StrangeSox

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 05:07 PM) Hey, then you've got all the answers to any given situation. I know I don't. And I won't demonize anybody who doesn't. This is a pretty bizarre response to a post advocating finding the right people with the right answers when you're not qualified. Anyway, I damn sure do know that child rape is wrong and that it should be reported, and that if the person I report it to doesn't do anything, I should press the issue. I will demonize people who fail to grasp basic societal obligations.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 05:02 PM) In other words, he agrees with me so he's cool. No, seriously, if you know someone who is threatening suicide, you really, really should bring in professional help--someone who is trained and educated on how to deal with those situations. That doesn't necessarily mean the police.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 05:00 PM) No, we DON'T know Paterno KNEW what was going on. I've read about ten different articles. Did I miss something? Feel free to post something that will set me straight. We know that Paterno was specifically told about the 2002 incident. We don't know what he knew about the 1998 investigation that led to Sandusky's retirement. You've got an eye witness whom you've known for years. I might not want to believe it but I really hope I wouldn't be in denial and refuse to believe it.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 03:12 PM) I have a tassimo and I just dont like the flavor of it for whatever reason, Im just looking for an alternative to walking across the street to starbucks. The Kuerig machines to have dominated the market and everyone seems to be making k-cups for them now, even places like Gloria Jeans and Dunkin Donuts.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 04:49 PM) So if your best friend threatens suicide do you automatically call the cops or try to talk to him/her yourself? It's a fine-line. I immediately call someone much more qualified to handle the situation than myself.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 04:27 PM) This is one part where I'm willing to accept that Shack might have a point. The Human Brain has this wierd set of defense mechanisms that kick in under unique circumstances. An outsider might recognize it as simple denial, or a lack of recognition of what is going on around him. It's entirely possible that his brain simply refused to allow himself to see all the flashing lights. These type of things do happen, and they're hard to deal with. That's a fair point and that's why I've shied away from the "I'd have kicked his ass eight ways to Sunday!" talk. Seeing something like that might literally put you into a state of shock, unable to truly comprehend what was going on.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 04:18 PM) IN 1998 and 2002 I would have thought he did, yes. It's not some background investigation, either. His life-long friend and coach was forced to retire over it. It's an assumption but a pretty safe one that Joe would know why he was leaving. Even if he truly didn't, he still knew what the allegations were in 2002 and that Sandusky was barred from bringing children around. At some point you can't miss all of the flashing lights and blaring sirens without doing it intentionally.

on that note I should probably go get some actual work done, I've wasted enough time today on pointless internets arguments.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:55 PM) I understand where you're coming from, as I would probably not know what to do if I were a child in that situation. I'm assuming you were a child, though. And these people who did nothing were not children. They were full-grown men in positions of power. There is quite a difference. shack said university, so he was nominally an adult. Incidents of abuse and harassment are almost certainly underreported due to situations exactly like what shack described, and it is not the victims' fault. It's the fault of people who refuse to follow up if a victim does come forward or who refuse to speak up and follow through on the issue if they witness it.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:50 PM) Well, I think inaction happens all the time. I think it happens far more than we would like to believe. I think people see harm and crimes and terrible, terrible things happening all the time and either do the legal minimum, don't do anything at all, or certainly don't do what they would have claimed to do before encountering the situation. I had a member of the clergy try some very shady s*** on me at a university I attended. I am sure I wasn't the only one he did it to, honestly. As a matter of fact, he was indeed banished from the university for his inappropriate actions towards young men. This man was a family friend of ours. My brother had known him for years. I came home after the incident and my own mother did not believe this man could possibly have tried something on me. My brother did not believe me either. I left it there. I did not report it to police. I did not report it to school authorities. I figured why would the police or the school authorities believe me if my own family did not? Not until later did my family believe me when this guy was forced to leave. Now I don't want to pretend as though I was a victim likes these kids were. But this guy would have tried to make me one had I allowed it. It's really some sick s*** when you find this out about someone you trusted, someone you were friends with or close to. Not everyone has the stomach to try to bring them to justice for their sickness. I guess I should have. I guess I might have saved some other person from having this guy try something sick on them. But do I feel as though I should be condemned? Or that it was a moral failure of mine? No. I think this is a lot more complicated for a person to be involved with than you guys would like to believe. Absolutely not. Victim shaming a a very serious issue in abuse and harassment cases and significantly different from the situation Paterno was in. In fact it comes right back to the central issue in abuse situations: power. The problem for Joe is that no one really had more power than him to press this issue.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:49 PM) Thanks for stopping by, now feel free to go. welcome to 12 pages ago, steve.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:48 PM) what about civil liabilities? I think they're completely immune, even when they deliberately withhold evidence in a capital punishment case that later gets thrown out of court. edit: recent SCOTUS decision shielding prosecutors http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases...mp-v-goldstein/

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:47 PM) I wouldn't be surprised in the least. But I don't like the fact that we're being told to give Paterno some leeway until we find out the results, but we should be angry at the police for doing nothing when there might also be evidence that allows them to be seen in a much better light. See, that's the thing. We can imagine scenarios that make the police look less-bad pretty easily. That's not true for McQueary, Paterno or PSU admin.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:47 PM) Would that be enough to send a DA to prison or are they protected in some fashion? [derail]prosecutors seem to be immune from intentional misconduct, so probably[/derail]

There's also "fill your own" reusable k-cups, but if he's looking for something he can dump beans and water in and get out coffee that's obviously not going to work.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:45 PM) Of course it's entirely speculation...but based on how odd that police/DA action appears to be...would folks be surprised if the reason why the police didn't push forwards farther winds up actually being "It was Penn State Football"? I'd be more surprised if it wasn't, to be perfectly honest. And that's certainly worse than Paterno's actions.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 01:51 PM) I had, but you don't really give a crap my little stalker. You had, but then commodities prices fell after that oil spike in the spring and the bond vigilantes and their run-away inflation remained in hiding.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:29 PM) Dan Bernstein, channeling this thread http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/11/09/ber...nd-jury-report/ It was similar to reading the Polanski testimony from his 70's rape trial. Very, very difficult.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:35 PM) Then my question in reply is...if you felt like you'd made that kind of failure, where people legitimately got hurt because you failed to act...and you were in a public position like this, and you had a lifetime of earnings to fall back on (thus you didn't need the job)...why wouldn't you fall on your sword and step aside immediately? I mean, be honest...if Joe Paterno understands the situation, then he knows that Joe Paterno is going to be the story until Joe Paterno is out of the way. If he doesn't want his actions or lack thereof to be the story, if he doesn't want the kids on his team right now to have to deal with it, if he doesn't want the University Trustees to have to deal with deciding whether or not to fire him when they fire the university President tomorrow, then step aside. Right now. Bingo. Joe remains in the spotlight until he's no longer the Head Coach (in name only anyway) at PSU.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:29 PM) No, the scenario that a major university employed and enabled a child molester on their campus. Again, not really that outlandish. People in positions of power, especially in the sports world, get lots and lots of passes for their actions. But really this misses the point of coming up with a hypothetical. Would I have envisioned this exact scenario? No, of course not. But that's different from taking an existing scenario and exploring different avenues and results that can cast people in different lights. Because that's not what you started out with. It bothers me (and others) to see some weak excuses being thrown out there for Paterno's inaction. Your position wasn't that "I don't know enough, not going to judge," but that people who expected more out of Paterno were being hypocritical, that he's just a football coach and that others deserve much, much more of the blame (uncontroversial to anyone here, btw). edit: I do want to retract my claims of you trying to "deflect" with the media thing though. You were making a legitimate issue of this in your first post on the issue.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:25 PM) And I said my piece, and then brought up other issues I thought were pertinent as well. Is that a moral failing of mine as well, to introduce other issues? Come on, of course not. And failing in this particular instance doesn't make Paterno an evil or bad person overall. He's human. We all have failures. But that doesn't excuse those failures.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:26 PM) I disagree. I think Paterno is probably legitimately saddened by all this. He should have been legitimately saddened by it 9 years ago and done something. Right now, the best thing he can do to remove attention from himself is to resign.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:22 PM) I doubt you could have come up with this scenario prior to reading about it either. A scenario where someone is seeing doing something really wrong, but people in a position of power cover it up to protect their own reputations? That's not really a novel situation. The problem is that there is always more evidence, more things we can wait to find out before 'rushing to judgement.' At this point, there appears to be sufficient evidence to understand what happened in this case. That it is difficult or impossible to come up with a plausible scenario that makes Paterno not look like an ass illustrates this.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:21 PM) Yeah, rightfully so! This should be primarily about the University dealing with Sandusky and his actions on their campus, not how many more football games Paterno coaches this season. His attempted deflection is self-interest, not some higher purpose. One really quick way to make the focus shift off of him would be to.....resign immediately instead of sticking around.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 9, 2011 -> 02:19 PM) Well, I don't make it my business to assess the moral failings of others. I have enough work to do on my own moral failings. That's pretty much what this entire discussion is about.