The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 7

KOKOMO TRIBUNE Wayne K. Lowman Executive Editor-Publisher Johh Wiles Managing Editor A Catharine Schakfle Assf. Managing Editor Skip Weaver NewsQcwon OPINION Skip Weaver Opinion editor, 454-8576 or e-mail: Sunday Thursday between 2:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. Kokomo. Ind.

Mixing oil and oil he gee-whiz figures are indeed astonishing: A merger between Exxon and Mobil would create the world's largest oil company, with 29 percent of the global market, and America's largest corporation, with combined revenues of $186 billion, $20 billion higher than No. 2 General Motors. The price: At least $77 billion. Once past the superlatives admittedly, "the largest merger in history" is a grabber the Exxon-Mobil deal is less a landmark or turning point than just another step in a ar process that has reshaped the oil industry. A the oil shocks of the 1970s, oil companies found gth in fewer numbers and such familiar names as Conoco, Cities Service, Superior, Gulf and Sohio disappeared into larger entities.

And the process continues. This year, British Petroleum announced plans to acquire Amoco for $58.5 billion. The mergers are a natural reaction to hard economic realities: The huge costs of finding and developing new sources of oil while the product is selling at inflation-adjusted lows. Some central Indiana stations are charging less than 80 cents per gallon this week, prices unseen on a regular basis since the 1970s. And the prices are expected to go even lower.

"When adjusted for inflation, (pump) prices are lower than they've been since the Depression," said Stan Pinegar, executive director of the Indiana Petroleum Council, which represents major oil suppliers. The cause of all this is an international oil glut that's sent crude oil prices below $12 a barrel. Some economists predict crude prices will fall to as low as $5 a barrel. The Exxon-Mobil merger has a special symbolism in antitrust history- It reunites two of the largest pieces of Standard Oil, the world's largest corporation until trustbusters broke the combine into 34 smaller companies in 1911. A small irony of that era is that while Teddy Roosevelt is remembered as the trustbuster, Standard was broken up by an even more formidable trustbuster, Mr.

Republican, William Howard Taft. Whatever the economic benefits of the merger, they come with a considerable human cost: Upward of 10,000 workers will lose.their jobs. That bloodletting may cheer Wall Street, but everyone else is surely dismayed by such a massive loss of livelihoods. If the merger must be, better it come now, in a booming labor market, than during a downturn. Most right-to-lifers are peaceable people Thursday HINO HILLS, Where Route 71 crosses over Payton Drive, at the bottom of the steeply sloping embankment, two boys, who were playing nearby, found the boxes.

The boys bicycled home and said they had found boxes of "babies." Do not be impatient with the imprecision of their language. They have not read the apposite Supreme Court opinions. So when they stumbled on the boxes stuffed with 54 fejuses, which looked a lot like babies, they jumped to conclusions. Besides, young boys are apt to believe their eyes rather than the Supreme Court. The first count came to a lot less than 54.

Forgive the counters' imprecision. Many fetuses had been arms, legs, heads jumbled the abortionist's vigor. An accurate count required a lot of sorting out. 'The fetuses had been dumped here, about 30 miles east of Los Ahgeles, on March 14,1997, by a trucker who may not have known what the Los Angeles abortion clin- ie.had hired him to dispose of. What local authorities dealt with as a problem of solid waste disposal a few local residents as rather more troubling than that.

They started talking to each other, and one thing led to another, and to the formation of Cradles of Love, which had the modest purpose of providing a burial for the 54 babies. iahe members of Cradles of Love called them babies, and still do. people are opposed to abor- tiiSn, in spite of the Supreme Court's assurance in 1973 that abortions end oply "potential life," Some will say the of Cradles of Hove, who are churchgo- have been unduly influenced by ology. Or perhaps the real culprit biology. It teaches that after the pf the sperm fuses-with those kibe, pyujn, n.t fops a new and spjipplex which directs i Of the organism.

It soon GEORGE WILL SYNDICATED COLUMNIST PART OF THE TZmO SETTLENQJT TttBTRE BAWEPFRpM WB CARTON CHARACTERS IN A LOWING Tuskegee airmen were traUblazers in military he phone rang. It was my friend Grace Bryant calling. She had a letter, just arrived from New York, and the postage stamp caught her attention. She thought perhaps the man pictured on the postage stamp was the same man we had seen on a video tape. "Yes," I assured her.

I was sure that was him! When my friend sits down with her morning paper and reads my column, she wilj.seejhat,,"!. DOROTHY WORD LOCAL COLUMNIST lpfr converts jt teener- its own distinct, unique nctioning, and very soon looks a lot like a baby. Anyway, theology or biology or maybe their eyes told the members of Cradles of Love that there were some babies in need of burial. So they asked the coroner to give them the fetuses. Then the American Civil Liberties Union was heard from.

It professed itself scandalized by this threat to what? The ACLU frequently works itself into lathers of anxiety about threats to the separation of church and state. However, it is difficult to identify any person whose civil liberties were going to be menaced if the fetuses were "released to the church groups for the express purpose of holding religious services." The ACLU's attack on the constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion failed to intimidate and in October the babies were buried in a plot provided at no charge by a cemetery in nearby Riverside. Each baby was given a name by a participating church group. Each name was engraved on a brass plate that was affixed to each of the 54 small, white, wooden caskets made, at no charge, by a volunteer who took three days off from work to do it. Fifty clergy and four persons active in the right-to-life movement carried the caskets.

Each baby's name is inscribed on a large headstone, also provided at no charge. The ACLU trembled for the Constitution. We hear much about the few "extremists" in the right-to-life movement. But the vast majority of the movement's members are like the kindly, peaceable people here who were, minding their own business until some of the results of the abortion culture tumbled down a. roadside embankment and into their lives.

the postage stamp was Benjamin O. Davis Sr. The man we saw on the video tape was Benjamin O. Davis father and son. Both men had distinguished military careers.

The U.S. postage stamp commemorating Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is part of the Black Heritage Postage Stamp Series. Benjamin 0.

Davis Sr. was the first African- American Army general. His long military career began with the Spanish-American War and ended with his retirement in 1948. The son, Benjamin 0. Davis Jr.

began his military career at West Point, graduating in 1936. He was made commanding officer of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Col. Davis Jr. had hundreds of black fighter pilots under his command with aerial duties over North Africa, Sicily and Europe.

This is the man Grace and I saw on the video; actually a vintage movie in black and white called "The Tuskegee Airmen" made into a video. For years, African-American men tried in vain to join the regular U.S. military groups but were systemati- sure of lawsuits from the NAACP and the support of President and a few senators, the War Department decided to allow the formation of one black flying unit. Approximately 966 black military aviators trained at an isolated air base near the town of Tuskegee, at the all-black Tuskegee Institute, due to the rigid, abject rules of racial segregation. The "conventional wisdom" was that this flying unit would not succeed.

"They thought we would fail," said retired Tuskegee Airman Lt. Calvin Spann. "We proved them wrong." Not all the Tuskegee Airmen were Southern blacks. Recruits came from nearly everywhere, including Indiana. Dick Hardy and John W.

McClure were Tuskegee Airmen from Kokomo and Charles B. Hall came from Brazil, Ind. Sixty-six black pilots lost their lives, 32 were shot down and captured as prisoners of war, but no white American bomber crews were shot down when their escorts were the Tuskegee Airmen. On the return home from the war, the Tuskegee Airmen brought with them 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 744 Air Medals, one Legion of Merit, nine Purple Hearts, French Croix de-Guerre and the Red Star of Yugoslavia. And these airmen returned home to no welcome and no glory; but to unchanged, unrelenting segregation.

Just the other day I heard someone declare: "Remembering is very Tuskegee Airmen was founded in 1972 to end nearly 30 years of anonymity. An important goal was to establish a perpetual reminder of those "trailblazers" and the aspirations, frustrations and successes they experienced at Tuskegee as a part of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Lt. Roy LaGrone, a retired Tuskegee Airman, looking back and remembering his war experiences, decided "I am very anti-war.

Life is very precious to me. There should be more sitting down at the table and threshing things out. There should be more talking." Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking at the Tuskegee Airmen's 20th Anniversary National Convention in Detroit, pledged, "I will never forget." Yes, remembering is very important business.

Remember the Alamo. Remember the Maine. Remember Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7). And, Remember the Tuskegee Airmen.

Playing, singing blues are all feel LARKSDALE, Miss. The $100 blues slip from beneath the tent where those with the tickets sit, slips out into a foggy night along the Sunflower River and slides through the alleys and street corners and. parking lots, past the Sassy Salon, where style and sophistication trieet, onto Highway 61 and the store where they'll give you instant cash for your car title if you stay too long at the Lady Luck. You cannot bottle the blues and sell it like French perfume. It'll LETTERS to the editor IMPEACHABLE ACTS Better get to the library The business of impeaching President Clinton based on lying to the grand jury over sex is a bit ridiculous, considering that he has committed some things that should be real impeachable items.

1. Monies accepted from the Red Chinese for campaigning. 2. Turning some of our military to the direct control of the U.N. 3.

Turning the control of some of our National Parks over to the U.N. and making luce it is the EPA or the environmentalists doing the controlling. 4. Our involvement in a civil war (Bosnia) where we have been for the past two years. The cost of this is being borne by NATO.

Who pays most of NATO? You guessed it. 5. Trying to lease our closed naval repair facilities at Long Beach, the Red Chinese Military. These should all be impeachable offenses. Yet, if you look at them it shows that Congress has not done their too well.

For those of you that are so stupid and that's most of you, you had bet' ter get to the library and read some of the stuff available and see what the real purpose is. You had better find what a Bilderberger is and their agenda. Mr. Clinton is a member. You had better check on a few other things.

You, for the most part, are responsible for the mess this country is in because you have refused tp get involved. Most of you claim to be good Christians and other sects'that have a belief in God. I wonder, is God going to forgive you for your lack of involvement? Particularly considering this nation was founded on principles that came straight from the Bible. C.L.Alfred Peru UNIQUE PERSON Shannon was inspirational Shannon Johnson, who died recently, was a friend, fellow educator and an inspiration to mankind. She was a "bubbly" person to experience, yet there was deep compassion for others in that vibrant personality.

David Weatherford so aptly expressed my sentiments for Shannon with the following words: "Every person has been given the gift of a unique self, and the purpose of life tp share the very best of that gift with the world." Shannon did that with her students. The teaching profession has lost one RHETA GRIMSLEY JOHNSON SYNDICATED COLUMNIST of its best. We will all miss her. Gail E. Trammell Sycamore School WORK APPRECIATED Congratulations county treasurer Congratulations to Ann Wells, Howard County Treasurer, for her efforts to collect delinquent personal property taxes.

As one of 10 assessors in the field, we do our best to get personal property forms filled out and meet deadlines at the county assessor's office. After all the paperwork, it's not fair that some people just choose not to pay their taxes. It means we're just spinning our wheels in our townships and the county entities are not gaining anything from the delinquencies, My answer has always been plan ahead, if you drive a nail, you're going to pay real estate taxes and if you hang out a shingle, you're going to pay personal property taxes, That's the state law, not Ann's. I believe Chat's fair for one is fair for all The taxes should be eliminated in our state or you must pay them. I commend her.

JanRaisor Kokomo 7 spill. Sarah's Kitchen and Bar is located just a few blocks from the big weekend benefit concert they threw to help relocate the Delta Blues Museum. In the spring the museum will move from the town's Carnegie library to another local landmark, the Illinois Central Railroad Freight Depot. Meanwhile, a small crowd with-, out tickets comes together at Sarah's. Sarah's isn't fancy, and it isn't very big.

The sign by the door says "Cold Beer. Fried. i Sarah sells tarhaies, io'o, "33 This is one of thostfjJlates" every patron knows how- box play without paying a cent. Somebody chooses "Casino Blues." Sarah's has its own blues museum. One wall is like a giant bulletin board.

Lonnie Pitchford's recent obituary is taped up there. Lonnie was local, known for diddly-bo. He only made the one album, in 1994, but it took him all the way from Clarksdale to Carnegie Hall. A story about a Sam Chatmon memorial is on the wall; he hailed from Hollandale, just down the road. And Aaron Henry's death notice is posted; he was the longtime head of Mississippi's NAACP chapter.

He knew the blues. There's a picture of Aretha Franklin, too. If Sarah's has live music, and it usually does, the cover charge is $3.. A sign says Little Jeno Tucker will be playing here soon, with Tolivar's Auto Salvage as the sponsor. Tonight Billy Smiley's Band wears red cummerbunds and looks like a million.

Billy and the others fiddle with their instruments, waiting for a bigger audience. Once they start, once they commit that first note, you get the feeling there will be no breaks. (The electricity does go out at one point killing guitars, Christmas lights, keyboards but nobody seems surprised. Maybe it needs to happen, just to let the joint cool down for a few minutes.) Most of the blues singers were born and started to play within 100 miles of each other, B.B. King has said.

If that's so, and it is, Clarksdale is the hub. People go tq work here, and punch a clock, or sometimes each other, they marry and have children and pretty much carry on exactly like the rest of the human race. But on Saturday nights in the Mississippi Delta, they make a kind of music that really can't be exported. You can send out an ambassador or two with samples, but to get the full dose you better come here. "The biggest misconception about blues is that it's easy," bluesman Joe Louis Walker told blues photographer Jeff Dunas.

"It's the hardest music in the world to play because it's all feel, It's not notes. You can go to the guitar institute and learn how to play notes. You can play fusion, you can play jazz, you can read it off the books. You can play in an orchestra with Doc Severinsen. You can't do that with blues." Billy Smiley hands the micro- phone to a woman sitting in booth, and she grabs it like it's money, She feels the song, and sings it, and the crowd on Sunflower Street smiles and claps and swells toward another dawn..