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1. RIC LLEWELLYN: We should expect government to perform within its charters

   By Ric Llewellyn

   Saturday, May 19 2012 12:00 PM

   It's getting warm and the days are getting longer. It's an even numbered year. Oh boy, it's campaign season!

   Vote-for-me signs are popping up across the county and up and down the Central Valley. Sometimes it reminds me of high school student body elections.

   The promises were outrageous! Elect me. I'll put a Coke machine in the quad and we'll have an open campus at lunch

   I had no idea what the student government was chartered to do. I voted for Coke machines and open campus. I was always disappointed.

   What should government do? The institutions and the people who comprise them are not allowed to wing it. But they will if we let them. Our governments have charters. We should expect them to perform within those bounds.

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2. RIC LLEWELLYN: Do I get credit for driving the price of gas down a dime?

   Last time I complained about the lack of decisive short-term solutions to the high price of gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has identified seven key elements that drive crude oil prices. They are OPEC and non-OPEC production, balance, spot price, financial markets and demand in industrialized and developing countries.

3. RIC LLEWELLYN: Condom program should shock you out of apathy

   Mail order condoms? Now there's an insightful approach to a rampaging problem among Kern County's teens.

4. RIC LLEWELLYN: If high-speed rail were so great, everyone would throw money at it

   Things have changed and the conversation over high-speed rail has come to something like this.

5. RIC LLEWELLYN: Runner chases vision to make good life even better

   I don't remember when I officially met Klaus Benamy-Hackel. But I know for sure I became aware of him when I came in third behind him in my age group at the 2009 Bakersfield Triathlon.

6. RIC LLEWELLYN: Veterans deserve turn to prosper in peace

   The mission of American troops in Iraq is done. Some will be redeployed to Afghanistan. Some will prepare for the next mission.

7. RIC LLEWELLYN: We ought to embrace self-restraint

   Phillip Lee's opinion piece "'Gay lifestyle' poses threat to people's physical well-being" Drew a lot of fire. The most polite comments were that Lee's opinion was outdated and irrelevant. Many others were churlish and disparaging.

9. RIC LLEWELLYN: Occupy stands in opposition to great American principles

   There was an Occupy Bakersfield demonstration at Truxtun and Chester on Nov. 17. It was nothing like Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Oakland. It was an orderly crowd expressing discontent in a civil manner.

10. RIC LLEWELLYN: Veterans preserve our peace at home

    Veterans Day grew out of the national commemoration of the World War I Armistice. It was the war to end all wars and the nations hoped for an era of cooperation and peace. They, unfortunately, were not the last generation of warriors.

11. RIC LLEWELLYN: Government for all of us, not each of us

    Is "democracy" overrated? An opinion piece appeared recently in The Californian's Our View that proposed that it might be time to do away with the initiative process -- our "experiment in direct democracy." I'm all for it!

12. RIC LLEWELLYN: Marijuana advocates always pushing for more

    Over the past few weeks there has been quite a lot of news on the status of so-called medical marijuana in Kern County.

13. RIC LLEWELLYN: Noisy special interests drive ICE policy

    Immigration policy is a significant issue in Kern County. So it's no surprise the June 17 memo issued by John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stirred some reaction here. It was all about "prosecutorial discretion" in immigration law enforcement.

14. RIC LLEWELLYN: Schools have gone from mediocre to FAIR

    Can you believe it? Summer vacation is over and school is about to begin. I wonder what the future holds for the new school year. Probably more of the same.