Bakersfield.com Robert Price

Yikes! Now I really need that vacation

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:49:58 PDT

As you read this, I am gripping a kayak paddle or a can of beer or some other implement of summer idleness. At least I hope I am, because getting myself into position to vacate the premises for cooler, greener climes about killed me.

If summer vacations are overrated -- and I'm not saying they are -- it's because the run-up to that long-awaited day of escape can be an exhausting succession of small ordeals.

Tail of Prague dog and other summer detours

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:16:26 PDT

I might have told the story of the time, years ago, that the wife and I were so poor we decided to forego our monthly trip to the salon and instead cut each other's hair with sewing scissors. I proved to be a pretty bad hair stylist, but she was worse, and by the time we were finished we looked like we'd been in a tragic lawnmower accident. The girls down at Supercuts got a good laugh out of it, and even though we really could have used the $24, we laughed too.

Or I might have told the story of the time I had my wisdom teeth pulled and the dental surgeon sent me home with an admonition: Take care of your stitches. But with all of those cotton balls in my mouth, I couldn't help but talk funny, and when I attempted to convey the surgeon's concern, the wife fell on the floor in spasms of giddiness. Her giggles were contagious (maybe the pain medication contributed) and within minutes, I was spitting out stitches.

I'll shed no tears for fate of Joe Camel

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:35:44 PDT

The president and I have a few things in common: a vastly underappreciated game of basketball (long abandoned, in my case), a wife who looks capable of winning arm-wrestling matches (and has, in my wife's case -- just not, ahem, against me), and a history with tobacco we'd both like to forget.

Barack Obama's issues with coffin nails are well documented. He's the country's most prominent anti-smoking smoker, so bent on permanently mashing our collective butts into the ashtray of national wellness that barely five months into his presidency he has placed the regulatory task of managing tobacco into the hands of the federal Food and Drug Administration. And yet he admits to lighting up now and then -- a blatantly broken campaign promise, if you want to be picky. But truth be known, the cigarette-sneaking promise-breakers of this country probably number in the millions.

Scoreboard check not encouraging

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:30:08 PDT

The budget crisis that threatens so much of what we've come to take for granted as Californians has swooped into the gymnasium. The Kern High School District, largest in the state among grade 9-12 districts, will axe a big chunk of its athletic programs, a move expected to save $430,000 of the $3.7 million that still must be cut from the 2009-2010 budget.

Barring a fiscal miracle between now and July 2, teams that field three competitive tiers -- varsity, junior varsity and frosh-soph -- must eliminate one level. In the five affected sports, the intermediate junior varsity level seems the most likely to go.

A lesson this scholar didn't sign up for

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:41:43 PDT

On the 11th day of Peter Hayes' comprehensive, borderline-grueling 12-day seminar for university faculty, "Teaching the Holocaust," the topic was to have been Holocaust denial.

But the lesson came through the door one day early. Carrying a rifle.

Severing the link that gave us Dr. Chavez

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:44:01 PDT

Rocky Chavez comes home next month, hopefully for good. He'll take up residency at Kern Medical Center, starting a new life in the very place where he first glimpsed this world 26 years ago.

It's a sweet irony, a poignant, coming-full-circle story, but it might never have happened if the present budget meltdown had occurred eight years ago. More to the point, new high school graduates in Chavez's situation -- economically disadvantaged, but gifted and motivated -- might not get the same chance he and countless others have had.

Modest dream sure feels big to these grads

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:05:05 PDT

The principal gave Luis Castro a nickname his first week at school: Smiley. And not because Castro was full of good cheer. It was pure sarcasm: Castro, a tatted-up gang-banger from south Bakersfield, looked like he'd rather wring necks than hug them.

"He was scary looking when he got here," said Warcester "Cest" Williams, principal of the Community Learning Center's East Truxtun campus. "Nobody messed with him. But he was ready to turn things around in his life. He's an I'm-going-to-take-care-of-business kinda guy. And he did. But people are still a little afraid to look at him."

Another way to get ahead this summer

Tue, 26 May 2009 10:43:01 PDT

If this isn't the worst possible annoyance for parents with high school teens, it has to be up there, alongside late-night chauffeuring duties and outgrown-overnight blue jeans.

The Kern High School District, in the same jam as school districts across the country, has severely cut back its summer school schedule, including both remedial and "get-ahead" classes. Parents who have always considered summer school a good way to roust their couch-dwelling, borderline-vegetative, "I'm bored"-mumbling offspring -- for six weeks anyway -- may be stuck.

Just another day at office for KMC staff

Sat, 16 May 2009 20:53:13 PDT

We don't know why it was necessary for an entire family to suffer the consequences of a dispute that almost surely did not involve them all. We know only that, in a south Bakersfield home, in the small hours of Thursday morning, one or more people tried to commit mass murder. And they very nearly succeeded.

They failed primarily for one reason: The sense of duty, approaching heroism, of the emergency room staff at Kern Medical Center.

We'll survive: 'Forwarders' count on us

Sat, 09 May 2009 20:15:02 PDT

It's undeniable: Newspapers as we know them are changing, evolving -- and in a few disheartening cases, disappearing. That empowering, comforting and occasionally aggravating bundle of processed wood pulp that lands on American driveways every morning continues to shrink, day by day -- and not just in our little corner of the world.

Meanwhile, newspapers are beefing up their online presence, exploring digital flavors-of-the-month as they grasp for The Next Thing, whatever that might be. The plan: Start building up speed now. Be ready when the economy heals. (It will.)

Juror left to ponder fallout of reversals

Sat, 02 May 2009 20:16:25 PDT

If it seems like everyone associated with the Bakersfield child molestation convictions of the 1980s is now officially a casualty of justice gone awry, that's because, in one sense or another, they are.

In the past few weeks, thanks to the documentary "Witch Hunt," we have (again) heard the stories of the accused: The convictions, the reversals, the ongoing quests for vindication. Though the question of their innocence will never be definitively resolved, they are essentially victims of the flawed investigations.

It's not all about the bottom line

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:04:35 PDT

It doesn't quite rise to the level of oxymoron -- think "military intelligence" -- but the concept of business ethics has taken on new dimensions over the past year.

With accused Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff serving as the poster boy, corporate America is suffering through a rough patch in terms of public image. A well-deserved rough patch. We've got remorseless AIG execs feeling refreshed from that $23,000 group spa treatment, Morgan Stanley managers rechristening their politically indefensible million-dollar bonuses as "retention awards," and credit card companies jacking up rates even as they downsize the type of the fine print -- outrages that we'll all eventually pay for, courtesy of the government's bailout largess.

McCarthy is working hard for the team

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:45:04 PDT

The most useful attribute a college football coach can possess, aside from familiarity with the grammar of the game and a commanding game-day presence on the sideline, is the ability to convince young, agile behemoths to enroll at his university.

Right now, that's Rep. Kevin McCarthy's most valuable contribution to his team, too. Effectively outnumbered in the halls of Congress, where he and his allies fight the widespread perception that all the new ideas are currently coming from the other side of the room, McCarthy's chief concern isn't policy -- it's team development.

Don't cut this from schools' curriculum

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:30:46 PDT

Blue is for the expanse of sky on the western horizon that hints of adventures not yet imagined. Green is for the rolling hills of early spring so abundant with hidden life. Purple-grey is for the sea, so powerful and mysterious in its opaque vastness.

Pink is for the letters of termination sent last week to some of the naturalists who've made those colors, and all they signify, their life's work. Camp KEEP, the Kern County Superintendent of Schools' 35-year-old earth sciences education program based on the Central Coast, is in trouble. Things are so dire, I am compelled to attempt bad poetry.

Yes, 10 kids can make one school district

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:21:23 PDT

It's been a tough year for everything associated with state funding, from road construction projects to programs for homebound seniors. At the top of that list, of course, is public education, which is taking an $11 billion hit.

Required cuts have forced each of California's 1,050 school districts to look hard at priorities. Some belt tightening has undoubtedly been healthy, but many of the cuts have drawn blood.