A second great court case outcome in the same day

First, we got news that Roman Catholic Monsignor Lynn was found guilty in trying to protect Catholic priests in the Philadelphia diocese in their child/student sex abuse case.

Now, we find Jerry Sandusky is found guilty in 45 of 48 charges of sexual abuse in the Penn State case.

It's a great day for justice in America.

And coincidentally, both from Pennsylvania. Go figure.

Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/us/philadelphias-msgr-william-j-lynn-is-convicted-of-allowing-abuse.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/justice/pennsylvania-sandusky-trial/index.html

Casual about sexual abuse in America?

I've written here, before, about Bishop Finn, Sean Ratigan and the Catholic Church, of course, and all their sexual abuse issues and problems that have sprung up in the last several months. My "take-away" from that is that Bishop Finn should have been more pro-active on this situation, from when the principal first wrote him, from up in St. Joseph, to later, when pictures of children were known to be on Ratigan's computer. That seems easy enough to admit whether you think Bishop Finn should or should not be now charged with breaking Missouri laws. My point is, with their issues, the second anyone was aware there was a problem, people should have been all over it, addressing it, looking into it and seeing if there were anything they needed to know further and whether, possibly, it needed to be reported to the police. Now, there is the situation of reported sexual abuse by an assistant coach at Penn State and it seems as though the situation is, at least a bit, very similar. People reported things and then, well, they were looked into, but people took their time. As of Sunday evening, it's being reported that Coach Joe Paterno was informed of possible sexual abuse. Fortunately, he did report it. But check this out--he didn't report it until the next day. The next day. If you read that link, below, about the timeline, again and again, people put off the reporting, in spite of a first hand account of at least one incident. And that's what gets me about this and why it seems very like the Bishop Finn/Sean Ratigan/Catholic Church situation. Sexual abuse ought to be treated like, I don't know, someone bleeding. If someone came up to you and said someone had been cut badly with a saw or something, we'd run to them, check it out, call the ambulance and get right on it. If you read the second link, below, about this Penn State situation, you'll see the incident that finally got this investigation started was delayed, again and again. Instead of looking into each situation quickly, for the crimes they are, we dilly-dally and put it off and maybe--or maybe not--check it out and the victims suffer. That needs to change. Link: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-wetzel_paterno_statement_raises_more_questions110611; http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/press.aspx?id=6270; http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142085416/curley-schultz-step-down-amid-penn-state-scandal?ft=1&f=1001

Glacier melt in our hot, hot Summer and what it might mean

Greenland Ice Sheet Faces 'Tipping Point in 10 Years' Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level by Suzanne Goldenberg WASHINSTON - The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress Tuesday. An enormous chunk of ice, roughly 97 square miles in size, has broken off the Petermann Glacier along the northwest coast of Greenland. Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University "Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet. The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish. "What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said. From a different article and source yesterday, too: Since 1970, temperatures have risen more than 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees C) in much of the Arctic — much faster than the global average. In June the Arctic sea ice cover was at the lowest level for that month since records began in 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Back to me: Two plus two is starting to look like four, folks. Link to original posts: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/11-1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island