Yeah, my kids are out of college now. ;)
My point is not that it should not be covered but, rather, that it is a “page 10” type of story.
SERIOUS stuff is going on all over the world that can and will affect us ALL. NPR only has so much time in their news segment to cover world news. In the scheme of things, this story shouldn’t even be there. There are a LOT of more important things that did not make it there that should have.
Increasing acceptance of decadence and sexual perversion in our culture will, and already is, affecting us all.
Look around you.
It’s not just entertainment, it’s not just pervert priests, in the Penn State scandal it’s people who had widespread trust.
It’s easier to worry about evil across the seas. The look-the-other-way attitude toward wickedness here at home does affect you and those you love. Page One makes us face it, comfortable or not.
I respectfully disagree. I scanned the report a bit. Many high level and influential people with PSU knew what was going on, tried to figure out ways to minimize the news getting out or to law enforcement.
By exposing every detail of this scandal, perhaps a couple of things may happen (1) those guilty in this conspiracy will be subject to charges and punishment for their involvement (2) other academic and community sports programs will be much more vigilant about reporting potential abuses, firing suspected pedophiles, and placing safeguards in their procedures to protect vulnerable children and (3) many thousand of parents and adolescents will be more aware of the signs for potential for these types of abuses.
This is serious stuff. If it is downplayed (as it was for at least a decade), then it seems as if it is not important to both punish those who contributed to this conspiracy and to protect children everywhere from the same outcomes.
I think this story is serious on multiple levels. For starters, molestation is among the most abhorent crimes. I represented a molestation victim once long ago. The details of that case are too sick to recount. I found a special therapist to work with my client and the family. I spent a great deal of time talking to him about the impact of the trauma on my client, but also about molestation victims generally. I came to understand that the molested carry heavy baggage for life. The therapist told me stories about seniors who had been molested sixty and seventy years earlier breaking down in his office. What they suffered as children still haunted them every single day. The ongoing impact of molestation cannot be overstated. So, when these cases come to light, the light of truth must be bright—not to revel in the gory details, but in the hopes that the next Joe Paterno will do the right thing. How many people would have been spared lifelong trauma if Penn State officials had done the right thing instead of covering it up?
Another consideration is this: we live in a sick celebrity obsessed culture. Americans give their adoration to some of the most undeserving people on the planet. There ought to be something therapeutic about coming to see that some of our “heroes” aren’t all that heroic. It used to kill me to hear Rush going on and on about the great Jimmy Johnson. Rush admired his pursuit of excellence. What Rush forgot to mention was the way in which Jimmy Johnson treated his own family. He forgot to say that Jimmy never once watched his own sons play football. He forgot to say that Jimmy ran out on the mother of his children. He never pointed out that while Jimmy may be a terrific coach, he’s a lousy human being. He sacrificed his family on the alter of success. There is nothing admirable about that.