Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by bks » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:13 pm
by Simulist » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:14 pm
jingofever wrote:Simulist wrote:As if anyone actually needed proof that when Ashton Kutcher "plays dumb" he isn't really acting, this:
"How do you fire Jo Pa?" Kutcher tweeted last night in a message that has since (along with several others) been deleted from his feed. "#insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste."
Ashton Kutcher has a charity:
"Actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have just created a charity, the DNA Foundation, in an effort to bring attention to modern day sex slavery, something that few are willing to talk about."
Maybe he remembered that he is supposed to care about this sort of thing so deleted his tweets.
by Elihu » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:16 pm
Jeff wrote:I want to see jock culture broken into a thousand pieces and scattered to the four winds.
by Simulist » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:19 pm
Elihu wrote:Jeff wrote:I want to see jock culture broken into a thousand pieces and scattered to the four winds.
how would that be possible without a re-constitution of gov schools starting at the kindergarten level? they are giant pyrimidal feeder systems for the private/politically/culturally dominant pro sports leagues (among other things) are they not? i share that desire btw...
by Elihu » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:22 pm
This crime is bringing new publicity to the Franklin case, as well as to the disappearance of Ray Gricar:
by Elihu » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:29 pm
Simulist wrote:The first — and worst — lesson I learned in school was in Kindergarten. Even though I largely rejected it, it still took me years and years to unlearn it completely.
It was called "Musical Chairs."
by Simulist » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:35 pm
Elihu wrote:Simulist wrote:The first — and worst — lesson I learned in school was in Kindergarten. Even though I largely rejected it, it still took me years and years to unlearn it completely.
It was called "Musical Chairs."
i and i'm sure others could wear out more than one therapist's couch sorting out the bs and psychic damage suffered in our nation's public schools...
by dbcooper41 » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:42 pm
Penn State Scandal: Jerry Sandusky Rumored To Have 'Pimped' Boys To Donors
.....Agency for at-risk youths had inklings of trouble in 1998
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
By Michael A. Fuoco, Jon Schmitz and Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Second Mile headquarters on South Atherton Street in State College.The
nonprofit agency at the center of the Penn State University child sex abuse
scandal had warning signs of questionable conduct by its founder, longtime
football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, a full decade before it acted to
ban him from contact with children it served.
The Second Mile, a program for at-risk youth, said in a statement that it
immediately acted in 2008 to ban Mr. Sandusky from programs involving children
when he told them he was under investigation for sexual contact with a juvenile
but had denied any wrongdoing.
However, the organization knew as early as 1998 that Mr. Sandusky was under
investigation for similar sexual misconduct in a Penn State shower involving a
different boy from the program, according to a presentment by a statewide
investigating grand jury.
Mr. Sandusky started the program in 1977 to help troubled boys, but it provided
him with access to hundreds of vulnerable youths, at least eight of whom he is
accused of sexually assaulting over a 15-year period, the presentment said.
State College attorney Wendell V. Courtney was apprised of the investigation in
1998 because he was then-counsel for Penn State and for The Second Mile, a
position he still holds. He was unavailable for comment Monday.
That investigation, by University Police, was closed when the Centre County
district attorney's office decided not to file charges.
The Second Mile learned of another investigation involving Mr. Sandusky in 2002.
In its statement, the agency said its chief executive officer, Jack Raykovitz,
testified at the investigating grand jury that he had been told by Penn State
athletic director Tim Curley that an internal investigation had found no
corroboration for an allegation of inappropriate contact by Mr. Sandusky with a
youth in a university locker room.
Despite those two allegations, it wasn't until November 2008 that the program
took steps to keep Mr. Sandusky away from children. It was then, according to
the organization's statement, that "Mr. Sandusky informed The Second Mile that
he had learned he was being investigated as a result of allegations made against
him by an adolescent male in Clinton County, Pa. Although he maintained there
was no truth to the claims, we are an organization committed first and foremost
to the safety and well-being of the children we serve.
by dbcooper41 » Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:03 pm
by Perelandra » Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:14 pm
by dbcooper41 » Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:33 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:57 pm
Good Riddance, Joe Paterno
Nov 10, 2011 1:18 AM EST
The Penn State legend tried to do an end-run around the trustees, but they still fired him for doing nothing to stop the alleged sexual abuse of young boys. Now it’s time to ditch the rotten college football system, says Buzz Bissinger.
Like everyone else, I cannot get the scandal of Pennsylvania State University out of my mind.
The story is unfolding at the speed of sound, not just the worst sports scandal in modern history but also one of the worst scandals in modern history:
A former Penn State assistant coach for 29 years and alleged sexual predator, Jerry Sandusky, apparently continued unchecked because of the failure of university officials and head football coach deity Joe Paterno to do anything that might have made a difference instead of what they collectively did achieve:
Buck-passing and unconscionable cowardice.
Paterno announced in a statement Wednesday that he would retire as head coach at the end of the football season after 46 years. He tried to sound like a humble martyr, but he was selfish and self-serving as usual. With the hubris and arrogance that has been the hallmark of his career over the past decade, the over-the-hill 84-year-old attempted to do an end-run around the Penn State board of trustees, who have been meeting to decide his fate. Paterno was hoping he could forever claim he decided to leave the football program of his own accord. The trustees called his bluff Wednesday night, firing Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.
Paterno is just a part of this whole sordid, shameful disgrace. He is easy to focus on because of his mythic stature, all false idol, as it turns out. But I find myself not caring about him anymore, particularly now that he has been let go.
What I am trying to fathom is how it ever became possible that so many men of power and intellect did nothing when it became obvious, because it was abundantly obvious on the basis of the findings of fact handed down earlier this week by a Pennsylvania investigative grand jury, that a former assistant coach familiar to all of them was apparently plucking out little boys as young as 10 to f--k up the ass or be on the receiving end of blowjobs.
Photos: Who's Who at Penn State
Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky Scandal: Who’s Who
Clockwise from top left: Centre Daily Times, MCT / Landov (2); AP Photo (2)
(Note: we need to stop the daintiness and describe the alleged offenses for what they truly are in the vernacular to somehow try to capture the monstrousness. Not anal intercourse or oral sex, which sounds clinical, but butt-f--king and blowjobs and cock-grabbing and pants-groping and other assorted acts that the 67-year-old Sandusky allegedly inflicted on eight minor victims over a 15-year span, according to the 23-page grand-jury report, and resulted in 40 counts of serial sex abuse of minors.)
I think the answer to the question of inaction is simple. It wasn’t a matter of university officials and football staffers in Happy Valley not wanting to deal with it (which they didn’t), or not following up (which they didn’t), or having better things to do like attending Friday-night football pep rallies. There is no great conspiracy theory at work.
What happened, or more accurately did not happen, goes to the core of evil that major college sports programs in this country have become, equivalent to Mafia families in which the code of omertà rules and coaches and staff always close ranks around their own, even if it means letting someone who was first accused of inappropriate sexual conduct in 1998 continue to roam.
The horror of it all, both in terms of what Sandusky allegedly did and what Penn State officials did not, can be summed up by a single sound.
It is a “rhythmic, slapping” sound, according to page 6 of the grand-jury report. It is heard by a 28-year-old football graduate assistant named Mike McQueary in the locker room of the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State Campus at 9:30 on the Friday night of March 1, 2002.
McQueary is placing some new sneakers into his locker. At first he finds it odd that the lights and showers are on. Then he hears the sound coming from the showers. He looks inside and according to his grand-jury testimony, sees the cause of the sound: a naked child of roughly 10 years old with his hands up against the wall with a naked Sandusky butt-f--king him from behind. Sadistic, yes. Sick, yes. Beyond disturbing, yes. Deviant, yes. Immediate grounds for calling the police? Of course, yes. The upshot?
Nothing. Nada. Not a goddamn thing but the passing of the buck up the food chain of bureaucratic bullshit where too many people know that something awful has happened and try to bury it.
McQueary, who witnessed the incident, witnessed it, doesn’t call the police, although he is 28. He runs to his daddy. His daddy advises him to tell Paterno. He tells Paterno. The great JoePa, who regardless of his noncredible insistence in grand-jury testimony that he was never told the specific nature of the sexual act, does at the very least acknowledge that McQueary did relate to him that Sandusky was “fondling” a young boy.
Unless fondling of young boys by assistant football coaches at Penn State is commonplace and encouraged, that alone should be enough to make Paterno go to the police. Or being the father figure he supposedly is, tell McQueary that he has to go to the police and will accompany him, given that Paterno is the most popular and powerful man in Pennsylvania, with instant credibility.
What happened goes to the core of evil that major college sports programs in this country have become, equivalent to Mafia families in which the code of omertà rules.
But Paterno does nothing beyond fulfilling his minimal obligation. He passes the information he says he has on to athletic director Tim Curley and that’s it, the obviousness that Sandusky is doing something terrible apparently far less important than such crucial pursuits as watching game films of the last Ohio State game. And on up the food chain it goes—to senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, all the way up to Spanier, the university president. But with each iteration the incident only seems to become more diluted and more muddled or, as the grand-jury report unequivocally indicates, some of those aware of what happened are lying their balls off to try to minimize what they really knew. Which would also explain the action that the university ultimately took against Sandusky:
He had his keys to the locker room taken away, which he had still maintained after he stopped coaching in 1999.
Which may also explain that in the wake of such draconian punishment, Sandusky subsequently gave blowjobs to a minor roughly 13 years old more than 20 times in 2007 and 2008, according to the grand-jury findings of fact.
Joe will mercifully be gone, along with President Spanier. Curley has gone and Schultz stepped down. So should McQueary, who is actually the most gutless in not telling police what he witnessed. The entire Penn State coaching staff, too much under the influence of Paterno, should go.
And so, frankly, should major college football and basketball as it exists now, rotten beyond repair, as has been pointed out a thousand times. Totally disconnected from the academic experience, they are insulated kingdoms with their own rules and reigns of terror because of the money they make, trading in illegal recruiting and illegal gifts and illegal favors, and now, thanks to Penn State, alleged sexual abuse of children by a former coach who must have assumed he would always be protected. Just like a Mafia soldier.
Except that the even the Mafia has higher moral standards.
Penn State interim president says more coming on McQueary
Rodney Erickson's remarks come as trustees seek to contain fallout from child sexual abuse scandal.
By Daniel Patrick Sheehan and Andrew McGill, Of The Morning Call
5:59 p.m. CST, November 10, 2011
Penn State introduced its first new head football coach in nearly half a century on Thursday, even as State College recovered from the riot that followed the firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno and the Board of Trustees continued to meet on how to contain the fallout.
Early Thursday evening, Penn State interim president Rodney Erickson emerged from a trustees meeting, telling reporters to "stay tuned" for more on assistant coach Mike McQueary, who told a grand jury he witnessed former coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly assaulting a young boy in 2002 when he worked as a graduate assistant.
With Paterno fired and univesrity President Graham Spanier tendering his resignation, McQueary emerged as the focus of the media ire with commentators questioning why the former Penn State quarterback didn't stop the alleged sexual encounter.
Erickson offered no other details. But earlier Wednesday interim coach Tom Bradley said McQueary would be at Saturday's game against Nebraska, but his role was undetermined. A trustee who asked not to identified because of the sensitive nature of the scandal said the trustees do not want McQueary on the field for fear of his safety.
At a news conference at the Penn Stater on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Tom Corbett sidestepped questions about the fate MQueary.
"The university -- and you will have to talk to the university itself -- still has some deliberations to make in that respect," the governor said.
When he was asked his personal opinion about what should happen, "I'm not going to give you my opinion yet. I have many opinions. This is not the time to be sharing that. I have to see that the university addresses it in a proper way. I would remind everybody, it would appear … I'm going to back off on McQueary."
A revered figure at the bucolic campus, Paterno was dismissed Wednesday by the trustees for his perceived mishandling of a report that Sandusky had been seen sexually assaulting a young boy in a team locker room shower in 2002. Spanier, resigned under pressure and the board pledged a full investigation of what went wrong.
Showing that the sordid tale of child abuse and bureaucratic ineptitude had expanded far beyond Pennsylvania, President Obama weighed in on Thursday, saying the charges of serial molestation against Sandusky are "outrageous" if true.
And police in San Antonio, Texas, said they are investigating trips described in the grand jury presentment that Sandusky allegedly took with victim 4 to the 1999 Alamo Bowl in Texas. The presentment says Sandusky threatened to send the victim home from the Alamo Bowl for resisting his advances.
"We are investigating the possibility that an offense may have happened while here in San Antonio," said Sgt. Chris Benavides of police media services.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's senators, Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Bob Casey, said they had rescinded their support of Paterno for a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
At the news conference where he was introduced as interim coach, Bradley echoed Paterno himself in saying he "grieved" for the alleged victims of Sandusky, who is accused of molesting eight boys over 15 years.
Bradley said he had no reservations about accepting the job and pledged there would be no slackening of expectations for the team, which plays Nebraska on Saturday.
Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Gary Schultz were also caught up in the scandal, charged with perjury and with failing to report alleged child abuse.
Paterno has not been charged with wrongdoing and met his legal obligation by reporting the 2002 incident to Curley. But many viewed him, and Spanier, as morally culpable for failing to take further action.
Spanier stepped down Wednesday, ending a 15-year career at the helm of one of the nation's biggest universities Erickson posted a message on Penn State's website calling this one of the saddest weeks in school history.
Erickson told the board he had no knowledge of or involvement with the Sandusky incident in 2002, according to a trustee who spoke to The Morning Call.
In addition to the legal process under way, Penn State's Board of Trustees has authorized a full investigation, hiring an outside firm to handle it.
Erickson said the probe will determine "what failures occurred, who is responsible, and what measures are necessary to insure that this never happens at our University again and that those responsible are held fully accountable. As those involved pursue their cases, I also urge you, as Penn Staters, to be patient, to avoid speculation, and to refrain from passing judgment until the facts are known."
Thousands of students and others poured through the streets Wednesday night, screaming, chanting and even overturning a television satellite truck in response to Paterno's dismissal. At least two people were hurt. Police made arrests and have vowed more.
For Matt Molinari, a junior from Nesquehoning, the eruption of anger after Paterno's dismissal was more a expression of confusion than anger.
Yes, he said, a few people tore down light posts and smashed car windows, but most went downtown just to be there, to try and understand the gut-punch the board delivered with little fanfare to their beloved coach.
Even so, the behavior prompted some Nebraska officials to voice concerns about safety when the team visits for this weekend's game.
Pennsylvania State Police said Cornhusker fans and players have nothing to worry about. Security is being increased to a level 25-year officer Cpl. Kip Brown hasn't seen before.
"We don't speak publicly about how many extra officers we'll have there, but let's just say a lot," said Brown, a shift supervisor with state police at Hollidaysburg who will be working Saturday. "We plan to stop any potential incident before it happens."
For many, Paterno's culpability in the Sandusky affair — the ex-assistant coach is charged with serial molestation of young boys — remains a gray issue in a campus desperately seeking moral clarity.
"A lot of people didn't go out to riot – they're trying to figure out how they feel about the situation," Molinari said. "I think there's a lot of stuff we don't know."
All the same: "I really wish I could have seen him in his last game," he said.
Other students began planning a candlelight vigil for tonight to raise money for child abuse victims. "I've heard many, many people express that not enough is being done for the sexual assault victims," senior Kyle Harris, 21, told The Washington Post. "We want to support these victims. We're just horrified."
A Harrisburg attorney who said he is advising some of Sandusky's alleged victims suggested Paterno's firing may not have been in the best interest of his clients and risked making them into scapegoats.
"The way the [board of trustees] reached its decision raises more concerns than the decision itself," Benjamin D. Andreozzi said in a written statement Thursday. "There is no indication the board considered the impact of the decision on the abuse victims. The school let the victims down once, and I think they owed it to the victims to at least gauge how the immediate termination decision would impact them as opposed to Mr. Paterno's resignation at the end of the year.
"These victims do not live in a bubble. They see the students' reaction to the termination, and to think this does not weigh on their mind would be naive."
Andreozzi said while he is not currently representing the victims in a civil case, he is working with a non-profit organization that has been "assisting" some victims to deal with the impact of the case.
For people who never attended Penn State — or any school with a similar culture of big football and big personalities — the depth of anguish on campus and among alumni may be hard to understand.
But there is an almost religious quality to the shared experience of Happy Valley, where people at the end of youth and on the verge of adulthood converged on Beaver Stadium every autumn to savor the unchanging sight of Paterno, ever more grandfatherly with the turning of the years, patrolling the sidelines.
Tom Flad of Bethlehem Township, a 1974 graduate, so cherished his Penn State days that he and his wife last year donated $4 million to Penn State. Half went to the Italian language and literature program, $1 million went to a director's fund in the Paterno Liberal Arts Undergraduate Fellows Program, and $1 million was divided between the university's football and rugby teams.
"Penn State, where I acquired those tools necessary for adulthood, where my system of values, attitudes, and beliefs took shape, and where I spent 7 years of my youth in study, was a natural for where I wanted to leave my legacy, show my support, and pay appreciation to that institution that was so responsible for all I had become in life," he wrote in an e-mail.
But to Flad, raised by a second-generation Italian mother and a Sicilian grandmother, there was something more — Joe Paterno. Flad began college in Paterno's second year as head coach and developed an immediate and abiding respect for the man who said academics and character could go hand-in-hand with athletic prowess.
And now? Flad said Paterno deserved a more dignified exit than the late phone call he received. He still considers the coach a man of honor and integrity. But the whole of the affair has left him stunned.
"The words shocked, disgusted, angered, hurt, appalled, disillusioned, repulsed, etc., etc., just don't totally capture the gamut of emotions these past few days have elicited," he wrote. "It made me cry. It made me tremble with sickened disgust and anger."
Staff writer Matt Assad and Frank Warner contributed to this report.
by seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:41 pm
Missing DA Was Tied To Sandusky Case
Updated: Thursday, 10 Nov 2011, 6:15 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 10 Nov 2011, 5:09 PM EST
The district attorney who didn't prosecute former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky for sex crimes in 1998 went missing in 2005, a fact that is now getting a lot of attention.
Ray Gricar was the long-time district attorney of Centre County, the home of Penn State's main campus. He was months from retirement when he simply vanished on his way home to Bellefonte, Pa.
The mystery surrounding Gricar's disappearance in 2005 was the subject of several national TV shows and an effort involving the FBI and state investigators.
The attorney's car was found in Lewisburg, Pa., about 60 miles east of Bellefonte, about 12 hours after he called home. Several months later, his laptop computer and a destroyed hard drive were found.
But no one found Gricar's body.
Bruce Castor knew Gricar well. Castor is currently a Montgomery County Pa. commissioner and a former county district attorney who worked with Gricar.
"I never saw any evidence from Ray that he was showing any favoritism towards Penn State or the hometown or anything like that. He was a by the book guy," Castor said.
Fox 29 has confirmed the FBI has an open file on Gricar but it’s unknown if the case is still active.
But a missing person's poster for Gricar is still on the FBI Web site, even though Gricar was legally declared dead in July 2011.
So what happened to Gricar?
"I am now leaning towards the conclusion that it was foul play by someone who would have a motive to specifically target him," Castor says.
"If somebody really wants to get a prosecutor , they can. Especially in the country like that," Castor added.
Gricar appears in the grand jury presentment in the Jerry Sandusky sex-crimes case as the DA who didn't prosecute Sandusky after a six-week investigation in 1998 in Center County.
Gricar got the case after a boy's mother complained to police after her son showered with Sandusky.
According to the grand jury presentment, Penn State University police were also involved in the 1998 Sandusky case.
Gricar's office was the only local or state agency contacted about an alleged victim of Sandusky, a long-time Paterno assistant who retired in 1999 but continued to run a charity to help at-risk children.
So why didn't Gricar file charges against Sandusky?
"I would be stunned if it was for any reason other than he simply did not think he had the evidence," Castor said.
Did Gricar know about the new allegations concerning Sandusky that surfaced three years before he disappeared?
Castor admits it raises a lot of questions.
"You don't know if something happened thereafter to get him to look at it again," Castor says.
"I would be very surprised if ultimately he was not discovered somewhere assuming he's not still alive out there laughing at us," Castor adds.
by Simulist » Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:58 pm
by Luther Blissett » Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:38 pm
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