Some Flighty Points to Ponder on the Plane to Pakistan

People say funny things under pressure, such as the guy years ago playing the TV game show “Family Feud.” Given only 15 seconds to win big money, the idea was to match his answers to five rapid-fire questions with those most often given by 100 audience members. The time pressure obviously unnerved the poor guy, because when asked to name a popular tourist destination for Americans, he responded with “Pakistan.”

I am under similar pressure, which may explain the following observations:

* Show of hands, please. How many of you oppose challenges to Proposition 187--on the grounds that it was approved by voters--and yet support those against Measure A, the El Toro airport initiative that was also approved by voters?

* In 1992, Orange County offered New Hampshire Larry Agran as a presidential candidate. This year, we’re giving them Bob Dornan. Wonder if they think we’re a little schizophrenic out here?

* Watching Detective Tom Lange testify in the O.J. Simpson trial raises this question: Did he study Sipowicz on TV’s “NYPD Blue” or did Sipowicz study him?

* If I’m ever laid off, William J. Popejoy is the guy I want giving me the news.

* For the life of me, I can’t understand why Huntington Beach felt the need to clutter up an already visually polluted Beach Boulevard with new signs on the median for dinky side streets that in some cases run for about half a block. Believe me, anyone looking for those streets knows where they are.

* Baseball players and owners remind me of divorced parents fighting over custody of their children. Blinded by a contempt for each other that creates an obsession to “win,” each is convinced of their own righteousness and the other’s depravity. Of course, it’s all under the guise of doing what’s right for the children.

* Those folks over at the Brain Imaging Center at UC Irvine are an ongoing source of interesting news. Whether its research on schizophrenia or memory loss or, most recently, stuttering, they always inform and entertain.

* One of the analysts for the Simpson trial said F. Lee Bailey’s upcoming cross-examination of Mark Fuhrman will be the most watched event in courtroom history. I doubt seriously, however, that it will match the drama of Woody Allen interrogating himself in “Bananas.”

* Somewhere, former Orange County Congressman William Dannemeyer is saying “I told you so.” A large bloc of doctors within the California Medical Assn. says the CMA should reverse itself and support a requirement that anyone testing positive for HIV be reported to local health authorities.

* Another good bumper sticker: “My grandkid is cuter than yours.”

* Some people say this column is too negative. All right, take this: I think Orange County drivers, on the whole, are the best I’ve seen.

* John Moorlach wants to be remembered as the Paul Revere of the Orange County financial debacle. We’ll grant him that, but, remember, Paul Revere never went on to serve in the new government.

* I’m not saying my aunt is a little behind the curve, but she asked me if I’d seen “ Foster Gump.”

* Any public debate about “teen-age sex” is incomplete and misdirected if it just focuses on teens, says Mike Males, a graduate student in the School of Social Ecology at UC Irvine. He cites statistics indicating that two-thirds of the males involved in the pregnancies of local junior high girls were 19 or older.

* While we’re on the subject, the “National Fatherhood Tour” will stop Friday morning at Western Medical Center. The featured speaker will be David Blankenhorn, author of “Fatherless America,” and the man emerging as a spokesman on fatherhood issues.

* Sorry, but I just can’t believe that getting rid of bilingual education is the way to go. Parents at most of the community meetings I’ve attended in Santa Ana know their Spanish-speaking children need to learn English, but it seems rather obvious that lower-elementary schoolchildren who don’t speak it will suffer if they can’t understand what’s being taught. It’s no different than the kid with failing eyesight who can’t see the blackboard and, therefore, doesn’t learn.

* Add baseball: Let me see if I follow the striking players’ logic: They made us do without the World Series for the first time ever, and yet they somehow think we can’t do without them in April?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.