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). But this Dan Bernstein article on the child-molestation scandal and (repeated!) cover ups at Penn State is... well, I'll let it speak for itself:
The Devil is in the details.
They hurt to read, I won’t lie to you. You cannot un-know them or un-see them. You will stop multiple times in the 23 pages of the grand jury report, needing to avert your eyes or shudder. But you have to do it. You have to read every word, every sickening description and every name involved in the institutionalized evil at Penn State. Your opinion about anything going on is invalid if you have not yet done so.
Here it is. Read it.
You are simply not allowed to say “I don’t want to,” or “I can’t handle it.” Jerry Sandusky’s victims and their families endured – and continue to endure — unspeakable horror.
The least you can do is be as informed as possible about the hideousness in Happy Valley. It will sear your soul, and it’s your obligation to confront the truth at its most real and painful. Relying on watered-down characterization of the acts is a cop-out...
... Do not dare to call a radio show, send an email, post on social media, or comment at the conclusion of this column until you have taken the time to read every word. Until you do, nothing you think or say matters one iota...
... Most importantly, we must stop with comfortable euphemisms that ease the pain of confronting these brutal crimes. This is not “horseplay,” or “inappropriate acts,” or even “sodomy.” It’s worse. We have a solemn responsibility to expose these infections to sunlight, trying as hard as we can to understand as much as we can. You will not think as you did before. You saw the idiot students chanting football cheers last night on Paterno’s lawn, and have heard from the cult of apologists. You will want to kill all of them.
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Read Bernstein's whole article here. Then steel your stomach and
read the grand jury report. And when some idiot friend/co-worker/relative tries to play apologist for Joe Paterno over the next couple of weeks or at Thanksgiving, cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war.
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moragmacpherson) wrote2011-11-09 06:12 pm
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... except look at how well reporting worked for Victim 6's mother. Oh wait, most of the people I've talked to who are insisting on JoePa's innocence outright refuse to read the indictment. I suspect the rioters haven't bothered either. Why bother to look at the evidence of a two year State Attorney General's investigation when you can blame "the media" for wanting to bring down their hero. The media's persecuting poor "legendary coach" Joe Paterno because they hate... umm... uh... well, you know how evil "the media" are. They hate puppies or something. Let's overturn a TV van!
Like you, I prefer to think that, because otherwise who the hell are these kids and how did our culture manage to screw up their priorities this badly?
(The Catholic Church comparisons are starting to crop up -- I've been avoiding making them because I don't want to muddle this issue, but Pennsylvania had some of the worst cases in that cover-up as well. And given the friendship of our dear, frothy friend Rick Santorum to many of the key figures in the cover-up, I'm just waiting for him to pop up insisting that the real issue isn't covering up child molestation, it's that it was an evil GAY child molester. Gay culture, that's the enemy - not the completely whacked out power that Div. I NCAA football teams have on their campuses and in their communities.)