A few words about child sexual abuse
In response to some speculation in the comments section of this post, here are a few facts about how the sexual abuse of children usually works, especially when the perp (like Sandusky) is a serial abuser of unrelated children:
(1) The perp is often in a position of authority over the child, which would predispose the child to obey.
(2) The perp is often an experienced and almost uncanny judge of character, and chooses his (or her) prey carefully. The children tend to be insecure and shy, and to come from troubled and/or single parent homes. Therefore an organization such as Second Mile, the one Sandusky founded that served underprivileged children and from which he drew his victims, would be a perfect source.
(3) The victim is usually approached carefully over time in a series of escalating moves in order to test his/her receptivity and passivity in the face of the abuse. If the victim is too resistant or defiant or uncooperative, the perp moves to another victim.
(4) The perp counts on shame and/or fear to keep the child quiet. Sometimes (although I don’t think this was one of the allegations in Sandusky’s case) the perp overtly threatens that something bad will happen to the child or the child’s parents if the secret is found out or told: either the child will be punished or the perp will harm or kill him/her or his/her parents. Or there can even be just the milder threat that of course no one will credit the child’s word against the adult’s. In many cases the child has already had the latter experience—of not being believed or heard in smaller matters—so it is very believable for the child. It is speculated that the entire spectrum of the problem, including the fear, secrecy, shame, and sense of betrayal on the child’s part, can be even more damaging than the act of sex itself, although the latter is certainly damaging as well.
(5) Sometimes the evidence that the child is being abused is very subtle and easy for parents to miss. This is especially true in a home where parents are harried and not paying a lot of attention, but it can be the case even with attentive parents. Sometimes children, in their shame (or fear) at what has happened to them, are quite adept at hiding any evidence, even (or perhaps especially) from parents. Sometimes the changes in the child are limited to increased nonspecific anxiety and/or behavior problems. There is often no physical evidence (although in the case of anal rape, as alleged in the Sandusky case, there tends to be—but again, children can be determined and successful at hiding it).
(6) It is commonly thought that the spouse of the perp ought to suspect, especially if (as in the Sandusky case) some of the abuse occurs in the perp’s home. For example, Sandusky had many of the kids to his house on overnights before outings. They slept in a basement room, and he is alleged to have gone done there to abuse them around their bedtime. Many people in comments sections around the blogosphere have blamed his wife for not noticing this, especially if he was absent around bedtime. But a child’s bedtime is not the same as an adult’s, and if the perp times his approaches well (which Sandusky almost certainly did), he can easily accomplish the abuse fairly quickly, and while his wife is busy cleaning up or on a computer or reading or engaged in any number of solitary evening activities. The perp’s demeanor can otherwise seem rather ordinary and non-suspicious, and the married sex life of perps can actually be quite “normal”-seeming as well.
People who look at the phenomenon of child sexual abuse from the outside often prefer to think that the signs are clear, and that—had it been their spouse—they would have known. But sadly, that is just not the case. Perps can be very sly and able to present a convincing facade of normalcy. In other words, in addition to being sexual predators, they are often excellent con artists.
I’ve read some intriguing books by those who were horribly violated. Two come to mind: “A child called It,” and another one that I binged: “When Rabbit Howls.”
Do you ever wonder why prisoners are so violent against child molesters? It’s actually pretty easy to figure out and doesn’t require a Harvard psychologist. Although, at first, you might think, why would criminals care, it’s more complex than that. Most criminals are not sociopaths but dysfunctional persons who were raised without instruction and with cruelty. There is still something intrinsic to most of them that knows and craves goodness and that part wars with the other part. Many arrive at this knowledge instinctively, and prefer a prison life where they will only hurt those like themselves.
What created that war? Or, more correctly, since we all share in that war, what created a disadvantage? Many times it was an adult molester and they don’t feel anything but over-consuming hatred for them. Should such a person cross their path, the revenge will be swift, violent, and satisfying.
Recently, I just heard of a book by the ex-wife of Mickey Rourke, Carré Otis. The book is called “Beauty Disrupted.” Her life includes horrors but she has not let them define her. Looks like a good read.
yeah… so what about the anal sex pamphlets from gslen… the sexualizing of children due to meade and kinsey (and progressivism)?
its contradictory… no?
copying from someone else:
The sexualization of CHILDREN is what went wrong in Bela Kuhn’s Hungarian takeover. George Lukacs was involved in Institute for Sexual Research (similar to what become Kinsey when it reached here).
did i ever mention to read about the bela kuhn government and lukacs??
of course…
but thats like cheating on the test…
Bella Dodd testified about moving pedophiles into the catholic church.. which today is a left liberal point in why the state shouold end the church
and what about men in schools? and the move to turn every man is a rapist into every man is a pedophile (including airlines making rules in line with that)
well… isnt it funny that the left celebrates the coochie snorcher that could… and polanski, and loving fisting and childrens sex.
then we wonder why something like this could happen?
was the kid gay? would telling on him deny him his right to come out of the closet? and on and on..
what it does is give one side control to declare what it is… so for roman Polanski and the good rape its ok… for the duke professor who adopted black kids then pimped them out to other gay men, and spoke on forums advising gay pedophiles this is a good way to get what they want.. its what?
so before we all get into its always wrong, better first figure out that to the left its not always wrong…
well, the woman that testified as to such people in the church SHE placed… was also the head of the teachers union and cpusa..
so today, we have these normalized pedophiles who got their sex kicks in a society who was sexulizing children as they were growing up, telling them nothing is immoral, and even creating places like platos retreat and trapeze club through permissiveness.
ie… in a society that has adult sex pots dressing in private school girls outfits in movies for kids… (bedazzled).. it offers the stimulation needed to turn a normal developing yound mind into a paraphile or a pedophile or a pederast… when they see it and their hormones go and they associate that rather than other norms which the progressive say are not norms but oppressive.
you have children tarted up for liberation (way to go feminists)… you have young girls doing gang bangs and the local society dont know what to do since its only statutory…
and what about the recent insertions of nude homosexual sex in shows like Torchwood?
dont think that the kids watching that might be a bit more receptive to an authority figure?
of course FISTgate was never really explored by the public… if you take the time to look, you will find them talking about how to use schools to do this.
and no one wants or cares to read about bela kuhn…
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/anti-bolshevism.htm
read this and you see that our colleges are teaching the story that its a conspiracy of jews…
and
“In Hungary, the hangman Bela Kuhn ruled for 133 days.”
you see..
there WAS a reason that the first bolshivik revolution in the US Was the SEXUAL REVOLUTION and required women to become the dirty glasses that would get the men to give up on the idea of morals, healthy things and so on!!
worked for the serpent.. no?
and even now… the men will make whatever hell the ladies are dumb enough to want once their leaders tell them.
but note… why read about how bela kuhn did it and how it helped fulfil what stalin said about the US…
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
— Joseph Stalin, former dictator of the Soviet Union
the feminist movement was tasked to do to the public what the bela kuhn did. as sexual liberation of the rutting animal kind, was how they were able to take over hungry..
funny how history repeats and no one wants to read history.
so now here we are with the fruits of sexual liberaion and the old timers who have alreayd lost are saying the other old timer who will be removed should be toasted for not telling..
but note, how it serves…
been trying to destroy mens sports since title IX… this will just help, as much as gays in the church abusing children help..
and of course, we have been trained to believe that a man having sex with a man, if not the same age group, is not gay but something else…
not really.. (given that some of the rapes int he ows park are gay rapes… )
so, now we have a pickle..
and you cant turn a pickle back to a cucumber can you?
once the purity is gone, its never coming back
and so, the confused child doesnt know enough to protect their own individuality, say no, and go for help…
after all, they may be gay…
and so, not only did the systems neo liberal attitude that their own can do what they want is at play (and the other coach trapped betwen the two!!! tell and have the left potentially do something, not tell and maybe it will go away… ), and others are going to be in trouble for the same thing (its called a perk)
and did that kid molest others too?
and doesnt broken homes with lack of fathers as role models also help this?
see.. like a chess game.. its not one piece that makes it happen, its lots of pieces that by themselves are mostly harmless. which as i have said before, is why they never discuss the thing out of isolation.
ever hear someone argue about abortion in light of social engineering in the same systme? of course not… it would be like discussing sweet glycerin… and common nitric acid… by themselves…one thing… but put them in the same system together…
you get guilt ridding inventor giving the world a science prize in stockholm for sending his brother to heaven and sending the body there too..
of course, we eont discuss this fully, other than myself, it will be isolated as if this is happening years ago, and the other stuff that contributed to it and it continuing will get a free pass as they are proscriped outside the politically correct discourse..
which is why we are to ignore that the kids are seeing things like loving fisting pamplets from adults…
just after michal jackson died…
another child actor spoke up as far as he could
because he was the other cory who didnt commit suicide…
Corey Haim
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Haim
roman polanski just got caught…
Christopher Ameruoso, Haim’s neighbor for a year, said Haim sometimes could be seen wandering around the complex, “looking for companionship, looking for friends
On March 10, 2010, after a 9-1-1 call from his mother, Haim was taken from their home by paramedics to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, and pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. Los Angeles police stated that his death appeared to be an accidental overdose and that four bottles containing Valium, Vicodin, Soma (a muscle relaxant) and Haloperidol (an anti-psychotic) were retrieved
so is it any wonder that X wishes to make more of X so that X becomes normalized in a society who sees numbers as the indicator rather than regard and thought over actuality?
ya know… this happened a whole lot less befor the ladies became freebie hookers in hookup and the children had a mother, and dad was allowed to be there.
sure seems that the destruction of family, a cornerstone goal of feminism since 1850s… did NOT lead to a wonderful world for the good people.
but it sure did liberate the oppressed sociopaths, sadists, and the “brutal class”, so that they can make more..
years from now, the result will be simialar to russia.. a place where the criminals and such are so brutal they shock the brutal..
but they are the children who are the children of those who got the same treatments from socialism…
remember…
bela kuhn and such could not get far because the people had such high morals…
so they used sex education to destroy their morals..
now
2011 Trafficking in Persons Report – Hungary
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,USDOS,,HUN,,4e12ee752d,0.html
see… liberated from the restriction that you cant do such things..
penn state is just one more symptom…
not the desease itself..
just look at the research on homosexuality and pedophilism for both sexes!!!!
or read the coochie snorcher that could in the original vagina monologues.
wher eif your a liberal, its ok to rape children, as that is a “good rape”.
and one last thing..
anyone remember ACORN was happy to help fund a brothel ring for pedophiles using smuggled (slave) underage Guatemalan girls?
So who is telling who if you support us, you can do what?
why would a pedophile want to support the moral side? so a left liberal academic coach in a land of immorality and sexual hookups…
was forgetting his side didnt win yet…
and Acorn and other such still exists…
like groucho marx they always anwser:
“These are my principles and if you don’t like them, I have others.”
Good point Artfldgr and well worth stating to keep my observation from going liberal.
Most evil men aren’t in prison.
Corrupted ones are and we get a few evil ones every now and then, but most evil, until rampant, is done in the name of good, like the homosexuality agenda. And the argument for freedom of love and expression cannot be reasonably refuted without reference to what has happened in the past and what God says. Both of those things are taboo to liberals.
Given the state of DC< perhaps Penn State was just doing as others were doing, and trying to keep it quiet since they didn't have the firepower to cover it up if found out, like DC would and has.
Thanks for the detailed observations about pedophiles. That they must go to such lengths to find and prepare their victims indicates a deep dysfunction but a talent for deception that is amazing. It makes you wonder how deep this problem really is and if there are any good solutions.
I spent my childhood in a small town where we roamed far and wide with never care about such a thing as a pedophile. In fact I don’t recall ever hearing about such a crime until in the 70s. Then in the late 80s we learned about the Catholic priests and now it seems that there are pedophilic crimes in the news regularly. Has it become more prevalent or is it just finally being brought out into the open? It is such a taboo that I cannot imagine anyone succumbing to the urge, no matter how strong. But obviously I’m wrong about that. It’s just deeply disturbing. Partents have to be so vigilant and children are no longer safe to roam and explore.
photos.tmz.com/galleries/sasha_grey#tab=most_recent&id=103528
Porn legend Sasha Grey — winner of the 2010 AVN award for best anal sex scene — was invited to read books to 1st graders at an L.A.-area elementary school last week … but the school tried to cover it all up … after parents pitched a fit.
So many great points in all the posts. The loss of our moral compass is terrifying. You go to the little girls clothing section and the slutification of our innocents is clear, right before your eyes, is now mainstream and “normal”. How many parents brought their little girls screaming to Madonna, and later Britainy Spears, and now Lady Gaga? Its horrifying!
And recently the American Psychiatric Associatiin has a panel discussing Pedophilia as “Adult Child Sex” and a very normal acceptable activity.
Obama’s SCHOOL SAFETY CZAR for the love of God, was mentored by a high level Man Boy Love Association leader and had authored a booklet advocating fisting and other activities for young gay students. He earlier bragged that he had one gay student confide in him that he was having toilet stall sex with adult men, and was advised only to wear a condom. He would knowingly wink to the kid in the halls at their shared secret. And he’s the SCHOOL SAFETY CZAR!
And who can forget the crowds of Hollywood stars defending Roman Polansky who drugged a 13 year old girl and as he was about to rape her asked her if she was on the pill. When she said no he turned her around and anally raped her. And Hollywood stands and cheers. And Hollywood St. Woody Allen who molests his own 15 year old step daughter and is lauded for his artistry.
And mark my words. I smell a large network of Pedophiles in this Penn State Snake den. Universities like Penn State are worlds unto themselves and those in power have absolute power. There were too many roadblocks to exposing this. I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg. WHO murdered the D.A. That mysteriously disappeared with the power to prosecute this? I can smell it. There’s a lot of evil here, and it’s not just Sandusky.
This is Democrat corruption, a side effect if you will of Demoncrat power madness. People can pretend differently, but I know the underlying factors. The Catholic Church. These dens of corruption. They exist because good people won’t purge them from existence. And they refuse to do so, because it’s convenient to call them isolated incidents, rather than organized corruption.
It’s so easy to create the environment for this kind of activity in all the cities of America, while sitting in the comfy Demoncrat halls of power in DC, and pretend politics had no effect on the culture, and the culture had no effect on behavior.
I wonder how long people can delude themselves on this matter before they realize what’s really going on. They think Penn State is “serious”. They have no fracking clue as to the extent of the real serious stuff going on in this nation.
I am a Penn State Grad, but not an admirer of football, and I have generally very happy memories of my years at Penn State and in Happy Valley; memories that are now to be forever shadowed by recent events there. Paterno was the speaker at my honor society banquet many decades ago, and his theme, as I recall, was something about applying the elements of good sportsmanship, the things he was trying to teach his players, to life–things like striving for excellence, honesty and integrity, perseverance, honor, respect for your opponents, etc.. All now, in retrospect, a load of horse shit; stuff he thought he had to say to keep up the legend of the Great JoePa. Paterno was a great speaker, and he sure “talked the talk,” but when the time came for him to actually “walk the walk” he told so many other people they had to walk, he failed.
In the context of this Sandusky horror show, it is important to remember that there were prior, extensive 1995-1998 investigations of accusations that Sandusky was molesting boys, one by the Penn State University police–which went nowhere, and one, too, by Centre County DA Ray Gricar, who declined to prosecute Sandusky in 1998.
Here’s the thing. Gricar walked out of his house one day in 2005 and mysteriously disappeared, his car abandoned, his laptop dumped in the river with its hard drive removed; a hard drive later discovered near the river but too water damaged to yield any information. A recent news item says that, before he disappeared, Gricar’s home computer had been used to research how to destroy a hard drive. No body was ever found, and DA Gricar was declared legally dead this past July.
So, is Gricar’s mysterious disappearance linked to his investigation of Sandusky and /or his decision not to prosecute?
Remember both these investigations in the mid to late 1990s were conducted while Sandusky was still Paterno’s assistant coach. According to reports PSU President Spanier testified that he knew of these investigations, and Paterno–arguably the most informed person about the Penn State football machine, and de facto the most powerful figure in Penn State, didn’t know about them?
Where is Jesse Stone when you need him?
We don’t have access to the actual Grand Jury testimony, but it seems very likely that Mike McCreary, who witnessed the 2002 rape by now retired coach Sandusky, would have told Paterno all about the molestation that he witnessed that had so disturbed him, and in some detail. However, Paterno testified to the Grand Jury that he never was told the extent of the molestation because, he told McCreary to stop short of the sordid details. Obviously, now that the dam has broken, it is in Paterno’s interest in saving his ass from prosecution (it was reported yesterday that Paterno had hired a prominent D.C criminal defense attorney, which means the wealthy Paterno probably had to plunk down a $50,000 or $100,000 retainer, so he must really fear that he will eventually be indicted) to remember only being told by McCreary that something “inappropriate” might have happened, thus justifying him not having to really do anything more than just reporting this “possibly inappropriate conduct” up the line.
There but for the grace of God, but, nonetheless, a lot of the coverage of this story characterizes Mike McCreary as the “young, graduate student” who witnessed the 2002 sexual assault and then called his father for advice before reporting it to Joe Paterno the next day—coverage that gives you the impression that in 2002 McCreary might have been, say, a skinny, frightened, inexperienced 22 or 23 year old, totally out of his element, and at a loss for what to do. Other accounts, however, note that in 2002 McCreary–frightened or not–was a presumably experienced 28, a former PSU quarterback, and a strapping graduate assistant coach who stood 6’4” and weighed well over 200 lbs, someone who once reportedly broke up a dangerous knife fight in a PSU cafeteria–a guy who, you would think, should have been easily able to physically intervene to stop the rape.
According to McCreary’s testimony, summarized in the indictment (http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4181508116.PDF) he saw the 10 year old had his hands pinned above his head on the shower wall by Sandusky as Sandusky raped him, yet, McCreary testified he looked at Sandusky and the boy, the boy and Sandusky looked at him, and then McCreary just left; he didn’t even yell at Sandusky to stop, he didn’t try to physically break it up, he just walked away, and left the child to his fate. There is no mention in any of the extensive coverage that I have seen, that even one of the various PSU officials involved–McCreary, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, Spanier–ever made any efforts, after the fact, to try to find out who this 10 year old boy was, so that he could be protected from further molestation and get treatment.
“Callous disregard” doesn’t even begin to cover it, and these people are supposed to be role models and “in loco parentis” custodians and guardians of our young college students?
Jack Cashill had an article up this week at the American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/joe_paterno_and_bishop_finn.html) talking about how hard it is to be a whistle blower when you are up against a powerful, entrenched organization and its admired, powerful, iconic figures, a “culture” that doesn’t want to be disrupted or disturbed, and the potentially drastic payback for those who do the disturbing, and he says that, in his experience, only a very few people have the guts to actually blow that whistle.
I don’t think that any of us can really know for sure or guarantee what we might do if we came around a corner on day and were suddenly confronted by such a situation. The point here, though, is there has to be a high standard set, not pretended to or just be given lip service, but actually set, there has to be that explicit expectation that people will do the right thing, with what that “right thing” consists of being spelled out in very clear, and complete detail, and the circumstances under which the whistle should be blown and/or the intervention launched also outlined in great detail for the morally obtuse.
In sum, to put it into football terms, there have to be very well prescribed and known “boundaries,” and there has to be an expectation that people will intervene or blow that whistle when those boundaries are transgressed, or no one will ever intervene or blow the whistle.
Our culture and Academe these days are, however, largely all about being “transgressive.”
Fuzzing things up, obliterating all such moral boundaries–“a thousand shades of grey”, anyone?–or pretending that there are none at all is, of course, what the Left has been trying to do–and doing a very good job of it, too–especially since pre-WWII Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci wrote his playbook on how to subvert and destroy bourgeois societies.
One poster on Conservative news aggregator “Luciane.com” took the time to compile a list of the number of very liberal vs. conservative student organizations on the PSU campus–several Liberal LGTB organizations among them–and found that the ratio of very liberal to conservative organizations was more than two to one and, furthermore, that of those faculty members who donated to political candidates in the 2008 elections, more that 90% donated to Democrat candidates, and that 95% of donations by university employees were also to Democrat candidates and causes.
Then, of course, we also have outfits like NAMBLA out there, advocating just such man-boy sex, and arguing that it is “normal.” I note, too, the recent Baltimore conference of Psychiatrists, mental health professionals, and “activists”–including panelists from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Louisville–who are organizing a campaign to get “Minor-attracted persons” i.e. “pedophiles” involved in the next revision of the DSM, aiming to remove pedophilia from the DSM on the basis that such pedophilia is actually “normal,” and to stop classifying pedophilia a disorder, and criminalizing it, because to do so unfairly stigmatizes “Minor-attracted persons” i.e. pedophiles. peod(http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/15/conference-aims-to-normalize-pedophilia/)
Thus, in addition to the normal university politics/CYA/ and organizational survival instincts, you have to wonder if the atmosphere, the “culture” of formerly staid PSU had, over the decades since I attended in the 1970s, become more than usually hospitable for Sandusky’s proclivities, and to keeping quiet about them.
McCreary (now suspended) was reportedly out somewhere early this week trying to recruit new players for Penn State, and apparently one of the main themes of the recruiting pitch is “Honor.” I don’t think that there was a lot of “Honor” there in 2002, or that there is very much there today either.
P.S. Sandusky was an employee of the Penn State football organization for something like thirty years, and he founded his “charity” for disadvantaged boys way back in 1977. Do you really think that a lot of other people–at PSU and elsewhere–didn’t know what was up?
On widespread knowledge of Sandusky’s proclivities/activities. I’ve run across the story on two websites so far today that an ice cream shop– presumably in the Penn State area —had a special Sandusky concoction that featured a cone open end down flanked by a scoop of ice creme on either side.
Is this just coincidence?
Wolla:
“In loco parentis” was taken out and shot in ‘higher ed’ a long time ago.
From Wiki: “Though in loco parentis continues to apply to primary and secondary education in the U.S., application of the concept has largely disappeared in higher education. However, this was not always the case.
Prior to the 1960s, undergraduates were subject to many restrictions on their private lives. Women were generally subject to curfews as early as 10:00, and dormitories were usually entirely one-sex. Some universities expelled students–especially female students–who were somehow “morally” undesirable. Some universities even insisted that male and female student sitting on the same chair have at least two feet on the ground at all times. More importantly, universities saw fit to restrict freedom of speech on campus, often forbidding organizations dealing with “off-campus” issues from organizing, demonstrating, or otherwise acting on campus. These restrictions were severely criticized by the student movements of the 1960s, and the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley formed partly on account of them, inspiring students elsewhere to step up their opposition.[4]
The landmark 1961 case Dixon v. Alabama was the beginning of the end for in loco parentis in U.S. higher education. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Alabama State College could not summarily expel students without due process.[5″
All higher ed loves the nullification of in loco parentis. Makes administration so much easier. It’s all up to the students. Another gift from the Left.
It’s about the money. It’s why this was covered up for so long as to why Prof. Michael Mann’s fraudulent global warming research wasn’t properly investigates. Steve McIntyre makes this point better than I can. The entire academic system has been corrupted by the revenue issue. With all the federal largesse, there’s no motivation to reform.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/10/penn-state-president-fired/
Looking at bits of information that are starting to emerge from various sources and comments around the Internet, I am starting to get the picture that, perhaps, Sandusky’s activities and appetites may have been somewhat of an “open secret” in the Penn state area, and that they were given some acceptance in the atmosphere, the “university “culture” cultivated under President Spanier.
I hope I am wrong, but I am starting to have the suspicion that the Sandusky affair may be merely the “tip of the iceberg,” and that today there is much, much more degeneracy to be found hidden below the surface of apparently idyllic Happy Valley. A rot, a decadence that has slowly crept in, and like a whole army of termites has eaten away and hollowed out the apparently solid house of Penn State from within, so that the merest touch, the increased scrutiny, will collapse the apparently solid edifice of Penn State, to reveal it be a hollow shell, masking the corruption beneath.
In the fine tradition of Casablanca’s Captain Renault being “shocked, shocked” that gambling was going on in Rick’s establishment (this line enunciated with a cynical, worldly-wise expression on his face, as he was slipped and pocketed his winnings) Spanier released a statement, after his firing, distancing himself from the whole scandal, and saying that he, too, was “shocked” at what was apparently going on at PSU without his knowledge (see Spanier’s exculpatory statement, which has gotten virtually no press that I am aware of, here http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/nov/09/spanier-issues-statement-on-ouster-from-penn-state/) .
But, there is a side to ex–President Spanier that is–for some reason–not being mentioned. According to his Wiki bio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Spanier) , former PSU President Spanier is a Family Sociologist, and Marriage and Family Therapist whose doctoral dissertation, “Sexual Socialization and Premarital Sexual Behavior: An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Formal and Informal Sex Education” was, some of his critics have asserted, focused on “swinging,” and he did, according to his Wiki bio, author an article on “swinging” for the “Archives of Sexual Behavior.” There are also allegations (see for instance http://afaofpa.org/archives/p2523/ and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2806043/posts) that Spanier was pushing the LGBT agenda in his executive positions at both his former schools and at PSU. So, for instance, on his watch Penn State OKed the installation of Delta Lambda Phi, the first “gay “ fraternity in the nation (http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/03/17/new_frat_added_to_ifc.aspx) , allowed “Queerfest” to be held on campus including something called the “Tent of Consent” i.e. gay sex, as well as something called the C**tfest” (see http://articles.philly.com/2011-11-10/news/30382412_1_penn-state-jerry-sandusky-joe-paterno-s-nittany-lions).
Artfldgr,
You are responsible for many hours of reading and research on my part (as are so many of you here). I have spent the last few years doing post grad work which has allowed me access to some of the good minds of the younger generation (not my generation, no). I miss few threads here and have devoured much of the material offered but more importantly I am forwarding much of it along to the ones I believe will listen with interest. You are reaching people. All of you are.
If, as I speculate, and some others on the Internet are starting to speculate too, the present Penn State/Sandusky scandal is just the tip of the ice burg, then it is major “damage control” time, and a lot of people are working furiously behind the scenes trying to see to it that any investigation of this scandal never penetrates below the surface, and is never comprehensive and widespread.
Just for starters, a lot of people in general and not directly connected to this particular scandal have a huge interest in limiting the damage to the Penn State “brand” and to Happy Valley’s reputation, although, personally, I think that that ship has already sailed.
Meanwhile, in just one line of inquiry, articles on the Internet are speculating that perhaps dozens of people–in the PSU campus police, in Social Services, at the Second Mile, in the PSU football organization–knew about Sandusky and his activities, but kept silent. Do they have any legal exposure here? I don’t know.
In the Internet age such damage control is hard to achieve, and things are starting to tumble out. There was the story yesterday that some Centre County sports writers are on the trail of a rumor that Sandusky might have been “lending” some of the boys at Second Mile out to big contributors. In another development, the President of Sandusky’s “charity” for at risk boys, the Second Mile, reportedly resigned today. It was also reported that Moodys is looking at Penn State’s bond rating–Hell, I didn’t know that PSU even had a bond rating–presumably since its “brand” is now damaged goods, and also the likelihood that PSU will have to pay out a whole lot of money to various plaintiffs.
Then, there is the fact that the Centre County judge who released Sandusky on $100K personal recognizance ( i.e. he didn’t have to post a cent in bond) when prosecutors had requested a $500K cash bond and an electronic leg monitor–turns out to have been a donor to/volunteer at Second Mile and didn’t recuse herself as she most definitely should have. The very well paid Sandusky has access to a lot of cash and, if he is convicted, he potentially faces jail for the rest of his life, and possible murder in that jail by inmates who don’t take well to pedophiles. Can you spell “major flight risk?”
Stay tuned.
What amazes me as I read the comments on various websites, is the number of people who are apparently outraged that this issue has even been brought up, and who are staunch defenders of, in particular, Joe Paterno, and Penn State football, making every excuse possible for Penn State’s and Paterno’s conduct.
From the level of emotion, and one could even say fan(aticism), displayed in some of these comments, it seems that Penn State football and Peterno have crossed over from being an interesting diversion and Paterno just a human being, into the realm of religion and deep emotion and, with it, Paterno’s sainthood. From some of the outraged reactions, you get the feeling that someone has spit in the holy water and defaced the Alter, and the children who have been molested are just a secondary matter, and not worth much notice at all.
Some of the coverage coming out of University Park itself, coverage from news sources like the Centre Daily Times, for instance, is surreal. They have shut their eyes, plugged their ears, and are shouting La-La-La at the top of their lungs, minimizing things, in hopes that this will all go away.
One of the main exhibits, District Judge Leslie Dutchest–who volunteered a few times at Sandusky’s “Second Mile” charity that is at the heart of the molestation scandal–not recusing herself but, instead, releasing immanent flight risk (lots of available cash and the prospect of life in jail and, perhaps, being murdered there) Sandusky–charged with 40 counts, many of them first class felonies–on a $100K personal recognizance bond he didn’t have to post anything on, instead of the $500K cash bond and electronic leg monitor the prosecutor had requested.
Yesterday Sandusky even went on TV to say that, yes, he showered naked with young boys, yes, he might have “touched their legs” and indulged in some innocent “horseplay,” but that. while he might have used some bad judgment, he was not a pedophile (or as they might say in the rarefied, enlightened, tolerant, and “accepting” atmosphere of Academia and Penn State’s culture, a “Minor-attracted person,” ) and that he had not really done anything wrong. I suspect that his explanation might fly pretty high with a lot of people at Penn Sate and in Happy Valley who desperately want it to be true..
The excuses, the affronted dignity, the refusal to recognize the enormous depth and dimensions of the problem, the pretense of normality, it’s like they have been brainwashed. Something, and something wide-spread and systemic, is definitely wrong in “Happy Valley” and at Penn State.
A news story has surfaced on the Web today (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/penn-state-scandal-mike-mcqueary-emails_n_1093762.html) that Mike McCreary, the person who testified to witnessing Sandusky raping a 10 year old boy in the PSU football team’s showers in 2002, has changed his story, and has been Tweeting his teammates that, instead of seeing Sandusky raping a 10 year old in the Penn State football team’s showers and not doing anything but just walking away–as he apparently told the Grand Jury under oath was what he did–McCreary is now telling them that he broke the rape up.
Since this new account paints him in a much better light, I can’t imagine why he would have given the Grand Jury his former account that painted him in a much, much worse light unless, perhaps, if he stopped it, it might be expected that he might have also identified the boy and also interacted in some way with Sandusky, things that the Grand Jury would have been sure to want the details on. Things, perhaps, that he didn’t want the Grand Jury to know about when he testified but which now–given all the criticism he has taken for his apparently cowardly and callous inaction–he is starting to reveal in an attempt to get some public redemption.
P.S.–If yo’all are wondering why I am posting on this at all and, especially, a lot, I am a PSU grad who is very, very upset that the PSU and Happy Valley that I thought I knew–a place that had been the source of a lot of happy memories for me, and even of pride–has been revealed to be a sham and, perhaps, possibly even a festering cesspit of depravity and denial.