Adele Ferguson

ITEM—Debate continues over how to punish Penn State University following release of the Freeh Report on the child sex abuse scandal in which it was found that top university officials, including beloved football coach, the late Joe Paterno, focused on protecting assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky to avoid endangering the football program. A decision is awaited from the NCAA on whether to cancel this year’s season or longer which would result in loss of millions of dollars amidst pleas that this year’s players were not part of the problem.

COMMENT—I say let ‘em play. But give all the profits from ticket sales, etc., to Sandusky’s victims. Penn State is described as a football mad university, an athletic culture gone sick in which children were knowingly exposed to a predator for over a decade to avoid bad publicity for the game. Let’s see how much they really do love football if the coaching staff is paid nominal salaries instead of the six and seven figure salaries they have commanded, and the school must make do without ticket revenue.

(The NCAA decision on Penn State came after this column was written.)

ITEM—Seattle has joined seven other U.S. cities and dozens of corporate employers in the ongoing constitutional challenge to the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which limits marriage to a one man-one woman union. The plaintiffs, who include Microsoft and Starbucks, filed a brief stating that DOMA forces them as employers to create two separate groups of married employees, gay and straight, when providing workplace benefits. DOMA, with its uneven treatment of married couples, is detrimental to attracting the best and the brightest workers, they said, A bill allowing same sex marriages and signed into law by Governor Gregoire is on the November ballot as a referendum.

COMMENT—Well, I have long referred to Seattle as San Francisco Light in its dedication to encouraging and protecting the gay culture, thanks to the identity of some of its members. No, I won’t name them. It’s going a little too far, however, in pleading that allowing them to marry is necessary to attract the best and brightest. That’s saying that being homosexual makes you smarter than the rest of us which may be true and if so there are a lot of smart people I know in high places who must still be in the closet.

ITEM—President Obama is trying to play up his roots to the middle class with campaign trail tales of how his grandfather needed a government loan to afford college, his single mother struggled to raise two kids, while working and putting herself through college, and his wife’s father worked at a water plant.

COMMENT—My understanding of his up-bringing is that his mother dumped him on her parents so she could live the single life. And he’s coming a little late to the middle class. How many times since he was elected hasn’t he referred to himself in pitching for higher taxes on “millionaires like me?”

ITEM—Bragging about military honors you didn’t receive is despicable yet still constitutional, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. The First Amendment does not protect all lying, said the majority opinion, but it protects lies like those in the case brought to them. The defendant who claimed to have been awarded the Medal of Honor was charged with violation of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 but the law failed to take into account whether material gain was sought or harm done to true Medal earners.

COMMENT-What the heck, if politicians can lie about their accomplishments and their opponents’ shortcomings as the Court previously ruled, what’s the harm in letting phony heroes have their day in the sun even if it’s fictional?

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)