The Second Row

Explaining Mike McQueary (An amateur psychological profile)

2011-11-10T23:06:00.004-05:00

Now that Joe Paterno has been fired, the biggest remaining question about the Penn State football pedophilia scandal is: "Whither Mike McQueary?"McQueary, a Penn State assistant coach - at least for now - won't be with the team for its game against Nebraska, in part because he's been receiving death threats stemming from the fact that he didn't intervene in 2002 when he saw former Nittany Lions'

Neutrality too often serves to protect the criminals

2011-11-07T23:23:00.004-05:00

This might be a good reason for pulling sports writers out of the game when sports news crosses paths with real news.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifOn Sunday, David Jones, a columnist who covers Penn State football and basketball for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, weighed in on the Penn State football sex scandal with a call against rushing to judgment on the accusation that retired Nittany

Blast from the past

2011-10-29T13:56:00.007-04:00

This video has making the rounds on Facebook this week. The video's timestamp reads 2009, but it actually happened in 2006, because that was when I wrote this in the Ellwood City Ledger:How would you like to be Jim Johnson? How would you like to be the basketball coach who let the best shooter on the team sit on the bench, wearing a shirt and tie, for three years, until finally turning him loose

Judge Hodge drops a clinker

2011-09-23T19:15:00.004-04:00

In a ruling that defies logic, Lawrence County Judge John Hodge denied a petition by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review to open the juvenile trial of 14-year-old Jordan Brown to the public.Disclosure: I'm covering the Jordan Brown trial for the Ellwood City Ledger and Beaver County Times, so I would have been admitted to the courtroom if Hodge had approved the other newspapers'

The empty places

2011-09-07T08:21:00.001-04:00

This column originally ran Sept. 28, 2006, in the Ellwood City Ledger.There is something missing from the picture of New York Athletic Club's 2005 rugby team, but you might not immediately notice it.Kind of like the void in New York City's skyline. In Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, it's possible to make a handsome living playing rugby and get face time before the first

Amateur sports = hypocrisy

2011-08-24T15:53:00.003-04:00

This article appeared originally Dec. 30, 2010, in the Ellwood City Ledger, and was purged from the paper's internet archives when it upgraded its website. Early in the last century, there was little doubt that Jack Kelly was the greatest rower of his day. He won two Olympic gold medals and would have bagged more hardware had the 1916 Olympics not been pre-empted for World War I. But Kelly was

From NFL trenches to Tea Party

2011-08-12T23:38:00.003-04:00

When the Ellwood City Ledger upgraded its website, some of my previous columns for the paper ended up getting scrubbed. So I'm in the process of converting some of my old favorites to my own blog. This one was published in The Ledger in March of 2010. It seems that playing on the offensive line in the NFL for 14 years wasn’t rough enough for newly-retired Philadelphia Eagle Jon Runyan. He’s

There oughta be a law

2011-08-07T11:06:00.004-04:00

This column appeared July 14 in the Ellwood City Ledger but the newspaper revamped its website the following Monday and columns that appeared before that date didn't make the leap to the new format. I'm running it now because Eric Heyl of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review based his Aug. 7, 2011, column on the same concept. I can't say for certain that he stole my idea, but there's no doubt that I

Pitching dropoff shatters Bucco optimism

2011-08-05T22:22:00.001-04:00

This column was published one day before the Pirates' eight-game -- and counting, as of Aug. 6 -- losing streak. So the biggest surprise, at least to me, of Pittsburghhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif's pitching collapse was that it happened this season instead of next.And that doesn't bode well for the Pirates' future, short or long term, because the only significant difference between the

It matters how much money Rick Perry drops in the collection plate

2011-06-21T02:08:00.002-04:00

Reprint of my June 16, 2011, Ellwood City Ledger columnIt’s none of my business how much money you dropped in the collection plate last Sunday.And it’s none of your business how much money I give to my church.But in Rick Perry’s case, it matters.It matters that, between 2000, when he replaced former President George W. Bush as governor of Texas, and 2009, Perry drew an average annual salary of

Corbett's budget doomed school

2011-05-01T00:17:00.002-04:00

Reprinted from the Thursday, April 28, 2011, Ellwood City LedgerOne key distinction between saying your piece at a public meeting and doing the same thing online is that, at the meeting, you have to put your name to your words.State law requires that those who speak at public meetings have to identify themselves before they start talking.But during Ellwood City Area School Board meetings this

Awwwww. Poor PittGirl!

2011-04-03T01:59:00.003-04:00

This is from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s “Cutting Edge,” April 3 blog aggregating column – which is kind of like Huffington Post, only in reverse - and since the Post-Gazette makes commenting really difficult, I thought I’d respond here.Liberal bigotsVirginia Montanez, a.k.a. PittGirl, at her That's Church blog zaps supposedly tolerant liberals for all the intolerant tirades she received after

The week's dumbest news story

2011-03-20T12:21:00.004-04:00

Memo to Jim Geraghty of National Review Online: You don't get to spend eight years carrying water for the Brushclearer-in-Chief, and then turn around and criticize Barack Obama for filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket.And if you insist on doing it, be sure to get yourself a hypocrite badge, pin it to your outermost piece of clothing and call it a day.In fairness to Geraghty, he was only one of

Lost "Brother" embodied military's virtues

2011-02-05T19:51:00.003-05:00

This column appeared originally on Jan. 27 in the Ellwood City Ledger, but was never posted on the paper's website due to an editorial oversight.There’s a scene in the first episode of “Band of Brothers” where Richard Winters where he reprimands another officer, Lynn “Buck” Compton, for gambling with the enlisted men.Compton, who would one day lead the prosecution Sirhan Sirhan for the

Chain of events

2011-01-12T08:42:00.001-05:00

As New York City – and its media – look closer into the city’s response during the 2010 Snowmageddon II last month, the unionized public employees are starting to look a lot less like villains than they did initially.Which would be annoying for conservatives pushing the notion that public employee wages – and not the lack of political will to raise taxes on those who can best afford it – are

Sean Payton's bonehead move

2011-01-10T03:16:00.002-05:00

With around 9:15 left in what would turn out to be the biggest upset in NFL playoff history, the New Orleans Saints, trailing 34-27, had fourth down and around three yards to go.The ensuing decision should have been a no-brainer. But Saints' coach Sean Payton - whose play-calling is regularly called "daring," according to a Google search and won a Super Bowl last year partly on the strength of a

Good job with that anthem, Jackie

2011-01-06T10:45:00.001-05:00

Jackie Evancho deserves kudos for her national anthem performance prior to the Winter Classic, but not for the reason you might think.Yeah, her execution was terrific, but that’s not the most important consideration. There’s only one criterion by which a singer should be judged when singing the national anthem prior to a sporting event, and it’s not the ability to hit that high note at “… land of

The simple-mindedness of Bryan Fischer

2010-11-21T22:01:00.004-05:00

"Ironically in war, an enterprise more readily associated with killing, Medals of Honor are given more often for saving lives than for taking them.""... the strongest, most powerful thing a man can do in this world is not to kill or destroy, but to sacrifice."The first of those two quotes is from page 26 of my book, Forgotten Honor and the second one is the book's closing lines, on page 207.And

Tea Party won't lose passion

2010-09-26T21:59:00.001-04:00

(From the Sept. 23, 2010 Ellwood City Ledger)Typically, I don’t get to watch Sunday morning news shows – I’m either in church or sitting in the living room with two small children who complain bitterly over any attempt to stop the cartoons.Hey, every parent’s got to pick his battles and the attraction of hearing political hacks blather isn’t a go-to-the-mat issue for me. Conversely, Steelers

Sunny Sundays a memory to cherish

2010-09-11T00:01:00.003-04:00

(From the Sept. 9, 2010, Ellwood City Ledger)From the gorge bottom, about 40 or so feet below Breakneck Bridge, the sun doesn’t shine so much as stab golden shafts through the trees, polka-dotting the rocks and stream at our feet.My son sees those sun-spotted rocks piled atop one another and clambers up while pretending to be a dinosaur, which sends me into a spasm of worry.He doesn’t read the

Piling on

2010-08-15T08:46:00.003-04:00

Coming in a week when a flight attendant quit his job by deploying the emergency slide and descended, beer in hand, from the annoying customers, the story of Jenny DryErase seemed too good to be true.And it was."Jenny" quit her job last Monday in an e-mail that exposed her boss' sexual harassment and - perhaps even more annoying to his bosses - on-the-clock obsession with the "Farmville" game on

Don't mess with the Lohan

2010-07-25T19:16:00.005-04:00

Check out these two sample Facebook posts:1) Lindsey Lohan who? I can't believe the news coverage being given to a spoiled 20-something yr old. Here are a few 20 year-olds worth knowing about: Justin Allen 23, Brett Linley 29, Matt Weikert 29, Justus Bartett 27, Dave Santos 21, Chase Stanley 21, Jesse Reed 26, Matthew King 23, Christopher Goeke 23, & Sheldon Tate 27. These 20-somethings gave

Proposed Medal of Honor citation for Leslie Sabo

2010-06-28T16:42:00.002-04:00

This posting links from my new Facebook page, Tell President Obama to approve Leslie Sabo's Medal of Honor award today!“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty in the Republic of Vietnam on 10 May 1970, Spc. 4 Leslie H. Sabo Jr. distinguished himself while serving as a rifleman against hostile forces in the Se San area during the

We want to be proud of our country

2010-06-17T23:42:00.002-04:00

In a Foreign Policy online story this month, Peter Beinart wrote that Ronald Reagan gave a long-delayed Medal of Honor award to Vietnam War hero Roy Benavidez in 1981, at least in part as a symbolic gesture to wash the taste of Vietnam failure from America's throat.Not that Benavidez wasn't a worthy recipient of this nation's highest award for combat valor - even a quick perusal of his citation

Blumenthal's career looks like "casualty of war'

2010-05-22T10:11:00.003-04:00

There might not be a better measure of this nation's changing attitude toward Vietnam veterans than the fictions attributed to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.Blumenthal is accused of spinning false tales of Vietnam combat service in a shameless effort to win votes. And, at least until Tuesday when the New York Times outed him as a liar, it worked.In 1971, while Blumenthal was in

Scooping Barack Obama

2010-04-10T22:14:00.004-04:00

It appears a new name will soon be added to America's pantheon of war heroes.A few days ago, I came into possession of a copy of a letter sent by Secretary of the Army John McHugh to U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-4, Pa.) revealing that an Army awards committee has recommended that Sgt. Leslie Halasz Sabo receive the Medal of Honor, this nation's highest award for combat valor.(Disclosure: I am the

My odyssey: The storm of the millennium (at least for now)

2010-02-06T10:31:00.002-05:00

Adventure time last night. Dawna worked at the hospital (in Pittsburgh, about 50 miles driving and usually a little less than an hour away) yesterday. Roads were clear when she left around 6 a.m.The storm started around 1 p.m. and by the time her shift ended, things were getting bad (I thought about driving her to and from work, but regrettably, I didn't). She didn't want to drive home and she

Butt out, Art

2010-01-21T19:51:00.002-05:00

There are two types of owners in the National Football League - the type that hires football guys and let them run the team free of interference, and the type that is constantly hovering over the shoulders of their football guys telling them what to do and overrule their football guys on personnel decision.It's pretty easy to see which owners fall into each category. The owners who leave their

The naked politican double standard

2010-01-20T15:24:00.003-05:00

When the reports of Scott Brown's naked photos turned up, I heard a few commentators wonder about what would happen if a woman did the same thing.She'd be dead in the water, was the consensus. Those people were right, and you don't have to wonder about it.With Brown's victory Tuesday in the Massachusetts special election, I'm wondering what Carmen Kontur-Gronquist thinks.Kontur-Gronquist is the

McGwire, Bonds for the Hall of Fame

2010-01-18T23:33:00.003-05:00

Before 1900, major league baseball teams regularly held barnstorming exhibitions in the far Western United States and Deep South, where towns didn't have any big-league teams of their own.For some owners, those tours - when they sold tickets but didn't have to play most of the players - were the difference between profit and bankruptcy. So when the era's biggest star, the Chicago Cubs' Cap Anson,

Mark McGwire is a lying bag of crap

2010-01-13T00:10:00.001-05:00

In his well-publicized interview Monday with Bob Costas, former home-run king Mark McGwire admitted he used steroids, but in a classic slimeball move, McGwire claimed that he juiced not to get stronger, but to recover from injury.McGwire said his home-run power was God-given - not laboratory-given - and that he would have hit all those dingers without steroids.McGwire lies.Maybe he really

A little advice for Minka Kelly

2010-01-12T14:44:00.003-05:00

Supposedly, Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter is getting married - although from what I understand, that report is based upon a reporter having seen his name on an reserved-date list at the same place where Joe Jonas tied the knot last year.Jeter's possible nuptials have the potential to retire what might be the most-envied little black book in all of sports - I guess we have to update that by

Five reasons you should see Invictus - No. 1: Bill Simmons doesn't know what he's talking about

2010-01-03T03:15:00.006-05:00

Here's the long-delayed Number One reason to see "Invictus" (I thought I'd actually see the movie before I wrote this one and I couldn't get there until this weekend).First, though, the disclaimer.Seeing this movie confirmed one of my suspicions -- that the target audience for "Invictus" was someone, perhaps a journalist, who covered an element of the fall of apartheid, perhaps campus protests in

Five reasons you should see Invictus - No. 2: History done right

2009-12-14T23:46:00.002-05:00

As often as not, the historical drama genre of film is as much "drama" as "history."Most slaves didn't enjoy the slave lifestyle, although viewers of "Gone With The Wind" might think differently. The case for a conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy isn't as open-and-shut as Oliver Stone's "JFK" would leave you to believe.Some 500 years from now though, we're likely to look back on "

Five reasons you should see Invictus - No. 3: See Eastwood's Mona Lisa

2009-12-10T16:16:00.002-05:00

When journalist John Carlin wrote "Playing the Enemy," he was penning a book for a British, possibly even a South African, audience.He could throw about terms like "Rugby World Cup," "Springboks," "Robben Island," "apartheid," and "Afrikaner," and know his readers would get his message with a minimum of explanation. But when working on "Invictus," the movie based on Carlin's book, Clint Eastwood

Five reasons you should see Invictus - No. 4: Here's one for the ladies

2009-12-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Reason number 4 to see “Invictus” ...... A more-buff-than-usual Matt Damon, frequently shirtless.

Five reasons you should see Invictus - No. 5: The connections linking Nelson Mandela, Dennis Brutus and K. Leroy Irvis

2009-12-07T23:38:00.000-05:00

It’s pretty much forgotten these days, but the University of Pittsburgh was rocked in the spring and summer of 1986 by the kind of campus protests that colleges hadn’t seen since the Vietnam War.Students built a shantytown on the student union lawn, and disrupted not only trustees’ meetings but peaceful Saturday afternoons at the home of then-university president Wesley Posvar.The cause?

Hungary and the Holocaust

2009-11-02T00:10:00.002-05:00

While working on my newly-released book, Forgotten Honor, I ended up researching the treatment of Jews in Hungary during World War II as a byproduct of the fact that U.S. Vietnam War hero Leslie Halasz Sabo was the younger son of a couple that was firmly ensconced in Hungary's upper class during the war.To be sure, my research was hardly comprehensive - it consisted of reading one book, Hungary:

No winners in Obama-Fox fight

2009-10-23T23:03:00.002-04:00

I should be happy that the Obama administration is standing up to Fox News. I voted for the guy after all, and I still think he's doing a good job considering how badly his predecessor screwed the pooch (But whaddaya say we get moving on the Leslie Sabo Medal of Honor documents - it's only been 40 stinkin' years).And it's not as though the White House is wrong about Fox News. Compared to Fox, the

Balloon Boy and the media whores

2009-10-18T09:20:00.002-04:00

Note to self: Never take on a 6-year-old boy as an accomplice - just something to keep in mind, because my son is 6.If Richard Heene (Balloon Dad) ever faces charges in what authorities in Larimer County, Colo., believe to have been an elaborate - and successful - publicity stunt, he will have been brought down by a slip of the lip of his son, and co-conspirator, 6-year-old Falcon, who referred

Forgotten Honor: Final excerpt

2009-10-16T08:48:00.002-04:00

This is the final excerpt from Eric Poole's new book Forgotten Honor: The True Story of an American Hero. The book is now available through the Xlibris Web site and will soon be sold on major book-selling Web sites such as Amazon.com.Instructions for ordering:1. Go to www.xlibris.com.2. Click on the "bookstore" tab.3. Type "Forgotten Honor" into the search box."You don't win wars by dying for

Forgotten Honor: Fourth excerpt

2009-10-10T23:43:00.002-04:00