Say it ain't so, Joe

[BigEd76]

A group of students painted themselves in light blue for cancer awareness. The loser from King of Queens responded on Twitter:

PattonOswalt

A line of shirtless guys with "FOR THE KIDS" painted one letter each on their torsos. Tasteful, Penn State. Taste. Ful.

[njmeadowlanders]

A group of students painted themselves in light blue for cancer awareness. The loser from King of Queens responded on Twitter:

PattonOswalt

A line of shirtless guys with "FOR THE KIDS" painted one letter each on their torsos. Tasteful, Penn State. Taste. Ful.

"For The Kids" is the slogan for THON, which raises > $10million annually for pediatric cancer research.

http://www.thon.org/

[CS85]

Apparently...there is a group of former players who are trying to pool money together to pay Sandusky's legal fees.

http://larrybrownsports.com/college-football/penn-state-player-raising-money-jerry-sanduskys-legal-defense/98208

Incestuous self-quote. This deserves another post. Who are these people?

[DG_ThenNowForever]

"Awright, we got that Jesus 'n kids outta the way. Les play some football!!"

The courageous thing to do would have been to forfeit the game and refund ticket prices to each of those people in the stands. But we're not in courageous times. We instead like to mollify ourselves with cheap theatrics and pretend everything's okay. It's not.

[BigEd76]

17-0 Nebraska

[Gothamite]

Happy Valley is the most awesome place to go to school for 4 years. This shouldn't have to change that.

Yes, but too late.

The systemic corruption at Penn State already has changed it.

[njmeadowlanders]

Happy Valley is the most awesome place to go to school for 4 years. This shouldn't have to change that.

Yes, but too late.

The systemic corruption at Penn State already has changed it.

I meant in terms of the physical surroundings itself. Not anything tied to the school.

Obviously the institution itself is harmed irreparably.

[CS85]

2 cinderblocks were thrown through windows of Sandusky's house last night, fyi. Where does Sandusky live? Conveniently enough next to an elementary school.

[NJTank]

2 cinderblocks were thrown through windows of Sandusky's house last night, fyi. Where does Sandusky live? Conveniently enough next to an elementary school.

[infrared41]

"Awright, we got that Jesus 'n kids outta the way. Les play some football!!"

The courageous thing to do would have been to forfeit the game and refund ticket prices to each of those people in the stands. But we're not in courageous times. We instead like to mollify ourselves with cheap theatrics and pretend everything's okay. It's not.

The "recovery" has gotta start somewhere. I honestly don't know where to fall on this. I can see both sides of the "play/don't play" argument.

[crashcarson15]

There would've been no reason to take these kids' chance to play (especially the seniors', as it was Senior Day) just because of something that happened 9 years ago that they had no control over it happening.

Hell, these kids weren't even in high school yet when this happened.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

There would've been no reason to take these kids' chance to play (especially the seniors', as it was Senior Day) just because of something that happened 9 years ago that they had no control over it happening.

Hell, these kids weren't even in high school yet when this happened.

No, this -- "this" being Penn State's failure to do a damn thing about child rape -- happened from at least 1998 until eight days ago when Sandusky was arrested. Paterno and the rest of Penn State administration had more than a decade to report Sandusky and put an end to systematic rape of young men by one of their former coaches.

I think part of the reason a football game was played at all today is because what really took place with tacit approval of Penn State is too horrible to conceptualize for most people. Or at least horrible enough to want to avoid.

To repeat -- the Penn State University administration and its football leadership allowed a child predator near-unfettered access to victims from at least 1998 until very recently. In my opinion, of course football should have been canceled and of course football operations shut down indefinitely. We wouldn't accept this level of abuse from many other industries.

[Gothamite]

Exactly - the coverup continued until last weekend. This isn't some dusty charge from antiquity. It's not about what happened a decade ago but what was continuing to happen into this very month.

Just like the Catholic Church, we tend to give these institutions a pass when it comes to the most terrible offenses. A private business that did this would be forced to close its doors; the least Penn State can do is drop football altogether.

Penn State ought to be the modern Fordham, which shuttered its national championship-level football program for fear football was becoming too important and overshadowing academics. We have an anologous situation here; the widespread culture of corruption tells us that Penn State's priorities are all out of whack, and they need to step away from football to right this ship.

[Lights Out]

There would've been no reason to take these kids' chance to play (especially the seniors', as it was Senior Day) just because of something that happened 9 years ago that they had no control over it happening.

Hell, these kids weren't even in high school yet when this happened.

I don't really get this argument. The football program isn't just comprised of the players. The coaches are part of it, too, and Paterno and McQueary were involved in the coverup. And that's just what we know of.

[Viper]

Although no spectacular large-scale displays of ugliness ever materialized at today's Nebraska-Penn State game, some PSU fans managed to shame their school even more.

At Penn State?s stadium, profanity, scorn greet one father?s protest

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Although no spectacular large-scale displays of ugliness ever materialized at today's Nebraska-Penn State game, some PSU fans managed to shame their school even more.

At Penn State?s stadium, profanity, scorn greet one father?s protest

Doing something like that takes a lot of courage. Good for him.

[thespleenenator]

Although no spectacular large-scale displays of ugliness ever materialized at today's Nebraska-Penn State game, some PSU fans managed to shame their school even more.

At Penn State?s stadium, profanity, scorn greet one father?s protest

Before I read this, I was rooting against Penn State for this game. Now, I may root against them forever.

[infrared41]

To repeat -- the Penn State University administration and its football leadership allowed a child predator near-unfettered access to victims from at least 1998 until very recently. In my opinion, of course football should have been canceled and of course football operations shut down indefinitely. We wouldn't accept this level of abuse from many other industries.

Except that we would, and have. For some reason, child abuse gets a lot of people screaming and yelling, but it doesn't get them to do much else. In a month something else will come along and Penn State will be relegated to the back pages. All the screaming and yelling will have been forgotten, and we'll be right back to where we were before we knew about Jerry Sandusky. Think I'm wrong? Anyone remember Sheldon Kennedy? The point I'm making is that we'll scream bloody murder every time pedophilia raises it's vile head. Then we forget about it and move on.

Maybe it's time to start setting some guidelines so this stops happening. Maybe it's time to pay closer attention before the fact instead of after. Maybe we start paying closer attention to things that seem a little weird. One suggestion I'd make is that kids are no longer allowed to go on overnight sports trips without at least one parental representative. Maybe Sandusky is stopped, or at least caught sooner, if a mom or dad had gone along on those trips he liked to take with the kids. Maybe there was a parent or two out there that thought "this seems a little odd to me" but didn't say anything because "coach seems like such a good guy." I don't know the answer, but I have to think there are measures that could be taken.

I'm open to suggestions.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

As I typed the section you bolded, I thought that to myself that a company like Apple could get through a pedophile scandal. Coca-Cola probably would too. Heck, our entire U.S. military was able to blame Abu Ghraib (remember that?) on a few bad apples and not much happened for systemic change there. So yeah, I guess I take it back.

Which does lead me to thinking that drastic consequences could help with prevention. It's the basis of our entire justice system, so why not also private/semi-private industry? I hate to be a broken record, but it's why canceling today's game and the football season (if not the program) was so important to me. It would show that someone somewhere is taking this situation seriously. Instead, we're likely to hear a lot about "healing" and "cleaning house" and I think we'll be back to "normal" by next season.

Live and don't learn, that's our motto.

[charger77]

As I typed the section you bolded, I thought that to myself that a company like Apple could get through a pedophile scandal. Coca-Cola probably would too. Heck, our entire U.S. military was able to blame Abu Ghraib (remember that?) on a few bad apples and not much happened for systemic change there. So yeah, I guess I take it back.

Which does lead me to thinking that drastic consequences could help with prevention. It's the basis of our entire justice system, so why not also private/semi-private industry? I hate to be a broken record, but it's why canceling today's game and the football season (if not the program) was so important to me. It would show that someone somewhere is taking this situation seriously. Instead, we're likely to hear a lot about "healing" and "cleaning house" and I think we'll be back to "normal" by next season.

Live and don't learn, that's our motto.

Wouldn't "cleaning house" imply that all involved are removed from the University & Football program and punished appropriately? Going nuclear on the football program would punish a lot of people (and many university employees such as concession staff employees, custodial staff, stadium & facilities maintenance, etc...) that were not involved at all. Yes, each and every person involved in this cover up should earn the harshest punishment possible.