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Saturday, June 23, 2012

Your Parents Lied: Monsters Are Real

The jury in Bellefonte, PA has convicted former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 of 48 counts involving the molestation of young men.  Story link HERE.

The word "glad" doesn't apply here, as who can be "glad" at this whole sorry state of affairs?  More correctly, I guess I can say that I am "relieved" that justice has been served in this case.  Or has it?

The way I see it, there is another monster in this case:  the monster of big-time college sports programs, where winning trumps everything, including, apparently, the innocence of little boys.  Let's not forget that most of these crimes were committed a decade or more ago.  Why did it take so long for this process to come to this conclusion?  You don't need to be Perry Mason to figure out that anything which would have disrupted the Penn State football program was verboden, period.  Apparently winning football games really was the most important thing at Penn State.

Sadly, I'm sure that the basic concept of what I've noted above continues to this very day, where God knows what is turned a blind eye to in the name of winning at sports.

There are times like this when I wish Dr Hunter S. Thompson were still alive.  HST would know how to tell this "like it is", in a way that would be both visceral and smart.  We need someone to call out the administrators at Penn State for being the weasels that they were for this whole mess.  We need someone to say that Joe Paterno failed, miserably, to live up to his own high moral standards by not immediately and decisively acting on Mike McQueary's accusation, instead of just "reporting it up"...ONCE...and moving on.  No follow-up, no further questions.  Too bad a boy was raped in HIS showers.  Besides, we all know that, in the case of Coach Paterno, there was not "up" to report it to:  he ran the place.

Maybe now some of my Penn State pride can begin to return, although this Life Member of the Penn State Alumni Society is still hanging his head in shame.


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