The recent conviction of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on several counts of pedophilia brings that awful topic to the news again. We’ve all heard hundreds of stories about pedophile priests, as well as similar actions by prep school teachers, to the extent that this seems to be some sort of epidemic. What’s going on?

When I question normal adult males–both heterosexual and homosexual– about this, they all say that they can’t imagine being attracted to young boys–they’re stinky and wiggly with dirt behind their ears, and either skinny or pudgy. In other words, they are definitely not a sexual turn-on of any sort.
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I recently read a magazine article that said something to the effect of, "Women can have it all" (meaning a career, a happy marriage, and motherhood)–"They just can’t have it all AT ONCE." I think men are now in the same leaky boat.

Longer life spans and the recession have combined to mean that both sexes live their lives in stages.

For women, it used to be education (sometimes), job (sometimes), marriage, motherhood, then empty nest.
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I have written about annoying "critters" in this column before, and I was discussing bugs with someone the other day, and we both agreed that both fleas and roaches will be with us forever, since they seem to be impervious to things that would kill any other creature, including humans.

It’s been discovered that roaches can survive high levels of radiation. I’m sure that both Chernobyl and Fukushima left roaches running around.
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I recently saw a TV news report saying that Dallas has locked away so many prisoners who are now being exonerated with new DNA testing, that they have a special police unit working on this problem. Some of these innocent men have been in prison for decades.

As the convict singer Leadbelly opined so long ago in his song "The Midnight Special:" "If you ever go to Houston" (although it seems to be Dallas now), you better act right. You’d better not gamble, and you’d better not fight. Or the sheriff will arrest you, and he’ll send you down. The jury find you guilty, you’re Sugarland bound" ("Sugarland" referred to an infamous Texas work camp).
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