Category Archives: California News

Anyone looking to explore a national park for free in 2014 should mark his or her calendar. The National Park Service has nine fee-free days on the calendar in 2014. On the dates, all 401 national parks will offer free admission, though only 133 usually charge admission, according to the National Park Service (NPS). See the list below for this years dates and plan a trip to your local park. If you’re active military or family, you can also get a FREE Annual Pass to the National Parks. Mark your calendar for these free fee days in 2014:

• April 19-20 for National Park Week’s opening weekend
• Aug. 25 for National Park Service’s 98th birthday
• Sept. 27 for National Public Lands Day
• Nov. 11 for Veterans Day

While entrance, commercial tour and transportation entrance fees are waived on these days, some fees — such as those collected by third parties — will not be waived. For anyone looking for a national park, here are a few parks to consider visiting when the fees are waived: Yosemite National Park: With its stunning glacier-sculpted geology, abundant wildlife and world-class recreational opportunities, Yosemite, 200 miles east of San Francisco, is one of the crown jewels of America’s national park system. Yosemite’s granite wonderland was carved by massive glaciers around three million years ago, when ice covered all but the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada.

Sequoia National Park: Sequoia is home to the largest tree in the world, by volume. Redwoods are taller, but giant sequoias win for sheer mass: the General Sherman’s trunk has a volume of 1,487 cubic metres and is estimated to weigh over 2,000 tonnes. Sequoia also boasts 4,421m Mount Whitney, the high point of the John Muir Trail, which runs through Sequoia on its way up to Yosemite. Lassen National Park: The park is capped by 10,462-foot Lassen Peak, the world’s largest volcanic dome. Lassen’s 1915 blast makes it one of only two volcanoes to have erupted in the continental US in the 20th century (the other being Washington’s Mount Saint Helens in 1980). After the eruption, which laid waste to vast swaths of surrounding land, Lassen Volcanic national park was created to preserve the devastated areas for future observation and study. Visiting the area now, nearly 100 years later, is a dramatic lesson in the Earth’s own healing powers; it still bears vast scars of hardened lava, but between the rocks, the flora and fauna are flourishing. “National parks not only protect and preserve the places we most value; they also add enormous economic value to nearby communities and the entire nation,” National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said in a news release. “…Fee-free days are a great way to both thank those visitors and introduce parks to first-timers who can find a new place to call an old favorite.” *Fee waiver includes: entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/findapark/feefreeparks.htm.

Republican candidate for California governor is making headlines for comparing President Barack Obama’s gun control policies with those of dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il.

State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, posted a Twitter message Tuesday with an image (see below) that compared what he said were figures who have supported gun rights with those who have supported gun control.

The image, what some might call “controversial” was accompanied by the following question, “Which side would you choose?” in his Twitter message.

The Associated Press, has quoted Donnelly as saying he was standing up for the Second Amendment, which he said recognizes an “unalienable right to defend your life.”

“When government becomes the greatest threat to the very rights it was formed to protect, that is tyranny,” he said in the statement. “Tyranny is the daily purpose of dictators, and I will not apologize for pointing out that our current president acts more like a dictator than a leader of a free people in a Constitutional Republic.”

Obama has had less success after proposing sweeping gun control measures last year following the December 2012 which caused a run on ammo and  a dramatic increase in firearm purchases as Americans flocked to gun shops and expos.

Remember when Captain America protested on the Iron Horse Bridge in Walnut Creek to impeach Obama?

What do you think about the image? Do you agree or disagree with Donnelly? If so why?

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that officials at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, a suburb of San Jose, acted properly in banning t-shirts and other patriotic, red white and blue clothing on May 5^th, aka Cinco de Mayo.

School officials were worried about violence and disruption of school activities stemming from the students wearing patriotic clothing. The clothing and accessories according to Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez is deemed “incendiary” and “it has no place on a day celebrating Mexican heritage”.

Court documents said, a large group of students carrying Mexican flags had clashed with students who hung an American flag from a tree on May 5th, 2010.

The case started when the principal of Live Oak High School asked a group of students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn their shirts inside out or take them off.

Live Oak High School students from left, Daniel Galli, Austin Carvalho, Matt Dariano and Dominic Maciel were sent home from school on Cinco de Mayo because they were wearing American flag T-shirts.

Dariano’s mother, Diana, told FoxNews.com she and parents of the other four students have been demanding an apology from officials. “We want an apology,” Diana Dariano said Thursday. “Who in the United States of America would have an issue with that? It’s a sad, sad day.”

“I’m more hurt than anything,” she said. “It is so hurtful and disrespectful the way this has turned. These are American kids.” The boys told Rodriguez and Principal Nick Boden that turning their shirts inside-out was disrespectful, so their parents decided to take them home.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel’s mother, told the Morgan Hill Times. “I’m an open-minded parent, but it’s got to be on both sides. It can’t be five kids singled out.”  Galli told NBC Bay Area, “They said we could wear it on any other day, but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it.

The day of the incident more than 100 students were spotted wearing the colors of the Mexican flag — red, white and green — as they left school, including some who had the flag painted on their faces or arms, according to the Morgan Hill times.

Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California-Los Angeles, said the students are protected under California Education Code 48950, which prohibits schools from enforcing a rule subjecting a high school student to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct, that when engaged outside of campus, is protected by the First Amendment.

Check out the initial news report below:

Judges said the civil rights case forced them to weigh the difficult question of what takes precedence: students’ free speech rights or school safety concerns?

Opponents say it’s a slippery slope and could set precedent for safety to out weigh individual rights. They also point out that the school in question is a public school paid for by tax payers, stating that if the school was a private school it would be acceptable to ban the patriotic clothing but since it’s a publicly funded school, the oppressive ruling violates the student’s rights and goes against the First Amendment.

This ruling is reminiscent of another issue lurking around Concord. For the past few years the public has boycotted the City of Concord’s Fourth of July Parade because one of its yearly performers, a Mexican group with dancing horses, waves the Mexican flag throughout the entire Concord Fourth of July Parade. It was citizen out cry and protest that provoked the group in 2010 to add the American flag to its performance. Every year protesters have boycotted the parade in its entirety and instead opting for hosting their own private Fourth of July parties in homes and backyards across the East Bay.

What do you think? Do you support the courts ruling? Should the boys stop wearing the American Flag on May 5th? Do you think a Fourth of July Parade should wave a flag from another country?