It IS mandatory for person who work with children to report suspected or witnessed abuse to DFS and/or police. You can follow up, and follow up (I have reported and followed up exhaustively, both as a teacher and while wworking in the shelter system) but what happens in the investigation, by DFS/police, is out of your hands.

A lot of excellent, caring people fight the system every day, and sometimes win, often lose. But there are a lot of inept people within the system who fall down on their job, to the detriment of the children.

That said, I have been desperate to keep a job before. I have lived out of a car for a month in college; D and I almost lost the house.

But if I witnessed someone raping a child, not only would there be blood on the fucking CEILING I would happily lose my job because I screamed my bloody damned head off to get that dirtbag fired and/or prosecuted. If I didn't kill him with my bare hands.

I am not expressing hyperbole; I have NO personal doubts about my reaction. It's true at 39, and it would have been true when I was 22-24, as a grad student.

OK, what the hell? After Sandusky was barred from bringing kids on campus at the main Penn State campus, he was still organizing football camps for kids at some of the other Penn State campuses for several years.

Yeah, I find it inexplicable that you wouldn't just call the cops. But even if you don't call the cops, and instead report to your supervisor, when nothing happens, you don't follow up?!?

There must be a weird sort of, well, collegiate feeling bordering on Stockholm Syndrome that makes you go to your boss instead of the cops in that instance. What does the kid have to do with your boss? He's the one getting raped. Save him!

Izze! And I found an apple in my car. So I'm way ahead of yesterday, nutritionally. Also, some cornbread grabbed my eye in the store, so I'll see if I can actually stomach that.

That Walgreens app is totally freaking me out. CVS is just not cool enough.

I'm with Erin, though. I walk in and see a grown man raping a ten-year-old kid, I'm screaming for someone to call 911 until I'm hoarse, and probably jumping him just to get him off the kid.

There is definitely a prevailing attitude in universities I've seen that you deal with even serious crimes internally, not with the local cops. Especially sex crimes. Of course, usually it's the rape of a peer, not a child.

Student newspaper is tweeting from the rally going on at the administration building.

Student is loudly yelling, asking crowd why it is singing and dancing to Will Smith song given grave situation at hand. #PSUCharges

I guess Penn State officials decided if it wasn't on the main campus it doesn't count?

When frisco got undressed tonight, he was a little stinky so I made him take a bath. When he was done, I was playfully sniffing his toes, saying they smelled good. And then frisco says to me, "do you want to smell my butt?". I declined, telling him I was sure it now smelled good, but it did make me laugh.

Ah, he's reached the booty humor stage!

Another weird day. Lots of transitions at work which are messing with my head a little.

I think I was mildly to worse depressed, enough so to be to my detriment careerwise, most of my 20s. No, I know I was. I was stuck. I don't think I really broke free until the last few years. And that's depressing!