Give me a break!!! Just because Joe Paterno chose to remain quiet does not mean that he didn’t run a squeaky clean program at Penn State and did until the day that he was relieved of his duties there. According to the information I have, he was told about the incident by some one on his staff; but being told about it, is a far cry from having hard, substantial evidence. One shouldn’t fire people without evidence, especially where child abuse is involved. It is often hard to get that evidence after the fact. Even the police have great difficulty in doing so. Joe Paterno was running a mostly winning football program. I’m sure he didn’t have the time to initiate such an investigation on his own. Some might say that he should have turned it over to the appropriate authority in the University Administration, but he would need more hard evidence than the word of an underling to do that. The best thing to do under the circumstances is to sit back, be quiet, and to hope and pray for the best. Besides child abuse is occurring practically everywhere in the age of the sorriest generation, especially in the schools that are trying to educate that generation. Just read the newspapers. It pops up everywhere. Hard evidence is hard to come by. One shouldn’t be investigated for child abuse without hard evidence.

Here you go again, condemning without real evidence. Initiating an investigation, mostly in the Media, for child abuse and sex with minors without real evidence is as bad as the act of child abuse and sex with minors themselves because such an investigation alone can mark a truly innocent person for life. I remember seeing the kind of bathroom scenes as I’ve seen concerning this case in the bathrooms of Pickens County High School when I was a student there. Of course, the scenes in my memory all involved students; but, if all the students of PCHS carried video smart phones then, as they do now, the possibility of the kind of video occuring as I have seen on television would be greatly increased. If our democracy is going to survive, we must be able to control and handle our technology, especially when it is in the hands of children and students. With so many kids having video phones, it will be hard for Jerry Sandusky to avoid being convicted in the Media before his case is adequately ajudicated.

Can you imagine the kind of video clips that may have come out of PCHS when you and I were there had video smart phones been as prevalent as they are now? Now those scenes only exist in my fading memory as I age, which is where they belong. Today there appears to be an overwhelming propensity by many to record everything regardless of one’s personal right to privacy simply because they can. The possibility and hope of a big payoff in the Media may be an incentive as well. I am not trying to defend Jerry Sandusky, or anyone on the Penn State Atheletic Program; but, at least, let’s give them a fair shake, the likes of which is becoming increasingly difficult when untrained individuals raised without proper morality possess such powerful tools as video recording smart phones.

I don’t expect you to agree with me, but any determination of quilt or innocence is impossible as long as uncontrolled video taken by not-so-innocent kids all of which always have an ulterior motive is continually sprayed over the Media. Please remember that it is always illegal to take video pictures of anyone without that persons expressed, verbal consent. To protect the videotaker, it is often advisable to get it in writing. A persons right to privacy as quaranteed by the Constitution demands at least that much. I doubt if the videotaker of the video shown on the Media in regards to this case ever got any such consent.

One should be very careful today, whether in public facilities or any public place, especially in airports, to avoid being the object of a privately running “candid camera” smartphone. Although one may be involved in innocent pursuits 99% of the time, one can easily be caught in an enbarassing situation that could be difficult to explain in the other 1%. My main point is that kids with smart phones have a powerful tool that they are often inequipped to handle. Most are not congnizant of the legallity of the way they are using them. Let’s prosecute the illegal videotaker first as well as the Media outlet that first ran it, then let’s worry about investigating and prosecuting Jerry Sandusky for his alleged child abuse.