Interesting Point

Michael Stogner, San Mateo County resident, and frequent advocate against local government corruption has posted a letter to the San Mateo Daily Journal, pointing out that the organization Friends for Youth, Inc., a local San Mateo County Organization, while vocal about the recent Sandusky molestation case, was apparently strangely silent about the william hamiltion ayres molestation case that has dragged reluctantly through the courts only to end in a fizzle.

In a quick search of the internets for coinciding phrases "Friends for Youth" and "Ayres," I was only able to find two documents with references to both ayres and Friends for Youth, Inc.: The first document was an acrobat document published by the organization in 2009 with a brief mention of the ayres case:

While it appears that there are no cases involving a volunteer from a formal program abusing a child, San Mateo County has seen numerous incidents in recent years where trusted members of the community have committed sex offenses against youth in their professional capacity. The highprofile case of William Ayres, a child psychiatrist from San Mateo who allegedly molested numerous patients over many years, has been headline news.

It should be noted that while the article claims that "it appears that no cases involving a volunteer from a formal program abusing a child," ayres himself received a nomination in 2002 (before this report was written)  from now Assemblyman Rich Gordon for a "Lifetime Achievement Award" for his "service on the Children and Families First Commission, and his tireless efforts to improve the lives of children and adolescents." -- Read the post just below this one for my recent comment on this. Further, ayres is known to have been on the board of a local YMCA. And during his criminal trial, he mentioned wanting to renew his "medical license"so that he could volunteer for a local medical clinic that helps families in need.

The second document of interest is a Menlo Park council report from 7/16/2007, which mentions that $2,000 was paid to Friends for Youth, Inc. It also mentions that $1,091 was paid to a Barbara Ayres for "Dental" I believe this to be a co-incidence, as there is a Barbara Ayres (sometimes listed as Ayers) who is a police officer working for the City of Menlo Park. I am reasonably certain that this is NOT the child molester william ayres' daughter.

Apathy and Cowardice

People involved in the exacerbation of the Penn State Jerry Sandusky child molestation nightmare seem to be realizing the extent to which they allowed evil to influence them.

The charity that Sandusky founded (The Second Mile) and which he used to identify and select victims has realized that any good that it may have done can not survive the evil caused by Sandusky:

According to Fox News,  David Woodle, the chief executive of The Second Mile has said that "We're working hard to figure out how the programs can survive this event, We aren't protective of the organization that it survives at all costs."

Various collegiate and local political groups have realized that they probably even need to divorce themselves of Joe Paterno, the head coach, who was one of several individuals who supported Sandusky’s child molestation by deliberately and utterly failing to report Sandusky’s evil deeds over a period of many years:

Pennsylvania's two senators, Democrat Bob Casey, and Republican Patrick Toomey have put down their pitchforks and torches for long enough to come to agreement on something: they've both rescinded their support for their prior nomination of Joe Paterno for the nation's highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to the New York Times, the senators issued the following statement in conjunction with rescinding their nomination of Paterno:

"Penn State is an important institution in our commonwealth, we should turn our attention to the victims of these atrocious crimes and ensure they get the help they need. Our hearts and prayers go out to them and their families."

According to the Washington Post,  Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl has written a letter strongly rebuking Franco Harris, a former Penn State star who spoke out against the firing of Joe Paterno. Harris is a member of the “Pittsburgh Promise” scholarship board. Ravenstahl and the board gave serious consideration to removing Harris based on his support for Paterno before ultimately deciding on the letter of rebuke.

Brown University is carefully watching the situation as well. Joe Paterno graduated from there in 1950, and the university awards a “Joe Paterno ’50 Award” to "outstanding first-year varsity male athletes." They are considering renaming the award, given Paterno's cowardly inaction. According to the article in the Boston Globe, Matt Kutler, a 2001 honoree, said it “wouldn’t be a bad idea’’ to remove Paterno’s name.


So what about the william ayres case?

In January of 2002,  ayres was nominated by then San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon (Gordon is now a California State Assemblyman)  for a "Lifetime Achievement Award" for his "service on the Children and Families First Commission, and his tireless efforts to improve the lives of children and adolescents."

The resolution was passed by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in spite of the fact that several reports of molestation had already been filed (and dismissed without investigation) with various county agencies. Board Members who approved the nomination unanimously: Mark Church, Richard S. Gordon, Jerry Hill, Rose Jacobs Gibson, Michael D. Nevin; County Manager: John Maltbie; County Counsel: Tom Casey


On several occasions San Mateo County Board of Supervisors members have been asked by victims and their families to move to revoke the “Lifetime Achievement Award” and nothing has happened.

Rich Gordon has been asked to do the same on several occasions by me and others -- four times by me, --through his office email, and in facebook posts, and even in person in some cases – emails have gone unanswered, and the facebook posts promptly deleted. In person requests were apparently greeted coldly, consideration promised, and promptly ignored.

I’d like to be able to say that our local politicians are not savvy enough to recognize their cowardice in the face of so much evil – that they are so afraid to call attention to their own shortcomings in supporting ayres, that they don’t want to raise the issue, but frankly the local press and the local authorities, and even the local citizens seem so apathetic to the damage done by child sexual abuse, that the local politicians can just continue to act in a cowardly manner with little fear of the kind of public backlash being experienced by those involved in the Sandusky case.

william hamilton ayres couldn’t have picked a better county in which to molest young boys.

Same Old Story

Penn State’s resident evil Jerry Sandusky did an interview with Bob Costas last night (these guys always want to talk about themselves and their interest in young boys:

There must have been a molester’s conference that both Sandusky and ayres attended:

COSTAS: What did happen in the shower the night that Mike McQueary happened upon you and the young boy?

SANDUSKY: Okay, we-- we were showing and-- and horsing around. And he actually turned all the showers on and was-- actually sliding-- across the-- the floor. And we were-- as I recall possibly like snapping a towel, horseplay.

For comparison, here’s from the transcript of the william ayres criminal trial for molestation of many young boys on July 8, 2009 :

Ayres’ Attorney DORON WEINBERG: … Did you ever use the results of a physical examination or observation to simply reassure the patient himself?

AYRES: Oh, Yes. Yes. There was – There’s a case in this issue of organic macula, which is a swelling of one – of one of the nipples. And in that situation you certainly would – first of all, is, you need to check to make sure that they’re – so that you know that it is a physiological condition, which is normal. Because it is quite normal, and you can have it bilaterally or on one side.
     On the other hand, they need to know – many, many boys are very, very anxious about it, and they need to start looking around. And, of course, now I’m finding out that when I was in High School we all were buck naked and ran around in the shower and snapped towels at each other, and then it was thought of as nothing. Now, I guess it’s people are not exposed as much as they used to be.
   But the idea of the nipple is difficult for a lot of boys, so you need to be able to say. “Well, we’ll check it again,”

The parallels between the cases are vomit inducing. There's so much evil to spread around...

Evil Breeds Evil

There is something very wrong with people.

We seem to collectively want to turn our heads and deny horrors when they happen around us. There is evil stalking us, and we let it in to invade any shred of reasoning capacity we may have, we celebrate its very existence, rather than face it down, and stop it.

To be sure, the real evil takes up housekeeping in the empty husks of bodies that were intended to house human beings.  Creatures like Jerry Sandusky and, indeed william ayres, roam the earth, creating suffering and damage that will perpetuate itself, generating fresh fodder for further exploitation and damage.

Sandusky of course, is the Penn State assistant coach who established “The Second Mile,” a charitable foundation to help provide “care” for foster children, and who now stands charged with anally raping a ten year old boy in the college facilities. There are at least 8 people who have officially come forward as victims. I would be shocked if his body count was NOT in the hundreds. It has been widely speculated (with good reason) that Sandusky founded the charity to help him obtain victims.

But here's the rub:
Penn State had a whole host of management who could have put a stop to the evil, but instead, they looked evil square in the eye, and invited it in to their house. It started with Mike McQueary who claims that he actually witnessed Sandusky anally raping a young boy in the facility’s shower.

Here’s what one of the mothers of the victims had to say about Mike:

“I don’t even have words to talk about the betrayal that I feel,” said the mom of Victim Six. “[McQueary] was a grown man, and he saw a boy being sodomized ... He ran and called his daddy?”

After Mike called his daddy, likely already fearful (and possibly advised by daddy) of the prospect of seeing his own career besmirched for reporting the beast, he again failed to do the FIRST thing he should have done: either beat Sandusky to death, or call the cops.

Instead he talked to other coaches, who talked to other university officials, and none of them had the courage to do the right thing. They all stared into the headlights of their precious careening reputations, and now, instead of being heros, the likes of Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, Vice President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz, coach Joe Paterno, and Penn State President Graham Spanier are just another line of cowards who gave up a bit of their soul in exchange for the privilege of running defense for tangible evil.

And we get to watch the evil continue to infect and infest, as dim-wittted Penn State students rally, and even riot on Paterono’s behalf, showing evil support for a coward too blinded by his own fame to see the damage he’s let be done.

As the rioting in Paterno’s behalf started, he made some statements:

He told a crowd of supporters: "Pray for the [sexual abuse] victims," he told the crowd. "We love you."

BUT: He also issued a statement, obtained by Fox News, saying that he was disappointed with the board's decision but would have to accept it.

Heroic statement of support and contrition it is not… It just shows that he clearly doesn’t understand the evil that was wrought while he ran defense for the Devil.

The impact that this kind of crime has is very painful and difficult to describe, but  Dr. Keith Ablow does a good job of hinting at it in his article in Fox News. It doesn’t deliver the full breadth and depth of the impact, but it touches upon the tip of the iceberg:

When a child is made to participate in a sex act with an adult, it leads to intense feelings of fear and guilt and betrayal, which can easily color his or her entire existence.

These feelings are often suppressed. Hence, they can crop up in devastating ways later on: in the inability to trust any authority figure, in a tendency to avoid feelings at all, in literally slipping away from reality (dissociating), in attempts to suppress memories and feelings using alcohol and illicit drugs, in attention deficit disorder, in major depression, in sexual disorders and in suicide.

The evil persists. 

There are similar players in the william ayres story as well: 

Family memebers Solveig and Robert ayres, Shrinks Etta Bryant,  Robert Kimmich,  Larry Lurie, and all of the others who asked for financial support for the Devil himself are all good examples of evil at work, There are others.  People who are supposed to defend against evil and alert the public about its reality look the other way, and twist the truth to distract from the damage done by evil.

The stench and decay spreads, and true heros are few and far between.

Evil always has the last laugh. After you willingly sell your soul protecting Evil, it exposes you for what you really have become.

BY THE WAY: Here's an EXCELLENT article about what TO DO if you encounter child sexual abuse, by Michael Reagan. He gets it EXACTLY right, and in the right order of priority. 

AND: another nod to Victoria Balfour for being one of the few and far between.