Comments | moragmacpherson: What He Said

moragmacpherson

What He Said

Nov 09, 2011 18:12

I don't normally look to sportswriters for particularly insightful social commentary (with the notable exceptions of the late Hunter S. Thompson and the late Ralph Wiley). I particularly don't usually look for it at CBS Sports-home of Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder, whose coworkers maintain to this day that they didn't think he was particularly racist ( Read more... )

raeg, sports, writing

Comments 20

booster17 November 10 2011, 00:50:28 UTC

Holy fuck. Haven't heard a thing about this over here, but this is indefensible.

Jesus.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 01:07:30 UTC

And yet last night (after the jury report was released), hundreds of students gathered on Paterno's lawn to support him and protest against his retirement. The mind boggles recoils in horror.

(Long time no see! Hope all is well.)

jaimeykay November 10 2011, 01:00:33 UTC

Ugh, one of my students went to Penn State for a few years and tried to claim that Paterno had "nothing to do with it". I was like UM WRONG. Fuck off. Anyone who lets evil go on is a piece of shit and I have no other words for them. Must be nice to live in blissful ignorance.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 02:46:33 UTC

Exactly. I'm willing to bet your student hasn't read the grand jury report. Paterno has no claim to ignorance (blissful or otherwise) as a defense. Half of these assaults took place in Penn State's facilities. Sandusky must not have worried about the consequences of getting caught. I wonder why.

And the euphemisms and watered down language being used by most of the media coverage is just enabling the apologists. Paterno's reactions are totally defensible! What more could he have done? How many times do you have to hear about how your acquaintance of thirty years keeps using your locker room to behave inappropriately with minors have sex with ten year olds before you call the police? Oh, wait: in 1998 the police investigated and Sandusky admitted that he touched a minor inappropriately fondled a ten year old's genitals in Paterno's showers, but, huh, the D.A. decided not to press charges. Well, I guess in 2002 when Paterno had another person report that he'd just watched Sandusky doing something sexual with a young boy having ( ... )

jaimeykay November 10 2011, 15:14:22 UTC

Definitely not. I wish I were able to have said more about it, but it wasn't my place and wasn't relevant to the class. I was still so mad that I couldn't sleep for a while last night.

Exactly, I'm tired of this bullshit. I don't care that you told someone who ISN'T THE POLICE. Why would you think ~passing the info on~ means that you're free to go skip back to your office guilt free? I can't even be happy that Paterno was fired - well, I kind of am, because at least he wasn't allowed to retire like a fucking cowardly weasel, but still. Our system fails in a lot of ways, but holy shit Batman, don't try to cover it up even further. JFC.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 18:27:53 UTC

I made the mistake of clicking on a link to an old picture of one of the victims presented as one of Sandusky's rescued kids. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep for a week... his expression is heartbreaking.

There is no level of society that hasn't failed these children already. I'm thrilled they fired the weasel and the even more weasely ex-President (at least Paterno's pretending that he's remorseful for his inaction). Now they just need to fire all the people who covered for Sandusky at the charity, the police department that dropped the investigation, and about half of the administrators at the college. Have the NCAA give the sports scholarship kids penalty-free transfers and nuke the entire athletic department from orbit, just to be sure. And then the Board of Trustees should resign in shame for allowing this to happen on their watch.

tabaqui November 10 2011, 02:00:08 UTC

I saw someone - a sports reporter? Someone on the news last night who basically broke down and nearly cried while talking about this to another reporter. It's utterly revolting. Jail them *all*.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 03:05:49 UTC

But they coach with honor! And they follow the NCAA rules!

( ... )

tabaqui November 10 2011, 03:28:54 UTC

Oh, FUCK ME.

I'm for a public stoning, frankly.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 03:57:23 UTC

I'm the daughter of a criminal defense attorney. I've read GJIs before. In general, I take them with a grain of salt - there's no chance to offer a defense or to cross-examine the witness.

Sandusky, the sicko, will get his day in court (finally - or, more likely, a plea bargain that will keep him in solitary confinement for the rest of his life because prisons, unlike other "honorable" institutions, tend to kill child molesters rather than protect them). But McQueary, Paterno, Curley, and all the rest? They damned themselves with their own testimony and actions and they still don't understand what they did wrong.

dollarformyname November 10 2011, 03:44:31 UTC

Jesus. I wish I hadn't read that. No words.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 04:14:28 UTC

I understand. Reading it is vile and horrifying. I wish it hadn't happened. Witnessing it and doing nothing? That's evil. Conspiring to cover it up and allowing more children to be victimized? That's unforgiveable. Needing to bring in the State Attorney General because the last D.A. to investigate this disappeared without a trace? That's a symptom of corruption so endemic that the entire university might fall apart.

But defending the people who witnessed it and did nothing because they're in charge of your favorite football team? That's an attitude that's damning of American society in general. And so we must read this, because ignoring it is the greater evil.

dollarformyname November 10 2011, 04:40:38 UTC

Oh, I agree, definitely. I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that people actually witnessed it live and in person and didn't even so much as shout, "Hey, stop that!" I mean, the janitors were sitting around wondering if they could lose their jobs for reporting it. REALLY? There is not enough GROSS in the world.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 05:09:53 UTC

The janitors were bad but the D.A. who declined to charge Sandusky after he openly admitted to the forced shower groping and fondling in 1998? That's worse: any charge at all would have landed him on the sex offender registry - which would have put an end to his charity work victim pool.

idc_chan November 10 2011, 04:29:43 UTC

I have no words. There is nothing in the English language that can adequately express the disgust and horror I feel about grown men raping children for years and getting away with it.

moragmacpherson November 10 2011, 04:55:07 UTC

Sandusky's a sick, evil, predator and I hope he rots. But that's not what scares me. What scares me is how many people caught him: and then let him go. This is beyond "willful ignorance". This is aiding and abetting. Sandusky has a wife, six adopted children, and fostered a number of children. Sen. Rick Santorum gave him an "Adoption Angel" award back in 2003. After two years of grand jury investigation, this may just be the start.

How bad -- how systemic was this cover up? The whole 1998 police investigation (where he admitted to fondling a ten year old in the Penn State showers but the DA declined to press charges) is fishy. Made even fishier by the fact that the D.A. disappeared without a trace in 2005. Before he disappeared, he googled "how to fry a hard drive". They found his laptop in a river weeks later. His hard drive was so thoroughly destroyed that the specialists who retrieved data from the wreckage of the Columbia space shuttle couldn't manage to recover any of his files ( ... )