IS THERE NO SHAME?

WITH THE SANDUSKY TRIAL UNDERWAY I THOUGHT IT WAS WORTH REPOSTING THIS ARTICLE FROM 7 MONTHS AGO. NOTHING HAS CHANGED MY CONCLUSIONS.

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth. ” ― William Faulkner

I wish I could believe William Faulkner’s advice was possible in the world we live in today. But sadly, I am losing hope in our civilization. We seem to have entered a death spiral with little likelihood of pulling out. Our society has become so degraded and our populace so apathetic and willfully ignorant, that I think we are too far gone to recover. Honesty, truth and compassion have been soundly defeated by injustice, lying and greed. Our technologically advanced society has become a stinking cesspool, devoid of humanity, common sense and morality. Those with the power and wealth who control our country do not concern themselves with quaint concepts like good and evil, right and wrong, or moral and immoral. Sociopaths see no obligation to society, humanity, or posterity. They only care about themselves, their wealth, their status, their reputation, and their control of others. They are incapable of feeling shame or remorse. They blindly march forward towards their own and society’s self-destruction.

Joe Paterno was fired by the Penn State Board of Trustees on Wednesday night as head football coach of Penn State. It was the first good decision that has been made in the last two decades by the leaders of Penn State. The man was told that his Defensive coordinator was seen in the locker room shower raping a 10 year old boy in 2002. He did not call the police and report this crime. He and the other top officials at Penn State brushed this crime under the rug, allowing at least seven more young boys to be raped by this monster. The 28 year old graduate assistant not only did nothing to stop the crime he witnessed, but he accepted a position as an assistant coach, knowing that Paterno and the Athletic Director never did anything to hold Sandusky accountable for his crime. Sandusky was still on campus working out as of last week. The actions of all the players in this disgusting example of how far our society has degenerated are enough to make someone lose all hope for humanity:

Jerry Sandusky creates a charitable organization so he can gain access to little boys. Multiple incidents are witnessed on campus from 1994 through 2002. A mother reports Sandusky to the Penn State police in 1998 and nothing is done by the men in the Administration. The investigation is dropped, but Tim Curley forces Sandusky to retire in 1999. It is clear that everyone in the top echelon of Penn State knew Sandusky was a deviant pedophile. But letting it become public would have been a black mark on the football program and could have reduced the huge profits generated by Paterno’s kingdom.
After his forced retirement he is still given access to the campus and locker room facilities. He is caught having anal sex with a 10 year old boy in the locker room shower by a 28 year old man, who chooses not to intervene and save the boy. Joe Paterno does the absolute minimum when informed of this horrific crime. After this crime is covered up by all the key men running the show at Penn State, it just becomes business as usual for Joe and his cronies.
Sandusky continues to rape little boys for the next eight years because of the cowardice and complete lack of morality exhibited by the men in high places at Penn State.
With the issuance of the grand jury report last week, the psychotic nature of these men was on display for the world to witness. In a stunning display of arrogance and hubris, Paterno and the President of Penn State announced their full support for the Athletic Director and VP of Finance who were arrested. These men did not think they did anything wrong. They clung to the fact that they adhered to the laws created by other men. In a despicable display, Joe Paterno led a cheer at a pep rally in front of his house with his arms raised in victory. At least eight boys had their lives ruined and Joe Paterno leads a cheer.
The Board of Trustees summoned the courage to fire Paterno and the President last night. In another display that makes me wonder about the future of our country, thousands of students rioted in support of Joe Paterno, breaking windows, turning over news vans, and starting fires. Are these young people incapable of critical thinking and are just driven by emotion and mindless rage? Can’t they distinguish between facts and lies? Do they care more about football than innocent children being raped?

I have been blind with rage for the last week as I’ve watched the powerful men of Penn State attempt to retain their power and reputations at the expense of truth, honesty, and accepting responsibility for their actions and willful inaction. As I’ve watched this tragedy unfold I was struck by the thought process of rich men in positions of power. They have huge egos and believe they are above the law. They think so highly of themselves they believe they can make the rules and ignore the laws which the little people must follow. They have no moral compass whatsoever. They cannot be shamed. The most despicable behavior by prominent men has been willfully overlooked because these men generate $50 million of profit per year for the university. Their sociopathic desire to protect their reputations and power has led to a scandal of such epic proportions that it will haunt Penn State forever and has permanently damaged the institution.

This is an institutional cancer that eats away at the fabric of our society. It is not isolated to Penn State. It is a societal sickness that threatens to overwhelm every facet of our lives. There is a constant thread that runs through every incident that comes to light. In 99% of the cases it is men protecting men. Money and greed always trump morality and truth. The exact circumstances can be observed in the priest abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the last five years. Pedophile priests have existed within the Catholic Church for decades. The Penn State situation shows that pedophiles exist everywhere in our society. The bottom line is that they are sick men and need to be locked up and kept away from little boys. There is no more heinous criminal act than a grown man raping a little boy. Anyone who does this is pure evil and must be punished.

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The Catholic Church’s wealth is almost beyond measurement. There are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. The pope is one of the most powerful men on earth. Cardinals and bishops throughout the world wield tremendous influence over their flocks. As young Catholic boys you are taught that priests represent Jesus Christ on earth. They are treated with reverence and fear by little Catholic boys. Little Catholic boys would never question the motives of a priest. They are taught to obey, because a priest is the same as Jesus Christ. These beliefs allowed pedophile priests to prey on thousands of little boys around the world for decades with little or no backlash. Those crimes were horrific enough by themselves, but the actions of the bishops, cardinals and even the popes who have known about these crimes make it ten times worse. Again, powerful men will ignore rules, regulations, laws and simple human decency in order to protect their wealth, power, and reputations. Cardinals and bishops knew that priests were raping little boys and their solution was to transfer them to another parish where they could find fresh meat. The thought never entered their minds to turn these perverts in to the police. Their only concern was how a scandal would impact their beloved institution. Little boys were sacrificed at the altar of the Catholic Church by evil men.

The cover-up continues to this day. The Catholic Church uses the statute of limitations as their defense against the continuous stream of cases that continue to mount. They secretly pay out hundreds of millions to the victims as long as they promise to keep quiet. They use bankruptcy laws to close down parishes and avoid paying civil penalties for the crimes committed by its hierarchy. They hire public relations firms to create false and misleading stories designed to obscure the truth about the biggest criminal conspiracy in history. The powerful sociopathic men who were supposed to represent Christian teachings have destroyed the lives of thousands of boys in order to protect their institution. The end result is that in addition to the thousands of lives destroyed by the pedophile priests, hundreds of thousands of Catholics have lost faith in the leadership and have abandoned the church. The wealth these sociopaths attempted to protect has been eroded as donations have dried up and lawsuit payouts have mounted.

Not only have our educational and religious institutions failed us, but our financial and political institutions have spectacularly self-destructed over the last decade. Shockingly, these institutions have been run predominantly by men. At one time banks were stodgy institutions that abhorred risk and methodically made profits year after year by lending to people and businesses capable of paying them back. Investment firms were partnerships. If any one partner was to take an excessive risk, they could wipe out the personal wealth of the other partners. Therefore, they never took excessive risks or used excessive leverage. Their boring business model generated modest profits year after year. The officers of banks and investment houses were well compensated, but not excessively so. The leaders of these firms were children of the Great Depression. They understood bad times.

During the 1990’s they were displaced by a new generation of leaders. This has not turned out well for our country. These psychopathic CEOs were given the green light by their fellow psychopaths in Congress and at the Federal Reserve to loot and pillage to their heart’s delight. This conspiracy of thieves broke down the barriers between traditional banking and gambling using excessive leverage. They captured the regulatory agencies that were supposed to police them and leveraged their bets 30 to 1. They created fraudulent mortgage instruments designed to lure the stupid and crooked. They marketed debt to anyone with a breath and ability to scratch an X on a piece of paper. They designed derivatives so complex that even their own Harvard MBAs couldn’t figure out how they worked. They bribed rating agencies into stamping a AAA credit rating on crap so toxic that they joked about the idiots they were selling it to. They shorted the very same derivatives they were selling to their clients. These psychopaths raked in hundreds of billions in fees, salaries and bonuses, while detonating a nuclear bomb on the worldwide financial system.

When their bets came up craps, they had the gall to hold the American people hostage for trillions in bailouts. Their fellow psychopaths in Congress gladly forked over the money. Rather than mend their ways, these evil men have returned to their excessive risk taking and continue to pay themselves billions in compensation, while the American middle class is smothered to death under mountains of debt. These evil Wall Street geniuses have shown no remorse as seven million people have lost their jobs and millions more have lost their homes due to the greed and avarice displayed on an epic scale.

Wall Street bankers exhibit the epitome of psychopathic behavior, showing lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others. Though lacking empathy and emotional depth, they often manage to pass themselves off as average individuals by feigning emotions. These Wall Street bankers will never willingly accept responsibility for their actions. They continue to use their wealth and power to control the politicians in Washington DC and the misinformation propagated by the corporate media they control. They own and control the Federal Reserve and will print money until the whole system collapses in a spectacular implosion that destroys our financial system. They only care about their own wealth, influence and status. They have no shame.

When I consider all that is wrong in our society, I become despondent, angry and despairing for the future of our country. It seems that everyone in positions of power across the spectrum of education, religion, finance, and politics are psychopaths, bent upon self-destruction no matter the cost to society or unborn generations. Our nation has degenerated into an egocentric, self-loathing, vain, shallow excuse for a civilization. There is anger flaring up, but it is just as likely to be misdirected and misinformed. The lack of critical thinking skills and the overwhelming effects of media propaganda has so degraded the intelligence of the populace that when the system breaks down in the next few years, the masses will clamor for a savior rather than seeking truthful answers and willingly making the sacrifices required to get our nation back on track. This country will get what it deserves – a despotic ruler and a brutish civilization governed on the basest of principles. This is what happens when a society rewards lying and greed over honesty and compassion. There are consequences to actions and inactions alike. We’ve made our choice.

“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.” ― Adolf Hitler

SILENCE

10 YEAR OLD BOYS

THE HANGMAN

By Maurice Ogden

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye
and he gave a riddle instead of reply.
“He who serves me best,” said he
“Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down and laid his hand
on a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for anothers grief
at the hangmans hand, was our relief.

And the gallows frame on the courthouse lawn
by tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way and no one spoke
out of respect for his hangmans cloak.

The next day’s sun looked mildly down
on roof and street in our quiet town;
and stark and black in the morning air
the gallows-tree on the courthouse square.

And the hangman stood at his usual stand
with the yellow hemp in his busy hand.
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike,
and his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, “Hangman, have you not done,
yesterday with the alien one?”
Then we fell silent and stood amazed.
“Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us,
“Do you think I’ve gone to all this fuss,
To hang one man? That’s the thing I do.
To stretch the rope when the rope is new.”

Above our silence a voice cried “Shame!”
and into our midst the hangman came;
to that mans place, “Do you hold,” said he,
“With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?”

He laid his hand on that one’s arm
and we shrank back in quick alarm.
We gave him way, and no one spoke,
out of fear of the hangmans cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
the hangmans scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
the gallows-tree had taken root.

Now as wide, or a little more
than the steps that led to the courthouse door.
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
half way up on the courthouse wall.

The third he took, we had all heard tell,
was a usurer…, an infidel.
And “What” said the hangman, “Have you to do
with the gallows-bound…, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out, “Is this one he
who has served you well and faithfully?”
The hangman smiled, “It’s a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows beam.”

The fourth man’s dark accusing song
had scratched our comfort hard and long.
“And what concern,” he gave us back,
“Have you … for the doomed and black?”

The fifth, the sixth, and we cried again,
“Hangman, hangman, is this the man?”
“It’s a trick”, said he, “that we hangman know
for easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”

And so we ceased and asked now more
as the hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night
the gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
until they covered the square from side to side.
And the monster cross beam looking down,
cast its shadow across the town.

Then through the town the hangman came
and called through the empy streets…my name.
I looked at the gallows soaring tall
and thought … there’s no one left at all

for hanging … and so he called to me
to help take down the gallows-tree.
And I went out with right good hope
to the hangmans tree and the hangmans rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
to the courthouse square…through the silent town.
Supple and stretched in his busy hand,
was the yellow twist of hempen strand.

He whistled his tune as he tried the trap
and it sprang down with a ready snap.
Then with a smile of awful command,
He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me Hangman.” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men,
and I’m no henchman of yours.” I cried.
“You lied to me Hangman, foully lied.”

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye,
“Lied to you…tricked you?” He said “Not I…
for I answered straight and told you true.
The scaffold was raised for none but you.”

“For who has served more faithfully?
With your coward’s hope.” said He,
“And where are the others that might have stood
side by your side, in the common good?”

“Dead!” I answered, and amiably
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me.
“First the alien … then the Jew.
I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
none before stood so alone as I.
The Hangman then strapped me…with no voice there
to cry “Stay!” … for me in the empty square.

PATERNO FIRED!!!!

Finally someone did the right thing. Too late for the victims.

Paterno fired over Penn St. child abuse scandal

CBS/AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who preached success with honor for half a century but whose legend was shattered by a child sex abuse scandal, was fired Wednesday by the school’s board of trustees.

Paterno had offered to retire at season’s end earlier in the day, saying he was “absolutely devastated” by the case, in which his onetime heir apparent, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with molesting eight boys in 15 years, including at the Penn State football complex.

He had said he hoped the team could finish its season with “dignity and determination.”

One emeritus trustee who was on a conference call with the board Tuesday told CBS News, “The tone of last night’s call was of concern for all the people involved, including the children, the coach and the reputation of the school.”

Paterno had said earlier that said the trustees, who had been considering his fate, should “not spend a single minute discussing my status” and have more important matters to address.

The 84-year-old Paterno has been engulfed by outrage that he did not take more action after a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, came to him in 2002 and reported seeing Sandusky in the Penn State showers with a 10-year-old boy. Paterno notified the athletic director, Tim Curley, and a vice president, Gary Schultz.

Penn St. scandal dwarfs others in college sports

Curley and Schultz have since been charged with failing to report the incident to the authorities. Paterno hasn’t been accused of legal wrongdoing. But he has been assailed, in what the state police commissioner called a lapse of “moral responsibility,” for not doing more to stop Sandusky.

The U.S. Department of Education said late Wednesday that it was launching an investigation into Penn State’s handling of the abuse.

“This is a tragedy,” Paterno said in a statement. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

Paterno met with his coaching staff and players in the football building at Penn State for about 10-15 minutes Wednesday in what was described as a very emotional session. Standing at a podium, Paterno told them he was leaving and broke down in tears.

Players gave him a standing ovation when he walked out.

Junior quarterback Stephon Morris said some players also were nearly in tears as Paterno spoke.

“I still can’t believe it,” Morris said. “I’ve never seen Coach Paterno like that in my life.”

Asked what was the main message of Paterno’s talk, Morris said: “Beat Nebraska.”

The decision to retire by the man affectionately known as “Joe Pa” brings to an end one of the most storied coaching careers, not just in college football but in all of sports. Paterno won 409 games, a record for major college football, and is in the middle of his 46th year as coach.

His figure patrolling the sideline — thick-rimmed glasses and windbreaker, tie and khaki pants — was as unmistakable at Penn State as its classic blue and white uniforms and the name Happy Valley, a place where no one came close to Paterno’s stature.

The retirement announcement came three days before Penn State hosts Nebraska in its final home game of the season, a day set aside to honor seniors on the team.

Penn State has bounced back from a mediocre 2010 season to go 8-1 this year, with its only loss to powerhouse Alabama. The Nittany Lions are No. 12 in the AP college football poll.

After 19th-ranked Nebraska, Penn State plays at Ohio State and at No. 16 Wisconsin, both Big Ten rivals. It has a chance to play in the Big Ten championship game Dec. 3, with a Rose Bowl bid on the line.

In the statement, Paterno said: “I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.”

He went on: “I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: To serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care. I have the same goal today.”

A day earlier, Paterno had showed up for practice and adoring crowds rallied outside his modest home into the night, chanting his name.

But Paterno, whose football program bore the motto “Success with Honor,” could not withstand the backlash from a scandal that goes well beyond the everyday stories of corruption in college sports.

“If this is true, we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families,” Paterno said in a statement Sunday. “They are in our prayers.”

Sandusky, who retired from Penn State in June 1999, maintained his innocence through his lawyer.

Paterno has defended his decision to take the news to Curley and Schultz. Paterno said it was obvious that the graduate student, since identified as McQueary, was “distraught,” but said he was not told about the “very specific actions” of the sexual assault in the grand jury report.

After Paterno reported the incident to Curley, Sandusky was told to stay away from the school. But critics say Paterno should have done more.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

GRAND JURY TESTIMONY OF Mike McQueary:

On March 1, 2002, a Penn State graduate assistant (“graduate assistant:) who was then 28 years old, entered the locker room at the Lasch Football Building on the University Park Campus on a Friday night near the beginning of Spring Break.

The graduate assistant, who was familiar with Sandusky, was going to put some newly purchased sneakers in his locker and get some recruiting tapes to watch. It was about 9:30 p.m. As the graduate assistant entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and showers on. He then heard slapping sounds.He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. As the graduate assistant put the sneakers in his locker, he looked into the shower. He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be 10 years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.

The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen. His father told the graduate assistant to leave the building and come to his home. The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno (“Paterno”), head football coach of Penn State. The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno’s home, where he reported what he had seen.

Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant’s report at his home on a Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley (“Curley”), Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno’s immediate superior, to his home the very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.

Approximately one and a half weeks later, the graduate assistant was called to a meeting with Penn State Athletic Director Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz (“Schultz”). The graduate assistant reported to Curley and Schultz that he had witnessed what he believed to be Sandusky having anal sex with a boy in the Lasch Building showers. Curley and Schultz assured the graduate assistant that they would look into it and determine what further action they would take. Paterno was not present for this meeting.

The graduate assistant heard back from Curley a couple of weeks later. He was told that Sandusky’s keys to the locker room were taken away and that the incident had been reported to The Second Mile. The graduate assistant was never questioned by University Police and no other entity conducted an investigation until he testified in Grand Jury in December, 2010. The Grand Jury finds the graduate assistant’s testimony to be extremely credible.

OK. Pretend you are Joe Paterno on a Saturday morning in 2002 in your house. A 28 year assistant tells you that your best friend and right hand man for 30 years was seen having anal sex with a 10 year old boy in the shower of your locker room. I think a multiple choice test will help you decide what to do:

A. Ask Mike whether he wants some bacon and eggs with orange juice.

B. Say that Jerry was just teaching the boy the proper technique for making an anal block on a blitzing cock.

C. Immediately pick up the phone and call the police because a 28 year old man says he saw an absolutely horrific crime being committed against a child.

D. Ask McQueary whether he would like to be an assistant coach some day if he would just not make any waves about this unfortunate incident.

E. Wait until the next day to meet the Athletic Director, report that Sandusky was seen having sex with a 10 year old boy, wipe your hands of the situation, and prepare for next week’s game with Purdue. You never follow-up to see why no charges or investigation has taken place regarding the most horrific crime known to mankind, but at least Sandusky’s keys to the locker room were taken away so he’ll have to fuck little boys elsewhere.

WHICH CHOICE WOULD YOU MAKE?

IS IT REALLY A TOUGH CHOICE?

PATERNO IS NOT A VICTIM

Poor Joe Pa. He is playing the victim card. The King of Happy Valley doesn’t think he did anything wrong. Ask the mothers of the defenseless little boys whether they think Paterno did anything wrong. Put yourself into their shoes as the parent of one of these boys. What would you say to Joe Paterno? Would you tell him he was innocent until proven guilty? Or would you punch him in the mouth and curse him for thinking of his beloved football team over the lives of little boys?

Mothers of two of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged victims lash out at Penn State officials’ handling of scandal

He was the last victim, that we know of, to come forward.

But in many ways, he was the first.

He was one of the first with enough courage to say something. To stick around for three years while police and a grand jury talked to dozens of people and combed through thousands of documents.

To hang on emotionally.

To take a stand against a Goliath. A legend. A man that some saw as a god.

He was the first to be believed. Authorities even call him Victim One.

The mother of the Clinton County boy is telling her family story. It’s a story that launched a three-year grand jury investigation that resulted in sexual assault charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, allegedly involving eight boys.

“I’m very proud of him,” the mother said of her son, on the brink of adulthood and at the heart of what some are calling the biggest scandal in college sports.

“He’s a brave kid,” she said. “And his major concern in the whole thing was for anybody else. That was his big thing. He said, ‘I just don’t want this to happen to anybody else.’”

And now he knows that he’s not alone.

Ten years before he came forward, another child, now 24, had also spoken up. He wasn’t believed. Allegations he made against Sandusky about touching during a shared shower at Penn State in 1998 never resulted in charges.

Sandusky, through his attorney, denies all the charges. Attorney Joe Amendola, said Sandusky attributes the allegations to troubled kids who are acting out.

“I’m so upset,” said the mom of the 24-year-old, who authorities are calling Victim Six. “My son is extremely distraught, and now to see how we were betrayed, words cannot tell you. To see that Graham Spanier is putting his unconditional support behind Curley and Shultz when he should be putting his support behind the victims, it just makes them victims all over again.”

She’s talking about the perjury and failure-to-report charges filed against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and resigned Vice President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz.

Prosecutors allege the administrators ignored a 2002 report from a graduate assistant — identified by sources as Mike McQueary — that he saw Sandusky having sex with a young boy in a shower.

McQueary, now an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions football team, went to his father first, then to coach Joe Paterno.

“I don’t even have words to talk about the betrayal that I feel,” said the mom of Victim Six. “[McQueary] was a grown man, and he saw a boy being sodomized … He ran and called his daddy?”

As media from around the country descended on Happy Valley on Monday to dig into the allegations and the details of a possible cover-up, the two mothers decided to talk to The Patriot-News.

Both said they don’t want their sons’ stories to get lost in the scandal.

Victim One

Victim One met Sandusky through the Second Mile — a charity for needy children that Sandusky started — and quickly got drawn into his world of big-time college football: gifts, trips, sporting events, and hanging out with a guy who seemed to be loved by everyone.

But his mother said it came at a price.

The Patriot-News will not identify either women or their sons in keeping with our policy not to name victims of sexual assault. The mother of Victim One specifically asked that other media respect her request for no more interviews.

She brought the psychologist who has been helping her son cope with the trauma to the interview.

Almost from day one, psychologist Michael Gillum has met regularly with the boy and counseled him through the protracted police investigation.

A few weeks before her son broke down and confessed to a principal at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County that he was being molested by Jerry Sandusky — a volunteer football coach at his high school — his mother began to suspect something was wrong.

First, it was because her son was acting out. When she grounded him, she said Sandusky demanded he be able to “take care of it.”

“I said, ‘No way, he’s my kid,’” she said.

Then, her son began asking her about an online database for “sex weirdos.”

“You don’t want to just accuse people of that,” the mother said. “I called the school principal and the guidance counselor and said, if nothing else, he’s taking my son out of classes. He’s leaving the school with him. … So I asked them to call him into the office and ask [my son] how he felt.

“They did call him to the office that day and I remember [the principal] was in tears and she said, ‘You need to come here right away.’”

Her son, then 15, broke down and told them what happened.

“They told me to go home and think about what I wanted to do, and I was not happy,” she said. “They said I needed to think about how that would impact my son if I said something like that. I went home and got [my son] and we came to [Children and Youth Services] immediately.”

Officials at Central Mountain High School have said they immediately reported the abuse, and Attorney General Linda Kelly praised them for doing the right thing.

The boy’s story would evolve over the next few weeks as he was interviewed by police. That’s not atypical for sex cases involving teens, Gillum said.

“It’s essentially peeling back the layers of an onion,” Gillum said. “Because it’s so humiliating. It’s so much mental anguish. … They typically want you to know something inappropriate happened, then there was a progression where boundaries were violated.”

But sometimes it takes time for the victim to get it all out.

That’s something Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola points to in defense.

He said it appears someone coaxed this victim into embellishing his story because it changed from groping to more graphic sex acts.

Gillum called it a typical defense tactic.

“They will imply … that I must have led the witness,” he said. “But when you’re specialized in children and adolescent child abuse, you’re trained to make sure you wouldn’t compromise the evidence.”

Victim Six

Victim Six cried when he read the 23-page grand jury presentment released Saturday, his mother said. And not for himself.

“He had no idea how bad it was,” she said. “He was lucky. He only had that one contact with him.”

It allegedly happened in May 1998, following a tour of the football locker rooms. Her son and another boy, both 11, shared a shower with Sandusky.

When he got home he said, ‘If you’re wondering why my hair is wet, we took a shower together,’ and ran into his room, his mom recalls.

She called police.

But after a six-week investigation that included the mother confronting Sandusky in her home as police listened in the other room, Sandusky was cleared.

Then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there wasn’t enough evidence.

“And you’re going to tell me that Spanier and Paterno weren’t informed of something that was that huge that Ray Gricar was in on it but Spanier was kept in the dark?” she said. “I’m just not that stupid. I’m so upset I just can’t believe it.”

Paterno’s son, Scott, has said that lawyers for Penn State assured him his father was never told about the 1998 report — investigated by university police.

It’s unclear from the presentment if Spanier knew. However, Schultz, who was in charge of the police force, acknowledged knowing about it.

When the mother confronted Sandusky, he said: “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead,” according the presentment from the grand jury.

An investigator for Children and Youth Services broke the news to the mother: It was all a big mistake, the mother said she was told. The police officer who investigated won’t comment. Neither will the former police chief.

“Jerry Sandusky admitted to my face, he admitted it,” the mother said. “He admitted that he lathered up my son they were naked and he bear-hugged him. If they would have done something about it in 1998, and then again in 2002 — there was two chances they dropped the ball and I think they should all be held accountable.”

Her son, she said, can’t stop thinking about Victim One.

“That poor child,” she said. “My heart is like breaking for this boy and his family. And what about all the boys we don’t know about? They could have all been saved.”

The only semblance of comfort their family has had in the last three days is from community support.

“At last, my family and I are believed,” she said. “Because they tried to make my son and the other boy out to be liars.”

Every day was a struggle
Finding the courage to come forward was supposed to be the hardest part.

“We expected you just arrest people who do stuff like that,” Victim One’s mom said. “We didn’t realize it was going to be this difficult and take this long.”

The three-year investigation eventually ended with a grand jury finding that Sandusky had eight victims — two of them had long-term relationships with Sandusky and six involved shared showers in Lasch Building at Penn State, which houses the football program.

“I am upset that it took this long, but I also realize that the more people they find, the less impact it’s going to have on my son … and it’s only going to help everybody else,” the mom said.

Hearing that he wasn’t alone was a challenge of emotions for her son.

“He wasn’t happy that it happened to somebody else,” she said.

But in a way, there was some relief: more chance that he would be believed.

It was very hard to keep their cool, to keep the allegations a secret, and not talk to anyone. But they did it.

When the arrests were announced Saturday, and the family learned that two Penn State officials had known about a prior incident and didn’t report it to police, she flipped out.

“I’m infuriated that people would not report something like that,” she said. “I still can’t believe it. I’m appalled. I’m shocked. I’m stunned. There’s so many words. I’m very mad. They could have prevented this from happening.”

Her son has accused Sandusky of four years of abuse, and it started not long after Curley and Schultz were notified of a abuse report in 2002.

The attorney general has said their inaction allowed Sandusky to molest this boy.

His mom said he knows that.

“He’s very angry,” she said. “I just can’t fathom how anybody could do that. When I read the indictment, I was very shocked that there was so many people that didn’t do anything … and there had to be more people covering it up, I think, for him to get away with it for this long.”

When her son first came forward, every day was a struggle. There was this overwhelming feeling of deception. Sandusky was supposed to be a role model.

“In the beginning, it was extremely upsetting. I was so shocked. It got so bad we didn’t know what to do,” she said. “[He] is really, really afraid of Jerry. He told me numerous times when he started backing away from him, you just can’t tell him no. I said, why not?”

Her son replied, “You just don’t do that.”

“His attorney was saying how these disadvantaged children, you can’t trust them … because they come from low income. I don’t think that has any bearing on anything,” she said. “I was warned that is what this basically would be about, because kids in The Second Mile are basically disadvantaged.”

In the first page of their presentment, grand jurors noted that, too. They accused Sandusky of using the charity to find his victims, “many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations.”

“Obviously it’s a price that the brave victim pays,” Gillum said.

PATERNO MUST GO TO JAIL

This is very simple. Anyone who has read this blog for the last couple years knows how I feel about the Catholic Church and their cover-up of priests fucking little boys. My unequivical position has been and continues to be that anyone within the Catholic Church heirarchy, up to and including the Pope, that knew about children being molested and fucked by predator priests and did not report it to the police is as guilty as the predator and should spend the rest of their lives in the general population of a prison.

Joe Paterno and the President of Penn State University were told that Sandusky molested a young boy in the showers of their lockeroom, 9 years ago. They did not report it to the police. Sandusky then went on to molest and fuck many young boys over the following years. Paterno & the President of Penn State are as guilty as Sandusky and should go to jail. They knowingly chose to protect the “reputation” of Penn State at the expense of innocent children whose lives have been ruined by this monster. They made the wrong fucking choice and they deserve to go to jail.

THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND HERE!!!!!

Powerful football coaches and powerful cardinals and bishops have done the exact same thing. They have protected their power and reputations by allowing innocent boys to have their lives ruined. They deserve to burn in the deepest depths of hell.

NATION: Paterno’s illustrious career faces tarnished end

Published: Tuesday, November 08, 2011

By Dan K. Thomasson
[email protected]

Few things are quite as pathetic as a revered hero who stays around too long and suddenly becomes embroiled in a scandal that threatens to undo the saintly image most everyone expected he would take to his grave.

But that is exactly what octogenarian Joe Paterno faces only a few short weeks after becoming the coach with the most victories in college football history.

It turns out that the longtime mastermind of the Pennsylvania State University’s elite gridiron program reportedly knew for nine years or so but did nothing about the degrading sexual activities of one of his most trusted assistants, his former defensive coordinator who was arrested over the weekend on charges of abusing eight boys over 15 years. Jerry Sandusky had been running a foundation to help needy children.

What in the world was Paterno thinking?

I must confess here that I never have been a fan of his. I thought among other things that he didn’t have the grace to give the proper credit for his team’s successes to those who for most of the last years actually have been running things.

But my real antipathy toward him stems from an incident involving my youngest son, who as a budding player was invited to Paterno’s elite summer camp and came back angry and dismayed to report being snubbed when he and other attendees approached the great man to say hello.

If the Pennsylvania Aattorney General’s report can be believed, and there is no reason not to, Paterno was informed in 2002 by a graduate assistant who said he saw the defensive leader, Sandusky, abusing a 10-year-old boy in the locker room.

Paterno informed the athletic director but no one told the proper authorities. It seems obvious the school was more concerned about the potential damage to its program than the welfare of the youngsters. They reportedly just told him not to bring anymore kids around the football program.

That callous disregard can be expected to cost the university big time. Two of the officials, the vice president for finance and the athletic director, allegedly have been charged with perjury and failing to report a crime. Meanwhile, the university’s president foolishly issued a statement supporting the two officials.

Paterno has not been charged, but the impact of this is nearly as bad for him as if he had been, considering the depravity of the situation and his failure to personally take the case to law enforcement officials.

I couldn’t help but compare this to a widely reported case involving a 26-year-old man convicted in Florida the other day of having pornographic images of children on his computer. It was his first arrest, he had no record of any kind, and there was no evidence that he had ever been accused of molesting any one, child or adult. He was given life imprisonment without parole solely on the basis of having downloading the images.

He had turned down an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a 20-year term. So the prosecutor filed more serious charges. His sentence was exactly the same as is expected for a murderer recently convicted in an unbelievably brutal slaying of a yoga-store employee here.

If he had abused or molested a child, the young man would have been given a much lighter sentence. The judge’s startling ruling, based on the argument that anyone downloading these images is guilty of furthering the depraved child porn industry, is being appealed.

In the Penn State case, Sandusky faces a long time in prison if convicted. It may be a life sentence, given that he is 67. He is out on $100,000 bond. I would have made it $1 million.

But the troubling question remains as to the responsibility, morally and legally, of those who aided and abetted his despicable actions by remaining silent.

No mitigating explanation of any kind would be acceptable from any of them. There might be a tendency to excuse Paterno because of his age. But if his mental faculties are good enough to run a major college football program, they’re good enough to know right from wrong.

How sad for the coach who has stayed around too long.

Email Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at [email protected].