Candyman! Candymaaaaaan!!!

Morning weigh-in: 188#, 13.5% BF

 

Happy Anniversary, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald! (The event itself, not the song, which surprised me, years after its release, by being about a contemporary event -- I always assumed the song's story was made up, or old folklore. I do think the song is awesome, but today is not the anniverary of the song.)

 

Meanwhile, back in Happy Valley: This is just crazy -- Joe Paterno's long-time #2, and heir apparent, had apparently been raping young boys, groomed through a youth organization he founded, for years, and was forced into retirement in the late 1990's when allegations first came out, though no one blocked his access to either the campus facilities, or the young boys in the youth organization. Fast forward to 2002, when a graduate assistant coach basically caught the guy in the act of raping a 10-year-old boy in the college football facility showers. He reported this not to the police but to Joe Paterno, who then reported it to his superiors, and so on up the Penn State chain of command. The child rapist was forbidden to bring young boys on campus anymore, though if I read the news reports right he was still holding overnight football camps there as late as 2009.

 

Some parents caught on and confronted this guy (with police listening in), and after a three-year investigation he was busted the other day, as were several others in the Penn State football organization for their roles in a coverup. Joe Paterno and the college president, both of whom who cooperated with the grand jury, were found to have acted within the letter of the law (really? I still have trouble believing this), though in moral terms they are guilty of monstrous acts, allowing this activity to be swept under the rug -- and thus to continue, with the pedophile racking up more victims -- as the expedient way to protect the Penn State brand, and have been denounced as such by all local opinion that does not have a vested interest in that brand. (This is Penn State territory, and you should see the heads spinning around here right now.)

 

Demands were made for heads to roll, Paterno's as well as the president's, while the University's Board of Trustees were busy investigating the whole affair and trying to decide what to do. Paterno released several mealy-mouthed and self-serving press releases lamenting "recent developments," and finally announced he would retire at the end of this season. I took this as a slap at the Trustees who were trying to decide his fate, and I guess they took it the same way, because they fired both him and the president late yesterday.

 

So last night, some 10,000 Penn State students showed how they felt about things by rioting in protest of Joe Paterno's ouster, breaking storefront windows, knocking down lamp posts, lighting at least one small fire, and overturning a TV news van -- you know, the real culprits behind this scandal. So I guess that means that there are about 10,000 sociopaths at Penn State, who are fine with child sacrifice going on somewhere offscreen as long as it lets their party continue, and who throw a tantrum when their supplier is taken away.

 

(Hey, wasn't yesterday the anniversary of Kristallnacht?)

 

Parting Shot: Penn State alum and former Senator Rick "Santorum" Santorum once gave this Sandusky guy an award for the way he ran that youth organization.