WASHINGTON - It is valuable to discuss the roots of the changes and shifts that our economy has been experiencing in recent years.
     These historic changes in technology transformed our ability to understand the natural and social world.
     The faculty for rational thought has carried the human race one arduous step at a time into a deeper understanding of how the world works. Decade by decade, scholars have recorded their insights, building knowledge from one generation to the next. We have learned to use that knowledge to alter our physical environment for the betterment of mankind.
     That process has become increasingly conceptual in nature and ever less reliant on physical materials. Indeed, the endeavor to economize on physical resources has led to widespread downsizing of the elements of the nation's output. We have dramatically reduced the size of our radios, for example, by substituting transistors for vacuum tubes. Thin fiber-optic cable has replaced huge tonnages of copper wire. New architectural, engineering and materials technologies have enabled the construction of buildings enclosing the same space, but with far less physical material than was required, say, 50 or 100 years ago. Most recently, mobile phones have been markedly downsized as they have been improved.
     Over the last century, for example, the rate of increase of the gross domestic product in the United States, adjusted for price change -- our measure of gains in the real value of output -- has averaged around three percent per year. Only a small fraction of that represents growth in the tonnage of physical materials -- oil, coal, ores, wood, raw chemicals, for example -- that fundamentally represent the input and the weight of the output of our GDP.
     The remainder represents new insights into how to rearrange those physical materials to better serve human needs.
     This process has enabled valued goods to be transported more easily and to be produced with ever fewer workers, allowing the more efficient division of labor to propel overall output and standards of living progressively higher.
     The share of the nation's output that is conceptual appears to have accelerated following World War II with the insights that led to the development of the transistor and microprocessor. They have spawned remarkable alterations in how we and other developed societies live.
     Computers, telecommunications and satellite technologies have enabled data and ideas, the ever more important elements of output, to be speedily transferred geographically to where they can be put to best use.
     Thus, these advanced means of communication have added much the same type of value that the railroads added in transporting the more physical goods of an earlier century.
     Here in the United States, we have developed an exceptionally sophisticated stock of capital assets -- plant and equipment --fostered most recently by what has to be the most conceptual and impalpable of all new major products -- software -- a product, incidentally, which the United States is by far the most important contributor and producer.
     The breakthroughs in information technology have facilitated an elevated rate of ``creative destruction,'' as noted Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter put it earlier this century.
     Our capital stock is undergoing an increasing pace of renewal through investment of cash flow from older-technology capital facilities into new, more efficient vintages.
     Some Silicon Valley firms claim that they completely reconstitute themselves every year or two. This renewal process is driven by an increasing ability to more finely calibrate the value preferences of consumers.
      In turn, those preferences are converted through market transactions into prices of products and assets. They, in turn, signal entrepreneurs which capital facilities to build to meet those shifting consumer needs.
     But as human intelligence appears without limit to engage our physical environment, human psychology remains in some more primordial sense, invariant to time. The rapidity of change in our capital assets, the infrastructure with which all workers must interface day-by-day, has clearly raised the level of anxiety and insecurity in the workforce.
     As recently as 1981, in the depths of a recession, International Survey Research found 12 percent of workers fearful of losing their jobs. In today's tightest labor market in two generations, the same organization has recently found 37 percent concerned about job loss, a more than tripling, despite the exceptional labor market which we experience in today's economy.
     The fear of job obsolescence when confronted with a rapidly changing work environment is arguably one reason for a massive increase in the demand for educational services: The rise in on-the-job training, the proliferation of community colleges enhancing work skills, so-called corporate universities that combine job-oriented curricula with some broader excursions into the liberal arts, and of course, the traditional university curricula.
     The heyday when a high school or college education would serve a graduate for a lifetime is gone. Today's recipients of diplomas expect to have many jobs and to use a wide range of skills over their working lives. Their parents and grandparents looked to a more stable future -- even if in reality it often turned out otherwise.
      However one views the uncertainty that so many in our workforce are experiencing in their endeavor to advance, an economist can scarcely fail to notice a marketplace working efficiently to guide our educational system, defined in the widest sense, toward the broader needs of our economy.
     But this is not new. The history of education in the United States traces a path heavily influenced by the need for a workforce with the skills required to interact productively with the evolving economic infrastructure.
     Historically, technological advance has brought with it improvements not only in the capital inputs used in production, but also new demands on workers who must interact with that increasingly more complex stock of capital.
      Early this century, these advances required workers with a higher level of cognitive skills -- for instance, the ability to read manuals, to interpret blueprints or to understand formulae.
     Our educational system responded. In the 1920s and 1930s, high school enrollment -- enrollment in this country expanded rapidly, pulling youth from rural areas where opportunities were limited in to more productive occupations in business and broadening the skills of students to meet the needs of an advancing manufacturing sector.
     It became the job of these institutions to prepare students for work life, not just for a transition to college. In the context of the demands of the economy at that time, a high school diploma represented the training needed to be successful in most aspects of American enterprise. The economic returns for having a high school diploma rose, and as a result, high school enrollment rates climbed.
     At the same time, our system of higher education was also responding to the advances in economic processes. Although many states had established land grant schools earlier, their support accelerated in the late 19th century as those whose economies specialized in agriculture and mining sought to take advantage of new scientific methods of production.
     Early in the '20s -- early in the 20th century, the content of education at an American college, as you are all aware, had evolved from a classically based curriculum to one combining the sciences, empirical studies and modern liberal arts.
     Universities responded to the need for the application of science, particularly chemistry and physics, to the manufacture of steel, rubber, chemicals, petroleum, and other goods requiring the new production technologies.
     Communities looked to their institutions of higher learning for leadership and scientific knowledge and for training of professionals, such as teachers and engineers. The scale and scope of higher education in America was being shaped by the recognition that research, the creation of knowledge, complemented teaching -- teaching and training, the diffusion of knowledge.
     In broad terms, the basic structure of higher education remains much the same today.
      That structure has proven sufficiently flexible to respond to the needs of a changing economy.
     Market economies have succeeded over the centuries by granting rewards to those who could anticipate changes in the value preferences of society. America's system of higher education has evolved into a highly diverse and complex range of institutions -- large research universities that combine undergraduate and graduate offerings; small liberal arts colleges; and vocation-oriented community colleges -- all seeking their competitive advantage.
     What makes that system work effectively is that it has been influenced importantly by the values of a strong market economy, competition, risk-raking and innovation. America's reputation as the world's leader in higher education is grounded in the ability of these versatile institutions taken together to serve the practical needs of the economy and more significantly, to unleash the creative thinking that moves our society forward.
     In a global environment in which prospects for economic growth now depend importantly on a country's capacity to develop and apply new technologies, the research facilities of our universities are envied throughout the world. The payoffs in terms of the flow of expertise, new products, and start-up companies, for example, have been impressive.
     Here, perhaps the most frequently cited measures of our success have been the emergence of significant centers of commercial innovation and entrepreneurship -- Silicon Valley, the research triangle, and the clustering of biotech enterprises in the northeast corridor where creative ideas flow freely between local academic scholars and those in industry.
     Beyond these highly visible achievements, what has made our research universities so extraordinarily productive is their promotion of peer reviewed scholarship and the value they place on creativity and risk-taking. Although some innovations move quickly from the development stage to applications, more often we cannot accurately predict which particular scientific advance or synergy of advances will ultimately prove valuable.
      One has only to recall our experience with the laser, which had to wait for improvements in fiber optics to yield important applications. Indeed, according to Nobel Laureate Charles Townes, in the late 1960s the attorneys for Bell Labs initially refused to patent the laser because they believed it had no applications in the field of telecommunications. Our universities have shown the patience and the flexibility to accept that uncertainty, confident that the rigorous effort to explore ideas would eventually lead to discovery.
     If we are to remain preeminent in transforming knowledge into economic value, America's system of higher education must remain the world's leader in generating scientific and technological breakthroughs and in meeting the challenge to educate workers.
     With two-thirds of our high school graduates now enrolling in college and a growing proportion of adult workers seeking opportunities for retooling, our institutions of higher learning now bear the overwhelming responsibility for assuring that our society is prepared for the demands of rapid economic change.
     What our colleges and universities produce is highly valued in today's economy. The rise in that value over the past several decades has been reflected in a widening spread between compensation paid to college-educated workers relative to those with less schooling.
     Accordingly, college enrollment rates among new U.S. high school graduates have been rising. And despite competitive pressures to improve university education abroad, almost one-third of all students who leave their home countries to study elsewhere choose to study in the United States.
     In recent years, the most popular fields of study for both groups have been business and management, but as you are all well aware, interest in life sciences, math and computer sciences has been growing rapidly.
     Another measure of the value placed on university education is the rising propensity of older workers to return to school. Today more than one-fourth of all undergraduates are over 30 years old One-fifth of these older students are enrolled in full-time programs.
      These individuals are already responding to the need to seek retooling during their careers. As a result, education is increasingly becoming a lifelong activity. Businesses are now looking for employees who are prepared to continue learning and who recognize that maintaining their human capital will require persistent hard work and flexibility.
     The press for lifelong learning and the availability of technology have spawned a variety of education initiatives outside the traditional classroom. Courses now can be taken ``at a distance'' over the Internet. These are just the newest in a series of attempts to move learning closer to workers on the job and to make it more relevant to changing business needs. Although many of these new programs focus on specific, applied skill training, some degree-granting programs already exist, and companies that have successfully developed interactive educational software for the classroom are looking to move it online. Competition is the necessary driving force toward delivering a superior product or service. We should not shy away from it. Colleges and universities are being challenged to evaluate how new information technologies can best be employed in their curricula and their delivery systems.
     Beyond these more practical issues, the most significant challenge facing our universities is to ensure that teaching and research continue to unleash the creative intellectual energy that drives our system forward. As the conceptual share of the value added in our economic processes continues to grow, the ability to think abstractly will be increasingly important across a broad range of professions. Critical awareness and the abilities to hypothesize, to interpret, and to communicate are essential elements of successful innovation in a conceptual-based economy.
      The roots and nature of how the human mind innovates have always been subject to controversy. Yet even without hard indisputable evidence, there is a remarkable and broad presumption that the ability to think abstractly is fostered through exposure to philosophy, literature, music, art, and languages.
      Liberal education is presumed to spawn a greater understanding of all aspects of living -- an essential ingredient to broaden one's world view by, to quote my good friend Judith Rodin, ``vaulting over disciplinary laws and exploring other fields of study.''
     Most great conceptual advances are interdisciplinary and involve synergies of different specialties. Yet there is more to the liberal arts than increasing technical, intellectual efficiency. They encourage the appreciation of life experiences that reach beyond material well-being, and indeed are comparable and mutually reinforcing. The intense pleasure many experience from listening to Mozart's great E-minor piano concerto has much in common with the deep satisfaction of solving a complex mathematical problem.
      The challenge for our institutions of higher education is to successfully blend the exposure to all aspects of human intellectual activity, especially our artistic propensities and our technical skills. What makes the challenge particularly daunting is that scientific knowledge expands and broadens the measurable rewards of its curriculum at a pace that liberal arts, by their nature, arguably have difficulty matching.
     The depth of knowledge in nuclear physics is today far greater than it was a century ago, creating an enormous expansion in economically useful teaching hours. But do the same economic opportunities exist for courses in English literature?
      A related difference between science and the arts arises in the non-academic world: Engineering and metallurgical advances have reduced the number of hours required to produce a ton of steel, but the same number of musicians will be needed to perform a Beethoven quartet this evening as were needed a century ago.
     Many of you will recognize this application of Baumol's Law. To make the point even more graphically, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has noted that the Minute Waltz could be played in 50 seconds, but he wondered if it would sound as good.
      Overwhelmed with the increasing scientific knowledge base, our universities are going to have to struggle to prevent the liberal arts curricula from being swamped by technology and science. It is crucial that that not happen.
     The advent of the 21st century will certainly bring new challenges for our society and for our education system. We cannot know the precise directions in which advances in technology and the transmission of knowledge will take. However, we can be certain that our institutions of higher education will remain at the center of the endeavor to comprehend those profound changes and to seize the opportunities to direct them towards ever-increasing standards of living and quality of life.
     [Note: Alan Greenspan is the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The remarks contained in the above were delivered at the recent annual meeting of the American Council of Education.]

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     SACRAMENTO - A plan to create a five-county bus system to limit cars in Yosemite Valley was left dangling by a thread this week, when Madera County quit and Tuolumne County indicated it might soon follow.
     In a disappointing move by David Brower of Oakhurst, Madera County supervisors have suddenly opted out of the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategies task force.
     The County supervisors are now depicting the project as "...ill conceived ...not a good idea," Madera County Counsel Jeff Kuhn told reporters on Friday.
     And Mr. Brower added that "...it is bad for the environment, and it is bad for the tourism economies of the gateway communities."
     Madera County has now left the pilot project for good. It has now been scaled down from 17 buses to 12 buses, which will carry visitors into the valley from parking lots on Highways 140, 120 and 41.
     The project is a concept contained in the National Park Service's Yosemite General Management Plan, calling for eliminating all cars from the valley.
     The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors may follow suit at its meeting on Tuesday and walk away from the project.
     Yosemite planner Chip Brown, a career Park Service employee, told reporters late last week he was "...disappointed by Madera County's decision and hopeful that Tuolumne County would stay with the program."
     "From a Park Service perspective, if a couple of counties hang in there with us, we're really interested in moving forward to develop this into something," he said.
     He then concluded "...we're trying to grow a regional transportation system." The project has been funded by the Federal Transit Administration, Caltrans and contributions of labor, equipment, and materials donated by Mariposa, Merced, Mono, Tuolumne and Madera counties.
     The Fresno Republican obtained the following constructive response from Jay Watson, regional director of The Wilderness Society. He told reporters in November "...the Society is on board with the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation Strategy...it is the only arena within which to plan regional transportation."
     It has become clear to regional observers that the public access and transportation problems at YNP cannot be solved within the boundaries of the Park alone. The problem must be a addressed at the regional level. A regional system that doesn't require environmental degredation within YNP is the only avenue left for effectively dealing with the demand for increased access.
     A series of regional park & ride infrastructures outside the regional transportation corridors seems to make a lot of sense. in that way, all four travel corridors into the park will be equitably distributed.
     Developing a regional system through a coalition of five county governments, local businesses, environmental groups, the Park Service, the Forest Service and Caltrans is a complex and challenging task. The Wilderness Society still believes YARTS is up to that task.

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Saturday, February 20, 1999

Just passing thru...
Downtown Fresno is still a gut wrenching
disappointment to Fresno's visitors.
By Darren Holden, Contributor

     FRESNO - Just passing through downtown Fresno the other day, and what I saw there called to mind the Fresno Republican story about confronting ghosts of Fresno's past. In that story Howard Hobbs wrote "You can't run a city hall of the future without confronting the ghosts of its past."
     As I looked around, it was depressing. It must be depressiong for most visitors and especially for residents of Fresno County, to see Fresno's economic nucleus in Downtown Fresno.
     As I drove the Northbound 41 cross-town freeway past Van Ness, I looked into the future as I slipped past rows of abandoned plants and stores on the East and to the West saw more abandoned redevelopment efforts. Those shattered plans lie in heaps, vacant secured by miles of rusting chain-link fence. Downtown Fresno is like an an abandoned child that my heart reaches down to. They reach back with empty faces and broken dreams, past memories of dispair, yearning to be bold, and proud, and to be back in business.
     I can feel the gut wrenching disappointment and pain in knowing it will never be. Their ship has gone down! Their voices echo from the empty parking lots, and crumbling walls embraced now only by a homeless vagabond. They bring warmth and comfort and life to these embarassments of our past. Surely this is the ghost of Fresno Past.
     Where are the visionaries who brought all this to Downtown? Where are the visions of music filled celebrations and fireworks to commemorate this work of art they left to us?
     The heart of this City will never live again until the people of Fresno see our City as a reflection of it's pride and possibilites, in the certainty that the new generation will leave its legacy to the future, one that will finally have confronted and beaten down the ghosts of Downtown Past.

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, February 16, 1999

Fresno's Fiscal Crisis
Fresno Mayor must oversee City Council investment decisions.
By Howard Hobbs, Editor's Desk

     PALO ALTO - When local government fails as it did in Orange County, every California local elected official should take it personally. It is a dramatic warning. The conditions and resulting imperatives that drove Orange County to overlook gambling with its public funds may be subtly pushing Fresno City Hall toward the same disaster.
     As taxpayer fervor for smaller government, tax limits, and local autonomy grows and spreads, many more municipalities may find the specter of financial collapse looming, especially when the economy takes a dramatic downturn in coming months. Could Fresno City Hall be next in line?
     Many people expect Fresno City Council members to stumble badly if they proceed any further toward making an $8.5 million grant and loan to a private profit making entity. It is an obvious manipulation to assist the private group to acquire a multi-million dollar structure in which to operate its mediocre Triple-A baseball corporation.
     So, people here are saying three key factors in the Orange County context are already present in Fresno, the ones that created the necessary conditions for fiscal disaster. If those three necessary conditions are also present here, should City Council members be pursuing liberal fiscal policies?
     The Fresno Republican Newspaper editors see similar factors that are here, such as - political fragmentation, voter distrust, and fiscal inflexibility.
     These three conditions jeopardize Fresno City Hall's fiscal solvency in the face of the economic rebound, unprecedented growth, and voter optimism in most of the nation. Fresno has yet to pick-up on such trends as unemployment is stuck in the double digits there.
     Unbridled optimism about the future is unrealistic. Where public funds are involved it is imprudent to count on the rosy scenario to make up for bad fiscal judgment. Inexperience is the main problem. The Fresno City Council must maintain high standards for fiscal oversight and accountability in the face of political pressures to act irresponsibly. This is nothing new. It is the main reason voters changed the structure of City Hall by amending its Charter to add the 'Strong Mayor' to oversee City Council actions. That step was taken to ensure that local funds were kept safe and liquid from the clutches of special interests.
     Under the new Charter, it is the duty of Fresno Mayor James Patterson to oversee the City Council's projects and decisions, requiring more frequent and detailed reports from the City Council on how it is obligating and spending public monies, and establishing stricter rules for selecting proposed projects by developers.
     It appears to Fresno taxpayers that the Fresno Mayor understands his duties, but that Fresno City Council members are confused about those Charter functions, most of the time.
     All Fresno City Hall officials should be wary about citizens' pressures to implement liberal fiscal policies that are popular in the short run but financially disastrous over time.
     Distrustful voters believe there is considerable waste in government bureaucracy and that City Hall will attempt to expend public tax money for political purposes even to the extent of putting critical public tax revenues into foolhardy, risky, and dangerous ventures thus doing harm to essential health, emergency, safety and school services.
      The Fresno City Council needs to do a better job of educating citizens about restrictions on the use of public revenues and expenditures.
      Implicit in the above recommendations by the Daily Republican Newspaper editors is the need to provide the public and the news media with greater certainty about who will pay for proposed public projects and how they will be delivered to the public in the most efficient and effective manner.
     Fresno City is governed by a Charter that provides a limited range of services to local residents. The powers of the Fresno City Council are limited to the things it can do as provided for in the Charter and as further limited by statute and the California State Constitution.
     Dale Rubin is the public interest attorney in Salem Oregon who has a lucrative law practice specializing in suing city council governments that make gifts of public funds to local investors to build private sports stadiums. He always wins. He told reporters recently, "Almost all state laws say that no public entity should be aiding private enterprise."

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Saturday February 13, 1999

Bulldog Newspaper
wins top civic journalism award
A nationally syndicated radio talk show host invited the Bulldog staff to
quest on Hollywood Hotline and a major Internet Live Audio talk show.

By Amy Williams, Assoc. Student Editor, Bulldog Newspaper

     FRESNO - Votenet, the Internet's premier political community Web site, today announced that it has selected The Bulldog Newspaper at California State University, Fresno for its Outstanding Political Newspaper on the World Wide Web.
     This coveted award recognizes those politically oriented Web sites that contribute to the spread of democracy and returning political power to citizens. Votenet is a national source of political information, products and service for politicians and politically active citizens.
     The Bulldog Newspaper at CSU Fresno is scrupulously Conservative. It is an independent student news service and is a free subscription based site. It gives its readers a single access point to research news sources and political resources.
     The Bulldog Newspaper has featured a number of student opinion polls, stories and OP-ED pieces in recent months examining local, state, and national issues which have attracted wide spread interest. The Bulldog Newspaper has a Mon-Fri readership of 89,838 and is the fastest growing college or university student news publication in the United States.
      A recent Bulldog Newspaper series featured columns about the Ford Plant Ford Werke A.G. operated by Henry Ford in Nazi Germany which depended on slave labor for production of war materiel.
     That series attracted hundreds of letters from Nazi concentration camp survivors. The Bulldog Newspaper staff was able to direct those reader inquiries to a New Jersey claimant who had filed suit in class-action litigation against Ford.
     As a result of the interest generated from those columns, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, Eric Stein invited the Bulldog Newspaper staff members to come on Hollywood Hotline and his major Internet Live Audio talk show to chat about the Ford-Nazi connection in the story and other Bulldog features. "Stein Online" is the daily Web Site show on Broadcast.Com and on his CompuServe broadcast site.
     Netivation is a nationwide developer and provider of Internet based software and services for the political community. It is a rich content site fotr political information, products and services for politically active citizens and politicians.
     According to Tony Paquin, president of Netivation, Votenet meets a growing demand in the United States for political information. "We've seen an increasing number of U.S. citizens who are using the Internet to communicate with elected officials, engage in online community forums, and visit government and politically oriented Web sites," Paquin said. "We believe Votenet will be a central online location for these politically active individuals."
     For more information, contact The Bulldog Newspaper off-campus at CSU Fresno, Amy Williams, Associate Editor, e-mail address: bulldog@csufresno.com or local phone/fax at 559-299-9113.

Copyright © 1999 The Bulldog Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Friday February 12, 1999

CRISIS IN AMERICA
A reader questions the role of government in times like these.
By Kaye Grogan, Contributor

     While the Senators deliberated behind closed doors, the future presidency of William Jefferson Clinton, the world kept revolving, the stock market didn't crash, banks still operated, and schools kept right on educating the children. Makes one wonder if there's really a need for the government. And yet while these normal everyday practices are taking place, the Rule of Law may very well take a nose-dive. The deliberations appeared to be more of a political nature than one to seek justice.
     A dangerous precedent is taking place behind those closed doors, one that will have a long term affect on future lawmakers and more importantly the court system. A house divided against itself will fall. In a country where there are laws, there cannot be one set of laws for the ruler and another set for Bill Clinton is known as the "comeback" kid to many. A more appropriate title may be "I'm Above The Law."
     The thanks for his aquittal rest with some who are cowardly and the rest who never took their oath seriously in the first place. Retributions will be forthcoming someday...and some may not be in the too far distance. God is not mocked and those who had a foreordained, political reason to vindicate the President will pay the price.
     In fact the two-party system may suffer a huge hang-over when the party's over for some and for others... just begining. Although the Republicans are the majority it's the Democrats who ran the show! The Republicans have been the "stuff" dreams are made of for the Democrats...puppets on a string! Many Senators have let their constituents down.
     When a President has committed perjury, obstructed justice, and lied to the American people and was not held accountable for these breakages of the laws by being removed from office...something is terribly wrong! Democrats love to look at themselves as coming out of this smelling like a "rose" when in fact the stench of a "skunk" could very well be the case.
     Robert Byrd the senator from West Virginia evidently loves to play a cat and mouse game with the news media. First he stated a move to dismiss the trial would be unconstitutional and then he proceeded to offer the motion to dismiss! Next he stated that he felt the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and yet he was unsure if there should be a conviction.
     Flip-flopping either at its best or worst is going on here. Then there's Senator Tom Harkin, one of the 59 senators who wanted the deliberations to be opened up to the public. It's not enough Mr. Harkin has been on nearly every major news and talk shows around! And since practically everyone has heard his biased opinion from the get-go, he offers nothing new (just like Monica Lewinsky had nothing new to say)and his attempts to defend his reasoning for allowing a president unfit to serve...to continue holding the office that he brought reproach upon, falls on many deaf ears. Some people just love their 15 minutes of fame.
     The crisis America faces is not just in the white House but in the very fiber, the very heart of our democracy. Perhaps America is being punished by having the kind of leadership it deserves... due to the fact...many Americans have turned their backs on God.
     It's true history is in the making and one year from now, a thousand years from now, it cannot be rewritten. Once the word "Impeached" is recorded, William jefferson Clinton's legacy will be set in stone and the 42nd President of the United states will have to bear the burden of being the second president thusfar, to wear the Impeachment emblem branded on his forehead forever.
     Bill Clinton said: "My actions are indefensible." Did he forget to tell his defenders or was this statement just another lie to go along with all the others? This statement may very well be the only truthful one made by the President... through the entire ugly process. Although dry cleaning can remove the stain from the soiled blue dress...there's no cleaner to ever remove the soiled spot left by this administration on America. For what is a man/woman willing to sell out their souls and integrity for? For some... just a seat in Congress.

Copyright © 1999 The Daily Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Friday February 5, 1999

High School Teacher Under Fire
He's tenured, tough, and is known for treating students fairly,
but grades on attendance, test scores, and homework assignments.

By Edward Davidian, Staff Writer

     Mission Viejo, CA - A Capistrano Valley High School teacher has been given notice by the school board here, that his services are no longer needed. This came as a shock to veteran U.S. History instructor Paul Pflueger.
     Mr. Pflueger has been teaching the Advanced Placement U.S. History course here for the past 20 years. He's tenured, tough, but is known for treating students fairly. Students are graded on attendance, test scores, and homework assignments. A typical Advanced Placement U.S. History Final Examination Review of material to be tested summarizes the content taught in Pflueger's course. However, the local school board says Mr. Pflueger is not going along with its expectations for determining the academic grades student's in his classes should be receiving.
      Some of Pflueger's students have been flunked for excessive absences, not turning in homework, and for failing written examinations.
      The school board appears to be ready to move for Pflueger's dismissal on grounds that he has "...failed to teach his classes in a way that would enable students to understand and successfully complete assessments of their learning."
     The school board gave Pflueger a statement this week informing him of 42 separate instances in which it is alledged his teaching methods were unacceptable. He was immediately relieved of duty and placed on an "administrative leave" until the next scheduled schoool board meeting on Monday. A simple majority vote of the school board would be sufficient to dismiss a tenured teacher.
     Some parents have complained about Pflueger, documents filed in the case show. But the move also has set off angry protests from scores of parents and fellow faculty who characterize Pflueger as an exceptional teacher.
     Copies of the school board's accusations obtained by the Fresno Republican Newspaper claim that Mr. Pflueger's style of teaching is inappropriate and that he has turned in failing grades for a number of students in the past two school terms.
     Pflueger has denied the allegations and told reporters, "I will not dumb down my class...the only kids who flunk are the ones who have not turned in their homework, have a lot of absences and do not study for their tests."
     When word leaked out that the Capistrano school board was moving to fire Mr. Pflueger, a storm of angry parents and school district teachers rallied to his defense depicting him as an exceptional teacher who holds students to traditional academic standards for the study of U.S. History under the official California high school course of study.
     Neither the Capistrano school administration nor representatives of the school board would comment on the allegtions pending school board action in executive session next Monday night.

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday February 2, 1999

JPA financing for
Sac baseball stadium

By Howard Hobbs, Editors' Desk

     SACRAMENTO - The largest joint powers financing of minor league baseball is taking place in Sacramento today. It is a test of local government in an alliance that may just finance a West Sacramento TripleA baseball stadium.
    Sacramento and Yolo County Officials and the representatives of the City of West Sacramento are holding a joint press conference to announce their intention to enter into what they are depicting as a no financial risk Joint Powers Authority to issue public bonds.
    The proposed bonds would raise up to $40 million, the estimated cost of construction of the project and to pay off all debt together with estimated stadium revenues.
     The mayor of the City of Sacramento, Joe Serna Jr. told Daily Republican Newspaper reporters on Monday that he was kept in the dark about the proposed deal until just a few days ago. He said, "...We haven't been requested to take it beyond talks...I'm interested to see what they have...I've been supportive of the stadium in West Sacramento."
     The Sacramento Bee was reporting in Tuesday's editions, however, that stadium financing is the last major hurdle before the River City Baseball, investment group and Art Savage, former president of the San Jose Sharks hockey team, could move its Triple-A baseball team to West Sacramento.
    Local reports revealed in recent weeks that Mr. Savage,wants to use funds from the sale of multiyear rental sales of "executive suites" plus stadium parking and ticket sales, to cover bond repayment.
    No economics studies have been cited in support of that scenario, however. And the creation of a JPA between the various city and County agencies of government, may be a bit more complicated and lengthy than local supporters of the satdium are planning on.
    For example, to create a JPA for the project will mean that each each government agency involved will be required to conduct public hearings prior to obtaining board approvals. Objections are likely.
    The City of West Sacramento, however, is moving forward quite rapidly with plans to submit a memorandum of understanding for presentation at its next Council meeting set for Wednesday. If approved by a majority Wednesday, a special Council meeting will be calalnered for Monday.
     Unfortunately, the City Council has failed to make the memorandum of understanding public, as of Tuesday, setting the stage for fierce public rejection of stealthy actions by Council members on initiating a JPA with an encumbered $40,000,000 bond issue tag along.
    [Editor's Note: The procedure and powers of a Joint Powers Authority to issue public bonds is limited under provisions of Article I, Chapter 5, Division 7, Title I, Section 6540-6579.5 of the California Government Code.]

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Monday February 1, 1999

Unforgettable

By Gordon K. Durnil, Contributor

     WASHINGTON - "Don't confuse me with the facts. I'm supporting President Nixon." So said my late friend, Congressman Earl Landgrebe, as he sat on the Watergate Committee in 1974.
    So say Senate Democrats today. They say, "President Clinton's actions are indefensable." Then they set out to defend him. Too bad. They demean a party with a proud past.
    I have been a political activist for the past 40 years - 8 years as a state party chairman and a member of the Republican National Committee all throughout the Reagan years. Even though I enjoyed defeating Democrats, I respected them, because I've always been a firm defender of the two party system.
    Two strong major political are important to our freedom. I'm proud that a young Hoosier opponent, Joe Andrew, is now the chairing the Democratic Natioanl Commitee.
    But what kind of party is he taking over? Has it become a party oblivious to it's honorable past? Are Democratic leaders obsessesed with defending deviant sex in public places? Has it become a party proud to advocate lying under oath? Is it a party devoid of principle? It seems so as Democratic leaders grovel in their support of Clinton's ignoble weeknesses, horse blinders on, not wanting to be confused by facts.
    Too bad. They were once an honorable foe.
    [Note: Gordon Durnil is an attorney who has served as a Republican Party leader, campaign manager, fund raiser, and advisor. He served as the United States Chairman of the International Joint Commission appointed by President GeorgeBush. He is the author of two books, The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist and Is America Beyond Reform?.]

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Monday February 1, 1999

Moldova University
First of the Former Soviet Republics to Charge Tuition.

By Michelle Andropov in Eastern Europe

      CHISINAU, Moldova - The State will no longer finance the student costs of higher education for up to one-third of the students, here.
     The country appears to be the first of the former Soviet republics to impose such fees, a radical departure after decades of free higher education. Under former Soviet Communists, tuition was viewed as a middle-class injustice. The old system, it is said, put wealth ahead of ability, when applying for admisson to higher education.
     Across both Eastern and Western Europe, soaring rates of spending on higher-education systems, which has experienced almost unchecked enrollment growth, have caused more and more countries to move closer to imposing tuition.
    So far, the only country to have done so is Britain, where universities now charge students annual tuition of about $1,600. However, there, as in many other countries, the idea of such fees is still highly controversial, and has provoked student protests.
     In Moldova, that has changed. Well, sort of. After all, Moldova is a small, poor, agricultural country of 4.5 million people between Romania and Ukraine.
    Charging tuition has been "... forced on us by circumstances," says State Education advisor, Stefan Tiron. Local contacts tell the Daily Republican Newspaper the people have come to feel that something had to be done to prevent a collapse of the university system.
     At Moldova's leading State University campus, a little less than two-thirds of students now enrolled pay tuition of $160 per year in the Sciences Division. Those in the Social Science Division pay $700. The average monthly salary in Moldova is no more than a flat $50.
    State University records show the dropout rate around 20 per cent.
    Student tuition and related fees remain at the institution where the paying students are enroll.
    Because of Moldova's underlying economic problems a university education has become even more difficult for students to obtain here. Student loans do not exist and part-time off campus jobs are non-existent.

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Friday January 29, 1999

Our Near Sighted Senate

By Rich Davis, Contributor

    WASHINGTON - This impeachment "trial" seems to be a classic confrontation between short-term and long-term thinkers.
    The last time I remember such an epic battle was in the 60's and early 70's when the short-term crowd said drugs felt good and were important for a full and meaningful life and the long termers felt that was a mistake, even though the bio-chemistry proof was not in yet.
     Even as a kid I knew that being high was not an answer to anything meaningful. That is, unless you thought of it as a symptom of a significant personal problem.
     And today, who but a short-term thinker could see this situation as nothing meaningful about Clinton or our society...or that it will have no possible harmful effects in the future?
    It took quite a while before drugs were identified as a societal problem. Now we see ads about eggs frying in iron skillets, or iron skillets destroying kitchens; all demonstrating the harmful effects of drugs.
    And now, this week, we are taking note of the devastating effects that presidential fibbing has on the thinking precesses of United States Senators.

Copyright © 1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday January 27, 1999

PC Paramedic
Founder of Internet craze likes Fresno PC market.

By Amy Williams, Fresno Republican Newspaper

      FRESNO - One of the San Joaquin Valley's biggest PC stars, Tom Hobbs, has agreed to become chief technology officer of the National edition of The Daily Republican Newspaper, with average Mon-Fri daily readership of 1.19 million. At many firms, the job of chief technology officer means the top computer whiz. Hobbs' broad interests and energy are likely to give him roles in many aspects of the online newspaper operation as it moves to become a stronger force in online commerce, industry watchers said Monday.
     The Fresno State University trained computer network science specialist, engineered the Fresno State's online Grants & Research Internet web site in 1994. So, Internet Web site design is a marketing service that Hobbs' also excells in. His Web Design firm was rated Number One by the Fresno Business Journal in 1998. Hobbs' practical Internet browser, the Hitch Hiker's Guide to Cyberspace greatly simplifies searching and locating information on the Internet. It's current daily use is very strong, logging more than 3 million visits on Monday.
     Tom Hobbs' Web Portal is the original Internet World Wide Web information organizer. So, Tom Hobbs was one of the Internet original gurus and the World Wide Web's prime strategist. Hobbs' conceptual model is sweeping the WWW these days. The industry has even adopted Hobbs' copyrighted name "Web Portal" as its standard descriptor for search engine protocols like Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, Web Crawler, Infoseek, HotBot and others. Hobbs told reporters that his firm had received a serious seven-figure buy-out offer last month.
     Other famous Internet portals Hobbs has designed include theCalifornia Star Business Journal, the Fresno Republican Newspaper, Mother Wire Magazine, the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library, the Historic Tower District, the Ahwahnee Hotel, the Bulldog Newspaper, at CSU Fresno, and many other client prize winners, like Rod Aluisi Realty.
      Tom Hobbs has seen it all. He started out as a PC engineer in Fresno in the late 1980's. He soon introduced a small programmable PC to Fresno. The gadget had 20 million bytes of hard disk space and was very slow. But it did the job. Some of them are still around in museums.
     Hobbs' PC Paramedic firm is now manufacturing custom PC systens for West Coast customers with corporate networks that utilize hard drives that are 8 thousand times larger and 100 times faster. "It's the shape of things to come," Hobbs says.
     He likes to tinker. Over the years, he has steadily built up a client base of nearly three thousand customers for his PC Paramedic computer support service network. Tom Hobbs is the man PC users in Central California's San Joaquin Valley can trust with 'brain surgery' on a malfunctioning PC.
     For over ten years now, Hobbs has been performing "brain surgery" on many of Fresno's corporate computers. He's often seen applying emergency "triage" to the internals of countless home and business PCs. And he's proudly delivered thousands of "newborn" PCs to expectant users throughout the Central Valley. "I've delivered four in an elevator lots of times!" Hobbs states wryly. Metaphors aside, he's become an indispensable facet of our modern lifestyle.
     "The rapid proliferation of computers into our society has created this need for fast, friendly and reliable on-site PC support that big resellers just can't provide," says Hobbs. "Computer users quickly discover that having a seasoned PC support professional who will come to where they are saves them time, trouble and money." It also serves to educate computer users about their systems while alleviating concerns. "We encourage them to observe, ask questions, and even participate. Show me a phone-support tech who can do that without losing their composure," says Hobbs.
     Of course, major surgery on a business PC's data is not for the faint of heart. Recovery of lost data and configurations can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in sunk costs and down time. For some businesses, saving their data will mean the difference between staying ahead of the competitions or losing out. Most firms have found they can save money by hiring Hobbs' firm to monitor the health of their PCs with routine check-ups by the PC Paramedic.
     For Y2K bug extermination, PC emergency on-site repairs, system upgrades, networks, and corporate web site design, PC Paramedic services is a great value added Valley business.
     [Note: For Tom Hobbs' PC Paramedic Hot-Line dial him at 439-9184].

Copyright © 1999 The Daily Republican Newspaper Co. All rights reserved.

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