By Andrew W. Griffin

Red Dirt Report, editor

Posted: July 19, 2012

reddirtreporter@gmail.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – Here at Red Dirt Report, one of our favorite newspaper websites in the world is Britain’s Daily Mail. The US-oriented news version of dailymail.co.uk finds some of the most interesting stories and oddly Oklahoma stories seem to make the cut a lot with the Daily Mail’s editors. Wild weather. Earthquakes. Crazy crime stories. Pesky squirrels … The Brits love tabloid journalism and sensational headlines.

And today was no different. Perusing the site (after reading that shocking article and viewing the even more shocking video of the 1957 film footage of Air Force “volunteers” allowing themselves to have an atomic bomb detonated 10,000 feet over their heads) there is this headline: “15-yearold charged with raping his GRANDMOTHER after he ‘cut off her panties’ while she slept.”

Yeah, sick, sad stuff. And this story was out of squeaky clean Edmond. The teen said he raped granny more than once. Now he sits in the Oklahoma County Jail on bail of $25,000. Interesting that the Brits picked up on that story. Of course we here at RDR are paying particular attention to the Brits and their London 2012 Summer Olympics. We'll see if they can pull it off.

Speaking of the Oklahoma County Jail, we have been seeing a lot of “Re-elect Sheriff Whetsel” signs around town, particularly down near the jail itself. One wonders if Whetsel will be re-elected. That jail has had LOTS of problems and his leadership abilities are very much in question. I had to visit that jail recently and the entrance alone is filthy. No wonder the feds are looking at the jail with a keen eye. Red Dirt Report has taken particular interest in a guy running against Whetsel – Darrell Sorrels.

A story we posted here (written by The Ellis County Observer in Texas) late last week – “’The Franklin Cover-Up’ author talks about how he linked Sandusky and Penn State abuse scandal years ago” – has received a ton of interest, particularly after talk-radio host Alex Jones took interest in the story and reposted it at Infowars.com. Jones also featured John DeCamp on his show this week and plans to have him back on next week. We have wondered why Louis Freeh, who “investigated” the Penn State child-sex abuse scandal, did not expose the report that noted Sandusky was “pimping out” kids, via the Second Mile Foundation, to wealthy Penn State donors?

That’s because Freeh is an expert in covering things up, as we said in our story last November headlined “Will Freeh bungle Penn State child-sex abuse investigation too?” He didn’t bungle it so much as effectively cover up other aspects of the story. John DeCamp knew of the Penn State scandal years ago.

Some interesting UFO sighting reports in Oklahoma this month. One out of Owasso on July 4th (here) and one out of Bristow on July 13th (here). Check 'em out. That Bristow sighting is particularly bizarre.

Oh, and we still have not heard back from the Custer County District Attorney’s office regarding the Pride Riders gun attack on those two land surveyors which we wrote about here. The spokesperson for OSBI responded to our request and said they were totally unaware of the Pride Riders or any events out in Weatherford. We will be following this and other stories in coming days.

Oh, and before we sign off, we hope you will head up to Stillwater this Saturday and check out all the great Red Dirt music that will be played at the Payne County Expo Center as part of the first-ever Red White and Blue Dirt Benefit that will help the Oklahoma Lions and their service projects. Check out our story on the benefit here.

One of the bands we have taken a shine to is Stillwater-based Aaron Woods Band. Their new song “Hanging By the River” is the summer song of 2012 and is getting airplay in the region. You can just picture the rope swing hanging over the lazy river Woods sings about. Woods, a Kansas native (like your Red Dirt Reporter) tells Red Dirt Report that the band’s upcoming album will be released by mid-to-late September. We are certainly looking forward to it. Read more about Woods and his music in this article from Nov. 2011 in the Stillwater NewsPress.

Copyright 2012 Red Dirt Report