From a blog at The Atlantic:
If there is anything more pathetic than a presidential candidate who can't name the government departments he previously said he would eliminate, it is a group of college students rioting because a football coach they admired was fired for his indifference to allegations of child abuse leveled against one his assistants.
Here's a quote from one of the rioters:
"We got rowdy, and we got maced," Jeff Heim, 19, said rubbing his red, teary eyes. "But make no mistake, the board started this riot by firing our coach. They tarnished a legend."
I am not one of those who argue that this country is in some sort of decline, but Mr. Heim does not symbolize an ascendant America.
I really hope McQueary is not coaching on Saturday, but it looks like the plan is that he will be.
Are you kidding? Does Penn State have enough security for him? I'm serious.
Author John Scalzi has an incredibly good post up reflecting on Penn State in the light of LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". You don't necessarily have to have read the story first. [link]
It's my understanding that there basically isn't a congregation - its pretty much just the Phelps family and their lawsuits using the name "church" to look more like an actual respectable organization.
Yeah, I think I read that it used to be an actual church, but practically everyone other than his family left in the seventies when he started publicly denouncing the sins of all the other congregants.
I think Paterno was being incredibly naive in thinking that he could coach the rest of the season, just for that reason. It wouldn't be about football at all, but a constant media circus.
My wife pointed out this morning that the (ex) President of Penn State is the same guy who developed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the most widely used measure of relationship satisfaction (I've used it in my own research), and was at one time a prominent researcher in family studies.
This added potential professional embarassment to the whole situation, so I quickly checked his bio to find out that he is a sociologist, not a psychologist, so that makes him sociology's problem, not mine.
Still, just more evidence that he had the knowledge to do the right thing, just not the will.
Honestly, aside from the dozens of disadvantaged kids who were likely sexually abused (beyond the ones we know about), the rioting is the most upsetting thing about this. Trashing a news van? Rioting at all? Because a beloved coach got fired, when KIDS WERE RAPED? I hope they're all expelled, seriously. Youthful idealism and enthusiasm is one thing, but blind ignorance and disrespect is another.
Dang. We're talking about Penn State here at work, and Chatty!Co-worker said he understood how the GA could have walked away without calling the police or making waves about seeing Sandusky rape a child.
I asked what is there to understand in that situation, beyond an adult man raping a child in front of you?
Chatty said the GA grew up in that town (I have no idea if that's true), and was part of the Penn State Football Culture, and the idea of speaking out and destroying what he loved was just too big.
I said, well, I *don't* understand anyone for whom goddamn football, even the Big Football Culture you grew up with, trumps the welfare of a child being raped.
Chatty said, "I don't know what I would do if I were in that locker room -- there's no way to know how you would react in that situation."
I gaped for a minute, and said, "You have a SON. Are you KIDDING me?"
He said no, he can't know how he'd react in a situation like that.
I said, "I do."
He said, "It must be nice to have such moral certainty," really sarcastically. (Perhaps because I'm known for being an amoral jackass? I don't know.)
And I squinted at him for a moment again, and said, "It is nice."
I'm kind of stunned and a little sick to my stomach.
Jesus, Steph. *I* would have jumped the guy and screamed my head off, and I'm five feet four inches of no muscle tone. And it's not just because I have kids, although that plays into it.
Chatty sounds like someone I don't want to know.
I do believe that the grad student grew up there, though, and was a former player. I don't understand how that enabled him to walk away, but I guess that's between him and his conscience.
