Pennsylvania's primary election is just over three weeks away. My POLITICS page has been updated, and I am in the midst of coordinating coverage for my TV station.

At the moment, it appears that Lackawanna County will be the hotbed of primary activity. Around the viewing area, there are some 120 contested races that we'll be following. But, with a few exceptions, the most interesting are in Lackawanna County: five candidates for one open seat on the county bench; contested races for Scranton Mayor on both sides of the ballot; and five very intriguing ballot questions.

One ballot question asks voters if a government study commission should be formed. The current form of county government is three elected commissioners. The DRIVING FORCE behind the referendum supports a county executive/county council, like Luzerne County adopted. If the referendum passes, the government study commission could recommend that form, an alternative, or opt for the status quo.

The other four questions concern the row offices of Sheriff, Clerk of Judicial Records, Recorder of Deeds and Register of Wills. Voters will be asked to decide if each elected office, individually, should be eliminated and its duties and responsibilities deemed "legislative powers." The current commissioners say that eliminating these elected offices would save money (they still want a sheriff, but want the position to be appointed). Opponents see the move as a power grab.

As the ballot stands now, there are candidates from both parties running for three of these offices (Clerk of Judicial Records is not on the ballot this year). The race for Sheriff is contested on both sides; the race for Register of Wills is contested on the Democratic side. All three offices are set to be contested in November.

Thing is, the ballot questions propose eliminating each office at the end of the current elected term. So, the possibility exists that the candidates for Sheriff, Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds would become irrelevant after the primary.

My guess is that voters in Lackawanna County will say "yes" to the government study commission and "no" to eliminating the sheriff as an elected office. As for the other three row offices, I don't have any particular sense of how things will go, but I won't be surprised if voters say "yes" to some or all of them. These offices don't seem as politically charged as the Sheriff's office.

Tune in May 21 to find out.

As mentioned in the PREVIOUS POST, I watch too much TV - which is one reason why I don't blog as often as I should.

When last we left our discussion of my viewing habits, I was about to watch the premiere of a new ABC show, RED WIDOW. The main character is the daughter of a Russian mobster in San Francisco. Her husband and some other second-generation types have been running the business while she raises her kids. The trouble starts when some of those other second-generation types steal drugs from a rival mob boss. Soon, the mobster's daughter is a widow. That happened about 30 minutes into the two-hour premiere, and that's where I stopped watching. It didn't grab me, so I didn't stay.

Which is just as well because I have other new shows to watch. Namely, I am following THE FOLLOWING on Fox. The series stars Kevin Bacon as a former FBI agent. He helped put a Poe-loving serial killer named Joe Carroll behind bars. Now, Carroll has escaped and has inspired a league of followers to help him carry out his plan to get revenge and to win back his wife and child. The show is not very realistic, but it's good drama and there always seems to be something unexpected near the end of one episode to keep you watching the next. There are three episodes left this season, and it's been renewed for a second. It will be interesting to see if the current plotline continues in some form or if they start a new one (like "24" used to do).

I'm also looking forward to the second season of COPPER on BBC America. Here's the trailer:


The series is co-executive produced by Barry Levinson, who brought us "Homicide: Life on the Street." It's set in New York during the Civil War. The main character is Kevin Corcoran, an Irish immigrant who's returned from the war and is now a detective on New York's police force. He often turns for help to his friend, a doctor, who happens to be a free Black man. I think what makes "Copper" so interesting is its moral murkiness. Corcoran is basically a good guy, but he's not above breaking the law himself if it suits his purpose. There's the madam who loves Corcoran but who also has no problem killing one of her own girls. The moral uncertainty makes this show very unsettling to watch, but it also makes it very difficult to turn away.

Finally, I'm really looking forward to the third season of THE KILLING on AMC. The producers pissed off me (and a lot of other people) at the end of season one by creating a cliffhanger when everyone was expecting a resolution. But, I came back for season two, when there actually was a resolution, only to get pissed off again when AMC announced it had cancelled the show. Then, AMC relented and "The Killing" will return in June for a third season. The two main characters, played by Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman, are back, but the case will be new. Somehow, they'll have to get Enos' character, Det. Sarah Linden, back on the force since she was last seen walking away from pretty much everything and everyone.

So, yes I watch too much TV. But, at least I try to make sure that it's good TV.

Fact: I watch too much TV.
Fact: After a series that I watch comes to an end, I don't always look for something to replace it.
Fact: Somehow, I still manage to watch too much TV.

I don't know. Maybe I just get sucked in too easily. After all, I did watch "ONE TREE HILL" for a few years (the music was good, OK?) before the novelty of watching people in their mid-20s play generally unsupervised high school students finally wore off.

And, once I start watching a series, I'm more than likely to keep watching it until it ends or until it does something to really piss me off. I still haven't forgiven the folks at "KNOTS LANDING" for making Sid drive off a cliff. And that was back in the 80s!

Point is, I already watch a lot of TV, and, maybe because I grew up watching soap operas, I like to follow shows for a long time. Which means, if I'm going to invest time in a TV show, it better have a premise that will allow it to stick around for a while.

I realize that TV execs these days have pretty quick trigger fingers. New shows that aren't "hits" from the get go tend to be gone pretty quickly. But, I think some of the blame for this phenomenon must fall on the execs themselves for green lighting shows that don't have much of a future.

Case in point, ABC's recent show "LAST RESORT." Andre Braugher played the captain of a submarine that went rogue after the US military attacked it. I've been a fan of Braugher's since the brilliant "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET," so I gave "Last Resort" a chance but quit watching after about three episodes.

Why? Well, Braugher's character parked the sub near an island somewhere. When crew members went ashore, they found the natives not all that friendly. Plus, it didn't take anybody very long to figure out where they were. By the end of the third episode, quite a few crew members had already been killed. This isn't like "Star Trek" where more anonymous crew people could just be transported on board. At some point, and it seemed like it would happen pretty quickly, the sub was going to run out of crew members. Then what?

Alternately, let's assume that, at some point, Braugher's character actually wins. He proves his point or whatever, and the sub is allowed to return home. Maybe Braugher's character is even a hero for exposing treasonous behavior. Great. But, that scenario doesn't bode well for a show titled "Last Resort." Are more subs going to go rogue?

Either way you look at it, the show didn't seem as though it could be sustained beyond one season. Which, would be fine - if it were billed as one and done. If I knew that, I might have stuck around. But, the general assumption is that once a series starts, it has a life expectancy of "x," where x=as long as possible, preferably several years. "Last Resort" didn't seem like it could be sustained that long, so I quit while I was ahead. I think ABC cancelled the show a couple weeks later, but the 13 episodes that had been made were allowed to air.

Another ABC show, "ZERO HOUR," just got pulled after only three episodes. It started weak and went downhill from there. According to IMDb, 10 more episodes were shot, but they won't air. Instead, "Zero Hour" is being replaced immediately by encore presentations, i.e. repeats, of "Shark Tank." That's bad.

Based on the promos for the show, I had decided not to watch it. Like "Last Resort," it didn't seem as though it had a premise that would allow for a long life span. As I gathered from the promos, a man (Anthony Edwards, formerly of "ER") had one hour to solve a ridiculously complex puzzle if he wanted to save his wife or the world or maybe both. It appeared that the puzzle involved time travel. Even so, how long can you drag out one hour. Even TV, which tends to have no concept of how time works, can't make an hour last longer than one season, can it? Like I said, no future, no viewer.

Well, as I also said, I watch too much TV. While I wrote this, the DVR was recording the premiere of "RED WIDOW." Based on the promos, it seems like it could last longer than three episodes - if ABC allows it.

Last night, a friend and I ventured to Bloomsburg to see the BLOOMSBURG THEATRE ENSEMBLE'S production of Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It."

I almost didn't go. "As You Like It" is a play that I may or may not have read for the Shakespeare course I took during my junior year at Leeds. I say "may or may not" because I really can't remember. But, reading the synopsis on BTE's website, it sounded a lot like "Twelfth Night," a play which I definitely DID read (and have also seen performed). But, NEPA isn't Stratford, so it's not like you can see live Shakespeare anytime you want. So, I contacted my friend, bought tickets, and off we went.

I'm certainly glad we did.

The plot of "As You Like it" is roughly this: A mean, old Duke forces a young woman named Rosalind to flee the comfort of the court. She takes along her best friend, Celia. To help avoid capture, Rosalind disguises herself as a man, while Celia adopts an assumed name. They make it safely to the forest, where the good brother of the mean Duke has set up camp with some loyal followers.

The mean, old Duke also banishes his youngest son, Orlando, who he sees as worthless. Orlando and Rosalind have a brief encounter before they are both banished, but once they arrive in the woods, neither one knows that the other is there.

A lovesick Orlando scatters handwritten love notes to Rosalind throughout the forest. Rosalind sees them, and in her male disguise, promises to cure Orlando of his obsession. Of course, it's not that simple. Soon, Rosalind finds herself having to think fast to save her own romance, along with the romances of Celia, plus a smitten shepherd and his reluctant girlfriend.

The play hits all the usual elements of a Shakespearean comedy - disguises and mistaken identity, love, the forest (nature) as a magical place where things are set right, redemption.

Setting aside any arguments of the strength or weakness of the plot, this production of "As You Like It" sparkled with humor and shone with fine performances. MCCAMBRIDGE DOWD-WHIPPLE (who has BTE in her genes) stood out as Rosalind. The other cast members also excelled (and many of them played two or three roles!).

But, I think what impressed me most about this production was the staging. The director utilized the entire theatre, with characters coming and going from stage right and stage left - and from the back of the theatre. Characters often ran up or down the steps. Sometimes, depending on where you were sitting, you heard them before you saw them.

This particular production also incorporated a live band on stage, comprised of young musicians from the Bloomsburg area. They contributed both background music and original songs. I particularly liked the brooding theme they played each time the mean, old Duke appeared.

Several audience members also sat on either side of the stage. In a few instances, they became part of the action.

In short, director LAURIE MCCANTS made the Alvina Krause Theatre her forest. She gave the actors everything they needed to play in it and let the audience join in the fun. And a good time was had by all.

Since no money - real or imagined - was wagered, I don't know if an incorrect guess at the Word of the Year can really count as a loss. But, it is a real disappointment because my two-year win streak is over.

To recap: In THIS entry from November, I put that winning streak on the line and declared that "double down" was my guess for what the AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY would pick as its 2012 Word of the Year. When I wrote that entry, the group's annual meeting, set for early January, was almost two months away. So, I had a long time to consider how well I had chosen.

Honestly, I didn't think about it too often after that. But, I did think I had it in the bag in mid-December when Ben Zimmer wrote THIS column for the Boston Globe. Zimmer is a well-respected expert on language; he also happens to be the Chair of the New Words Committee for the American Dialect Society - the group that picks the WOTY. In other words, he has an "in." When he predicted that "double down" would be the 2012 WOTY, I tapped my nose and thought, "Three-year winning streak, here I come."

But, a couple weeks later, when the meeting was held and the votes were counted, the members of the American Dialect Society had chosen "hashtag" as the 2012 WORD OF THE YEAR.

Hashtag? Really? WT#!

"Double down" didn't even make the top five. Really? Were the members of the ADS not paying attention to the presidential campaign? Republicans and Democrats alike were constantly doubling down. How was this NOT the Word of the Year?

Don't get me wrong. Hashtag is a perfectly fine word to describe the # symbol. The word and the symbol have been around for years, but the popularity of Twitter has given # new prominence. It's the start of a trend, it's a verb of its own. It's "hashtag." But, it's been those things for several years now. I didn't detect any newly dominant # prominence in 2012.

I guess I was wrong. #loser #tryagainnextyear #woty

I've taken a break from my regular reading list of mystery/detective novels (don't worry. V is for Vengeance is next on my list) to read a work of non-fiction titled Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan.

SYBIL EXPOSED is subtitled "The extraordinary story behind the famous multiple personality case." The basic premise is to largely debunk the story told in the book SYBIL by Flora Rheta Schreiber. That book was later made into a movie starring Sally Field.

I read the book Sybil several years ago and recall being fascinated. I mean, who wouldn't be? How could you not be fascinated by a woman who was horribly abused as a child, who had more than a dozen separate personalities and who was able to heal only through years of hypnotherapy from a caring psychiatrist? It's a gripping story.

In Sybil Exposed, author Debbie Nathan acknowledges the power of the original story, noting that, after its publication, the number of reported cases of Multiple Personality Disorder (almost exclusively in women) increased dramatically. But, Nathan also notes that the three women involved in the Sybil story (the patient, the psychiatrist, the author) each had something to gain. For Shirley Mason (a.k.a. "Sybil"), she got constant attention and support from her therapist, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur. Dr. Wilbur used the case to make a name for herself in what was still traditionally a man's world. The author, Flora Schreiber, had similar ambitions.

At this point, I'm not quite halfway through the book, but Nathan has already laid out ample evidence indicating that much of what Mason claimed wasn't true. Rather, her claims about severe abuse as a child and about her many different personalities were either conflated or invented as a way to keep Dr. Wilbur's attention. Nathan also points out that Dr. Wilbur was pumping Mason full of a variety of drugs, including lots of Pentothal, or truth serum. Based on what I've read so far, it's amazing Mason could get out of bed as often as she did.

The last chapter I've read includes excerpts from a letter that Mason wrote to Wilbur about four years into their therapy. By this point, Wilbur had already exceeded the bounds of a normal doctor-patient relationship in several ways, including by going to Mason's apartment for many Pentothal-fueled sessions. And, by this point, Nathan argues, Mason was essentially a junkie who pleaded with Wilbur to keep the Pentothal coming.

Somehow, though, Mason managed to gather enough clarity to write a letter to Wilbur, a letter in which Mason declared that she did not have multiple personalities and that she was not sexually abused by her mother. Mason conceded that her mother was overprotective and that she, herself, did have problems. But, Mason said, she embellished her story, especially while under the influence of Pentothal.

Dr. Wilbur read the letter and promptly declared that Shirley was resisting treatment, that the abuse she claimed really did happen, and that she needed therapy now more than ever. Also, by this time, Wilbur had already started presenting Shirley's case at professional conferences. To admit her patient had lied could cost Wilbur dearly. She basically threw the ball back into Mason's court.

Mason, rather than lose Dr. Wilbur - and all that Pentothal, wrote another letter which blamed the first letter on "someone." Mason said she wanted to continue and soon, Nathan writes, the Pentothal sessions resumed and the list of alter personalities grew.

So far, I'm intrigued. Mason, despite having issues, managed to hold down jobs and get an advanced degree. She even made an effort at becoming a psychiatrist, like Dr. Wilbur. Basically, she seemed generally functional up until a couple years into her Pentothal treatments with Dr. Wilbur. I'll be interested to see how Mason works her way back from her drug-addicted state to a productive life.

2012 is quickly drawing to a close, so it won't be long until the AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY hosts its annual meeting. It's set for early January in Boston, and the highlight is sure to be the selection of the 2012 Word of the Year (WOTY).

In 2010, the overall winner was "app" as the phrase "there's an app for that" became so ubiquitous that you might have wished for an app to make it go away. I correctly predicted that "app" stood a good chance of winning. The following year, I correctly predicted that "occupy" would be the 2011 Word of the Year, though I have to admit that pick was somewhat of a no-brainer as something somewhere was always under occupation.

So, let's see if I can continue the streak. Because there was no escaping the campaign trail, I believe that the 2012 WOTY will come from the field of politics. And oh, the choices we have! Just when you thought the voting was over...

Could the 2012 Word of the Year be "double down?" This phrase from the world of gambling was hijacked by politicians and political writers. To my mind, the phrase applied when one side said something that was roundly criticized and/or viewed with great skepticsm by the other side and/or by the media. If the first side continued to make the claim, perhaps even exaggerating it, it was said to be "doubling down." Whatever was said was what was meant and that's not gonna change. One example of "doubling down":  Mitt Romney continued to push his plan to balance the budget despite study after study and expert after expert that said the numbers just didn't add up.

Or, could the 2012 WOTY be "fiscal cliff?" Now that the election is over, there's a lot of talk about whether the president and Congress can or will work together to avoid a series of expiring tax cuts and budget cuts scheduled to take effect at the start of the New Year. Already, President Obama is doubling down on his campaign promise to "make the wealthy pay their fair share," while House Speaker John Boehner is doubling down on the GOP line of looking for revenue without raising taxes (which could mean eliminating deductions, such as the one for mortgage interest, that primarily benefit the middle class). The fiscal cliff has been around for a while, but it's on the front burner now, which could give it the momentum it needs to be the 2012 WOTY.

Wait. Did someone just say "momentum?" Another word heard from the campaign trail. President Obama had momentum through the spring and summer, and he got a little bounce after the Democratic Convention in September. Then came early October and the first presidential debate in Denver. Everyone agreed that Romney won and, suddenly he had momentum. The vice presidential debate followed and Joe Biden eked out a win. During ABC's post-debate analysis, George Stephanopoulos said that Biden had succeeded in stopping the GOP momentum. Two more presidential debates followed with President Obama scoring narrow victories in both. If Romney's momentum (a.k.a. "Romentum") hadn't stopped after the VP debate, surely the final two debates did the trick, right?

Maybe not. The GOP doubled down, insisting that Romney still had the momentum in the final two weeks leading up to the election. But, then came Superstorm Sandy. President Obama left the campaign trail for a few days to keep tabs on the Federal response. He also traveled to some of the hardest hit areas in New Jersey, where he was praised by Republican Governor Chris Christie, a key Romney supporter. Romney himself toned down his campaign rhetoric for a few days, too. Did Sandy stop the Romentum? Not if you listened to the Romney people. They kept saying they had the momentum, and they apparently felt so confident in that thought that they made a last-minute play for Pennsylvania, where polls consistently showed Pres. Obama with a lead.

The Romney camp should have been reading FiveThirtyEight, the outstanding blog that numbers whiz Nate Silver writes for the New York Times. (Or, maybe they were reading it, but just didn't like what they were seeing.) The last debate, the one about foreign policy, was on Monday, October 22. A few days later, Silver posted THIS entry which argued that polls showed that Romney's momentum had stalled sometime around October 12, the day after the vice presidential debate, a few days before the second presidential debate, and well before Sandy (which hadn't even happened when Silver wrote that column). By the time Sandy hit, the momentum was already with Obama and there wasn't enough time for Romney to get it back.

So, there are my top three picks for the American Dialect Society's 2012 Word of the Year: double down, fiscal cliff, momentum. Romentum could potentially get a few votes, but it's more likely to place in a subcategory than to rise to WOTY level. Other possible contenders include "legitimate rape" and "war on women."

I think I'm going to double down and go with "double down" as my predicted winner. Will my streak continue? We'll find out on January 4, 2013.

The 2012 campaign has finally come to an end with President Barack Obama winning a hard-fought second term in the White House. The campaign seemed to last a really long time. Exactly how long depends on whether you count Mitt Romney's campaign as starting sometime in 2011 or whether you take the starting point all the way back to when he campaigned (and lost) to be the GOP's nominee in 2008. In any case, it went on and on and didn't end until Romney finally conceded around 1 a.m. on Wednesday. He kept the popular vote pretty close, but lost the Electoral College by a substantial margin (as of this writing, Florida is still undecided, but Obama already has more than 300 electoral votes so, unlike 2000, Florida doesn't really matter).

I spent about six weeks organizing election coverage for the local TV station where I work. We reported results from PA and around the country for the presidential race, but we were largely focused on statewide races including US Senator and row offices. We also covered assorted Congressional and General Assembly races. You can check out the Pennsylvania results HERE.

For the most part, the night brought very few surprises. The candidates who were expected to win, did. My one exception would be the race for PA Auditor General, where Democrat Eugene DePasquale defeated Republican John Maher. I didn't follow the race closely in the weeks and months leading up to the election, but I guess I figured that Maher would win. But, I did see a commercial for DePasquale during the final week, and I suspect he was helped by the strength of other Democrats on the ticket, including Sen. Bob Casey and Pres. Obama. I also wonder if there may not be some kind of anti-GOP backlash going on, considering that Gov. Corbett's approval ratings are very low.

If anything surprised me, it would be that the winners' margins of victory - especially on the Democratic side - were higher than expected. Despite GOP claims that Pennsylvania was "in play" for Romney and that Senate candidate Tom Smith was making a race of it with Bob Casey, Pres. Obama won the state by about 5 points and Casey won by 9. Perhaps not landslide margins, but not as close as the GOP and some pundits were insisting.

I will say, however, that I'm not sure Casey knew which way the race would go. If he did, he wasn't very excited about it. One of my crews talked with him after he voted, and Casey said, "I've been really privileged to have another term in the United States Senate. I've been privileged to serve in three public offices, and no matter what happens today, I've been pretty fortunate." Even for the mild-mannered Casey, that statement seemed kind of defeatist.

A couple other races to note. Long-time state rep. Phyllis Mundy, a Democrat from Luzerne County's West Side, fought off a challenge from young Republican Aaron Kaufer and claimed a 12-point victory. Kaufer had some financial backing - I received several mailings from him - but, to me, it seemed as though a lot of what he was criticizing Mundy for was old news such as the infamous midnight pay raise from six or seven years ago. Mundy has a reputation for sticking up for the elderly and for approaching the natural gas industry with caution. Those issues - and a Democratic voter edge in Luzerne County - made Kaufer's fight a tough one to win.

In another part of Luzerne County, Rep. Tarah Toohil, a Republican from the Hazleton area, won another term in the state house. She had a 2-1 edge in votes over her opponent, Ransom Young. The margin of victory is impressive given that Toohil faced some negative advertising featuring compromising pictures of her taken several years ago. In this case, the dirty tricks (which her opponent disavowed) did not work at all.

And, finally, Kathleen Kane from the Scranton area became the first Democrat and the first woman to be elected Pennsylvania Attorney General. Kane won by about 14 points over Cumberland County DA David Freed. Freed has close ties to the Attorney General's office and was apparently Gov. Corbett's candidate of choice. Kane got some publicity over the past year as a commentator on the Jerry Sandusky case and she promised to be an independent prosecutor. One of the reason's for Corbett's sagging favorability is that many people feel he could have done more when he was Attorney General to stop Sandusky. As far as I know, Freed never had any involvement in the case, but being associated with Corbett may have hurt his cause more than helped it.

At any rate, it's all over. Now I have six months to rest up before the May primary.

It's finally over - except that, technically, it's not. But, for all intents and purposes, it is over. Jerry Sandusky has been sentenced to prison for his sex crimes against boys. The sentencing went down this past Tuesday in Centre County Court. Sandusky could have received a much longer sentence. But, he's 68 years old, so his sentence of 30-60 years is, for all intents and purposes, a life sentence.

Just prior to sentencing, Sandusky was declared to be a Sexually Violent Predator, a finding which he did not contest. What it means is that if he ever gets out of prison on parole, Sandusky will have to register under Megan's Law. That's IF he ever gets out.

You can read the sentencing order HERE. It breaks down how much time Sandusky received for each of the 45 counts on which he was convicted.

HERE you can read the statement Judge Cleland read just before he handed down his sentence. In the statement, he takes Sandusky to task for a statement he (Sandusky) made the night before sentencing. THE STATEMENT was broadcast on the radio and transcribed in print. The posted link includes both the audio and a transcript. Cleland obviously read it or heard it and writes, "Regarding your broadcast statement I can only say that like all conspiracy theories it makes a leap from the undeniable to the unbelievable."

Judge Cleland also took into consideration letters written to him by Sandusky and his wife, Dottie. You can read those letters HERE. In the letters, the couple blames everyone from the police to their adopted son, Matt (you know, the one who says he was molested by Sandusky and was prepared to testify to that effect). Nowhere does Sandusky take responsibility for his actions.

Sandusky's lawyers are expected to appeal on the grounds that a) they didn't have enough time to prepare an adequate defense; and b) they just did a horrible job. I'm not an attorney, but I don't see where they'll have much chance of a successful appeal. The preliminary hearing was delayed at least once, and when it did finally happen in February, Sandusky's attorneys chose to waive it. In other words, they gave up a good chance to hear before the trial what some or all of the victims intended to say. By waiving the prelim, they also gave up a chance to perhaps see some of the prosecution's other evidence - such as letters that Sandusky wrote to the victims. The judge did grant one trial delay of about a month, but after waiving the prelim, I find the "we didn't have enough time" defense rather weak.

As for the "we just suck as lawyers" defense, I don't think that will go very far, either. Joe Amendola and Karl Romiger have reputations as fine lawyers. Just because their strategy didn't work, that doesn't mean they were inadequate. Quite frankly, I don't know what they could have done to change the outcome of the trial, especially after Sandusky refused to testify (which Amendola says he did in order to keep Matt Sandusky from testifying as a rebuttal witness for the prosecution). I suppose an appeals court could see things differently, but I don't think Sandusky's odds of winning an appeal are very good.

On a personal note, I would have liked to see Sandusky get a longer sentence - just because it seems like something longer than 30-60 is warranted. Had Sandusky been a younger man, the judge may have issued a longer sentence. However, in this case, 30-60 should suffice.

On a final (for this post, anyway) note, a man's claims that Sandusky was involved in a larger pedophile ring do not seem to have much credibility. The Philadelphia Daily News reports HERE that the man has a history of trying to insert himself into prominent cases and gets angry when he's not believed.

I found out through Facebook last night that Ray Koons had died. Who, you ask? Only one of the most respected and popular teachers to ever grace the halls of Lehighton Area High School. His popularity made him an invited guest at many class reunions, including the 20 year reunion of the LAHS Class of '84.

I don't know specifically how long Mr. Koons taught, but I think it's fair to say that anyone who went to LAHS in the 70s, 80s or 90s knew Mr. Koons. Some students knew him through the classes he taught; others may have had him as a coach; still others may have just met him in the hallway, probably as he was telling them to stop screwing around and get to class. Whatever the circumstances, when Mr. Koons talked, you listened.

For my part, I can only remember having one class with Mr. Koons - Federal Government during my junior year. One of my favorite memories of the class was listening to everyone (me included) sing the Schoolhouse Rock song as we wrote down the words to the Preamble to the Constitution.

The other memory that stands out is of the recurring "Point to Ponder" assignments. Every week or so, Mr. Koons would require us to write a few paragraphs concerning a thought-provoking phrase. I don't remember anything specific, but they would have been along the lines of this quote from Plato: "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." Your job was then to write four or five paragraphs about what the statement or thought meant to you. In other words, it was an exercise in critical thinking (and in writing).

I'm sure there were students who didn't like that kind of assignment. And, maybe there were even a few who didn't like Mr. Koons. But, I did, and I hope those other people learned to appreciate Mr. Koons as a teacher and as a man.