California Forum

Friends of the River, the Sacramento-based statewide river conservation organization, believes that approval and construction of a large canal will all but dry up the Delta by diverting freshwater flows from the Sacramento River around the estuary for export south to Central Valley agribusiness and Southern California urban developers.

Our story on the Susanville Symphony a couple of weeks ago wasn't one of The Bee's most important in conventional terms, but I found it among our most memorable.

Looking beyond the numbers, there are countless stories of businesses that have remained or expanded their California operations because of the enterprise zone program.

The 2008 Chinook salmon run, just 66,000 fish, was the lowest in recorded history. Government agencies imposed almost total bans on fishing of these salmon in an effort to preserve the species.

State worker furloughs, new sports complex

Have your kids used "LOL," "BRB" or "TTYL" in everyday speech? Are you wondering what these and the tens of thousands of other abbreviations mean? These days, it seems like kids take more interest in figuring out ways to shorten or create new words than in learning how to spell or use grammar correctly.

National newsweeklies and television news tell us we've turned the corner on economic recession. It is good news that the stock market continues to grow, that first-time homebuyers are pushing housing purchases in the right direction, and even that a large corporation in a sagging industry, like automotive, may be on the rebound.

Is privacy a thing of the past? "Exposed" addresses the issue with pointed examples.

A lion of California's environmental movement died Thursday. Tom Graff, who helped lead the 1980s fight against the peripheral canal and blocked the East Bay from diverting water from the American River, finally succumbed to the cancer that snuck up on him two years ago.

Capitol Mall proposal raises eyebrows

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the moon landing of my generation. A rare, seminal event crystallizing the notion that anything is possible. This is why it was so important for the world to revel last week in the 20th anniversary celebrations marking the wall's welcome demise.

They killed a killer last week.

Officials at the California Public Employees' Retirement System are scrambling to respond to a series of embarrassing disclosures regarding close relationships between CalPERS officials and placement agents – politically connected middlemen who helped steer billions of dollars of pension fund investments to their clients.

Students in Robert Benedetti's California government class at the University of the Pacific will spend the term rewriting the state's constitution. Based on what they have learned so far, the students were asked if they thought regular people would be capable of taking on this task as part of a constitutional convention, or if the job would be better handled by experts. Here are some of their responses:

Water pact, CalPERS scandal, UC Davis Med Center bill

One might guess the federal court with the most burdensome caseload is based in a city like New York, Chicago or Miami. Many would be surprised to learn that this unenviable distinction belongs to our own Eastern District of California, with its main courthouses in Sacramento and Fresno. The impact of this tremendous caseload is felt not only by the judges and staff members who serve the district, but more importantly by the public – the litigants who turn to the federal court expecting timely and efficient resolution of their disputes.

Two recent articles in The Bee tell us that funds for the American River Parkway will be reduced again, continuing the funding shortage the parkway has been dealing with for several years.

STOCKTON -- Californians wondering if they are up to rewriting their constitution should come here, to the University of the Pacific and Robert Benedetti's senior seminar on California government.

State Sen. Darrell Steinberg's quiet reshuffling of 150 years of California water policy to bail out Southern California developers and giant agricultural interests to the south threatens the future of this region. In essence, upstream water users like Sacramento will be responsible for paying for the damage to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from decades of water exports to the south.

There is widespread agreement that if federal health care reform passes, making it work will depend in great part on getting a handle on spiraling medical costs that already consume nearly one of every five dollars spent in the United States.

City reputations can be like sound waves. They echo out, and the farther you are from the actual city – like, say, Sacramento – the older they are. And when you get to that city, that out-of-date rep still rings in your head and takes awhile to clear.

When a major storm roared through our region Oct. 13, hundreds of people traded questions and answers live on sacbee.com.

Citizens of Sacramento, your City Hall is in disarray.

This week will be a big test for the California Legislature, which has the lowest approval ratings since the Field Poll started measuring in 1983.