02/08/05

LC050208

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

He served the people of Los Angeles as Police Chief and City
Councilman. Now he wants to be mayor. What makes Bernard Parks
run?

Bernard Parks>> When I grew up, there were certain dreams I had
and I was able to fulfill some of them. I don't see families
today having those dreams. I don't know many families that
actually believe that they can own a house in the city of Los
Angeles.

Val>> And then, raising the roof to raise morale. How this
unlikely impresario gets the stars to entertain the troops.

All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Tonight we begin a series of special reports, profiles of
the five major candidates for Los Angeles Mayor. Now whoever
wins this race will become leader of a city that has a
population larger than most small countries and much more
diverse. Our first look is at former Los Angeles Police Chief,
Bernard Parks, and as Kevin Smith tells us, Parks is no stranger
to the spotlight.

[Film Clip]

Kevin Smith>> Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks
presents a study in contrast. He's a former police chief who
represents one of Los Angeles's most crime-ridden districts.
He's a Democrat running on a pro business, law and order
platform.

[Film Clip]

Kevin Smith>> He's a formal and courtly man whose personality
and ramrod straight posture seem at odds with campaign glad-
handing, though he can poke fun at himself.

Bernard Parks>> "Somebody said, well, you believe in free
speech. I said, yeah. He said, well, you're going to give one
(laughter)."

Kevin Smith>> So why is Bernard Parks running for mayor of Los
Angeles?

Bernard Parks>> When I grew up, there were certain dreams I had
and I was able to fulfill some of them. I don't see families
today having those dreams. I don't know many families that
actually believe that they can own a house in the city of Los
Angeles or that their kids can.

Kevin Smith>> Parks grew up in Los Angeles. His father was in
law enforcement, so Parks became a Los Angeles police officer in
1965 after graduating from the police academy. Parks achieved
his dream when former mayor, Richard Riordan, tapped him as
police chief in 1997, but his tenure was controversial. Parks
came across as an authoritarian figure who did not tolerate
dissent. He had a running battle with the police union over
issues like discipline.

Bernard Parks>> I think that's a badge of honor. I could have
been chief of police and basically chose not to fire 130
officers just to befriend the union, but it was more important
to me that people didn't get abused, that officers that we had
were honest, that we didn't have officers that were lying in
court.

Kevin Smith>> But critics claim that Parks did not fully
cooperate with investigations into the Rampart scandal and was
too quick to defend officers in other cases where police were
accused of brutality or corruption. As his term ended, Parks
sought reappointment.

Bernard Parks>> "I am formally transmitting my request to the
Police Commission for a second five-year term."

Kevin Smith>> But James Hahn had become mayor and stunned Parks
with this announcement.

James Hahn>> "I've informed the Police Commission President,
Rick Caruso, that I do not support Chief Parks' reappointment as
Chief of Police."

Kevin Smith>> Parks denies his campaign for mayor is payback,
though he has no love for Hahn.

Bernard Parks>> He made commitments of what he was going to do.
He completely forgot those commitments to certain communities,
so that's why there are people that are in an upheaval about it,
issues I've gone on.

[Film Clip]

Kevin Smith>> What Parks went on to is the City Council after
thirty-eight years with the LAPD. He was elected to the Eighth
District council seat in 2003 with little opposition. His South
Los Angeles constituents had not always viewed Parks fondly as
police chief, but after his removal, that changed.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> Now he's fired by Hahn. All of a
sudden, Parks becomes a hero. You saw community leaders that
really were very critical of Parks. Now all of a sudden,
they're his number one cheerleaders.

Kevin Smith>> Even one-time critics like political commentator,
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, claim Parks has softened his image.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> He's right away overcome the perception
as a City Council person that he's rigid, inflexible and cannot
work with others in terms of policy issues. That was a big
knock against Parks as police chief. My way or the highway.

Kevin Smith>> On his key campaign issue of public safety, Parks
has pledged to abolish the agreement between Hahn and the police
union that officers work three days a week in twelve-hour
shifts.

>> "How do they put three days a week?"

Bernard Parks>> "That's because, when they look in their back
pocket, they pull out the mayor."

>> "There you go."

Bernard Parks>> When you and I work five days a week, criminals
work seven, and our police officers only work three. I lost in
my community, the Eighth District, two hundred young people to
homicides in twenty-four months.

Kevin Smith>> Parks also criticizes Hahn for giving police big
pay raises.

Bernard Parks>> When we had an opportunity to hire more
officers, he chose to give an eighty million dollar pay raise.
Eighty million dollars to pay for eight hundred officers.

[Film Clip]

Kevin Smith>> Running as a pro business candidate, Parks
advocates greater incentives for businesses to operate and
remain in Los Angeles.

Bernard Parks>> "We're going to have to bring in new business
as opposed to taxing old businesses. The reason I'm working so
hard to bring football to Los Angeles is that's a multi-billion
dollar enterprise coming in to bring in revenue."

Kevin Smith>> Parks also vows to tackle Los Angeles's
entrenched traffic problems, citing his opposition to the
approved plan to modernize LAX airport.

Bernard Parks>> "When we see such plans as the airport all
choke our city to the point that we won't be able to drive the
405 or Sepulveda."

Kevin Smith>> Although certainly not new to public life,
Bernard Parks is a relative novice as a politician. After
thirty-eights years on the police force, he's only been on the
City Council for two years and, running against opponents with
far more political experience, the Parks campaign has had its
share of challenges. Some critics deride the campaign as a mom
and pop operation staffed heavily by family members led by wife,
Bobby. Several outside professional staffers have quit.

Raphael Sonenshein>> The perception in the community out there
is that this family has played an inordinate role in the
campaign and that apparently is a factor in some of the campaign
staff people leaving. Now I will tell you that every campaign,
families get involved.

Bernard Parks>> This was not going to be a campaign run by
consultants and spin doctors. We're going to run a campaign
that resonates with the community.

Kevin Smith>> Another challenge has been money. The campaign
has raised less than one million dollars so far, not enough to
buy television ads and lagging far behind Mayor Hahn and other
candidates.

Raphael Sonenshein>> Do I believe Parks will make the runoff?
I think it's very doubtful. Parks' period as police chief will
probably hurt him more than help him.

Kevin Smith>> But others haven't written off Parks just yet.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> I think Councilman Parks has a very,
very good and viable candidacy for a couple of reasons. Number
one, he's got name identification. The second thing is, he's an
African-American candidate and he's been unabashed in terms of
making his pitch to the African-American community.

[Film Clip]

Kevin Smith>> And Parks recently made that pitch at a reception
held by black employees to honor the Metropolitan Water
District's new black CEO. His theme? Overcoming
discrimination.

Bernard Parks>> "And we've all known situations where we
trained our supervisors and we trained our managers, yet we
couldn't manage, we couldn't supervise."

Kevin Smith>> But only one black candidate, the legendary Tom
Bradley, has ever become mayor of Los Angeles.

Raphael Sonenshein>> They did it through a spectacular
coalition that, after he left office, was very hard to hold
together.

Kevin Smith>> The challenge for Parks is to broaden his
political support beyond black voters who make up only ten to
fifteen percent of the electorate.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> I think ultimately it comes down to
that name, Parks, and how people who know him -- which by the
way are the majority of voters in this city -- how they perceive
him, their dislikes, their likes, based on that name.

Kevin Smith>> Most analysts predict that none of the five
candidates will win fifty percent of the vote in the March 8
primary. That would force a June runoff and Parks has made
finishing among the top two his chief goal. I'm Kevin Smith for
Life and Times.

Val>> Join us over the next few weeks as we also profile Robert
Hertzberg, Richard Alarcon, Antonio Villaraigosa and incumbent
James Hahn.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts
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interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life
and Times".

Val>> It's a key part of America's science program. The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. It's the place where
unmanned flights are developed and guided. But what you seldom
see are the private lives of the men who developed JPL into a
premier rocket science center. Now a new book gives us a very
personal look at the history and culture of JPL. It's called
"Astro Turf" and it's written by journalist, M.G. Lord. She
talked with Toni Guinyard.

M.G. Lord>> Oh, my whole life is in this book. I've been
writing this book since I was nine years old. I mean, when I
was nine years old and my mother was dying of cancer and my
father, while I was taking care of her, vanished into the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory to work on the probes of Mariner and Mars
69. So I guess it's fair to say that I've loved, hated and
watched this institution for more than thirty years.

But it isn't just a negative perception or the place that took
my father away because I was thrilled by what he did. The
probes he worked on were scouts that brought home thrilling
glimpses of new worlds. They were about hope, expansion, the
future, things that, at my mother's death bed, would not
otherwise have crossed my mind. And the few moments of real
intimacy that I shared with him in childhood were when he
explained these missions to me.

I think the book will be of enormous interest to engineers,
scientists and historians of mid-century science, but it isn't
just intended for them. When we think about Cold War-era rocket
scientists, there's a certain mental picture that comes to mind.
You know, the crew cuts, the white short-sleeved shirt with the
little skinny necktie, the plastic pocket protector, the slide
rule. They were kind of arts conservative button-down guys. It
was the ethos of rocket science: strong, silent, stoic and very
brilliant, and they were fighting the Cold War in their way.

But the fact is that the founders of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory were not at all like that. They were rakish, Caltech
graduate students, or at least one of them was, Frank Malina.
He should, I believe, be known as the father of American
rocketry along with Robert Goddard, but his accomplishments were
played down during the McCarthy period by anti-Communists. Like
many intellectuals during the Depression, he briefly
experimented with Communism.

Another of JPL's early rocketry pioneers is -- and possibly
better known early rocketry pioneers -- is the imminently
colorful John Parsons. He was a priest in the OTO of a pagan --
everyone says pagan. Some say satanic -- cult founded by "Diary
of a Drug Fiend" author Aleister Crowley. They were quite a
pair.

Toni Guinyard>> But, you know, people will look at that and
say, wait a minute, where is she going with this part? Is this
really important to what took place at JPL?

M.G. Lord>> I think Malina's story has been lost and it's been
lost because it was eclipsed by other stories that were told at
the same time his story was being ignored and those are the
stories of the former Nazi rocket scientist. At the same time
that the extraordinary accomplishments of the homegrown talent
were being under-played, the accomplishments of the German
rocket scientists were being really over-hyped.

I think, in order to justify the fact that we had embraced our
recent enemies, one of the other important things that I
chronicle is the coming of women to JPL. I mean, it was a
totally masculine place when Jack Parsons and Frank Malina and
Theodore von Karman were founding the lab and experimenting with
rockets in the Arroyo Seco area of Pasadena. But in the 1970's,
really, that changed and I write about the pioneers who helped
change the culture.

Toni Guinyard>> Tell us about the women. You focus on two
specifically. They get a lot of play in your book.

M.G. Lord>> Well, there are actually a lot of women including
women who are there now working on different missions that I
spoke to and whose stories are in the book. But whenever anyone
would say something about, you know, the early women at JPL, two
names would invariably come up. One of them was Marsha
Noigebower who was the first woman project scientist on Rangers
One and Two. I spoke with her. Her interest was always in
down-playing her gender to a degree. I mean, she wanted to do
her work and to be permitted to do her work, but she wasn't
really interested in changing the culture of JPL.

Donna Shirley, however, the other name, was a radical in many
ways (laughter). Her goal was to change the culture at JPL to
make it more welcoming to women. Some of her accomplishments,
or accomplishments that she helped to spearhead, were for
instance the child education center that was started in 1977. I
mean, that's an actual marker of how the lab became more
welcoming to women and to career couples.

But at that time when the women were there, a beauty pageant,
kind of junior high popularity contest/beauty pageant emerged
and it was called the Miss Guided Missile Pageant (laughter).
The secretaries and "computresses" competed for this title. In
1958, when JPL became part of NASA and NASA was formed, JPL took
on the responsibility for planetary exploration. So in
recognition of this change, Miss Guided Missile was changed to
be Queen of Outer Space. In the book, you'll find the Queen of
Outer Space and her court from this period. The contest, by the
way, mysteriously vanished with no explanation in 1970.

Toni Guinyard>> What do you hope the engineers over at JPL now
learn from this look back into history?

M.G. Lord>> I hope people find in this book a proper
appreciation of Frank Malina who died in 1981 and I think never
really got the attention and recognition for his accomplishments
that he deserved.

Toni Guinyard>> You sound like a scientist. You sound like an
engineer.

M.G. Lord>> (Laughter) I don't think so. Let me just tell you
up front. One of the hardest things about this book was getting
one of those little badges with my picture on it to get into JPL
so I could -- my first thought was that I'd write about them and
I'd want to be able to be with the team at different hours of
the day and night. It was very hard getting the badge when my
principal credential was a history of the Barbie Doll.

Toni Guinyard>> M.G. Lord, thank you so much for helping us
look back in JPL's history, and thanks for spending a little
time with Life and Times.

M.G. Lord>> Thank you, Toni. I really enjoyed it.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val>> It would only take you a moment to realize that Robert
Rosenthal is not short on passion or personality and he has put
both of those into bringing topnotch musical talent to military
bases across the country. His free concerts raise the spirits
of GIs and their families like this one at Lackland Air Force
Base in Texas.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Rosenthal's office in Burbank is filled with souvenirs
and thank-yous for his Spirit of America Tour. Robert
Rosenthal, you're a nice Jewish boy from New York. What are you
doing putting on country music concerts at military bases?

Robert Rosenthal>> Well, I had the perfect nice Jewish boy from
New York background. I worked for three summers as a cowboy on
a ranch in Arizona. You know, typical bar mitzvah. My dad knew
somebody who owned a dude ranch and he got me a job there and I
loved it and I've always loved country music. It's music that I
can understand. It's my generation's music and I adore it.

Val>> But it was still a rather long route because you went to
business school.

Robert Rosenthal>> Right.

Val>> You were in the Army.

Robert Rosenthal>> Right.

Val>> A little bit of film experience.

Robert Rosenthal>> Right, yes.

Val>> Law school.

Robert Rosenthal>> That's correct.

Val>> So, still no concerts?

Robert Rosenthal>> No, never did a concert until I started
this. When 9/11 came up, my wife and I wanted to do something
for America and we knew the USO brought shows overseas. My
wife, who lived through the Blitz, remembered the military
people who used to come into the neighborhood for companionship
--

Val>> -- in London.

Robert Rosenthal>> In London. And I said let's do something
for the military. I went on the internet -- thank God for the
internet -- and I found out that no one was bringing
entertainment on an organized basis to America's stateside
military bases.

Robert Rosenthal>> "Every one of these shows, the entertainer
just like Clint Black tonight has volunteered to come to a
military base and show their support for the military. They are
not paid to come here and let you know how much we in the
entertainment industry appreciate what you are doing for the
greatest country in the world."

Robert Rosenthal>> We got a chance to do Clint Black. We had
fifteen thousand screaming men and women in uniform for Clint
Black and that was the last show of the year. Twenty-one shows
we did last year.

[Film Clip]

Robert Rosenthal>> We've had Charlie Daniels, Clint Black, Jo
Dee Messina, Dennis Miller, Lee Greenwood, The Oakridge Boys.
We've had Billy Ray Cyrus.

Val>> Although talent is notorious for being fussy at times and
wanting this and wanting that. Have you dealt with that much?

Robert Rosenthal>> Never had a problem, never had a problem.
The kind of people who want to entertain at a military base
fully understand they're not going to get red jelly beans in a
tray in their dressing room. They're even lucky they have a
dressing room. We'll get them a shower. You know, we'll get
them a shower, a shave and a place to sit. But they're not
going to get the kind of things they expect to get at the
Universal Amphitheatre or at Radio City Musical Hall when they
go to a military base. Military bases are a little on the
primitive side.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Not just anyone could pull off a major concert like this
one, but Rosenthal was on the board of the Western Music
Association and had all the right contacts. He held a luncheon
in Nashville and brought together dozens of agents, publicists,
managers and top brass from each of the military branches.

Robert Rosenthal>> And then I made the pitch. I said, if you
have a gap in your schedule that your entertainer can't fill and
you're like in Oklahoma city and his next date is Dallas and
you've got two days, hey, why don't you stop at Fort Sill and do
a show? We'll pay your expenses, but the entertainer must
volunteer. And at the end of the lunch, I was amazed that
agents and managers were walking up to me and saying "Jo Dee
Messina will do one of your shows." "We'll get Charlie Daniels
to do a show." "Lee Greenwood will do a show." We did eighteen
shows that year.

Clint Black>> "I called my agent and I said, you know, I really
want to get out there and play a military base and say thank
you. He was already in here. All we had to do was show up and
be the musicians that we are."

>> "Clint, how about one more song?"

Clint Black>> "I think we know a few more songs."

[Film Clip]

Robert Rosenthal>> We give them a professional sound and light
system and the base provides the staging and they have a ball.
The ones that really have a good time are the ones that say,
hey, I'll get there three hours earlier and I want to do a meet
and greet. I want to go out and meet the enlisted men, shake
some hands, do some photo ops. They are so thrilled when they
leave that I have never had an entertainer not say I definitely
will do a show for you next year.

Val>> But on top of that, you're dealing with the military.
Talk about bureaucracy. How do you make things happen with
them?

Robert Rosenthal>> I use a very large razor blade. When we
made the initial approach to the Department of Defense, I made
it very clear that life was too short to bother with their
bureaucracy. I said I'm not really interested in their egos or
my ego. Here's my offer. We'll do free shows on your base. I
want one person from each service to be my contact.

Val>> Rosenthal launched the Spirit of America Tour in 2002.
That year they put on five concerts.

Robert Rosenthal>> In 2004, last year, we did twenty-one shows.
My favorite story is Yuma, Arizona. We always say that the
shows are for not only the military personnel, but for the
families which includes mom and dad, the kids, civilians on the
base. We did a show at Yuma, Arizona, the Marine Corps Air
Station in Yuma. It was on the parade grounds and a lot of the
Marines stationed at that base were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We noticed that, after the show started, the stage was
surrounded by six, seven, eight, ten year old kids. They were
looking up. They were sitting on the apron of the stage. One
little girl climbed up on the stage and started standing right
next to Chad Brock and finally held onto his hand. Chad Brock
reached down and picked her up and that, to me, is the epitome
of what we do. It's not only to boost the morale of the
enlisted people and the officers who are there, but to let the
families know that they are appreciated for the sacrifice they
are making.

[Film Clip]

Val>> So what's ahead? Do you expect to be doing this for many
years to come?

Robert Rosenthal>> Oh, I'm having a ball. We've already booked
the first two shows for 2005. Carrot Top, that fabulous
comedian, he's going to play the Naval Air Station in Nevada,
which is the Top Gun school now since they moved out of Miramar,
and the Naval Base in Ventura County in Oxnard which is where
the Seabees train. He's going to do two shows in March. We've
already got commitments. I'm going to definitely do this for
five more years. I'm having a ball.

>> "Robert, putting together this Spirit of America Tour,
Clint, you and your band coming here and entertaining us on
Veterans Day, it doesn't get any better than that, and we salute
you for that."

[Film Clip]

Val>> And, by the way, Robert Rosenthal does these concerts
without any contract and a staff of one, himself. And that's
our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times,
thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

It was the wardrobe malfunction seen around the world, but has
the campaign against indecency on television gone too far?

>> I think they're upset that all of a sudden now they have to
recognize that there are limits, and that's not a bad thing.
After ten o'clock, like I said, they can do whatever they want
to do except air obscene material.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.