Penn State Postscript

The draconian fines and sanctions imposed on Penn State gave the football-at-all-costs mentality the kick in the pants it well deserves.  Fiorella remembers when the scandal first came to light and sports enthusiasts took the "Say it ain't so, Joe," attitude.  It was so easy to stonewall.  Not St. Joe, the winningest football coach in history--he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen during his watch.  Not his blessed acolyte, St. Jerry, the big-hearted tough guy who ate footballs for breakfast.  Those bad boys, those ungrateful boys--they were the villains.

And now the dust has cleared and the false idols have fallen, and Fiorella wonders what all those victories meant. Football is just another silly game.  What matters are the children.

American Tragedy

No one won.  Not the young men who had to  reveal  the salacious details of their sexual exploitation to a sensation-seeking world, then submit to a roughing up by a defense attorney.  Not Sandusky, who couldn't figure out why he, a boy at heart, shouldn't engage in  sexual play with actual boys as long as he compensated them with football jerseys.  Not his wife, who will reap the whirlwind.  Not his children, whose world has come crashing down. Not the college, which has not only lost its soul, but will be sued till its wallet also is a goner.  Not McQueary, who's been criticized for not doing what he didn't know he should have done, but if he had, wouldn't have been believed.  Not justice, which, in this case, could never be satisfied until time were turned back.

How sad.

Sports Lawsuits

Roger Clemens was found not guilty, and Barry Bonds was convicted of  just one count of obstruction of justice.  Can Lance Armstrong be far behind?

Fiorella is not a sports fan and couldn't care less, but she thinks that prosecuting athletes for supposed use of performance-enhancing drugs is useless.  She also suspects most of the drugs are useless, that their major effect is psychological--except for steroids, of course, which ruin the user's health and well-being, thus creating their own rewards. 

Leave off the frivolous prosecution of athletes,  Even if some exotic blood transfusion does cause someone to perform a teeny bit better, who's to say everyone else isn't using it too?  All sorts of things might help an athlete get an edge.  Might as well outlaw lucky clovers and rabbits' feet. 

Now, sodomizing boys in the shower room, that's a different matter.

Holding Back

There's a reason that underlings didn't push when it came to reporting Jerry Sandusky: he was a big cheese and they were little ones. Who would be believed and who would lose his job?

Justice is relative to privilege and power. That's what the crucifixion was all about.

Sandusky, Perry, Plum

So, Jerry Sandusky's admitting to "horsing around" in the showers with naked boys, calling it athletic camaraderie, but denies sexual assault. It's the Michael Jackson defense, and if Sandusky would have a fatal accident soon, he also would be forgiven and canonized. Or, as Fiorella's mother said when she heard one of Fio's teachers had been arraigned on similar charges, "Those nasty boys."
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Rick Perry is Fio's favorite buffoon. Whooda thunk he had so much comedy in him? She's getting a real charge of his planning of dismantle the government and start from scratch. He could name his new creation Perrymania.
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Fiorella received another agent rejection today. She's beginning to think that, despite her ferocious contest record, she's going to have to go "indie," which means self-publishing.

Skewed Priorities

If Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno's long-time assistant coach, had been stealing game receipts, he would have been arrested and jailed, but his penchant for sodomizing vulnerable young boys was easily tolerated, at least by Paterno. And now football fans everywhere are up in arms that the legendary sports figure was fired by Penn State when the scandal broke.

Since when did football become more important than moral behavior? Since when did sports trump protecting children from sexual abuse?