Unhappy Valley, PA

Image via WikipediaBubbling under the surface of a successful athletic program at Penn State University lies a sordid tale of a longtime assistant football coach who allegedly had his way with a number of boys in a youth program he ran.  Those who were in a position to do something about the alleged abuse were either too slow, or looked the other way.

Now come the consequences.  The former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, was arrested Monday and charged with many counts of sexually assaulting eight boys in a 15-year period.  Two school officials were charged with perjury for allegedly covering up for Sandusky.  Wednesday, the university fired its president Graham Spanier and longtime head football coach Joe Paterno for improperly handling the situation. (For more on Paterno, please see Owljock Gazette at http://theowljockgazette.blogspot.com/.)

Penn State, a state-run academic institution based in State College, has now set itself up for lawsuits from the alleged victims and their families because of the school's negligence.  They are also at odds with their own students, some of whom rioted in the streets when Paterno's departure was announced.

While the charges against Sandusky may have been shocking and painful, and Paterno's exit becomes fodder for media saturation coverage, we are reminded that this isn't really about them.  It's about the boys.  But it's pretty hard to care about the alleged victims because, being juveniles by law, they're required to remain in the shadows.

When it comes to child sexual abuse, those in a position of authority (teachers, administrators, coaches, etc.) must report what they see to local law enforcement.  However, the protocol is so vague that there are some instances where doing the right thing isn't enough, ensnaring otherwise well-meaning people in a legal mess.

As the case unfolds and more victims may or may not turn up, it becomes a question of trust.  Are parents willing to trust their child to school programs and non-profit youth organizations, run by who they believe to be responsible adults?  If, God forbid, something terrible happens, can that child ever trust another adult?

UPDATE:  Paterno died January 22 at the age of 85 from lung cancer complications, which had kept him in and out of the hospital since the scandal broke.  Now it just made things a whole lot murkier.

Herman Cain: The Past Is Present

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeRepublican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who doesn't have much of a campaign organization (except for Smoking Man Mark Block) and no visible means of support (unless you count the Koch brothers), is nonetheless in a dead heat with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, depending on which voter preference poll you believe.

But now Cain's campaign is threatened by allegations of sexual misconduct.  Four women have accused Cain of inappropriate remarks and actions during his tenure as president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.  Two of those women were allegedly paid off by the organization in exchange for their silence.  The other two, Sharon Bialek and Karen Kraushaar, were willing to go public with graphic descriptions of what they remember.

Cain has denied all the charges, but this scandal has sucked the air out of his campaign along with the rest of the GOP field.  Who wants to hear about his 9-0-9 tax plan (formerly known as 9-9-9), when one of his alleged victims is on TV describing how he had touched her in a place he shouldn't have?

What's disturbing about all this is the racial overtones.  There's a feeling among some that African-Americans like Cain shouldn't be in positions of power.  Clarence Thomas was on his way to becoming Supreme Court justice until Anita Hill went before a Senate committee to say she was sexually harassed by him.  And remember when conservatives demanded proof that President Barack Obama was actually born in this country?

What's also disturbing is that, in spite of all the laws that have been passed to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace, the incidents keep happening.  Is it too much to ask for people to act in a professional manner on the job while keeping their hands to themselves?

Having said that, how can we believe someone who accuses a public figure of sexual misconduct in any form while hiding in the shadows?  Just going through it must be painful enough.

Herman Cain continued to deny the accusations against him at a news conference in Arizona Tuesday, and said he is not dropping out of the GOP race.  Cain even said he doesn't know Bialik, and went so far as to say she was lying.  His poll numbers have not been affected by the scandal so far, and he seems content to let the voters decide his fate in the upcoming primaries.  But how long will it be before his past finally catches up?

Andy Rooney: Writer First, Celebrity Second

Image by billypalooza via FlickrTo anyone who's been watching CBS on Sundays, you've gotten used to hearing the phrase "Those stories--and Andy Rooney--tonight on '60 Minutes'" at the beginning of the broadcast.  That phrase became shortened after Rooney delivered his last curmudgeonly commentary a few weeks ago.  He died Friday at age 92 of complications from minor surgery.

In his 62 years at CBS, Rooney worked on many news and entertainment programs, writing for the likes of Arthur Godfrey, Garry Moore and Harry Reasoner.  Before that, he was in the Army covering World War II for the service newspaper "Stars and Stripes".

Rooney didn't start doing his end-of-the-show essays for "60 Minutes" until 1979.  Since then, he delivered more than a thousand commentaries focusing mostly on the minutiae of life (with the occasional serious piece thrown in) from his cluttered little office.

Sometimes, what Rooney wrote got him into trouble.  In a 1990 syndicated newspaper column, he made some offensive comments about gays that got him suspended by CBS for three months.  Public pressure forced the network to reduce Rooney's sentence, and he was back on the air in one month.

What we liked about Rooney was not just his appeal as the voice of the everyday man and woman.  It was also because he considered himself a writer first and a TV personality second, and he said as much in his final broadcast. 

"60 Minutes" has been on the air since 1968, and probably will continue to be as long as there is television.  Eventually, CBS will find someone to do end-of-the-show essays just like Andy Rooney did, and maybe that person will be just as plainspoken and witty as he was.  Good luck with that.

OWS: Not a Matter of LIfe and Death

Image by david_shankbone via FlickrThe Occupy Wall Street movement has branched out as the seasons change and the weather turns colder.  There are chapters popping up all over the country like McDonalds franchises, with varying degrees of success.  The message remains the same:  fighting for economic justice against the Wall Street bankers and corporations who have (more or less) taken over our government and our way of life.

The public seems to be on OWS' side so far, with a number of polls indicating a good chunk of support among those willing to be interviewed.

One small victory has already been achieved:  Bank of America and other financial institutions have dropped its controversial monthly fees for debit cards, which doesn't mean they won't bring it back in some other form when nobody's looking.

However, the OWS movement is being threatened by how unruly it's becoming.  While most demonstrations have been peaceful, local officials' efforts to shut down the parks used by the Occupiers for health and safety reasons have resulted in arrests and violent clashes with police in some cities.  In other places, such as Minneapolis, the Occupiers' numbers are dwindling and are being routinely ignored.

Conservatives are doing their best to counter the Occupiers by charging them with anti-Semitism (did you know that most Wall Street financiers tend to be Jewish?), referring to them as spoiled brats who think they're entitled and don't have anything better to do, and predicting their ultimate doom.  Of course, that's what people said about the Tea Party, except for the racism part in which African-Americans are substituted for Jewish people.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats would love to embrace the Occupiers, but there's a small problem.  The Occupiers don't think much of either the Democrats or the Republicans, because both parties' inaction in Washington is what contributed to their taking to the streets in the first place.  Then there's the fact that both parties will need corporate cash to help fund their 2012 election campaigns.  And if there's a public backlash against the Occupiers, the GOP will take over Congress and the White House.

In a previous post, we said that the OWS protest are nothing like the ones in 1968.  Let us explain. 

Not being able to find a job is not the same as getting drafted into the army, then being told to kill as many North Vietnamese (who looked remarkably like the South Vietnamese they were trying to defend) as possible.  Having your home foreclosed and your car repossessed isn't the same as African-Americans who lived in the Jim Crow South, intimidated from voting and forced to use separate facilities from white people.  And not being able to pay off your credit cards or student loans is nothing compared to the threat of nuclear war.

In other words, folks, whatever the Occupiers on Wall Street or Podunk, Nebraska are protesting against is not a matter of life or death.  It's retaining some semblance of what we used to call the American Way of Life.

The Iraq War, 2003-2011

Image via WikipediaJust when you thought the war in Iraq would never end, President Barack Obama announced Friday it would do just that by January 1.  That's nearly nine years, two U.S. presidents, over four thousand dead American soldiers (32,000 wounded), thousands more Iraqis killed, billions of dollars spent and one executed dictator.

The Obama administration would like you to believe that the war had come to a satisfying, yet honorable conclusion.  In reality, they failed to come to an agreement with the Iraqi government on keeping a small number of American soldiers for another couple of years, strictly for security purposes.  So the war ends with a whimper, not a bang.

This was a war that never should have happened.  There never was any evidence that Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destructiuon, harbored terrorists, or had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.  Instead of concentrating on the war they already had going in Afghanistan, President George W. Bush and his cronies decided this was the time to remore an "evildoer" from power.

After all the "shock and awe" caused by bombs raining down on Baghdad and environs resulted in Hussein's regime being toppled and his eventual capture, that's when the violence really began.  Insurgents planted roadside bombs, refugees fled, a version of Al-Qaeda appeared, and every day became a living hell for American soldiers and private contractors.  Back home, reports surfaced that the Bush administration lied about the reasons for going to war, that this was just a money-making operation for Blackwater and the oil companies, and that the Iraqi government itself was shaky.

After Obama became president, he added more troops in an effort to stabilize the situation in Iraq.  It must have worked because, as more forces came home, the country got a lot more peaceful.

Now, with much of the American military on their way out, with the exception of some contractors and guards to watch over the U.S. Embassy, the Iraqis really are on their own.  The government is still shaky, the military and police force aren't 100 per cent ready, and there's still the possibility of another civil war or Iranian invasion.  Whatever happens, Uncle Sam won't be around to keep the peace any more.

Which leaves us with another ongoing war in Afghanistan, now a decade old with even less reason for it to continue.  Eventually, American soldiers will be coming home from there, too.  And, as Gerald Ford once put it when he became President during another time of crisis, our long national nightmare might soon be over.

Arab Autumn

Image via WikipediaMuammar Gadhafi, who had ruled Libya for 42 years, had been on the run since rebel forces started fighting back against his dictatorship.  Thursday, Gadhafi stopped running.  He was killed when those forces brutally attacked him in Sirite, one of his few remaining strongholds.

This was the latest victory in the so-called "Arab Spring", with people all over the Middle East rising up to get rid of despots who hog the glory and loot the national treasure.  In this case it never would have happened without military support from NATO and, to a lesser extent, the United States.

So how have the other Mideast countries who have revolted fared?  For them, "Arab Spring" has had mixed results.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak may be gone but the military remains as the real power there, so the protests go on with less worldwide attention to bank on.  It remains to be seen whether the Egyptian people will still get the free elections they were promised.

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad has done an effective job so far of crushing his opposition through violence and intimidation while shutting out the rest of the world.  There's not much anyone can do about this without invoking the wrath of nearby Iran, which has its own ways of dealing with dissidents.  Use sanctions all you want, but remember Syria can always do business with China while the crackdown continues.

Now that Gadhafi is gone, all Libya and its people have to do is to form a credible (and palatable to the West) government.  Easier said than done, because the history of the Middle East is one of pharaohs, kings and strongmen, not democracy. 

Politics 2012: Fitting The Glass Slipper

Image via WikipediaThis is where we are in the Republicans' determining who gets to challenge President Barack Obama one year from now.  As the song goes, they still haven't found what they're looking for.  Or they say they haven't.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is the front-runner who's considered the best candidate to defeat Obama.  But no one seems to like him much.  For a GOP dominated by Tea Party conservatives and evangelicals, Romney's Mormonism and comparatively moderate political stance is a turnoff to them.  So who else is there?

Herman Cain, who used to run a pizza chain, has been hogging the political spotlight since winning a straw poll in Florida a few weeks ago.  Cain has no prior experience in politics, but he does seem to have a knack for telling the other candidates where to get off, which might come in handy should he ever decide to work for Fox News.  But his "9-9-9" plan to stimulate the economy, which is one part lower corporate tax rate, one part flat tax and one part national sales tax, does nothing to solve the rift between the rich versus everybody else.

Rick Perry, currently Governor of Texas, is fading in the polls because of his poor debate performances, and because of controversies the other candidates have helpfully been pointing out.  Such as Perry's executive order mandating HPV shots for teenage girls to protect against cervical cancer (which he now wishes he hadn't done).  And then there's the Perry family retreat, which was purchased from the original owner who had named the property with a word starting with the letter "N", which also happens to be the mother of all racial slurs.

Michele Bachmann, sixth-district Congresswoman from Minnesota, is still in the race--just barely.  As the campaign money disappears and staffers are fleeing the sinking ship, Bachmann presses on in Iowa hoping for a miracle in the upcoming caucuses.  Now that her Tea Party supporters have moved on to Perry, Bachmann's numbers are dipping into the single digits along with Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsmann and Ron Paul.  It's just a matter of time.

As the Republicans find their Cinderella among the Seven Dwarf's (with apologies to Snow White, Disney and the vertically challenged), the pool for finding their prince (or princess) is getting shallower.  Sarah Palin and New Jersey governor Chris Christie have declare themselves unavailable after having dithered for so long.  Anybody else contemplating a run now would either be brave or foolhardy.  But through all this, Mitt Romney has been right there.  The Republicans may have already found their knight in shining armor right under their noses, and they don't even know it.