4 January 2008 a Friday

John Parker, a music teacher and film and television composer, will be the guest at the Speaker's Forum, Jan. 15.

Parker taught at the University of Southern California and was the musical director for Arthur Godfrey, according to organizers. They said he later scored 60 episodes for the award-winning series “Dallas,” 87 episodes on “Gunsmoke,” all of the music for “Trapper John, M.D.,” plus numerous television scores for “Love Boat,” “MASH” and many others. Parker has arranged and conducted albums for Ray Charles, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme, Merv Griffin, Carol Lawrence, Connie Francis and Rosemary Clooney, said organizers.

But it is not music that will be the topic of the 7 p.m. session in Los Anonos de Escazú. Parker subscribes to the idea of " The Great Return."

"The basic theme of my message: A great return to the Oneness of humanity"," he said in an e-mail message. "This shift has been in progress for eons; maybe beginning immediately after the original separation portrayed in the Bible as the mythical fall from Eden, the dualizing of what was the One, or in astronomical terms, The Big Bang. Since then, we have been living in the illusion of separation."

He said the visual evidence of this can be seen in the changes taking place on earth — tsunamis, massive earthquakes, global warming and crumbling glaciers. He added that he was not sure if the result would be catastrophic or wonderful but he is betting on the latter.

Costa Ricans in the Central Valley also were bracing for a chill. This is the same cold front that has brought near-freezing temperatures to cities in Mexico and caused much more damaging winds in other Central American states as well as freezing to the Florida orange crop.

Cartago was expected to see a low of 13 C (55.4 F) with 15 C (59 F) in the San José area. Temperatures were expected to be colder at higher elevations. And the wind can create a perception of colder temperatures with the chill factor. Most Costa Rican homes are not designed to keep out strong wind gusts.

We're a little warmer than yesterday, it looks like it will be 69 degrees by 8 a.m. Cold enough. Strong winds all night long. The reporter is right about Costa Rican homes...none have weather-stripping, few have door-sills. Cold weather like this is just very rare...must be that global warming you folks up north are having, pushing all of your cold air down here to us. No, wait, that doesn't make sense...you have to be sucking our heat up there to warm you! Damn Yankees!

More than 8-of-10 Huckabeasts called themselves evangelicals, so that will do him in in the long run as there simply aren't enough of those to win an election. And Barack, the early pundits say, got the independent vote crossing over, which may be much more significant. I keep saying that Obama could never be president, but then I keep remembering Jimmy Carter...

I think Obama will produce about the same results that Carter did, too, which is even worse.

Edwards edged out Clinton, which is worse news...I think Edwards would be really bad news. Worse than Huckabee, even? Yeah. Dodd and Biden tottered off, looks like.

Is the big news Thompson finishing 3rd after almost no effort in Iowa? Because if the CW assumes Romney is toast then that leaves Fred... and McCain.

This man fails to comprehend how many more millions and millions of dollars, literally, there are behind helping Hillary win. And we're not just talking about campaign contributions everybody can see. You watch.

Hillary will have to fight hard without seeming to do so in order to stay the course. Nothing is over yet — and my taxi driver told me that the Democrats would somehow be forced to choose Hillary even if Obama won all the primaries. But that was yesterday’s paranoid orthodoxy.

That's taxi driver conventional wisdom speaking, and it may not be yesterday's paranoid orthodoxy. Remember, it isn't really paranoia if it's actually happening.

My favorite moment from last night was John Edwards' "victory" speech. That's right, Edwards, who has been parked in Iowa for about a year, tried to portray his fairly distant second place finish as a win. In reality, it means he's finished this year. Indeed, with any luck last night was the last hurrah for the man whose phoniness, according to Bob Shrum, appalled even John Kerry.

Summed up Edwards perfectly for me. I have never seen who I consider to be a phonier candidate, and that included Kerry as the standard-bearer.

My goodness, whatever else does Krauthammer think goes on in the world? Does he really believe that Canada and Mexico follow the Jeffersonian ideal? How about Japan, Italy, Germany, France and England?

In the Globe's new poll, one finding caught my eye. When asked which candidate they thought "most trustworthy," 30 percent of likely Republican voters chose McCain - the highest tally of any candidate, Republican or Democrat. ...

I'm not surprised. Not because I imagine that McCain walks on water. He is plainly a flawed human being with a skeleton or two in his closet. But he strives to heed the better angels of his nature - and he lets us see the striving. A politician who can publicly berate himself for being "dishonest" and "a coward" is a politician voters are more apt to trust. A once and future presidential hopeful who owns up to his own moral lapses and can write, with sincerity, "All my heroes . . . would have been ashamed of me," is no ordinary candidate.

And if there is one thing American politics badly needs these days, it is no ordinary candidate.

Liberals complain about Bush that he is too stubborn and unwilling to admit when he has made a mistake and thereafter change his mind, so it will be interesting what they think if McCain is the candidate. Of course, I think that is typical Liberal bullshit, myself...for instance, look at Bush, a man who gave up drinking because of the bad things it was doing, and see how they've treated him. All they want to talk about is his DUI, as if it was a disabling shameful event. Yet their liberal hero, Kennedy, had a fatal car accident while driving under the influence and stopped neither drinking nor driving as a result.

It's just me, of course, but... Given that these are serious times when America faces big challenges, and given that thus far we're facing them pretty well on all fronts...namely, winning the war, no domestic attacks since 9/11, unemployment and the economy doing okay, allies returning after their spats, etc...what's to change?

In July 2007, BusinessWeek magazine reported, “Americans now spend $41 billion a year on their pets -- more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries in the world.” Keep that in mind the next time you say, “It’s a dog’s life.” Animals in this country have more disposable income than humans in most other countries.

Our four dogs (don't ask--it's a long story) make a considerable dent in our food budget, let me tell you, and that's the reason that a lot of Costa Ricans don't have pets. And when they do have dogs it's a lot like my neighbor's situation...the dog is less a pet than somehow to keep the unwanted away in the middle of the night. We get unhappy over our own barking dogs sometimes, but in the long run I'm glad to have them watching over things.

It's hard to believe that Oliver North doesn't know better, but it sounds like it:

This week, when crude oil topped the $100-per-barrel mark, White House press secretary Dana Perino was asked whether President Bush planned to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to drive down the price of home heating fuel -- as Bill Clinton did in September 2000, when he released 30 million barrels in an effort to prop up Al Gore's faltering presidential bid. She responded, "This president would not use the SPR to manipulate (prices), unless there was a true emergency."

Unfortunately, that's the wrong question and the wrong answer. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created in the aftermath of the 1973 Mideast war and the ensuing Arab oil embargo. Worldwide, oil prices had risen from $3 per barrel to more than $11 per barrel, triggering a global recession. The following year, the SPR was created, not as a way to manipulate prices but as a means of ensuring the U.S. had sufficient oil available to avoid economic collapse.

I don't know what the next president will do, but George Bush believes (in my opinion) that the SPR is, in the end, designated so that America's military might will still be able to roll and fly, in the end.

This may sound harsh, but economic collapse is not the worst danger that the United States faces.

I've always wondered if America, apart from The South, was quite as racist as Sharpton et al would like us to believe...at least on the part of white Americans.

I lived a life in which black people didn't play a very big part. I was born in L.A. but lived in the Mojave Desert east of Barstow from 1940-48, so I knew mostly Mexican kids mixed in with the white folks I lived among, virtually no blacks. I went to the 9th grade in Barstow, our version of a big city, and I remember one black kid from phys ed...and all I really remember was that he threatened me in some way I don't quite recall, probably just establishing that he was the boss where I was concerned. All I remember about it, though, is that I stayed out of his way after that. This wasn't hard, because I rode a bus to school, half an hour or more each way, and I left as soon as class was over in the afternoon.

One thing I am absolutely certain about, though, is that my mother and father absolutely would not have countenanced racial discrimination, although in retrospect I cannot remember any example which would have given me that firm conviction.

The first black kids I remember encountering closely were in Marine Corps boot camp, and they were all from the far south rather than the west. Normally southerners went to Parris Island Recruit Depot, but it was full at the time and the overflow went to Camp Pendleton in California. My best friend in boot camp was a black kid named Turner, he had the third squad leader position while I was the first, and the two guys I hated most were the 2nd and 4th squad leaders, two white twins from Texas named Smith. They were really jerks, very prejudiced against Turner and hated him for holding an equal position with them, and we didn't get along at all.

Well, I have a few other stories over the years, but my point is this: although I know that I work hard not to discriminate against black people (or others), I know that in some people's book I might be considered to be a racist. For instance, I see the humor in black jokes...just like I do the ones about Polacks, Dagos, Micks, mackerel-snappers, and all the rest. Even WASPs. Yes, even women's jokes about men. Most of those jokes were told to me by members of their groups...Levandowski was a great one for having the first and funniest of the Polack jokes, for instance, and Gold told the best Jewish ones. What's that? Do rednecks tell the best redneck jokes? Hmmm.

If laughing at jokes makes you a racist--or any other kind of 'ist'--then I'm one. On the other hand, the only time I ever really swung at a guy in anger was when the Smith twins were ganging up on my black friend Turner, a record still unmatched to this day after three years in the Marine Corps. It was southern whites I disliked, not southern blacks.

As an aside... I was a little concerned about this pacific aspect of my nature, especially as a Marine, so on my 21st birthday my three good buddies and I put on our civvies and went out on liberty drinking with the deliberate intention of me getting into a fist-fight. It was my idea because I wanted to prove something to myself, after two-and-a-half years in the Marine Corps without landing an effective blow. (My one swing at the closest Smith twin was taken while we were running in formation across the parade grounds, and since we couldn't break step our altercation rather lacked something.)

We went to our favorite pizza bar (in 1955 they were not as common as now) and the guys bought me a bottle of champagne for my birthday, the first champagne I can ever remember having, at which point our regular bartender went pale. He knew what the champagne meant and he'd already been serving me beer for a couple of years by that time! Afterwards we all piled into my car and drove around (yeah, I know, don't bother telling me) looking for a place to find a fight. Eventually we wound up at a high school stadium where a football game was going on. Great location.

Long story short. We spent the game trying to provoke a confrontation and, when the game ended, succeeded. The only problem was that the guy hadn't even noticed me or two of my friends, he had become incensed about only one of my buddies eyeballing his girlfriend and decided to do something about it. He caught us by surprise, though, we hadn't noticed him until he came running up and suddenly grabbed my friend by the neck and started choking him. I was only one step away and had a perfect shot. I grabbed the kid with my left arm and drew back to cold-cock him. He turned and looked at me in such surprise that I just couldn't do it and grabbed him with both hands, instead.

He looked at me in shock and I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He stammered out his explanation, all the while with us standing there frozen in our tableau, his hands still motionlessly holding onto my buddy's neck. Turn him loose, I said. What'll he do to me if I do, the kid asked worriedly? I almost laughed. Nothing, I assured him, since all opportunity for a fight had evaporated by that time. None of us were really mad, to begin with, it was more like an experiment.

So he did, and he left, and nothing came of my 21st birthday coming-of-age Marine Corps fist-fight. Some trained killer, huh?

Well, that's a long ways around the park, but my point comes back to wondering how actually racially prejudiced most white people are when it comes to actual behavior? And I speak as a westerner, not a southerner, because I can tell you for a fact in my 1953 experience those guys were definitely prejudiced, no doubt about it. They had a very hard time taking orders from a black man above them in rank, for instance...very hard. I never did...my problem was taking orders from jerks above me in rank, and all of them were white in my experience.

I have a friend who thinks that what people learn in the military is how to take orders blindly. He, of course, has no military experience upon which to base this notion. Frankly, I was VERY lucky to escape the brig on a couple of occasions.

In my own Dad's tales of his Navy experience he spent more than one occasion in the brig on the USS Texas, and once got thrown into a foreign jail in Panama. They physically broke out of that one and escaped in the nick of time, although of course once they got back to their ship their troubles continued. There's a lot of my Dad in me. We were both too-easily led astray and far too innocent for our new worlds, he was a farm boy from Illinois and I was from the California desert and then rural Utah, but I was a lot luckier than he was when it came to getting out of trouble. I did some incredibly stupid things and escaped unscathed, something which surprises me today when thinking back upon them.

Back on theme, though, once again, I wonder about the degree of ACTUAL rather than perceived racial discrimination in most white Americans. Do any of us really discriminate in truly harmful ways, by which I mean causing more than hurt feelings?

Like the woman who went to the doctor for an examination and he said afterwards that she was really stupid. She demanded a second opinion, so he said okay, you're really ugly, too. So is making jokes like this as bad as being lynched, or even physically beaten up?

Or what about blonde jokes...are they racially prejudiced because nobody makes dumb brunette jokes?

How much problem will Obama have simply from being black? I don't really know, but I can't help but feel that those days are mostly over with where the white people I know are concerned. Honestly, I think Hillary faces more problems being a woman.