, Phelps and his band’s heartless antics are just a pathetic plea for attention from a group that preys on people who are in no mindset to defend themselves. They are best challenged by the chants of other people with something smarter to say. Sadly, probably neither group really meets the needs of the grieving families, who just want to be left alone.
I think Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is really serious about losing weight. He's shedding pounds and now he's blogging about it on his Web site called Start With Cruz. It seems he's in competition with me on both the diet and blogging fronts. We'll see how this turns out.
On Thursday, Bustamante even appeared with a contestant from the “The Biggest Loser” reality show to make his weight-loss point in San Marcos, according to the Associated Press. This could all be a publicity ploy for his campaign for insurance commissioner, but Bustamante seems like he's on a mission.
The lieutenant governor urged elementary school students to join his “Start with Cruz!” fitness campaign. “If I had done what you guys are doing today, I would not be fighting the weight problem I have today,” the AP reported Bustamante telling the students. “You’re an inspiration to both adults and kids in this community.”
Bustamante started his diet at 278 pounds in January, vowing to lose 50 pounds because he was worried about his health. He’s already shed 35 pounds. I'm impressed.
Here's my column on Bustamante going public with his battle against obesity.
He's doing so well that he'll probably end up on the TV talk show circuit: "Today on Oprah. . . the politician who was obsessed with thinness. Did he lose too much weight?"
For those folks following our cat tales, we are about to double our fun. We are adopting two kittens from a sweet litter of healthy babies raised by a host mother named Rebecca. One is an orange tabby baby girl and the second is a white baby boy. Both are being spayed today and we will pick them up tomorrow. We decided to take two instead of one because we're all away during the day, and we don't want them to be lonely. It's our first experience raising two kittens at once. Any perils we should know about?
Saturday is Valley Voices day on the Opinion pages, a day reserved for commentaries by local writers. This week, we've got three very diverse pieces. Tara M. Powers, a grad student at Fresno State, challenges the stereotype of college girls gone wild on spring break. They're more likely to be volunteering, working or catching up on homework than drinking and dancing topless on tables in Cancun. Jo Ellen Priest Misakian of Fresno Pacific University challenges us all to invest in our school libraries. They are shameful when compared with others in the nation. Jim Tucker has a written a charming piece on how Americans love to use baseball cliches. Jim is the host of one of my favorite shows, "Valley Press" on Channel 18. We watched a rerun last night of Jim interviewing Mas Masumoto, who writes in The Bee's Sunday Vision sections every month. It was a compelling show and a masterful interview by Jim. One of Mas' comments really hit home. He said it's very important that families have a writer to pass on the stories from generation to generation. If someone doesn't do that, the family lessons just die out.. I'm feeling a little guilty here, so maybe I'd better get busy on my family history.
Mas' next piece appears April 30. It's a tender story about his illiterate grandmother, who nevertheless kept a special drawer containing a bundle of letters she could not read. The illustrator is the amazing Doug Hansen, a former Bee graphic artist who now teaches several classes of fortunate students at Fresno State.
In response to an order from the Western Athletic Conference, Fresno State will be moving its raucous student section from behind the opposing team's bench in Bulldog Stadium. The conference says the move is meant to lessen the danger to visiting teams throughout the conference, according to The Bee's story Friday.
OK, I'll buy that. There have been some nasty incidents in recent years. That will subside, one presumes, when the students are exiled to a far corner of Bulldog Stadium.
Most colleges put the student section behind the home team's bench, but some time ago Bulldogs Coach Pat Hill decided he wanted the team on the west side of the field. That's the side where all those high-priced Red Waver seats are found.
Perhaps this is about reducing tensions and mellowing the crowd. But there's another explanation that makes more sense to me: The students have been paying $75 for season seats behind the opponents' bench. Now those seats will be sold to grown-ups for nearly $500 for the season. Enjoy your new seats, kids.
In the face of deep denial from the Bush administration, California has moved forward with regulations meant to cut the emissions of so-called "greenhouse gases," the principal villain in global warning. Now the Bush team wants to drive a stake through the heart of that effort.
California's rule -- being emulated by 10 other states -- would require automakers to cut 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions from their fleets by 2016. But here's what the White House said about that, in the preamble to a new light truck corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) rule: "Any regulation governing carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles relates to average fuel economy standards and is expressly preempted ... ." So much for states rights, not to mention clean air.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has proposed dismally weak new fuel economy standards. They will be phased in over four years, and raise the current requirement for light trucks from 22.7 miles per gallon all the way to a stunning 24 mpg by 2011. That would save 10 billion gallons of gasoline over two decades, "or roughly 25 days' worth of gas under current consumption trends," according to The New York Times.
Next they'll be telling all of us to just hold our collective breath.
The Fresno Jjammers head north a week from tomorrow, to start our 199-mile adventure in The Relay.
Our 12-person team (and two drivers) will spend the weekend running a 199-mile relay between Calistoga and Santa Cruz, promoting organ donation as a fundraiser for Organs 'R' Us ("ORU"). The transfer of the “baton” from runner to runner symbolizes the transfer of an organ from donor to recipient.
Last week we learned what our start time will be – the roads are not closed for this event, so start times are staggered, based on your team’s predicted pace. We might have called ourselves the Fresno Turtles instead of the Jjammers – we will be one of the slowest teams taking part, so we have an early start time. They obviously don’t want us dragging this thing out over an entire week.
Although this event is billed as "California's longest party," my partying mood dampened after our last team meeting last Sunday when, based on our 7 a.m. Saturday start time, we calculated our approximate finish time. I should be crossing the finish line in Santa Cruz between midnight and 2 a.m. MONDAY morning – hours after the official post-race party on the beach has wrapped up.
But it should still be a fun, bonding, character-building experience – or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
POSTSCRIPT: As one of my team members commented, apparently someone at our last meeting shouldn't pursue a career in math. Upon further reflection of the numbers, we were in error in thinking that we would finish so late. Glad to hear it!
It's exhilarating to see the Valley's high school students suddenly realizing that government actually affects their everyday lives. One of the frustrating things about enticing young adults into voting and discussions of public policy is that so often they think politics has nothing to do with their lives. And of course, it does in ways they often don't even realize. Can they make a difference? Yes, of course! And now that many of their immediate families are threatened by the voices in Congress, they see very clearly that perhaps their voices [more importantly their votes] could be important.
Did you or someone in your family demonstrate in one of the marches this week? Why? I'd love to hear what pushed you, your friends or family members to take action.
Remember the 278-pound Cruz Bustamante? The one who finally looked in the mirror and vowed to lose 50 pounds because he was worried about his health? The critics scoffed, but he's almost there. The lieutenant governor has shed 35 pounds and threatens to blow past his 50-pound goal.
All this started in January when Bustamante looked at the scales and a big fat "278" screamed back at him. He even used the "O" word, calling himself obese. Bustamante, 53, went public with his battle, and urged others to join him in losing weight. He has plenty of company on this score. Nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and most of us are dieting most of the time.
Here's my column about Bustamante deciding to talk publicly about his battle to lose weight. His results so far are impressive. . . Now if I can only do the same thing.
The news story of this week has been protests, nationwide, over the immigration debate going on in Washington, D.C., right now.
We’ve covered it some on our opinion pages, with a couple of editorials and some columns from various perspectives.
In tomorrow's edition, we are giving extra space on the Op-Ed page to the flood of letters on the subject that have been coming in this week. And in one of Thursday’s editorials, we will address what has been the local A1 story the past couple of days – walkouts and protests by local high school students around the valley.
While we agree that civil disobedience, in any form, comes with potential consequences, it’s great to see so many young people engaged in a lively debate over an issue that means something to them. Don't we want our children to become actively involved in the democratic process?
The Peace Garden at California State University, Fresno, will have a major new addition unveiled on April 6. It's a life-sized statue of peace advocate and Nobel Prize winner Jane Addams, created by Claudia Nolan, a graduate student in sculpture at Fresno State. It will join statues of Mahatma Gandhi, César Chávez and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Addams statue, according to Fresno State spokesperson Shirley Melikian Armbruster, is the first Peace Garden memorial depicting a woman, the first designed and sculpted by a woman and the first produced by a Fresno State student. Also on the program, Armbruster said, is the world premiere performance of "Music for The Peace Garden," written by Dr. Robert Strizich, a music faculty member at Fresno State, and performed by the Guitar Quartet of Fresno State. The work includes a special movement written for Addams.
Ceremonies will include speeches by Dr. Paul Pribbenow, president of Rockford College in Illinois, Addams' alma mater; Dr. Regina Birchem, international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, of which Addams was the first president; and Fresno State President Dr. John D. Welty.
Go to this Web site for more information on the Peace Garden.
When you put yourself to bed each night, do you still see a sliver of light under your teenager’s bedroom door?
If your teen is like many others, chances are he or she is staying up later than is recommended.
A new national study, reported in an article by Knight Ridder Newspapers, blames the many electronic gadgets that the average teen has in his or her bedroom for the trend.
Computers, cell phones, televisions and video games all keep those who should be asleep wide awake, said Jodi A. Mindell, associate director of the Sleep Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and coauthor of the study. As a result, more than a quarter of high school students fall asleep in school at least once a week.
Mary Carskadon, director of the E.P. Bradley Hospital Sleep center at Brown University and the other study author, said that an optimal night's sleep for teens is nine hours. But researchers found that almost half slept fewer than eight hours on school nights.
Teachers, are teens falling asleep in your classes? Teens, why do you stay up late when you should be getting your rest? And parents, how do we fix this problem? Take away the toys?
Many nice people have inquired about our search for our pet cat, Murko. He hasn't come home yet, and we haven't found him. We're just so sad about that. My husband went on an excursion Sunday night, calling for him (again) around the neighborhood. But no luck. Our sweet neighbor boys, Baker and Ollie, assured us they are still looking for Murko every day. Right now we're sticking to Baker and Ollie's story. They think Murko's on an exchange adventure with a hot chick and having a wonderful time. We hope so.
Until our pet decides to bring his companion home to meet us, we are just too lonely without our boy, so we're looking for a little brother or sister for him. We've been to the SPCA and discovered to our delight that there are host parents for animals! Isn't that just the coolest thing? If a mother cat or dog, for example, has a litter at the shelter, or if a mother and her babies are brought in, the SPCA sends the whole group to a host family until the babies are old enough to be adopted. When we were out at the shelter on Sunday, there was a little orange tabby we just fell in love with, but she was too young to be adopted. A host mother is picking the whole family up this week. The babies need to be about eight weeks old so they can be spayed or neutered before you take them.
Tonight, we're going to look at a litter with some orange tabbies. They are with a host mother and should be ready for adoption in a week or so. We're so excited! The shelter workers said there are a whole bunch of litters with host families, so if you're looking for a new kitten, think about getting one in the next few weeks. A population explosion is expected. Apparently, the shelter people are also looking for host parents. So, if baby animals are your calling, this might be the perfect volunteer work for you.
Stay tuned.
Few people probably follow breaking news from Iceland, but my husband and I pay close attention because we have an exchange daughter, Elin, who lives there. The Bee recently ran this short brief: "REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- The United States, which has long provided Iceland with its only military force, has decided to withdraw most of its service members and all of its fighter jets and helicopters from the country later this year, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday. Iceland's government, which had recently offered to pay some of the cost of its defense to try to keep U.S. forces here, said it regretted the decision. But Washington also said it would continue to honor its 1951 agreement with Iceland requiring the United States, under the auspices of NATO, to provide this country's defense."
Our Icelandic daughter, Elin, an exchange student at Bullard two years ago, reacted this way: "I think Icelanders don´t like the decision about taking the army away. It´s helping us so much in rescuing people. The Icelandic rescue unit only has two helicopters to rescue people and they have to spend a lot of money to buy more if the army goes away. I don´t like the fact that no army is here. We are so few and it will be so easy to take over Iceland if the U.S. army isn´t here. And I think that many terrorists could think of taking Iceland cause of its good location."
International politics is almost always personal for us because of our extended international family. We got news yesterday that Elin's coming back to Fresno for a visit in May, so we can resume our long and passionate talks about U.S. and Icelandic politics very soon. We cannot wait.
Tuesday's main editorial offers our position on immigration. This long-simmering issue has finally exploded just as Congress begins debating how best to protect our borders, meet the labor needs of employers who must rely on illegal workers and deal fairly with the 12 million people living in the United States illegally.
Opponents of tougher immigration laws rallied over the past few days and several local schools experienced student walkouts. The reaction to immigration reform underscores the problem in creating laws acceptable to the many factions weighing in on the issue.
We believe that changes are needed. We have said before that those changes should iinclude raising quotas for the legal flow of immigrants to provide needed workers and to reduce the backlog of immigration applicants. We don't believe erecting a border fence will solve the problem. Border security should be increased, though. There also should be a sensible guest worker program that allows undocumented immigrants to live and work in this country legally.
This is a divisive issue and there is no easy answer to the problem. There must be a balanced approach to any solution. Unfortunately, few have patience when it comes to immigration reform.
Hey, can't wait. "The Apprentice" is on tonight. I like this show because, like "Supernanny," it's a learning experience every week. Isn't it fun second-guessing people without any of the pressure that the contestants are under?
From the comfort of our family room sofa, in our PJs -- and even without any Harvard MBAs -- our family members consistently come up with better ideas than anybody on TV. If you ever watch "Millionaire" and "Jeopardy," it's so much easier at home. "Apprentice" can be a pretty brutal competition. In addition, Donald Trump and his cohorts seem to encourage cut-throat thinking to make it all the more edgy.
I get the distinct feeling most of the people in that boardroom would sell their brothers' vital organs on the open market if the price were right. Those people are really fun to watch from a distance, but I'm sure glad they are not my colleagues.
One of the people I would really like to see Donald Trump add to the judging panel is Michael Josephson, an expert on ethics and founder of the Character Counts.program.
Josephson is a fascinating guy, and I've seen him do some very entertaining and challenging confrontations of people in professional seminars. He was in Fresno last spring to do some work with Fresno State and its character education program. Josephson dislikes "The Apprentice" because he thinks the series inaccurately portrays the business world and "the type of manipulation and short-term thinking that breed success on these sorts of reality shows are liabilities -- not assets -- in the real world."
On his Web site last week, this is what Josephson had to say in his criticism of "The Apprentice": "Amorality is a myth. Everything we do has moral significance. And regardless of the context, our actions can and will be judged in relation to core ethical values. What`s more, these judgments will dramatically affect the formation of character and the way people treat us. People and companies perceived as honest, responsible and fair generate trust and loyalty, two crucial factors of real success. There`s nothing wrong with striving to get ahead or in wanting the prestige, status and comforts associated with business success. Yet, in the end, the purpose of our work is not just to make a living, but to make a life. And, when it`s all over, we will be judged not by what we have, but by what we have become."
I would never have guessed that, behind their political acumen, behind their wealth of institutional knowledge, my esteemed colleagues are musical deep at heart. The death of Buck Owens over the weekend sparked some unique vocal stylings in our editorial office area this morning.
At least two of my colleagues offered up their renditions of “Tiger by the Tail” and “Act Naturally.” (Aren't you just curious to know who?) I guess I better start practicing my own singing. Never know when I’ll be called upon for backup.
I remember watching “Hee-Haw” as a child in our home growing up in the early 1970s. I didn’t realize that co-host Buck Owens was one of Bakersfield’s musical heroes. That was years before our family migrated here to the central San Joaquin Valley in 1978.
In the wake of South Dakota's passage of a ban on abortions, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Cecelia Fire Thunder, has suggested that the tribe might open a clinic that would provide abortions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. That could raise some interesting issues.
If a tribe can have a casino, why not a clinic that performs abortions? Various legal experts have said that a clinic on Indian land might not be subject to the state law, especially if doctors were Indians. South Dakota's Rapid City Journal offers a more complete account of the story.
According to the Journal, "Fire Thunder has worked as a licensed practical nurse, and she has helped set up community health clinics in Los Angeles. She said the tribe could set up its own clinic. 'If we choose to do this, we can.'"
And if the PIne Ridge Oglala Sioux can do it, why can't tribes all over the country?
We are finishing up the weekend pages this afternoon, and I promise you plenty of good material for your morning breakfast chats -- and spats. Saturday is Valley Voices Day in The Bee and this week we have one of my favorite features, Young Voices. This means a whole page of commentaries by our younger readers, usually high school students and 20-somethings.
This week Clare Godinho of Fresno City College talks about the warning the school got from the accreditation team. She says the school should seize this opportunity to shore up some weak spots. Amy K. Noel of Fresno State has a touching piece about her experience as a soccer coach to some little girls. It should make any high school or college student think about getting a team of her own. Senah Parvez, an Edison graduate who now attends Stanford University, says some of Fresno's health care disparities can be addressed if we all improved our "culture competence." By that she means more respect for one another's ethnic and religious traditions around health care.
Sunday's Vision section is full of good conversation starters. Jim Boren laments state election overkill, saying this droning "all-election all the time" marathon is draining the substance from our public policy debates. He says this should "disgust" voters.
David Mas Masumoto writes Part 2 of his letter to his daughter, Nikiko, who is studying at UC Berkeley. You may remember last month's letter, where he basically told her not to come home because he feared the Valley was not open minded enough to challenge his daughter. In Part 2, he makes a right turn and tells her that he hopes she will come home and make a difference in the Valley, to make it better. I am so fond of these pieces by Mas; they are letters to all of us.
We also have an interesting piece by Kathleen Parker on the topic of "Are Men Necessary?"... Increasingly, women are choosing to leave real men out of the family equation altogether, to the detriment of society, she says. Maureen Dowd is her usual sassy self, poking satirical fun at the Bush administration and wondering if they've been taking too much Ambien.
Be sure to take a look at Blogging Across America, our weekly excerpts from the blogoshphere. There is some fun and wacky stuff in there. I compile that feature every week, and I'd really like to hear from you about your favorite blogs, especially those with comments on public policy. Send me your favorite links -- maybe even your own.
Have a great weekend...
We publish almost 4,000 letters a year from readers and many of the names of the authors have become familiar to you. Although, you read their opinions, you generally don’t know much more about them than their names and hometowns.
But starting Sunday, we’re going to run a feature that introduces you to some of our letter writers in a bit more depth. We plan to run the feature once a week, although there will be times that we use the space for expanded special features. Pam Rowse, the administrative assistant for the opinion pages, is gathering the material about our letter writers.
On Sunday, meet Lucile Wheaton on the letters page of The Bee’s Vision section. She’s been a Bee reader since 1976. But there's much more that you'll want to know about Lucile. Check it out.
Early head’s up on my Sunday column:
No wonder we can’t solve California’s problems. We’re in perpetual political spin because of elections every year. All these elections mean that there’s no time — and no appetite — for substantive public policy discussions.
Consider that since 2002, California has held statewide elections every year thanks to the “off years” being filled with the Gray Davis recall election in 2003 and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election in 2005. That’s five straight years with elections, and six out of the last seven.
That’s why the much-needed infrastructure bond fell apart in Sacramento, even though the Democratic leadership in the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agree it’s needed. It’s hard work drafting the details of a massive state bond and then reaching bipartisan agreement. Our politicians would rather make election promises than produce something of substance.
I’ll expand on this subject in my column that runs Sunday in The Bee’s Vision section. Here's the link to my column archive.
We're writing an editorial for Sunday on the issue of water banking in Madera. It's a topic that's been in front of us before; two earlier efforts to start an underground storage site in the county failed, for a variety of reasons.
We like the idea of water banking as one solution to the Valley's crying need for new supplies. But it's a complex issue. Surface storage -- dams and reservoirs -- is preferred by many ag interests and their allies. It's opposed by many others, usually on the grounds of the high cost and the environmental impacts of manmade lakes. Some also believe that we haven't done nearly enough to conserve water, another way of increasing the supply.
Our own editorial board reflects all of those views, and more. Water is always a difficult question in California, and always has been. The hoary old quote attributed to Mark Twain still says it best, perhaps: In California, "whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over."
Did you think Fresno police went too far with their recent sting on drunk drivers?
An Associated Press article by Jim Vertuno tells of a new approach in Texas to crack down on drunks in bars:
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is sending undercover officers into bars to look for the exceedingly drunk, issuing citations or making arrests for public intoxication even if the patrons haven’t left the building.
The program is aimed at reducing drunken driving. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Texas had 1,264 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in 2004, the most in the nation.
The crackdown is aimed not only at those who are drunk, but at the bars and bartenders who continue to serve them. So far, it has resulted in about 2,200 arrests or citations around the state.
Bar patrons there reacted in much the same way as those here in Fresno:
“This almost seems like entrapment,” said Greg Turnbow, on a business trip from Nashville, Tenn. “If somebody’s in a bar causing trouble, they should be arrested.” But the crackdown struck him as “just too much.”
The Texas bar patrons may be approached if an officer spots them behaving erratically, such as having difficulty walking or standing. The officer will perform a field sobriety test similar to one for drunken drivers. A patron may also be asked to take a breath test.
Most people who take the breath test have a blood alcohol level of .17 or higher, said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck. “These people who are being arrested are really drunk,” she said. “We’re not going up to random people.”
The Fresno Police Department recently retooled its sting efforts, taking the undercover officers out of the bars after a community outcry here. But maybe they can look to Texas’ example for ways to get back to the source of the problem.
There's a new list out featuring the 10 American cities with the most-polluted air and -- surprise surprise -- Fresno/Madera is on it. We're No. 3, in fact, surpassed in this unfortunate category only by Los Angeles and Bakersfield. Also on the list are Visalia/Porterville and Merced.
The list comes as part of an interesting story on forbes.com, which includes this passage: "'The emissions from cars and trucks have been a big problem for the past 40 years,' says Janice Nolen, ALA director of national policy. Some communities, according to Nolen, have thought that building more roads to reduce congestion would be a prime way to solve the problem, but in fact that hasn't solved anything. Some experts are now looking at alternatives to how communities themselves are built so that commutes and distances traveled by vehicles are shorter, making roads less congested."
That's worth remembering in the context of Measure C renewal.
Here's the Top (Bottom?) 10 list (rated only for ozone):
1. Los Angeles/Long Beach/Riverside
2. Bakersfield
3. Fresno/Madera
4. Visalia/Porterville
5. Merced
6. Houston
7. Sacramento
8. Dallas/Forth Worth
9. New York
10. Philadelphia
Source: American Lung Association (for 2005)
Is it only me that finds it strange that families of our soldiers fighting in Iraq are having to do fundraising to pay for body armor? Reading the story in today’s Bee about the subject got me thinking about the old saying from the ‘60s that went something like this: “Wouldn’t it be great if schools had all the money they needed and the Air Force had to hold bake sales to buy bombers?”
Well, apparently that's now the case. The Bee story discussed a Fresno father raising money for body armor for his son, a sergeant in the Army Special Forces, and other members of his unit.
I understand parents wanting to do all they can to protect their sons and daughters fighting in a far-away war. I'd do the same if I were in their shoes. But my question is that if this war is so fundamental to our national security, why won’t we as a nation provide state-of-the-art equipment to our soldiers?
The ridiculous cost of textbooks has always been a sore point with me. Publishers have it made. You can look hours in a shopping center bookstore before you find a $60 book, but they are commonplace in college bookstores. In addition, textbook publishers are fond of making minor changes in the books and the issuing new editions that make it impossible for students to make use of used books that cost a fraction of the new ones.
Sometimes the books required for classes collectively can cost nearly as much as tuition. When you go to resell the books, well, good luck with that.
A recent Seattle Times story talks about how some colleges are helping out their students by making it possible to rent books. That is a great option and the Valley, with its many colleges and and low-income students, would be a good place to try this out. In California, only one college does this, Taft. The National Association of College Stores has a guide to setting up such a system. Well, Fresno State, Fresno City, Reedley how about it? This plan seems like a nice little master's project for an entrepreneurial business-school student.
The Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad wants to add about 4.5 miles of new siding along its tracks in northwest Fresno, and that has neighbors, environmentalists and rail consolidation advocates alike up in arms.
The neighbors and the environmentalists don't like the idea of trains idling, perhaps for hours, on the new siding as they wait for higher-priority trains to pass. The noise and the concomitant air pollution are their biggest objections.
Consolidation advocates worry that investing $10 million in such new tracks will delay -- or even derail -- prospects for one day moving the BNSF trains to new tracks along the existing Union Pacific alignment, west of BNSF's current tracks and out of the city's heart.
On March 28, Fresno City Council Member Brian Calhoun, who represents the northwest part of town, will offer a resolution to his council colleagues opposing the idea. The issue is scheduled for 4 p.m. Tom Bailey,
president of Fresno Area Residents for Rail Consolidation Inc., is asking for help. E-mail him at tom@movethetracks.org for more information.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t abandoned Highway 99, and that should be applauded by San Joaquin Valley residents. During an editorial board meeting at The Bee Tuesday afternoon, the governor said funding to upgrade Highway 99 must be in any state infrastructure bond he supports.
That’s good news for this working-class freeway that runs through the Valley. The governor even said that the $1 billion he’s earmarked for Highway 99 improvements is not negotiable -- even when he gets to the horse trading with the Democratic Legislature over a bond that could be on the November ballot. Finally, someone in power in Sacramento understands the critical nature of Highway 99.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about the school test scores and the California exit exam during his meeting with The Bee's Editorial Board this afternoon.
Asked if California is on the right track in focusing on testing to ensure the improvement of student performance in our public schools, the governor cited his own background growing up in Austria in affirming his support for the California exit exam.
Passing the exit exam, he said, is your ticket to the university and to getting good jobs.
Schwarzenegger also said we must do everything we can to help students pass these tests. The tests aren’t there to set students up to fail, he said. He has already supported a one-year waiver of the California exit exam requirements for special education students. But he wants special education students to ultimately have the support necessary so they will have the skills to pass the exit exam.
While Schwarzenegger said he has seen firsthand -- during his years chairing the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in the early 1990s-- the frustration faced by teachers and administrators dealing with mounting expectations, he said test scores provide a measurable way to monitor student progress.
"We need to see accountability" of student improvement, he said. "Not that test scores are the perfect way" to measure that. "But we have to see performance. Is there a better way? I couldn't tell you."
During an editorial board meeting with The Fresno Bee today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he won't fire Democratic activist Rob Reiner, a director and fellow actor, as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission. Reiner has taken a leave of absence from the First Five Commission after reports of questionable spending under his tenure. He 's pushing Proposition 82, the universal preschool initiative on the June ballot. The commission reportedly used $23 million in tax dollars for advertisements supporting universal preschool while Reiner was collecting signatures to get his preschool initiative on the ballot.
Schwarzenegger said there is only an "appearance" of a problem with Reiner, and he sees no reason to remove him at this point. The governor said it isn't right to dump Reiner without evidence of wrongdoing. The auditors are looking into the issue, the governor said, and Reiner is "innocent until proven guilty." Besides, Schwarzenegger said, he wouldn't do that to a friend.
In his visit with The Bee's editorial board today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke to the issue of water storage, which was one of the rocks on which his effort to get an infrastructure bond on the June ballot foundered recently.
The water storage fight was between Democrats and their environmentalist allies who wouldn't countenance building new surface storage sites -- dams and reservoirs -- and Republicans who wouldn't accept and bond issue that didn't have money for new dams.
The governor invoked the famous quip of former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, describing the recent spat over water in the infrastructure bond negotiations as "kabuki," a highly stylized and rigidly choreographed set piece.
Schwarzenegger clearly believes a compromise is possible. Let's hope he can get past the ritual Sacramento role-playing to find it.
You know what I hate? When you’re trying to reach someone, anyone, on the phone at a company, but the automated phone hell doesn’t offer any options for human interaction.
If I weren’t already mad when I placed the call, I am by the time I get off the phone.
A recent article on Al's Morning Meeting, on Poynter Online, deals with this very subject.
One link is to the gethuman database, a listing of secret phone numbers and codes to get to a human when calling a company for customer service.
Don’t just suffer at the hands of automated telephone systems. Fight back – get human!
In the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now,” Robert Duvall’s character Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
That quote reminds me of the smell of bus exhaust.
Soon, there’ll be a little less of that smell in the Valley air. A Bee article last week reported that California's oldest and most-polluting school bus fleet — which is in the San Joaquin Valley — has attracted millions of state dollars to buy modern replacements. The California Air Resources Board will spend $4.3 million for 31 new buses to replace some of the Valley's oldest buses, including two that date back to 1959.
One of my most vivid memories of my first trip to the Magic Kingdom, unfortunately, is the overwhelming smell of bus exhaust.
It was 1985, and I took part in Bullard High’s grad night trip to Disneyland, where seniors rode down to Anaheim on school buses and got to enjoy the park all night long with seniors from other California high schools.
At the end of the “evening,” (actually early the next morning) we all had to gather back in the parking lot near our school’s buses. It seemed like every bus in the lot – and there were lots of them – was idling, belching forth noxious fumes.
I say newer, cleaner buses can’t come too soon.
Great results from police department this weekend, despite the perfect storm: St. Patrick's Day falling on a Friday night. No deaths came from drunk driving. That's a real victory. Apparently this was accomplished through a combination of awareness, DUI checkpoints and the policing of the local bars most likely to be a problem.
A lot of people want to talk about this issue suddenly. That's progress. I notice a little tougher edge and a little less tolerance in the voices of the folks who sell liquor. Good for them. More good ideas on solving this problem are surfacing. I discovered one while reading about a group called Doctors for Designated Drivers They've found that some bars are so supportive of the designated driver idea that they provide free nonalcoholic drinks for all designated drivers. That's a very nice idea and a good incentive to be the responsible person. Another idea I liked is in South Carolina. There is an agency called the Designated Driver of America . In this area, you can call 1-888-IB-DRUNK toll free and someone will come to pick you up and take you home. The best part, is these drivers work only for donations.
What are your ideas? Let's compile them into a big list and make sure the police chief and the restaurant association members all see it.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to appear before our editorial board at noon on Tuesday. He's in Fresno for a number of events, including visiting a local school.
We plan to ask him about Highway 99, the proposed dam at Temperance Flat and other issues related to the big infrastructure bond that may get on the November ballot. We're also interested in his take on the performance of our public schools. We'll want to know his plans for reforming public pension programs in California -- many of which could go bankrupt over the next several years if they are not made financially sound. And then there's redistricting reform. What are the chances of a legislative solution that the governor would support?
We won't have time to ask all the questions we would like to pose, but we want to give you an opportunity to participate. What do you want to ask the governor? Let us know and we'll pass them on to him.
All the buzz lately over influence peddling in Washington, D.C., must have lobbyists worried sick, right? Any real reform could greatly reduce the impact they -- and their clients, corporate or otherwise -- have on legislation that affects us all.
Fortunately for the lobbyists, real reform is not what the Republican-controlled Congress has in mind. In fact, according to a Washington Post story in The Bee Sunday, the lobbyists have already figured out dodges to get around the laughably weak rule changes being debated in the House and Senate.
While the "reformers" dicker over restrictions on meals and trips, absolutely nothing is being contemplated to staunch the big-money flowing into fundraising, charitable contributions and money for "independent" campaign efforts that are usually thinly veiled vehicles for supporting candidates.
It's estimated that some $10 billion is spent each year to influence the people's representatives in Congress. That's not meal money. But is is the going rate for turning Congress into a wholly-owned subsidiary of special interests.
It's time for the public to offer suggestions on how to improve the Fulton Mall. . . We devoted our Sunday editorial to the subject, and we encourage you to let the Fresno City Council know what you think on the issue.
On Tuesday, the council voted 5-2 to ask the city staff and the public to come up with ways to improve the mall. The city is scheduled to make formal recommendations by Sept. 1 so you'd better get involved in the process immediately if you want your ideas considered.
The Fulton Mall opened as a much-heralded pedestrian retail area in 1964, but quickly lost its luster as shoppers began going to suburban shopping centers with their "acres of free parking." Some believe that the opening of Fresno Fashion Fair killed the mall. But if Fashion Fair hadn't come along, some other suburban center would have taken its place. The shopping trend had already moved the retail market to suburbia and the Fulton Mall, as innovative as it was at the time, was not going to stop this new way of Americans buying stuff.
Downtowns everywhere struggled, but then most of them found ways to remake their central cores. Unfortunately, Fresno has tried to find the combination, but has not been successful. However, it's approaching the tipping point that I believe will give us a new and dynamic downtown.
What do you think is needed?
Here are three ways to send your Fulton Mall ideas to the Fresno City Council:
E-mail: manager@fresno.gov
Call: Trai Her, 621-7780
Mail: City Manager
Fresno City Hall
2600 Fresno Street
Fresno, CA 93721-3600
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