Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I was surprised to not find an official thread devoted to this story yet, so here it is. The more I read about the whole Penn State scandal, the more sickened I become. Idolizing sports coaches, players, and sports in general has become so ingrained in our society that we side with them over the safety of children? I'm dumbfounded and deeply disturbed. For those who haven't heard about it yet, here is one of just many articles:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/12/us/penn-state-scandal/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/11/07/sandusky_grand_jury_presentment.pdf

Grand jury indictment, don't read it before you gO to bed.

This really breaks my heart.

The Onion nailed it: http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/artic ... -me,26609/

Ugh, the whole thing is just awful. Some of the quotes from the rioters just made me hate everything. Like, could they miss the point any more than they have done? This whole blind hero worshipping thing is just absolute BS.

I posted about it in another thread, but the whole thing just really makes me miserable. I'm from PA originally and went to the summer camps for underprivileged youth run by the organization Sandusky founded for several years. It was a really positive thing in a really bad time in my life. It kills me to think of a generally good organization being brought down by its association with the guy.

And the kids rioting at PSU were just horrible. One of my cousins, who is a huge football guy and attends to PSU right now, posted a really good comment on his facebook that basically boiled down to: "look people, there are things in this world that are more important than football. LIKE STOPPING CHILD RAPE." Yeah basically.

Yes. I honestly don't get how people don't see that. When I heard the students were rioting over the firing, I was like wha-what? In what world is a football coach's career more important than stopping/reporting child rape?

the fact that the PA police knew about this in 2003 and decided not to prosecute???? The guy was already banned from various elementary schools because people didn't feel right about him. I do feel bad that Joe Pa is being used as a scapegoat. Yes he did not do all he should, but he is one of dozens of people that did not do enough to stop this.

The only good thing about this is they will probably change the law about how to report child abuse in the future. I know in Illinois there is state mandated reporting to the police if you suspect abuse, but in PA you only had to tell your boss. Teachers/doctors/social workers etc. can go to jail if they didn't report suspected abuse in some states, looks like PA will change their laws to be in line.

THIS!

I have just caught up with this news story and I cannot believe the apologists coming out of the woodwork. Holy fork.

Mat.

So fire and prosecute all of them. These people went on not only coaching football, but living their normal day to day lives while the lives of the victims unraveled. McQueary married and had a child of his own in the time between his witness of rape and now. How do you hold your own child in your hands and still somehow compartmentalize what you witnessed being done to somebody else's child?

The judge who freed Sandusky without bail was a volunteer with the Second Mile program through which Sandusky met the young boys. The story just keeps getting worse and worse.

This story is beyond awful. It's hard to believe that so many people would look the other way. And harder to believe that every single person wouldn't immediately turn against the guy. How can you even have a conversation with a man you know has raped children?? Or have a conversation with a guy you know is covering for & protecting a guy who raped children?? Sickening.

Sorry, that's what I meant. Sandusky should obviously should rot in jail, and everyone else that broke the law needs to be punished too. According to PA law, the others followed their legal obligations so aren't in legal trouble, but it really seems they should be held accountable somehow. If this occurred in another location, they would be in jail too for not reporting it.

At school we have an anti-bullying curriculum that focuses greatly on the "bystanders" of bullying. It's one thing to punish the bully, and empower the one being bullied, but there are always a greater number of bystanders that weren't directly involved, but saw something or heard something and aren't sure what to do. Granted this is *much*, *much* worse than just a bully, but it is similar because there are so many bystanders involved that didn't do all they could have. It's just easier said than done. People think "If my teacher/parents/coach/administrator etc know about it and haven't stopped it, who am I to stop it?"

So not only does Sandusky not have to await trial in jail, he apparently gets to jet across the country?

He's apparently not too worried about being accosted.

More on the unprecedented ridiculousness of lack of bail.

I think SNL hit the nail on the head the other night.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/299647/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-the-devil-on-penn-state#s-p1-sr-i3

The first guy charged in the rioting -- the one who tried to set a trash can on fire -- isn't a student. He's 41. http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/17/2 ... ntown.html

I had to stop watching tv and reading the morning paper to get away from this just for my own sanity. It is beyond insane and terrible. A guy I work with went to Penn State, he has been upset since the news broke. He has a framed picture hanging in his office of the football field and its says "The House that Joe Built". I am waiting for him to take it down.

I'm really looking forward to this guy being punished. I will be SHOCKED if he is not found guilty. How can he even say he is innocent? Completely dilusional.

I'm appalled by the whole situation. Not just by Sandusky, but by the people who knew and stood by and did nothing. I'm further appalled by the students who rioted and tried to make it seem like what Joe Paterno did or didn't do shouldn't hold a candle to his legacy. I wasn't posting on ppk when this first broke, but I pissed a lot of people off when they ranted about how unfair it was to JoePa by asking them to pretend it was their kid who was abused and then asking them if they still thought he did enough. Don't get me wrong, Joe Paterno did so much for our football program and for the university itself, but that doesn't give him a pass for something like this. Now, did the Board go about removing him in the right way - absolutely not. But yeah, he should have been removed. I think that's part of what made the whole situation so deeply disturbing. Joe Paterno and Penn State were held up for a years as an example of doing it right. His players got good grades and graduated and this wasn't an Urban Meyers program where half the team had been arrested at some point or another. But in the grand scheme of things, what happened to the program and its reputation sucks, but it's absolutely nothing compared to what those boys have dealt with and will deal with for the rest of their lives and I think anyone who tries to argue otherwise needs a bit of perspective.

It doesn't seem like his defense really has much to go on. He might be able to say that one person lied, or two, but he's claiming that all ten victims are lying, which is just ridiculous.

I thought this article by LaVar Arrington made a good point for everyone to remember: if you know a kid who seems upset or trouble, ASK the kid what's wrong. (He was a football player at Penn State, and knew one of the victims as a kid who was always hanging around the training area, and he'd say hi to the kid, and noticed that he always seemed angry or upset, but never really thought too much about it.) http://www.centredaily.com/2012/06/13/3 ... arned.html

Are we talking about Sandusky now? Joe Paterno died at the beginning of the year.

Yes.

This is one of those cases that *should* be clear, but the defense seems to think that they can get at least one person on the jury to believe that all these victims are colluding for the money. And they may not be wrong. The kids are poor and marginalized and Sandusky is well-known and well-off.

I hate Mike McQuersky for seeing a ten year old getting raped and running away. What a terrible message to the kid. Anyone who turned a blind eye has the shittiest character.

I dont think that can happen here--there are too many victims and there are some witnesses.

Thinking back to some other cases like Michael Jackson, for example, that got so muddied with some parents who either were or seemed greedy that I don't think there can ever really be any sort of certainty. I don't see any of that here at all.

I just don't comprehend at all how any of the people let this go on. There are always signs somewhere.

A teacher in my district was arrested yesterday for child pornography charges.

One of the worst after effects of these cases is how society views men who work with children as predators or untrustworthy. There are so many caring, decent men involved in education and we need more of them at the earlier grades. I knew a couple guys in college who wanted to teach elementary but went high school simply because of that stigma.

Sandusky has not been convicted yet but the self-described behavior by the athletic department and school administration is abhorrent. If Joe Paterno was worthy of a third of the adulation he received he would have called the police immediately, followed up, and asked Mike McQuersky what the hell he was thinking when he didn't intervene.
What should have mattered was the crime being reported not the reputation of a stupid football program.

(It's McQueary, not McQuersky.)