Walter C Uhler » Current Events
My Letter to Jerry Sandusky’s Lawyer and His Grateful Response
On 3 February 2012, I sent a letter to Joseph Amendola, the lawyer representing Jerry Sandusky, to alert him to my critique of the assertions about “Victim 2” found in the grand jury presentment made public on 5 November 2011. The letter said: “Dear Mr. Amendola: I’ve been examining the evidence concerning the Sandusky scandal, insofar as it affected Joe Paterno and Penn State University, my alma mater. Perhaps you saw my letter in the Center Daily Times on January 25, 2012, titled “Investigate the Grand Jury.” It provided a brief summary of a lengthy article I’ve written: “Three False Assertions by the Grand Jury turned the Press and Public against Joe Paterno and Penn State.” I’ve enclosed a copy of the article for your perusal. As the New York Times has correctly observed, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Sandusky Scandal
Republicans Court the “White Trash” Vote in Alabama and Mississippi
Although it was far behind Texas, in 2011 Alabama executed more prisoners than any other state in the United States. Citizens of Alabama live in more mobile homes per capita than all but three other states. Alabama has the third worst infant mortality rate in the United States, the third lowest life expectancy, and the second highest obesity rate. Only four states have more single parent households per capita than the great state of Alabama. Mississippi is worse. It has the lowest per capita income in the United States, the highest percentage of persons living below the poverty level, the fourth highest unemployment rate, the third highest percentage of mobile homes per capita, the highest infant mortality rate, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
Let’s Reverse the Spread of the Social Diseases Already Blighting the Republican-Controlled American South
There was a time during the mid-1980s when many of America’s Soviet scholars asked themselves how a man possessing the moral fiber, education and stellar capabilities of Mikhail Gorbachev could possibly have risen through the political ranks of a thoroughly corrupt and bankrupt Soviet socialist system. Today serious Americans should be asking themselves whether it is even remotely possible that a Republican Gorbachev could emerge from the socially diseased American South. If you look at our last Republican President from the South, George W. Bush, you will recognize the problem. During Bush’s eight years in office, America: (1) suffered the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history, (2) heard false assertions about weapons of mass destruction and ties to al … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
Incompetent Journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer Slandered Joe Paterno
On Sunday, 5 February 2012, the Philadelphia Inquirer featured Michael Smerconish’s opinion piece about Joe Paterno; further demonstrating that the newspaper has been overrun by journalistic mediocrities, if not morons. The inordinate amount of pure rubbish about Paterno in the Inquirer has been astounding. Consider the column by Bob Ford, “Indictment of former Penn State coach on sex-abuse charges could bring down Paterno,” published in the Inquirer on 6 November 2011, one day after the Attorney General’s office issued the grand jury’s presentment indicting Jerry Sandusky, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. Although its title says the indictment “could” bring down Paterno, Ford’s third paragraph actually asserts that “Paterno cannot and should not survive…” The outrage permeating Ford’s article indicates he uncritically accepted … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Sandusky Scandal
Gingrich Wins in the “Sahara of the Bozart”
Racism is alive and well in the Republican Party of South Carolina. You saw it up close and personal if you watched the recent presidential debates in that state and heard symbolic racists in the audience cheer Newt Gingrich every time he offered up the newest racial code words. Code words are required in the Sahara of the Bozart because ugly overt racism needed to be replaced and has been replaced by what scholars call “symbolic racism”- “a coherent set of beliefs including the sense that discrimination is no longer an obstacle for blacks, that their current lack of upward social mobility is caused by their unwillingness to work hard, that they demand too much of government, and that they have received … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics
Joseph Vincent Paterno Died Today, but his “Grand Experiment” Lives On!
I never had the honor to actually meet Joe Paterno. Once, during the early 1970s, we exchanged “Hellos!” as he hurried past me down the tree-lined pavement that takes you from the Pattee Library (now the “Pattee and Paterno Libraries”) to College Avenue at Allen Street. I also saw him up close at a few of “our” football pep rallies in Rec Hall and at a larger pep rally held outside in sunny California, on the eve of “our” Rose Bowl game against the Oregon Ducks. Of course, I saw him at a distance as he paced the sidelines during the forty years that I have held season tickets to Penn State’s home football games. Nevertheless, during the forty years since … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events
The Debt Ceiling, S&P’s Credit Downgrade and “Boobus Americanus”
For that rare American possessing at least an ounce of brains, yesterday’s New York Times/CBS News poll once again demonstrated that his fellow citizens are clowns who richly deserve the derision that much of the world now is heaping upon them. That poll, conducted in the wake of the “debt ceiling” debacle, tells us that a full 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of how the U.S. Congress is doing its job. Unfortunately, the pollsters didn’t ask Americans how well they perform their job as informed citizens. Neither did they ask Americans precisely when they became concerned or informed about the debt ceiling. Had they done so, they probably would have learned that the interest of Americans peaked only after they were … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Politics