Leave the kids alone, please!

Where will it all end? It seems that just as we get past one horrible case of child sexual abuse, another one crops up. Certainly, there were many cases of child sex abuse before the Catholic Church got hit with scandal upon scandal regarding many of its priests who took it upon themselves to take advantage of the young boys in their charge. It has taken years to unravel that mess, and many of the priests have escaped justice because the church itself had been hindering the investigations.

The next turn of events brought us into the college sports arena, where the Jerry Sandusky incident at Penn State University played out over several months. It seemed like eternity as the stories came out slowly and painstakingly. And the horror that Penn State officials were complicit in some extent to enabling Sandusky to continue his vile acts on those poor kids.

Sandusky’s case seems to have precipitated two others, Bernie Fine, the assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University, and Louis "Skip" ReVille, 32, who was working as a school principal in South Carolina when he was arrested last fall for sex abuse accusations involving 15 victims while he was a camp counselor at The Citadel. All of these places are highly reputable, and in some sense seem to be above suspicion for those kinds of allegations. And yet, here we are.

But these kinds of cases aren’t just US issues. In sunny old England, Sir Jimmy Savile, an eccentric and jocular host of children’s shows and charity fund raisers, has recently fallen under accusations of child sex abuse by a number of women who claim he abused them when they were children. Ironically enough, his associates said that there had long been rumors of Savile having his way with these youths. But for whatever reason, no one took them seriously and no one bothered to investigate. That sounds a lot like the Sandusky case, doesn’t it?

It seems that Mr. Savile, who died last year at 84, followed a pattern that even the British media says resembles the Sandusky pattern. The following comment comes from bigstory.AP.org, an Associated Press website:

Child protection advocates say the case fits a pattern seen in the response to the child-molesting Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and in the English town of Rochdale, where a gang of men groomed vulnerable young girls for sex. Authorities in both places have been criticised for failing to act on claims of abuse.

Savile, like Sandusky, may have become too big a name to touch, so the local officials there also opted to take the “do nothing” path that Penn State followed so well. It is appalling that people in authority fail to make the proper step in such situations and call in the authorities.

And if all that isn’t enough, now we have the Sesame Street version, with the voice actor behind the character Elmo being dogged by the same kinds of sexual abuse allegations. When the issue first appeared it seemed to get “resolved” via a monetary payoff.

But, as it happens with many of these sex abuse cases, more victims start to appear. Now, Kevin Clash has two additional lawsuits against him for sexual abuse of teenage boys. It seems that Mr. Clash was “trolling gay telephone chat lines seeking underage boys for sex” according to one CBVS News account.

With such things cropping up every day, it sort of makes you wonder a bit. I think, for most people, it makes you take an extra look at things that on the face of it seem a little odd.  But sex abuse never really crossed the minds of the school personnel, who thought that Jerry Sandusky had a heart of gold while he was really raping students at their school.

Most of these cases, or at least a good portion of them, could have been avoided if people who were in the position to do something about it, just did something. It’s a shame that these people failed to take action when they were in a prime position to do so. It supports the 18^th Century British Philosopher Edmund Burke’s statement: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing!”

Election's over: Now get your butts to work!

It’s time to set aside our differences, remove whatever hatchet or axe we think is stuck in our skulls or backs, and get back to the business of running the country. Regardless of whom you cast a vote for it’s the job of our representatives to move the country along in a positive direction. We have a great many issues facing us, not the least of which revolves around the so-called fiscal cliff, and we need our Federal representatives to work together for the good of the country.

For one person, I am really tired of Federal stagnation. Whatever happened to doing what is best for the country, and not doing what will frustrate the other parties? I thought the job of our elected officials was progress. It seems we get caught up in cronyism, partisan politics, and a lot of other secondary and tertiary matters that does nothing except make things worse for us taxpayers.

So Barrack Obama won, and won convincingly, I might add. The country has spoken. Despite the GOP’s constant assault, they were not able to generate enough enthusiasm to win the election.

It’s time to think about that.

Over the last four years, the GOP has had this underpinning idea that if they could stall long enough, they would be able to oust Obama in the 2012 election. Wrong! Guess what? That means the majority of the populace approves of what the Democrats have been putting in place. It means, despite the egos, that the populace wants to continue to follow that path.

It’s time to stop being an obstacle, and try to move on. There is room for compromise. But someone has to make the first steps. Congress needs to find some reconciliation to put the needs of the country first.  There’s time enough to rebuild the parties and restructure the planks to address what might happen in 2016, but if we don’t start making positive steps we may not need to worry about the election four years hence.

It’s time we found common ground. Can we find common ground? Yes, it may not be what you want, but it can be enough of what you want to be a workable solution. We need to have a budget, we need to stick to the budget, and we need to fund the budget. I don’t know about you, but running a house without some semblance of a budget is hard enough, I can’t imagine what it might be for the government. Oh, no, wait a minute, that’s not totally true. Running the government without a budget brings us to the state we are in now.

Let’s start there. Let’s vote for a budget, and work out whatever needs to be done to get us there. Most people are not against Obamacare apparently, and certainly we live in a time when some kind of basic medical care ought to be provided. The issue is who gets it, and what’s it going to cost. The law is already more costly than its supporters first indicated. No question any form of socialized medicine is going to be a burden on the tax payers, but so be it. It’s not like we can do anything about that now. The thing to do now is find the pieces that are broken or that don’t work as prescribed, and fix them. No one expects a policy of this size to go through without there being a few bugs.

Instead of whining and crying about a bitter defeat, it’s time that Boehner and his cronies settle down to the business of governing. Quit putting up roadblocks, and start working on cleaning up the grid-lock that defines Washington DC. If you are unwilling to work things out, maybe you are the problem.

Enablers beware; Penn State Officials Face Legal Action

It’s about time.

The Penn State saga has been playing out for years now, and finally the monster Jerry Sandusky has been put away essentially for life, getting a 30-60 year sentence for molesting at least 10 boys. No question in my mind that this ogre needs to be locked away in a cell where he can’t get at anyone and no one can get at him. But there were other people involved in this horrific tale, enablers that so far have escaped justice.

It may be in the end that the buck stops with Sandusky. But for me, there are certainly many high-ranking Penn State officials who either tacitly or actively allowed Sandusky to continue his vile practices even after the specter of his deeds had been brought to their attention. Right away, two members of the Penn State elite were held on charges of perjury, conspiracy, and endangering the welfare of children. Former Penn State President Graham Spanier, who was arraigned on those charges last week and allowed to remain free on $125,000 bail, is the latest to come under scrutiny. The courts already had their eyes on former Athletic Director Tim Curley and ex-Vice President Gary Schultz, who were both charged during Sandusky’s year-long investigation and subsequent conviction. It’s also reasonable to assume that had Joe Paterno not passed away earlier this year that he too may have been brought up on the charges.

One thing is for certain, that group of men was aware of Sandusky’s actions with these children and did nothing. Whether they were concerned with how Penn State would look, or how it might affect their vaunted football team, if the evidence holds up they appear to be pretty guilty.

The Louis Freeh report, which details the actions of these men concerning how they handled the Sandusky incident, seems to indicate that not only were they aware of what was going on they actively chose to ignore it. Instead, they offered Sandusky the opportunity to clean up his act, instead of immediately notifying the police.

In one e-mail, Spanier agrees with the plan to not notify the police or child protective services. It’s mind boggling to think that three highly educated men would simply ignore the moral imperative and continue with a plan of action that allowed the crimes to continue for 13 more years.

I remember to this day when I first heard about Jerry Sandusky being passed over as Joe Paterno’s replacement as head coach. It was interesting at the time, because Sandusky appeared to be exactly the person who should take over the program. After all, he was the brains behind their terrific defenses, and likely the main reason Penn State had been called Linebacker U for so long. And yet there it sits. That was a huge clue to something being amiss at Happy Valley. Looking back, it’s pretty easy to connect the dots and realize that Paterno’s move to oust Sandusky was likely related to the sexual abuse case.

What else could it have been?

Truly, this is damnation to all men. Here we have, arguably, some of the finest minds of our times. Are there any more vaunted people than those who serve as college presidents, vice presidents, athletic directors, and football coaches? The one thing you expect out of them is a rigid fairness and adherence to principles above all else. And yet we get this mess at Penn State?

It could have, for the most part, been avoided. The right thing to do, really the only thing to do, was to notify the authorities immediately when they caught wind of such allegations.

It would have been difficult for the university, but in the end they would have come down on the right side of things. Instead, they find themselves in a much bigger mess. By allowing Sandusky to continue to molest these children, they made themselves part of the crime. In addition, by not turning Sandusky in, they also put the college on the spot, destroyed its reputation, and set it up for unending lawsuits.

It will be a tremendous shock to me if these men are not guilty of enabling Sandusky. Isn’t that really what they are being tried for?

In the end, we can only hope that the process of justice through the courts is fair, fast, and final. All the yelling and screaming and ballyhoo can’t for a second diminish what these men are partly responsible for. The cases need to be heard. Let’s see how they fare under a jury of their peers.

The "Acapulco Gold" gold rush, or Go West Young Stoner!

Move over California Gold Rush, Colorado and Washington are bringing you the “Acapulco Gold” gold rush. By passing marijuana legalization laws in both states, things are going to get just a bit squirrely in those states over the next year or so.

Since the Federal government considers marijuana illegal and prohibits its use, it will be very interesting to see how those two states work out their differences with the Feds. Passage of the measure in Colorado prompted Gov. John Hickenlooper to comment, “This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.”

Colorado’s law states that adults over 21 can possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, or six marijuana plants, for personal use. The state anticipates benefiting from potential taxes.

Opponents say it will make the state a marijuana mecca for drug tourists. But then, I guess they haven’t been on the slopes at Steamboat Springs lately, either.

In Washington, initiative 502 legalizes and regulates the production, possession, and distribution of marijuana for residents 21 and older. The new law imposes a 25 percent tax rate on pot when the grower sells it to the processor, when the processor sells it to the retailer, and when the retailer sells it to the customer. Supporters believe the measure could bring in $500 million annually, a figure some analysts dispute. Both laws include a pot DUI limit.

But unlike the famous Bob Dylan line, “everyone must get stoned,” marijuana initiatives failed in some states. In Oregon, for instance, voters defeated Measure 80, which would have legalized the sale of pot through state-licensed stores, allowed unlicensed growth and use of marijuana by adults, and prohibit restrictions on pot.

Analysts say the measure failed in Oregon mainly because the supporters were too high to make their case—not! In reality, they believe the supporters lacked organization and funding. In Washington, the change was supported by a large number of prominent Washington State officials:  John McKay, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington; Peter Holmes, Seattle city attorney; and Kim Marie Thorburn MD and MPH, former director of the Spokane Regional Health District just to name a few.

Colorado, which has a thriving medical marijuana industry, also had support for and cash to help sway its electorate. But not all states with marijuana initiatives were as successful:  Arkansas rejected a measure to legalize medical marijuana, but in Massachusetts a similar measure passed.

What didn’t pass in Massachusetts was assisted suicide; the measure failed 51 percent to 49 percent, which leaves room for a future attempt.

In addition to pot, Washington also approved a same sex marriage initiative, as did Maine and Maryland; meanwhile, Minnesota’s attempt to ban same-sex marriages failed by 52 to 47 percent.

It ought to be right interesting to see how many people migrate to Colorado and Washington over the next few years. I am certain the gold rush in those two states will far outpace the California gold rush of 1849; and the Klondike gold rush of 1899.  The California gold rush brought in an estimated 300,000 prospectors, and about 100,000 responded to the Klondike gold rush.

No question in my mind that Colorado and Washington will both experience population boosts far surpassing those paltry numbers put up by the other gold rushes. Their respective populations will increase significantly, and they will soon be worth more Electoral College votes.

We should have been this ready for Irene

This time we were more than ready. When reports about potential storm disaster from super-storm Sandy carried over the air waves, my family took them to heart. We remembered all too well the problems with Irene and Lee and felt that Sandy looked far more ominous and dangerous. The radar images showed a storm perfectly capable of covering the entire eastern seaboard, and in fact the outer bands of the storm did bring a bit of rain and some minor winds to the area.

Still, as we cleaned up the yard, put away lawn chairs, locked down plastic trash cans, and unchained the porch swing, I wondered about the storm track. I have had a lot of experience with hurricanes, and I know that late season hurricanes are particularly hard to track. For one thing, there aren’t many of them to use as tracking samples, and for two the colder ocean temperatures cause them to do odd things. Hurricanes are hard to track anyway, but ones like Sandy are extremely difficult to herd.

So, although I went along with the general clean up and gathering of flashlights, candles, oil lamps, and matches, I wondered just exactly how much of the storm would affect us. All of the tracking that I saw called for the storm to move north of Richmond, some of them quite a bit north, with a more likely landing on the Eastern shore or in Maryland. Even if the guess was right on, it was hard for me to believe that we would get much more out of Sandy than we actually did. Sandy was too far away to have any catastrophic weather problems here, I thought.

But a warning is a warning and the preparations always serve as a good drill. With the schools closed for two days, my family hunkered down to ride things out, while I calmly went about my business and drove to work.

As it turned out, the storm wobbled a bit further north than anticipated, coming ashore near Cape May, New Jersey, and heading up the Jersey shore. Atlantic City probably got the worst of all hits. Around home, we waited as the TV news kept moving back the time when Richmond would feel the strongest effects of the mega-storm. First it was Sunday night, then it was Monday, and finally it was supposed to be at its worst around midnight Monday.

To be honest, we have had much more damaging squalls than what Sandy brought to the Tri-Cities. That’s not to say the storm wasn’t dangerous. It was, but we clearly, weren’t part of its main thrust.

Where the storm did hit, it caused dire problems. All along New Jersey’s shore, power outages, flooding, trees down—the sort of damage one expects from a hurricane. On Long Island, things may actually have been worse. In addition to the flooding, power outages, and trees down, fires raged in several areas burning down scores of homes and leaving many people with little left than the lot on which their homes had stood.  More than 100 homes in Breezy Point burned to the ground.

And then there’s New York City itself. It says something when Wall Street closes for two days. But how long it may take for the city to right itself no one can tell. Tunnels filled with water, subways with water woes, and power outages all over.

The government is guessing that Sandy may cost as much as $20 billion in damage. That would probably be a record for a storm. Topping $10 billion would put the storm damage in the top five, including Katrina and Andrew.

We in the Tri-Cities were fortunate that the storm did very little damage. Now it’s time to support those areas of the country that came to our aid when hurricanes put us out of commission for months.