Dear
Friends,
Good morning. I couldn’t believe
what I was reading in the Free Press (March 2). A Richland Township man was
charged with 2,237 counts of sexual abuse of children. This monster has had
charges filed at Quakertown and Perkasie District Courts. He has allegedly
admitted sexually assaulting two children during a 20 year span. Local police
seized more than 125,000 images of child pornography. Several hundred victims were
positively identified.
How do communities protect
themselves against sex offenders? Is punishment too lenient?
Through a Google search on my
computer, I found the names of 48 registered sex offenders in Upper Bucks, by
zip code. The Megan’s Law Website identified 25 sex offenders with a Quakertown
address; 10 in Perkasie; 1, Richlandtown; 8, Sellersville; 1, Silverdale and 3
in Trumbauersville. There were no women listed. As a matter of fact, I didn’t
see a female in the sex offender file for all of Bucks.
At separate meetings last week,
Quakertown, Richland Township and Trumbauersville elected officials discussed
how to protect their residents from sex offenders. Quakertown Councilman David
Zaiser suggested a sex offender ordinance. “If we use circles of 2,500 feet
from day care facilities, parks, schools, and open space,” Zaiser was quoted in
the Free Press (March 2), “they would not be able to move into the borough if
they are registered sex offenders.
“Studies have shown that people who
have been convicted of this crime are known to do this again,” Zaiser added.
“And 67 percent of those who are victims of sexual offense are under 18, and 34
percent are younger than 12.”
I have several suggestions for our
legislators. There are too many “do-gooders” who’d prevent the obvious
choice…shoot the beasts. So that leaves two procedures. First, I’d castrate all
sexual predators. Second, I’d imprison them using abandoned military bases
until the grim reaper calls.
Item.
Quakertown is also considering a curfew
for kids. That’s a good idea. Zaiser suggested an ordinance which would subject
minors to a 10:30 p.m. curfew on weeknights;
In addition, the state legislature
is leisurely considering restricting the number of youngsters which teen
drivers are permitted. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has studies,
which show how deadly the roads become when teen drivers take the wheel with other
kids in the car.
Item.
March Madness is just around the
corner and the national collegiate basketball tournament will begin soon.
Collegiate basketball is an oxymoron. There’s nothing collegiate about it. Of
the 64 teams in the tournament, only a handful enforces rigorous academic
standards. Less than 50 percent of the players graduate. And to make the
National Collegiate Athletic Association look cleaner, the NCAA gives colleges
six years to graduate their basketball stars…not four, not five…six years!
A New York Times editorial (March 2)
was scathing. “The national effort to raise educational standards- especially
for the inner-city poor- is besieged by advocates of mediocrity and the bad old
status quo,” the editorial began. “A vivid example of that can be found in the
growing number of dubious “prep schools” where barely literate athletes earn
bogus grades, often by taking no real courses to speak of. The athletes can
then move on to universities that care nothing about them and value winning teams
above all else. This deception exploits the athletes, who will probably end up
back on the streets without degrees. It also encourages young people everywhere
to ignore their studies in the belief that they will one day be rich
professional athletes.”
What a farce…Make no mistake. This national disgrace
is about entertainment and very big money. Author James Michener was right when
he wrote that big time college football and basketball programs should pay the
athletes to perform for the student body and the alumni.
Final note…and
this is positive.
Last week, I referenced a story about Jim McConnell
who lost his cell phone. An honest taxi driver found it and with careful
sleuthing, returned it. Here’s the unusual story.
“I assume that a passenger, (another Good Samaritan)
actually found the phone and gave it to the [taxi] driver,” McConnell wrote.
“After he got the phone, the driver must have brought up the last number I had
called which was to my wife’s cell phone when I was on the train from the
[Philadelphia] airport to 30th Street Station. In doing so, her name
and number came up on the screen.
“She was in her car in Florida. Her phone rang. She
heard an unrecognized, heavily accented male voice saying “Betsy, Betsy.” The
connection was poor and she had difficulty understanding what he was saying.
When she finally was able to grasp what had happened, she asked him to leave my
phone on and told him she would try to reach me and have me call my phone.
“She then called the house where I was staying. At
the time, my friend and I were sitting in his kitchen chatting and he let his
machine pick up a couple of calls, one of which turned out to be Betsy’s.
“Perhaps an hour after arriving, I headed up to the
guest room where I discovered my cell phone was missing (and panicked). My
friend picked up the message from my wife that my cell phone was in the taxi
and that the driver was expecting me to call it. This, as you may well imagine,
was a huge relief.
“I called my phone, the taxi driver picked up and
told me he would work his way back to my friend’s house. Sure enough, 45
minutes later, the house phone rang and it was my friend, the taxi driver,
outside the door, my cell phone in hand.
“The $20 I gave him was for his thoughtfulness in
finding my phone, the trouble he took tracking down my wife and bringing it
back to me as well as for his ingenuity and resourcefulness. It would have been
easy for him (or the passenger) to misuse it or simply throw it in the trash.
I’m grateful to both of them.
“I only regret that I didn’t get his name to be able
to more properly acknowledge him. I hope that somehow he sees the story you are
planning to run.
Regards,
Jim McConnell
Now
there’s a story about Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith