In Defense of Joe Paterno

In Defense of Joe Paterno

No one would or should dispute the reputability of former FBI Director Louis Freeh, which is not to say all of Freeh’s conclusions in his investigation of the Penn State pedophile scandal are indisputable.




This defense of Joe Paterno in no way intends to mitigate the physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering sustained by the young boys who were molested, raped, violated at the hands of serial homosexual pedophile Jerry Sandusky but is rather intended to provide some perspective on another Sandusky victim.



It must first be said that Joe Paterno was wrong.



It must also be said that Joe Paterno represented all that was good in collegiate athletics today not only because of his 409 victories while he was coaching the Nittany Lions, his 18 bowl victories, his record 37 bowl appearances, his two national championships, his five undefeated, untied seasons, his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, or the other awards he received.



His greatest contribution to college athletics was his insistence that his players lead decent lives and actually attend and pass their courses, requisites sorely missing in too many university sport programs.



However, all that went for nought after the Sandusky scandal.



Paterno was wrong in foolishly following established PSU protocol of reporting to his superiors Sandusky’s child abuse but not notifying police. He was wrong in naively trusting that Penn State officials would do the right thing and alert local police of the child rape witnessed by Assistant Coach Mike McQueary. If true, he was very wrong in persuading those PSU officials in 2001 not to notify authorities about Sandusky’s aberrant behavior but Mr. Freeh seemed to draw that damning conclusion based more on supposition than factual evidence.



It was not Joe Pa’s legal responsibility to take further action although it was his moral and ethical duty to insure the officials performed theirs.



That said, his negligence cost Paterno dearly.



At the age of 85, JoePa died of cancer on January 22nd, 2012 just two months after being fired as head coach at the school he deeply loved and which loved him for his character and for 62 years service. People who knew Paterno best believe he died of a broken heart. His family contends Mr. Freeh’s report grossly misrepresented his responsibility in the Sandusky horror.



Fortunately, Paterno didn’t live to see his reputation, his legacy, his life completely trashed by Mr. Freeh’s report nor did he witness the senseless removal of his statue from the front of Beaver Stadium where it had stood for eleven years, a removal completed even before the NCAA announced the draconian punishments to be imposed on Penn State and its football program.



The seven foot high monument erected in 2001 to honor Paterno’s record 324th Division I coaching victory and his “contributions to the university” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=26920.)

Is Jerry Sandusky Guilty?

Is Jerry Sandusky Guilty?

The homosexual child sex abuse trial of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky began on Monday and it promises to be a three-week circus as the lurid details of the allegations and witnesses against him emerge.




If true, aside from the legalities of the charges against him, they represent a gravely serious betrayal of the university that employed him for 30 years, an ungrateful betrayal of the school’s legendary head football coach, Joe Paterno, and, possibly his worst crime, the cynical betrayal of hundreds of fatherless children–mostly boys–who had sought hope and a father figure in Sandusky and his foundation, The Second Mile, and instead found perversion.



The 68 year old Sandusky is charged with 52 counts of engaging in illicit sexual activities with at least ten young boys over the course of 15 years and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all counts.



From a layman’s vantage point, considering the evidence against the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame member and Sandusky’s own statements made since the indictment, the possibility of his being completely exonerated would seem slim to none, but that’s why he has lawyers.



Originally charged in November 2011 with 40 counts of deviate behavior with boys aged ten to twelve, prosecutors upped the ante to 52 the next month after more alleged victims came forward.



No doubt, some or many of the victims are interested in monetary gains as a result of their ordeals, which is entirely understandable. However, his attorneys’ contention that all of them are sufficiently motivated by dollar signs to perjure themselves, defame an innocent man, and condemn Sandusky to spend his remaining days behind bars is entirely preposterous.



Furthermore, whether he decides to take the stand in his defense is irrelevant: He has virtually confessed to being a serial child predator. Jerry Sandusky’s telephone interview with Bob Costas last November sealed his fate.



In that infamous chat, incredibly conducted with the coach’s lawyer present, Sandusky declared his innocence, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=25453.)

Michael Jackson and Jerry Sandusky, Parallel Pedophiles

Michael Jackson and Jerry Sandusky, Parallel Pedophiles

I don’t know or care who Jerry Sandusky’s lawyers are but they should either dump him as a client or he should ask them what he should be saying to the press, if anything.

From the point of view of a non-attorney, I would be aghast at a client accused of serial homosexual child-molestation over decades giving interviews to the media. Granted, the interviewers didn’t dare suggest Sandusky was a homosexual pedophile but, still, allowing him to admit to “liking” young children was tantamount to permitting him to concede he was a Michael Jacksonite with similar preferences.

As with Michael Jackson, Jerry Sandusky liked young boys, although the MSM played down that predilection in both instances, preferring in Jackson’s case to present him as a lover of everyone, in Sandusky’s case as paternally affectionate toward boys and girls. Despite Jackson’s universal love and Sandusky’s fatherliness, neither was ever accused of paying inappropriate attention to females.

In both instances, the mainstreamers were engaged in a cover-up of the truth, that the King of Pop and the PSU assistant coach were gay pedophiles. The chief differences between the two seems to be that Jackson was never indicted and had smarter lawyers–but dumb doctors.

The main similarities are that both were delusional.

To the end, Michael Jackson maintained his innocence of molesting young boys while admitting he slept with them and, in at least one instance, made one young boy rich by paying for his silence.

Even after his arrest on 40 counts of sexual abuse of 8 children over 15 years, Jerry Sandusky insisted his bizarre behavior was totally innocent and that his work on their behalf with his Second Mile Foundation was not grooming them as victims but benefitting them.

There are a number of remarkable parallels between Jackson’s and Sandusky’s delusions.

In Martin Bashir’s disturbing 2003 documentary, “Living With Michael Jackson,” the pop star proudly admitted to activities at his 3000 acre Neverland ranch that would shame normal people. “It’s what the whole world should do,” he told Bashir, among other things.

Jackson also said, ”I tuck them in and put a little like, er, music on and when it’s story time I read a book and we go to sleep with the fireplace on. I give them hot milk, you know. We have cookies. It’s very charming. It’s very sweet.” He asked Bashir, “Why can’t you share your bed? The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone.”

Sweet, if you’re the child’s parent. Loving, if the bed-sharer is a consenting adult.

One 12 year old boy said he asked Jackson if he could stay in his bedroom and Jackson replied, “Look, if you love me you’ll sleep in the bed.” Jackson believed children like to be touched and he would kill himself if he could not be close to young boys: “If there were no children on this earth, if someone announced all kids were dead, I would jump off the balcony immediately.”

In his defense, Jacksonphiles always bought into Michael’s persona as a man-child who saw nothing but innocence in his personal idiosyncrasies, a view that would absolve many pedophiles of any guilt whatsoever, even Jerry Sandusky. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=8910.)

Ethical Lapses at PSU, Ethical Void in D.C.

Ethical Lapses at PSU, Ethical Void in D.C.

A course in ethics was a requisite for a B.A. at Fordham University in the 1960′s and I have to confess I probably semi-slept through it.

It’s apparent that Ethics 101 either wasn’t required at Penn State University or that Nittany Lions coaches also slept through it. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Barack Hussein Obama has made such a farce of ethics in the federal government it’s hard to believe he understands the meaning of the word.

Ethics was a tough subject although its essence can be reduced to the study of moral principles and their applicability to rules of conduct.

Dictionary.com provides a more detailed definition: “That branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.”

In turn, that definition can be summarized to doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.

Many wrongs are associated with recently-publicized events at PSU. Some may be termed ethical lapses of omission. They include Coach Joe Paterno’s failure to notify law enforcement authorities, university administrators covering up perfidious behavior, and Coach Mike McQueary’s grossly negligence in not interceding on behalf of a 10 year old boy being raped in a school shower room.

The most profound ethical failures committed have been attributed to Coach Jerry Sandusky, illegalities and moral tupitude which allegedly continued for some 15 years, from his initial molestations of young boys to McQueary’s witnessing Sandusky violating the ten year old.

Both Sandusky and McQueary are Penn State graduates but so too are the other 557,000 alumni of that immense and still great school. A few rotten apples can spoil a barrelful but a handful can’t spoil an outstanding university. Now that they have been exposed, they will be prosecuted and victims will be compensated even if that compensation can never wipe clear the memories of what they suffered.

Similarly, an unethical American president can stink up the White House but he can’t spoil a nation.

Obama and the administration he leads have been caught in numerous ethical breaches but, thanks to his mainstream media and stonewalling lackeys, so far they have gotten away with such breaches and only time will tell whether they ultimately ”come home to roost,” to quote his pastor of 20 years. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5954.)

The Trials of PSU

The Trials of PSU

It’s been said that “Scandal is what one half of the world takes pleasure inventing, and the other half in believing.” That observation applies in spades to the ongoing scandal at Penn State University except for the fact those pleasuring in the PSU scandal have been woefully misdirected.

For inexplicable reasons, many people hate Penn State, perhaps for its immense size, its influence, or its football team.

Someone actually published a currently out of print screed on the subject titled, I Hate Penn State: 303 Reasons Why You Should, Too, a screed which may experience a revival in the wake of the events of the past six days in University Park, PA, regrettable events rapidly turning Happy Valley into an unhappy lowland.

It’s very evident neither the PSU child sex scandal nor its repercussions were invented and, at this point, the crimes against children and nature committed by former Nittany Lion defensive coach Jerry Sandusky must be termed ”alleged” until he is, hopefully, tried, convicted, and sentenced to live out his remaining days in some godforsaken Pennsylvania state prison.

(See “Paterno vs Sandusky, Mistakes vs. Predation,” http://tiny.cc/r4lqf.)

As more and more of Sandusky’s victims emerge–the count may reach twenty–media and public venom are developing into a tsunami. However, in a peculiar twist, the venom isn’t being directed against the alleged perpetrator of the vile crimes but against legendary football coach Joe Paterno and Penn State University itself.

With Sandusky long retired, the PSU Board of Trustees peremptorily fired Paterno, by phone, on Wednesday. University president Dr. Graham Spanier was also cashiered. Paterno was dismissed for not doing enough to expose Sandusky’s predations, Spanier for covering them up. Combined with Athletic Director Tim Curley’s leave of absence and Senior PSU VP Gary Schultz’s resignation, that should have put the scandal to rest pending Sandusky’s trial.

Four heads on a platter proved to be nowhere near sufficient to sate the bloodlust of Penn State-haters in the media, however, anymore than the arrest of Jerry Sandusky satisfied them. Sandusky became almost incidental, his guilt as an accused serial homosexual child molestor almost irrelevant to the MSM even as new revelations surfaced.

Classified so far as rumors circulated by long-time PSU critic, Pittsburgh sports writer Mike Madden, Sandusky and his Second Mile Foundation were reputedly “pimping out young boys to rich donors” and Sandusky retired at the unusually young age of 55 ”in exchange for a cover-up” of his illicit activities.

Also seemingly irrelevant are the inactions of then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary.

His action, that is, informing Coach Paterno that he had personally witnessed Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10 year old boy in a shower room, has been duly noted and praised. Paterno reported the incident to Curley the next day yet he was fired.

McQueary’s grievous inactions of failing to intercede, of allowing the assault to continue, of not immediately calling the police–after flattening Sandusky and freeing the boy–speak volumes about McQueary and the Penn State administration.

Now an assistant coach, McQueary was scheduled to be on the sidelines in Saturday’s game with Nebraska alongside interim coach Tom Bradley before he received death threats from overworked fans crazed by Paterno’s dismissal. Aside from his failure to intervene in the first place, questions remain as to why he was not criticized for doing what Paterno did, going by the protocol book, and why he, too, wasn’t fired by PSU higher-ups.

Piling on, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5937.)

Paterno vs Sandusky, Mistakes vs Predation

Paterno vs Sandusky, Mistakes vs Predation

The Penn State saga has been changing at a rapid clip since last Saturday when the PSU sex scandal broke but there’s been an odd morphing in media focus. MSM coverage became much more The Joe Paterno Story and its basis, Jerry Sandusky’s homosexual abuse of as many as 17 kids, has been all but lost in the shuffle.

Until Wednesday evening, there seemed to have been precious few people defending Joe Paterno so I thought I would.

However, following JoePa’s press release on Tuesday in which he expressed remorse for not having “done more,” taken more direct action in notifying police after he was initially told of alleged sex attack on a child by his defensive coordinator and indicated he would resign his position as head coach of the Nittany Lions, there was little to defend. Then the PSU Board of Trustees rendered that decision moot Wednesday evening by firing both Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.

Spanier will be no loss to Penn State. The effects of Paterno’s dismissal will be incalculable as will its root cause, Jerry Sandusky’s alleged, gross moral and ethical conduct over fifteen years.

Many people, far too many, take an inordinate delight in puncturing an icon, when a public figure is de-throned from a position of great prominence and reduced to the level of mere mortals. When that icon is a moral and ethical individual, which Mr. Joseph Vincent “Joe” Paterno was and still is, certain elements in our society are ecstatic.

Penn State University’s storied yet humble football coach would surely reject any suggestions that he was or ever should be ensconced on a throne or that he is immortal despite his outstanding record of achievements and his largely-unheralded list of contibutions to Penn State’s family of tens of thousands of students and hundreds of thousands of alumni.

I would have argued on his behalf and contended he should have stayed on at least until the end of the season because he’s not guilty of anything except perhaps being almost 85 years of age, 76 at the time he was advised of Sandusky’s actions. Paterno should have been allowed to retire on his own terms and to retain the honorable dignity he has always maintained both on and off the field but even icons have enemies.

The Bucks County grand jury exonerated him of any wrongdoing and commended him for immediately notifying Athletic Director Tim Curley of what he had been told. Curley and Gary Schultz, senior PSU VP for finance and business, were charged with a cover-up.

Nevertheless, the die had been cast and Paterno’s fate sealed when the Pennsylvania State Police Commisioner implied he was guilty of a lapse of “moral responsibility” by not contacting law enforcement officials directly and when he was accused of a greater interest in protecting the PSU “brand” than in protecting a child.

Both charges are reprehensible.

Correctly or incorrectly, Coach Paterno was following proper chain of command protocol in reporting to his higher up, Curley, and trusting the athletic director would fulfill his obligations. There is no basis to conclude he valued the safety of any brand over the safety of children, although there is merit in concluding he should have banished Sandusky from the campus, and especially from the shower rooms, until the matter was resolved even if they were still allegations.

The details of the retired defensive coach’s alleged serial sex crimes were initially widely publicized though they have been overshadowed by the mainstream media’s quick re-focusing on Paterno rather than on Sandusky. Apparently, destroying moral icons sells better than reporting yet another instance of homosexuals violating children. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5931.)