Fuck Penn State

First, I'm not objective about this for a variety of reasons. I have a just-barely teenager and a tween, for one. I have also, for my entire life, at least that part of it that I remember, despised the Pennsylvania State University with the flaming passion of a thousand trillion white-hot exploding suns. Penn State may well have been my first hate, though that's so lost in the mists of mental disorder that I couldn't say that with certainty. No matter. Not objective. However.

Those valid issues aside, there's a lot to be disturbed about here. Let's not cry for Zombie Joe Paterno. The PSU board had no choice but to explosively cover its ass, and that's putting it mildly; it's real clear that the PSU president handled this--or failed to--in a spectacularly bad way. Criminal charges against Paterno seem a bit of a stretch to me, but it's pretty clear that even a legend should lose his job for covering for a likely child rapist buddy, even if he did it in a Pontius Pilate, not-my-problem sorta way. This is pretty much no-brain (Brains!) stuff.

The more disturbing issues to me surround the community's reaction. Really? You're actually rioting violently over this? Jesus, talk about bad judgment. Why don't you get jobs, you dirty hippies. And while you're at it, find a message, because "We support guys in power who wash their hands of child rapers" doesn't even have the same resonance as "Give us all your banker stuff because we're unwashed Communist slackers." I think you see the problem here. Rioting in aid of Zombie Joe is just kid stuff, right? Fucking assholes (pick an object).

That's all I have to say about any of this, ever, really. The child raper should be in jail. Zombie Joe should be doddering off quietly into the night. What the fuck is difficult about this, beyond the spectre of the violent and despicable act that started it?