The Brutal Truth About Penn State

[charlie and algernon]

"But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father …"

— Matthew, Chapter 6


It was midway through the pregame prayer session that the gorge hit high tide. There is always something a little nauseating in large spectacles of conspicuous public piety, but watching everyone on the field take a knee before the Penn State-Nebraska game, and listening to the commentary about how devoutly everybody was praying for the victims at Penn State, was enough to get me reaching for a bucket and a Bible all at once. It was as though the players and coaches had devised some sort of new training regimen to get past the awful reality of what had happened. Prayer as a new form of two-a-days. Jesus is my strength coach. Contrition in the context of a football game seemed almost obscene in its obvious vanity.


(snip)

If that blights Joe Paterno's declining years, that's too bad. If that takes a chunk out of the endowment, hold a damn bake sale. If that means that Penn State spends some time being known as the university where a child got raped, that's what happens when you're a university where a child got raped. Any sympathy for this institution went down the drain in the shower room in the Lasch Building. There's nothing that can happen to the university, or to the people sunk up to their eyeballs in this incredible moral quagmire, that's worse than what happened to the children who got raped at Penn State. Good Lord, people, get up off your knees and get over yourselves.

(snip)

By an order of magnitude, the Penn State child-raping scandal is miles beyond anything that ever happened with the Ohio State football team over the past five years, miles beyond anything that happened with the SMU football team in the 1980s, and miles beyond anything that happened with the point-shaving scandals in college basketball. It is not a failure of our institutions so much as it is a window into what they have become — soulless, profit-driven monsters, Darwinian predators with precious little humanity left in them. Penn State is only the most recent example. Too much of this country is too big to fail.

much more here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7233704/the-brutal-truth-penn-state

[thucythucy]

1. This is an amazing essay

and says what absolutely needs to be said.

And flowers for Algernon and Charlie for posting this.

[Fumesucker]

2. This thread is useless without pictures..

[KamaAina]

22. Gotta wonder what Abdullah (in the lower left) was thinking

:eyes:

[charlie and algernon]

24. oh geez, I just noticed that

The sad thing is, you know people would've talked about the one guy on the Nebraska team who stayed on the sideline. You wonder how many other players are kneeling just because they don't want to be THAT player who didn't pray.

[GeorgeGist]

3. While watching I had no urge to read the Bible ...

but I was thinking a bucket might be handy.

They prayed away the shame but they lost the game.

[hedgehog]

4. Wow! Thanks for this!

[Spazito]

5. Wow, says it all and perfectly!

Recommend!

[dtexdem]

6. I was able to avoid the grand facade and the game ...

but the sports shows, including halftime shows, all laid it out in its nauseating fullness.

It was not "one bad apple" and it was not some unconnected "tragedy" -- it was the working out of the domination of the powerful over the powerless. It, as much as the pedophilia scandals of the Catholic Church, an example of those in power who act without fearing consequences, fail to make perpetrators accountable, and make it near impossible for anyone "in the know" to do anything about the abuse. The football program should be sanctioned, or disbanded; the university should be sanctioned; and the criminals, including those who covered it up, should all be prosecuted.

[beam me up scottie]

7. This is what I hate about religionists, where was Jesus when those kids were being raped?

:argh:

[kath]

9. Yeah, really. I seriously wish that someone would have asked one of those "taking a knee" assholes

that very question.


Public prayer is soooooo fuckin' nauseating, and goes against Christ's teaching.

How long will it take for humankind to evolve beyond superstition???

[beam me up scottie]

10. I've never "prayed", what are people like that really thinking?

And wouldn't god be pissed off if the prayors didn't really give a shit about the victims?

Because the big guy would know, right?

Makes my head hurt.

[madrchsod]

8. wow....that was one of the best indictments i have read in a long time

i`m going to have to read his latest book.

[MH1]

21. Charlie Pierce's latest book - "Idiot America" - is a must-read for all DUers. :)

[jmowreader]

11. I wouldn't have reached for the Bible...

it's hard to watch a football game when there's a Bible-sized hole in your TV.

My choice of punishment for Penn State would be not allowing them to run a football program until one year after all their current players graduate from college.

[Raksha]

12. K & R - very powerful article - thanks for posting this.

[BklynThirtyThree]

13. blog

Charles Pierce is a phenomenal political blogger, see for yourself: esquire.com/blogs/politics

[charlie and algernon]

19. Yeah, I'm going to have to check him out now

Grantland has become one of my favorite sites because they bring in these great writers to write really intelligent, thoughtful articles on sports and whatnot. I don't think I ever would have heard of Pierce if he hadn't written that article on Grantland.

[BklynThirtyThree]

26. It's kind of funny

that Pierce is writing for Grantland, he was in a blood feud with Simmons over an insult. It's great exposure, though. Just never thought I'd see it!

[riderinthestorm]

14. Cue the "but its just a litle prayer, you don't have to participate. Just sit quietly instead!!"

brigade to show up about now.....

Maybe now those on DU who always want to silence the rest of us who really dislike the public prayer part of public spectacles (most notably graduation ceremonies), maybe now with this essay they can understand our distaste.

Great essay. Thanks for posting

[coalition_unwilling]

15. Penn State is a public institution, financed in part with taxpayer $$, so

there is also a tiny little prob of the establishment clause being grossly violated.

Ah, but the Constitution is so quaint and obsolete.

[riderinthestorm]

16. I know. This topic usually flares in May/June with the graduations

but its a good reminder during issues like this that it's really so pervasive - far more pervasive than Americans really understand or are willing to confront. And when they ARE confronted with it, most of them complain that it's the "militant atheists" just stirring up trouble again....

[Raster]

17. BRAVO! BRAVO!

:applause:

[fasttense]

18. Public prayer can be so disgusting.

Especially in instances like this where the hypocrisy is so disgusting.

"The crimes at Penn State are about the raping of children. That is all they are about. The crimes at Penn State are about the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky, and the possibility that people lied to a grand jury about the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky, and the likelihood that most of the people who had the authority at Penn State to stop the raping of children by Jerry Sandusky proved themselves to have the moral backbone of ribbon worms."

This is so much like the Catholic church's raping of children that the parallels are too numerous to list.

[riderinthestorm]

20. Morning kick for a most excellent essay! nt

[kath]

23. A truly outstanding essay. Thanks for posting it here.

[tilsammans]

25. K & R!!!

A must-read.