dagblog - Comments for "SVU comes to Happy Valley"

Pope Joe Pa from Ped State

Charles Ulysses Feney — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:13:28 +0000

In reply to SVU comes to Happy Valley

Pope Joe Pa from Ped State

Penn State football's a perennial Big Ten power

Who are now lookin' at their most shameful hour.

The case they must broach

Is an old defensive coach

Who liked to bugger young boys in the shower.

An grad assistant busted Sandusky in mid-stroke

When he was givin' an at risk youngster a poke.

He reported it to Joe Pa,

Who gave it a hearty "Ha Ha"

Then, next day, passed it to the A.D. as a joke.

The sodomy rape report got kicked up the chain

To President Spanier who tried to contain

This man-boy sex scandal

By asking Sandusky to handle

His consensual boy rogerings in some other domain.

You see, nobody ever bothered to call the cops

To protect the program, they pull out all stops.

'Cause with pedophile rings

Powerful deviants pull strings

To hold a complaint in the loop 'til it drops.

The Administration sat on the story for years

Knowing it was the sum of their worst fears

They kept the tale quiet

'Til they couldn't deny it

But now the Nittany Lion's Judgment day nears.

Now Justice will be done, we all can hope!

And Joe Pa has shown he's qualified to be Pope.

But for kids in Happy Valley

Don't wander down coach's alley

And whatever you do, Don't ever drop the soap!

___________________________________

Charles Ulysses Feney

You touch on something that I

Elusive Trope — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:12:09 +0000

In reply to I like Plaschke's comment and

You touch on something that I think is driving the emotions of this event, but which is not the core issue. There are those who would say that one of the things wrong with modern society is that we do not have the ritual forms that allow for those growing up to move from one stage of life to another. In most tribal societies there was set ritual or rituals for instance for a boy to move to that next stage of manhood. These rituals allowed for or at least facilitated a more psychologically healthy passage through what is known as the liminal space, where the boundaries dissolve, we find ourselves on a threshold, between what we were and what we will be.

And there would be those that argue that things like football or other competitive activities (say, the debate club) and the adults that help guide the kids through those endeavors, like the coaches and teachers, are the next best thing as a replacement for those lost formal rituals of society in helping adolescents and young adults move through that liminal space.

And these people might argue that someone can have a child, and hold down a job, and make sacrifices for that child, and still psychologically not feel as they have become a man or a woman. That they would feel even more unsettled, a child impersonating an adult.

The Lakota Sioux have the well-known Sun Dance:

The ritual occurs over a period of four days, corresponding with the four sacred directions, which is likened to the four levels in subconscious mind each corresponding with a certain element. The sixth level being earth, the fifth level being water, the fourth level being fire, and the third level being air. It involves a sweat lodge ceremony in preparation, which is a heated and covered, insulated structure that purifies the body and mind in preparation for what is to come. Devotional songs are sung and upon exiting the sweat lodge a preparation time is made to be pierced. A needle is threaded through skin in a man's chest in two places, then string attached to the instrument used to pierce the skin. These strings are tied to a sacred tree or pole, and pressure is applied to pull the person's body up until the skin breaks and the person falls back.

This practice can be done by a young man as early as age 11, as a means and rite of passage into manhood. With the preparation, the attention is focused clearly and the mind clarified and purified, and a commitment of some sort is made and sealed with the completion of the ritual. It creates a strong expectation and belief in the mind of the participant that they will uphold what they commit to do, and affirm their belief in their place in the tribe and upholding of Indian traditions of respect for all life. This strong expectation and solemn commitment made to self sets the processes of growth very strongly into motion within the individual.

This particular ritual no more literally makes one a man than playing football. But it is the portion of what I bolded in that comment where one can find how maybe playing football in the right program with the right coaches can make the difference in the lives of some young men.

Remember, too, that many of these players come from some rather awful upbringings, broken homes, and dysfunctional communities. Many of these young men did not have good father figures or authority figures in general growing up. For some, when they come to the campus of a college, and get involved in a football program along with the academic side, it is the first time that they have had real consistent structure in their lives, real stability, and in some cases a stability that means they know they are going to have three meals a day every day.

I like Plaschke's comment and

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:19:08 +0000

In reply to SVU comes to Happy Valley

I like Plaschke's comment and think he gets it right.

The "none of us is pure as the driven snow, so who are we to judge?" can be used literally in any situation involved allegations of wrongdoing. It's a handy argument to pull out of one's back pocket if one is on a really hot seat. But that doesn't mean it should always fly. And not here. Certain expectations are reasonable. The question isn't "what would the ordinary American do?" It's "what, reasonably, should Joe Paterno [among others, of course] have been expected to do under those circumstances?" What he did was not enough. As he has acknowledged. The fact that we are all sinners, certainly me included, is supposed to be adequate justification to...what? Go out for a beer and forget it ever happened? Sweep it under the rug?

One of my other reactions is that football is wayyy too important at Penn State for people not directly involved with that program. I mean, I love football. But let's get real. It's a game. At the college level, it provides potentially very valuable developmental opportunities for players, along with entertainment for students and other community members.

Although even that gets blown way out of proportion. On ESPN radio we're hearing all these loyal Paterno devotee Penn State alums talk about how they feel about him and the situation. Some of them are telling us that Joe Paterno and Penn State football turned them "from a boy into a man".

Horsepucky. You would have some reason to think you've changed from a boy into a man when you give up something you'd really rather do because you are a husband or a father. You would have some reason to think you've changed from a boy to a man when you go out and hold down a job and try to do it to the best of your availability even though it ain't always, or even most of the time, a lot of fun. You would have reason to think you have changed from a boy to a man when you inform yourself as a citizen and vote. volunteer in your community or otherwise participate in, and take a measure of responsibility for, public life. You have not become a man on account of playing football, at Penn State or anywhere else, for Joe Paterno or God or anyone else. You can certainly learn invaluable lessons that may do a great deal to help you become a mature adult. I have hope that's what most folks who say that, on later and further reflection, really mean.

Hmmm . . . In my 60+ years

oldenGoldenDecoy — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:57:37 +0000

In reply to Anyone who reaches adulthood

Hmmm . . .

In my 60+ years on this dirt ball I've yet to meet a human that would fit the description of perfection personfied. Especially any individual who would be so crass as to sit in judgement of others interests and deem them "pathetic."

~OGD~

But regardless of what each

Verified Atheist — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:22:39 +0000

In reply to Thanks for bringing up

But regardless of what each of us might actually do, we hold up an ideal.

Exactly so. These judgments shouldn't be focused on retribution, but on prevention of future crimes.

Thanks for bringing up

Elusive Trope — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:20:17 +0000

In reply to And I assume the vast

Thanks for bringing up Millgram. There is something from that study at play here - although I believe it has more to do with Mike McQueary, the Graduate Assistant who witnessed the vileness happening in the shower. That he turned the responsibility over to Joe, in thanks partly to Mike's father, rather than reporting it to the police, demonstrates he was giving over moral decisions to the authorities, in this case his father and Joe.

Joe on the other hand was the authority on campus. And he thought of himself as such. Which is why in part there is more attention given to Joe than Mike McQueary (although there seems to be a building anger at the then-28 year old who did not intervene).

Many of the Joe supporters keep bringing up the idea that we don't know how we would have acted had we found ourselves in Mike McQueary's shoes or Joe's shoes. And since we cannot know, we cannot judge them.

But regardless of what each of us might actually do, we hold up an ideal. As a society there comes a time we need to hold people to that ideal, even if most of us would not in a similar situation be able to achieve the ideal.

It is hard to imagine too many other scenarios that would demand we cast the first stone than a child being molested. That their inaction allowed a predator to continue for years is sickening. That one of the people involved was the one person on that campus who no one would have questioned or doubted had he come forward just makes it worse.

I have always been kind of a

Richard Day — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:20:24 +0000

In reply to And I assume the vast

I have always been kind of a positive kind of guy:

And I assume the vast

Verified Atheist — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:25:16 +0000

In reply to It does boil down to a simple

And I assume the vast majority of us would refuse to 'go with the flow'.

If by "us", you mean dagbloggers, I'd like to think you're right. If by "us", you mean Americans or just humans, I suspect you're wrong.

It does boil down to a simple

Richard Day — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:18:27 +0000

In reply to SVU comes to Happy Valley

It does boil down to a simple case of inhumanity, for sure.

peterno is 85 years old for Chrissake. That he steps down at the end of the season is a joke.

Were they expecting him to last till he was 95?

I am guilty of many many sins over the last 61 years but I tell ya, if I witnessed or heard second hand of the abuse of a 10 year old; I would never shut up.

And I assume the vast majority of us would refuse to 'go with the flow'.

School officials, police, child services, and just about any other agency that could possibly be related to the protection of children should have been alerted.

We have a failed sports system anyway in the schools.

Colleges get 'free athletes' and sell millions of tickets to the public. Then some of these schools get huge contracts with the media.

Peterno was making a million bucks a year! Heading an 'amateur team'.

Amateur my ass!

In Minnesota our University basketball team hit the big eight once in the last four decades and it turned out that every rule in the book was being broken. They did everything but imprison the coach.

Oh enough.

I'm pretty sure his nickname

Donal — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:28:00 +0000

In reply to What awful, heartbreaking

I'm pretty sure his nickname is JoePa. My stepkids' late grandfather was an old friend of Paterno, and spoke highly of him. Mike was a great guy, so I figured Paterno must be OK, too. I appreciated that a decent percentage of their athletes graduated, and just about everyone in central PA was a fan.

In the last few years, though, I've read complaints that Paterno was trying to hang around long enough to pass the job to his son, Jay, an assistant coach at PSU. That's not very important now, but I suspect it will help ease him out the door.

WBAL had a morning poll on the question of Paterno stepping down. One woman objected that he was the only one that seemed to do anything, but was a target because he was so famous. I think that's the loyalty speaking, though. Even if he wasn't sure, he should have made sure there wasn't a problem.