Free Beekeeping Lessons From Penn State Extension

Free Beekeeping Lessons From Penn State Extension — For those tired of streaming television and video games as we await another 27 days of imposed inactivity, Penn State Extension has waived through April 30 its $159 fee for Beekeeping 101. That’s right, you can learn to beekeep for free. Sign up here. Beekeepers are desperately needed. Be cool. Beekeep.

Penn State Extension is affiliated with Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and provides science-based information to people, businesses, and communities. It has an office in every county in Pennsylvania.

Free Beekeeping Lessons
Be cool, beekeep
Free Beekeeping Lessons
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Victor Thorn Penn State Summation Was Brilliant

Victor Thorn Penn State Summation Was Brilliant — We came across this article from June 22, 2012 that may be the best summation of events concerning the Sandusky scandal at Penn State and is well worth reading.

Victor Thorn Penn State Summation Was Brilliant
Victor Thorn connected the dots in Sandusky story.

It appeared in American Free Press and the reporter who did such an exceptional job was Victor Thorn.

Thorn found connections with what happened in Happy Valley to the Franklin Scandal in Nebraska via former Penn State President Graham Spanier, who championed some rather twisted events at PSU apart from the hidden things.

He also puts on the record how promised revelations of a greater scandal involving Sandusky pimping boys to the very rich vanished without a peep.

He further explains how Joe Paterno was a scapegoat and far from the villain depicted by the establishment media.

Unlike Tom Corbett.

The article is especially poignant as Thorn died, Aug. 1, an official suicide. He had a book coming out critical of Clintons. Some are deeming his death suspicious and adding him to the Clinton Body Count.

For the record, his family and friends accept the official version and don’t think the Clintons had anything to do with it. Of course the Clintons wouldn’t have anything to do with the disappearance of Ray Gricar either but never mind that.

And also for the record, Thorn — real name Scott Robert Makufka — was a 9/11 truther and Holocaust denier. Dang, though, did he get Penn State right.

Finally for the record, we love life and are not suicidal.

Victor Thorn Penn State Summation Was Brilliant

Paterno Focus Misguided

Paterno Focus Misguided — Joe Paterno is again the subject of headlines regarding the Jerry Sandusky scandal, this time alleging that he knew about his former assistant’s child molesting as far back as the 1970s.

Paterno Focus Misguided
Jerry Sandusky is not the only weirdness from Happy Valley.

The allegations appear to be wildly unfounded but just the same they got the headlines.

The legendary football coach  died in 2012 a few months after his dismissal from Penn State after charges were filed against Sandusky in November 2011.

Paterno’s culpability concerns his choice to inform university officials rather than law enforcement after being told Sandusky molested a young boy in the football team’s shower facilities in February 2001.

Sandusky who retired — strangely early and with an unusual compensation package  — as the football team’s defensive coordinator in 1999, still had access to the team’s facilities due to his emeritus status.

Among the officials so-informed was Penn State President Graham Spanier.

And this gets us to the puzzling aspect about the reporting. While Paterno’s name gets thrown out with even the most spurious connection to the events, far more relevant — and interesting — things are ignored.

Spanier, two weeks after he was told about Sandusky’s molesting, was informed that noted special education professor John T. Neisworth was also a molester.

As with Sandusky, he swept the matter under the rug and actually treated the victim bringing him the information with contempt.

So how accepted was (is?) child molestation in Happy Valley?

Here’s an even more remarkable under-reported story.

In 1998, a mother reported to University Police that Sandusky molested her son. Det. Ronald Schreffler compiled a case and submitted it to Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar, who declined to prosecute.

In 2005, Gricar vanished without a trace along with county-issued laptop. The laptop was found in the Susquehanna River with its hard-drive missing.

You think that bit of weirdness might be a more interesting story than a whisper-down-the-lane report of something from the ’70s? Imagine if the Delaware County D.A. disappeared without a trace while in office.

In a more mundane matter, Spanier is getting an annual public pension of $59,000 for which Pennsylvania taxpayers are on the hook and can expect tax hikes to cover. Sandusky is getting a pension of $58,800. And Gary Schultz, another of the high-ranking officials to who Paterno reported the crime? He’s getting a sweet $330K per year.

Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Working Person, you are on the hook for this.

Paterno Focus Misguided

 

Spanier Still Collects Big Bucks

Graham Spanier, the Penn State president who was booted from his job  after the revelations that one-time assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had long molested young boys while the school administration looked the other way, is still collecting mucho buckos.

Jan Murphy of PennLive.com reports that Spanier, who lost his post on Nov. 9, 2011 immediately went on paid sabbatical leave where he indulged until Nov. 1, 2012 when he was put on paid administrative leave, and there he remains.

The school is unwilling to reveal how much this paid-for-nothing post is costing.

All it said was what was required by law namely that when Spanier went from president/tenured faculty member to just tenured faculty member he had a base salary of $685,985 and total compensation of $806,446.

In his last year as president, Spanier was the nation’s highest paid public school administrator getting $2,906,721 in total compensation.

Why don’t we just cut Spanier off entirely and give what he is getting to scholarships for the oft-ignored middle class suburban kids whose parents are now under the gun?

It should also be noted that Penn State gets about 10 percent of its $4.6 billion budget from state taxes.

It should even be further noted that Sandusky was not the only child molestation scandal during Spanier’s reign.

Spanier Still Collects Big Bucks

Spanier Still Collects Big Bucks
Spanier Still Collects Big Bucks

Spanier Still Collects Big Bucks

New York Times Graham Spanier Whitewash

The New York Times Magazine carried a paen, July 16, to disgraced former Penn State President Graham Spanier, by Micahel Sokolove.

Sokolove practically acquits him of the charges filed against him stemming from his handling of reports that one-time football coach and retired faculty member Jerry Sandusky was abusing children.

The charges were filed on Nov. 1, 2012 and are one count perjury,  two counts of endangering the welfare of children, two counts of criminal conspiracy, which are all third-degree felonies  punishable by up to seven years in prison and $15,000 fines; one count of obstructing the administration of law or other governmental function and one count of criminal conspiracy, both second-degree misdemeanors punishable by up to two years in prison and $5,000 fines; and one count of failure to report suspected child abuse, a summary offense punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $300 fine.

“The case against Spanier is at best problematic, at worst fatally flawed,” Sokolove says.

Sokolove writes about how the 66-year-old Spanier’s father flew into a rage at everything and beat him and made him eat everything on his plate and sometimes sent him to bed without dinner.

Sokolove writes that Spanier grew Penn State “from a remote outpost of American higher education into a top-tier public university” and had some of “world’s most decorated architects” design the new buildings on his watch.

He writes that Sokolove “paid his own way through Iowa State.”

Regarding the e-mails that led to the charges, Sokolove says that Spanier says he has no memory of writing it but that using the word “vulnerable” as in “The only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road” was a bad idea.

And he blames the late Joe Paterno, anyway.

Maybe Sokolove’s biggest journalistic failure was his omission of any reference to the John T. Neisworth matter in which Spanier was told by a young man in 2002 about how Neisworth, a respected Penn State special education professor who literally wrote the book on autism, molested him. Neisworth would make a six-figure cash settlement to the man.

The contact was made with Spanier two weeks after Spanier had been told about Sandusky.

The New York Times whitewash is almost enough to make one take David Icke seriously.

 

New York Times Graham Spanier Whitewash

New York Times Graham Spanier Whitewash

 

 

Penn State Should Fire New President

By Chris Freind

It is a lurid tale.

A prestigious university, and its incredibly storied football program, is caught up in a sexual-abuse scandal. Even worse, an iconic football figure might have been unduly protected to the detriment of the victims.

Despite initial hopes that the situation would resolve itself quickly and quietly — sparing the university from excoriating criticism — the opposite occurred. What began as a trickle of articles snowballed into hard-hitting exposes published by world-renowned media outlets. The floodgates, flung wide open, unleashed a torrent of new stories as previously undisclosed information continued to surface.

Presiding during such a scandal, regardless of culpability, would surely make any university president beleaguered, tarnishing his reputation. So the last place on Earth to expect that president to show up would be the only other university with a bigger sex scandal on its hands, right?

Wrong. Welcome to Penn State.

In competing for the Most Moronic Move Of The Decade award, that’s exactly what Penn State’s Board of Trustees did by hiring Florida State’s Eric Barron as its new president.

It was on Barron’s watch that the controversy currently engulfing Florida State began. In December 2012, an FSU student claimed that she was raped, identifying freshman quarterback sensation Jameis Winston as the perpetrator.

In what had to be one of the worst investigations in history, the Tallahassee police dropped the ball in every way. The lead detective, Scott Angulo, had previously worked for the Seminole Boosters — a nonprofit organization with $150 million in assets that not only helps fund FSU athletics but partially pays the salaries of the football coaching staff and, incredibly, roughly a quarter of Barron’s $602,000 salary. Disturbingly, Angulo waited weeks before interviewing Winston, and it took him two months to file his initial report. Evidence was lost, DNA was never obtained, security video from a bar was never reviewed, witnesses were not aggressively tracked down, and the case was closed without the victim even being notified.

How bad were the police? Prosecutor William Meggs said it best: “They just missed all the basic fundamental stuff that you are supposed to do.”

The bumbling police investigation forced Meggs to close the case for lack of evidence. No charges were filed.

But just as bad was Florida State’s actions, or, more appropriately, lack of action.

According to an investigative report in the New York Times:

“University administrators, in apparent violation of federal law, did not promptly investigate either the rape accusation or (a) witness’s admission that he had videotaped part of the encounter … records show that Florida State’s athletic department knew about the rape accusation early on, in January 2013, when the assistant athletic director called the police to inquire about the case. Even so, the university did nothing about it, allowing Mr. Winston to play the full season without having to answer any questions. After the championship game, in January 2014, university officials asked Mr. Winston to discuss the case, but he declined on advice of his lawyer.”

And now, Florida State is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for possible violations in how it handled the situation.

Does any of this stuff sound vaguely familiar?

Let’s review. It took over a year for Florida State to investigate a serious accusation against a star athlete — conveniently after winning the lucrative national championship — and, in doing so, potentially valuable video evidence was lost. Now, the university is under federal investigation. And all of this occurred during the presidency of Eric Barron.

And yet Penn State hired him? Are we missing something here?

Whether Winston committed a crime, or the sex was consensual, as he claims, now can never be proven. Above all, what should have mattered most to the Penn State trustees — acting in the best interests of students, alumni, professors, fans, and, most important, the victims of Jerry Sandusky — was that Eric Barron was the worst choice to lead Penn State, and should never have been in contention for the presidency.

Even assuming that Barron had no knowledge of Florida State’s mistakes, still not in a million years should he have been considered a candidate. To make him one, and hire him after an “exhaustive” search and vetting process, truly ranks as one of the all-time “what were they thinking?” moments.

And by the way, if the New York Times could discover so much information about the university’s handling of the situation, why couldn’t Penn State’s search team do the same? How exhaustive could the vetting have been? Choosing Barron is like nominating Chris Christie to head up a National Bridge Commission. Hello!

But don’t forget how out-of-touch the Penn State Board of Trustees has been, firing Joe Paterno over the phone (no matter how one feels about Paterno, that is not how you treat someone who gave so much over so many decades), and willingly accepting the egregiously unfair NCAA sanctions without even a whimper of protest.

With all of the other college presidents, chief executives, and otherwise baggage-free candidates throughout the country, the only person the trustees could find to lead Penn State out of its horrendous scandal was someone who was in command during a high-profile sex scandal?

Generals, presidents and CEOs are clearly responsible when things go wrong, regardless of their involvement. The buck stops with them. Period. That’s the price of leadership, and all leaders know that when they reach that level.

In hiring Barron, Penn State is risking a monumental backlash should a high-profile sexual abuse scandal occur within the PSU community. What’s fair and accurate is irrelevant; perception is reality, and the perception among many would be that Penn State didn’t do enough to foster an abuse-free environment. And many would blame Barron based on how the events at Florida State were handled.

And God forbid, what happens if federal investigators determine that President Barron or his top executives had knowledge of the Winston affair but buried it? The embarrassment for the Penn State community would be astronomical.

So here’s what Penn State should do: Dump Barron. Immediately. Given that he doesn’t take the reins until May, it wouldn’t be a huge deal. By coming clean that they made a mistake, the trustees would actually earn the admiration and support of millions for their transparency and honesty. And Penn State could finally find the right leader to guide it out of its minefield.

It is imperative that Penn State trustees realize one inarguable principle: the university is now, and will forever be, different. It will always be under the spotlight, scrutinized — sometimes unfairly — more than any other university on the planet. That is not opinion, but a cold, hard fact.

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Michael Mann Courtroom Mockery

Michael Mann, the Penn State professor who gave us the “hockey stick” graph that ostensibly proved the world was catastrophically warming, is now learning the meaning of the worm has turned regarding litigation and public opinion

Mann sued Dr. Tim Ball on March 24, 2011 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia alleging libel because Ball said  “Mann belongs in the state pen and not Penn State.”

Canada, of course, does not have the First Amendment and libel suits by public figures are, presumably, easier to win up north.

John O’Sullivan, a political ally of Ball, published an article on Feb. 21 on Principia-Scientific.org that because Mann has refused to disclose his “hockey stick graph metadata” in he has all but lost the case. He further said that Ball is no longer being satirical about Mann belonging “in the state pen.”

“In short, Mann failed to show he did not fake his tree ring proxy data for the past 1,000 years, so Ball’s assessment stands as fair comment,” O’Sullivan wrote.

Seventeen-months later (Oct. 22, 2012), Mann sued political commentator Mark Steyn, National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and scholar/commentator Rand Simberg for a comment made by Simberg on CEI site calling Mann the “Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data”.

Steyn at National Review linked to and commented on the column saying:

Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the
locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr Simberg does, but he has a
point. Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change
“hockey-stick” graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus. And,
when the East Anglia emails came out, Penn State felt obliged to
“investigate” Professor Mann. Graham Spanier, the Penn State president
forced to resign over Sandusky, was the same cove who investigated Mann.
And, as with Sandusky and Paterno, the college declined to find one of
its star names guilty of any wrongdoing.

 

It’s a point not much different than one made here.The suit was filed in the District of Columbia.  Few consider it to have a chance. Many warned Mann it could backfire. It appears to have done so. Four days ago (Feb. 20) Steyn filed a counter-suit asking for $10 million in damages. Read it here as a pdf file.

 

Hat tip Rights-Right.com
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JayPa Seeks Lt Gov Seat

Jay Paterno, the son of late Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno, has announced his candidacy for  lieutenant governor. He is a Democrat. The primary is May 20. Five others have also declared they are seeking the Democrat nomination, according to PennLive.com.

Good for him.

His father, a decent man, was made the scapegoat for vile circumstances of which he was completely innocent but for an error in judgment, and considering the response by law enforcement to the first Jerry Sandusky accusation — it was swept under the rug – maybe wasn’t such an error in judgment.

Regardless the sickness in Happy Valley went far beyond Sandusky and the football team, which should be noted Sandusky no longer helped coach as JoePa pushed him out soon after the first accusation.

 

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Blue White Beats Black White

 

By Chris Freind

Penn State football fans have a big reason to rejoice.

Their new coach, Pennsylvania native James Franklin, brings to Happy Valley a great record. As head coach at Vanderbilt, a perennial doormat in the SEC (the nation’s toughest conference), he led the Commodores to three straight bowl games and a Top 25 ranking.

In the weeks since he was hired to take over the program, Franklin has said and done all the right things, putting together a dynamite staff and pushing for the best recruits to play for the Nittany Lions. The guy has been Mr. Blue and White.

Which is why it was somewhat disheartening to see how much attention is being paid to another color. Same goes for new Texas Longhorns coach Charlie Strong. Both are black.

That factor played prominently in the news coverage of their hirings. Headlines such as “Penn State And University Of Texas Make History With Black Coach Hires,” and “Historic Black Coach Hires At Texas, Penn State” leave little gray area for any other reason.

Such as merit.

Make no mistake. Both men (Strong came from powerhouse Louisville) had more than enough merit to earn their new positions.

But tragically, too many in America still can’t get over the black-white issue, continuing to inject race. They don’t seem to understand that the only race that matters is the one we all belong to — the human race.

While we just celebrated the accomplishments of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in many respects we continue to lose racial ground. Making the sin mortal is that it’s a choice of our own making. Rather than viewing America through colorblind eyes, we continue to revert to the time when people were judged for one reason: The color of a person’s skin.

Resurrecting such barriers between people, whether by well-intentioned but woefully misguided souls, or by those who have despicably hijacked Dr. King’s legacy for self-promotional and financial reasons, has no place in an America striving to right the wrongs of its past. Opening old wounds serves no purpose other than to foster resentment on all sides.

Both coaches were eminently qualified to lead these storied programs, but their accomplishments became marginalized the second that race became part of the discussion.

Sure, if they had been the first black coaches hired at major football schools, significant media attention would have been warranted as another barrier was taken down. But that milestone was achieved long ago. In fact, the number of black head coaches at the 125 major Division I schools roughly mirrors the percentage of blacks in America.

If there were only three or four minority coaches, you could make an argument that collusion was being used to exclude black coaches. But that is not the case. So when people clamor that the number still isn’t high enough, what should we do? Require a particular percentage? Determined by whom? Should it be five points more than the 13 percent black population in America? Or 10? And what about other races? What should their numbers be?

Will college football head down the racial path that the NFL has chosen with its mandating of the Rooney Rule, where teams are required to interview at least one “minority” candidate when hiring a head coach or general manager? While the intention may be noble, it doesn’t work in real life, especially in modern-day sports.

The NFL doesn’t understand that fans don’t give a damn about skin color, as they are partial only to championship gold. Teams aren’t stupid. They will hire the best and the brightest, regardless of race. So why invent a problem when there isn’t one? College football — and the media — would be smart to put that idea in their playbooks.

Trumpeting color is demeaning to the very people it is designed to “help.” Instead of uniting, it divides. Instead of equality, it promotes the notion of special privilege based on color. Instead of building upon the American spirit of competitiveness and achievement — may the best person win — it robs all candidates, white and black, of dignity and respect.

Franklin, a class act, said it best: “… the most important thing is we’re getting to a point where universities and organizations and corporations are hiring people based on merit and the most qualified guy.”

Too bad former Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson has never learned that lesson. According to an Associated Press article, he said it doesn’t make sense that so many players, but so few coaches, are black.

Thompson said, “So (when) you are not in management, you’re still perceived as the one who picks the cotton rather than owns the plantation.”

Are you kidding? What would have happened had the same statement been made by a white? He would have been pillories on the altar of political correctness. But since Thompson’s statement was met by silence from the very media playing up race on other issues, it demonstrates that the double-standard continues.

The battle for civil rights is too often being used to advance personal and political agendas. Sadly, we are coming full circle: separate and unequal; separate but equal; equal; and now separate again. That’s not why so many sacrificed their lives, and it’s certainly not what Dr. King advocated. Instead, he dreamed of a nation where people would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Sure, racism still exists, and always will. But so long as we fight it — not promote it — we’re on the side of the angels.

So congratulations to Coach Franklin — and may the only colors that matter be Nittany Lion Blue and White.

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Why “Non-Profits” Are Lies

For those who believe in the inherent goodness of academia and trust the altruism of those who run “non-profits” we are here to bust your bubble and remove the scales from eyes which can be done by simply pointing out that Graham Spanier, the enabler of child abuse who ran Penn State for 16 years, was the highest paid college administrator in the nation when he was forced out in November 2011.

Spanier received $2.9 million in 2011-12, including $1.2 million in severance pay and $1.2 million in deferred compensation.

And how can we seriously call an institution that pays it top dog nearly $3 million a “non-profit”.

People have got to wake up and understand that our institutions are abusing our trust.

Why "Non-Profits" Are Lies

 Why “Non-Profits” Are Lies