Eric Barron, who replaced Erickson as Penn State’s president, immediately issued a powerful apology to these victims and vowed to redouble the university’s efforts…OK, who am I kidding here? In reality, Barron came out with only token remorse for victims and certainly no promise that the entire Sandusky cover-up story will ever be bared. Instead, he said that Penn State had no evidence of wrongdoing by Paterno and other coaches and school officials (how could it, since it didn’t seem to look very hard?) and he then took the 21st Century coward’s way out, blaming everything on the media.
“Unfortunately, we can’t control the 24/7 news cycle, and the tendency of some individuals in social media and the blogosphere to rush to judgment,” Barron said. “But I have had enough of the continued trial of the institution in various media. We have all had enough. . . . I am appalled.”
Oh, I’m sorry, are your feelings hurt by everybody talking about all the CHILD RAPE being committed by your EMPLOYEE? God, so awful for you! But I’m here to help. There’s like a really, really easy way around that and it has jack and shit to do with the 24/7 news cycle or social media or the blogosphere.
I’m gonna tell you the secret to not having the 24/7 news cycle and social media and the blogosphere covered with allegations that people you paid to work for you raped little kids and you covered it up. Are you ready? Here’s the secret to making that not happen:
DON’T RAPE ANY KIDS. TELL YOUR EMPLOYEES NOT TO RAPE KIDS. AND IF YOU FIND OUT THAT SOMEONE WHO CASHES YOUR CHECKS IS RAPING KIDS, YOU FIRE HIM OR HER JUST AFTER YOU CALL THE POLICE.
And then and forever after you shut your stupid meatloaf-hole about how much this all sucks for YOU.
I get that if you teach, say, physics, at Penn State right now, it sucks to hear your employer described as a garbage disaster zone full of enablers of child rape. The physics professors and whoever did not do anything to deserve this shit. Handing over their business cards at a party and having people back away from them slowly making cootie-protection-fingers at them must be a bummer.
You know what’s a bigger bummer? BEING RAPED BY YOUR GODDAMN COACH, and then going to your coach’s coach to say hey, enough with the raping, and having that coach tell you to shut up, and then watching your university build the last coach a statue for being such a good guy. That is more of a bummer than a university administrator’s stupid feelings.
So find some perspective, and possibly also a new job if you don’t like working for kiddie-rapist enthusiasts. The people you should be pissed at are in your university administration, not in the “blogosphere” or the 24/7 news cycle. CNN did nothing to you.
I hate this whining about “ooh, the Internet has destroyed our reputation” when it’s not like you were surreptitiously photographed picking your nose in your car. Nobody upskirted Penn State and posted it on RevengePorn.com. Sometimes your reputation deserves to be destroyed. Like when you lie about child rape. Like then.
A.
Athenae, nobody cuts thru the crap like you do.
Keep givin’em hell!
Indeed, the media’s attempts to continue to hold the institution responsible for the horrific things it allowed to happen is appalling. That’s what’s appalling. Yessir.
So that’s where Eric Barron ended up after his slash-and-burn job at Florida State. Figures.
For an extra special treat, go to the linked column and read the comments (never read the comments). The Paterno fans are out in force, defending their man and their school with a ferocity not often seen in such a lost cause.
The evidence was that Paterno and the chancellor knew of Sandusky’s behavior, on and off campus, over a period of years. Since they had a strong incentive to not report him to police, in order to protect their reputations and the reputation of the institution, they became not only accessories after the fact, but were guilty of misprision of a felony, as well, which is a felony itself (one gains a material benefit by not reporting a crime).
And this fucking moron blames the media?
Funny, I never hear the culture warriors of the right wing complaining about this sort of evasion of responsibility as emblematic of the destruction of the culture….
“Since they had a strong incentive to not report him to police…”
Hard to tell what was or wasn’t reported, actually.
During that time, Tom Corbett (later PA Gov.) was PA AG. R-Asshole, of course.
He has angrily deflected (yet not answered) why nothing was done when he was AG. As Gov., tried to sue to get the NCAA sanctions overturned.
Also, during the same period of time when Sandusky was abusing, and Corbett was AG, in the same district that includes PSU, the Prosecutor ‘disappeared’. The only trace left was that his state-issued laptop was recovered from the Susquehanna River, with its hard-drive removed. “Suicide”, they said, without evidence.
There’s something rotten in Happy Valley.
Thank you. Rape culture never ceases to amaze and sicken me.
THIS! Thanks!