Mother smacks down her son on Facebook after he expresses his devotion to JoePa:

[Are_grits_groceries]

http://deadspin.com/5925921/in+denial-paterno-fan-gets-facebook-smackdown-from-his-mother

Now that's swift punishment!

[MADem]

1. She grounds the kid for having a dumb and thoughtless opinion?

I think "Adam, that's an idiotic point of view you're shopping--would you feel the same way if your precious JoPa stood by and allowed that cretin to abuse you or your friends?" might foster a bit more thought than "Think the way I tell you or else!"

I give mother thumbs up for the smackdown, but I'm not impressed with the grounding.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. That was a little much.

However, I'll bet she does make Adam think about it before he posts again.

[MADem]

4. Maybe Adam is an insufferable little shit....?

And that was the straw that broke the camel's back? I just think grounding was a bit OTT.

I'd cut off the little bastard's internet, take his iphone, and force him to go mow the damn lawn if he wants his Facebook account back! Then he can whine some more about unfairness to his wonderful favorite football school's legacy, and think about the seriousness of child abuse while he's cleaning the house gutters, weeding the flowerbeds, and washing the car!

[Zalatix]

16. He'll just keep it to himself. His opinion is all but dug-in now.

[Journeyman]

15. I read it as a plea to her son that he is "grounded" in better morals than he now expresses. . .

that he was raised better than to express such uncaring, unfeeling thoughts, and if he really thought about what he just said, if he were to empathize and imagine that someone he knew and loved had been so abused there's no way he would defend Paterno's actions.

That's the way I read it.

[MADem]

17. Who knows? Every mother I know who says "You're grounded" doesn't mean that--but it could be! nt

[Fla Dem]

21. Yes, that's how I read it as well. He shouldn't let the hype of college football,

or the idolatry of a man, cloud what's in his heart. That down deep he knows they are all extremely flawed men, who do not deserve any kind of respect. For a comparison...O.J. Simpson, Heisman Trophy winner and a record breaking college and professional football player. However, once he was accused of the murder of Nicole Brown, (even though acquitted of the murder), he became a outcast. I see no difference here.

[Matariki]

25. I have a feeling that wasn't literal.

[MADem]

29. Maybe, maybe not.

Hard to know without knowing the players.

[SfromCanada]

3. What's a few victims of child rape

compared to the all-important bowl wins?






Jesus suffering Christ.

[NYC Liberal]

5. I'd understand if it was some victimless crime

But we're talking about children being fucking raped!

[Iggo]

9. Yes.

Whenever I run into apologists (and I do, my circle of real-life acquaintances is very sports oriented), I make sure I use the words "fucks children" or "kid-fucker", just to remind people of what we're talking about.

[The Doctor.]

7. Paterno didn't rape them...

He just dropped the ball.

This is a difficult issue. The fact that Paterno had a legacy in college football is just that... a fact. It can't be undone by one horrible pos or even his horrific and deliberate ignorance of what that pos was doing.

Should he be punished?
He has been punished.

Should we erase his achievements from the historical records because he was weak?

We can't.

Sorry, but the fact is that there is an empirical universe we live in where we can't just throw out reality if it doesn't adhere to our sentiments.

[Are_grits_groceries]

10. Wait! Whut?

'Dropped the ball????'

Is that the eupemism for allowing a child rapist to continue for years?

Life is not zero sum. Good deeds don't mitigate bad ones. Both have to be taken into account. Eleventy billion wins do not begin to compare with allowing kids to be abused.

JoePa wasn't punished. He died of lung cancer before the real shitstorm hit. Before that, he lied over and over.

Reality is that he failed when faced with a huge criis.

[The Doctor.]

19. What I said has nothing to do with 'good deeds'.

You're imagining I said something I did not. Pretty typical around here, I've found.

Yes, Paterno was a wimp who deliberately 'dropped the ball' rather than shake things up when he should have protected those boys. Tell me how Paterno's deliberate ignorance of Sandusky's child-raping changes Penn State's record. It doesn't. That was the only point I made.

Stop putting words on the screen that aren't there.

[hollysmom]

30. I would never describe Paterno as a wimp.

From what I understand he was the ultimate TPTB. He didn't have inaction, he was apparently monitoring what was happening, If anything, he was the man behind the screen pulling the strings, No one wants to make the coach angry politics,. He was Penn State Football, without him, they were not worthy.

Because I see it as he had the power, and he slowed or stopped investigations.

[RobinA]

31. Talk About Believing Myths!

I think you are falling for the hype. Paterno was a cog in the wheel. Unless you have access to information that has not been released.

[hollysmom]

32. nope, just years of listening to my husband. If I am wrong, blame him,.

Didn't the report say he was checking on the progress of the investigations though?

[shcrane71]

11. Paterno's statue should be poised to look the other way...

And next to his statue should be a huge guy raping a small screaming child. That's what happened.

[The Doctor.]

18. I can agree with that.

[Iggo]

12. But we can stop saying what a great man he was.

Because he wasn't. He covered for a guy who fucks children for at least fourteen years. He was a piece of shit.

[The Doctor.]

20. Yeah, he was a piece of shit.

That doesn't change Penn State's record.

[Iggo]

23. I don't want to change their record.

I want their record to stand. I want something to point at when people ask why they protected the guy who was raping children. I can say, "Look there. See all those wins? That's why."

[Gormy Cuss]

13. "Just dropped the ball" is being far too generous.

Willfully ignored evidence of a child molester on his team is how I'd phrase it. His winning record will assure him a legacy in college football. It's too bad that the record won't come with an asterisk explaining that it was tainted by putting football ahead of protecting children.

[CANDO]

28. Trust me, it won't need an asterisk.

His name is tarnished forever.

[NYC Liberal]

14. No, but we don't have to honor him for that 'legacy'.

Sorry, but covering up for a child rapist trumps football.

[csziggy]

24. Part of Paterno's 'legacy' was his apparent ethical conduct

The Freeh report shows that was a LIE. Paterno was only ethical when it benefited his beloved football. Ethics were not in the picture when it came to protecting children being RAPED in the facilities he had control over by a man who he could have banned from those facilities.

Paterno destroyed his own legacy. He did not just "drop the ball" he actively participated in the coverup of child molestation. THAT is Joe Paterno's 'legacy' - that he allowed Jerry Sandusky continued access to Penn State facilities, and allowed Jerry Sandusky continued access to children by not making sure that the federally mandated reporting actually went to authorities that would do something about the 2001 incident. Paterno ALLOWED MORE young men to be abused under his watch.

Paterno's legacy is only one hair more ethical than Jerry Sandusky's - he enabled child rape on Penn State property.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Good mama. nt

[Baitball Blogger]

8. I understand why children or YAs fall through these traps.

1) They are acute observers. The things we do as adults are often based on rote behavior and only a child has the keen observation to recognize the contradictions.

2) They are brought up to respect adults, sometimes implicitly.

Unless we step it up and define social standards overtly, they may just think this is one more contradiction, one more ethical standard that has fluidity.

I fell for this once. When the progressives and the other informed groups in our country wanted to take down Reagan because of the Iran Contra mess, I only saw a grandfatherly man and immediately felt sorry for him.

Now that I realize my mistake, I think like that no more. In fact, it's precisely why it's important for Obama to keep on tightening the screws on the GOP.

Mom knows her kid the best and she might not be popular right now with him, but somewhere in the future, he will thank her for it.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

22. Easy there, Madame Defarge.

It's not a smackdown at all, and why would anyone cheer a mother publicly smacking down a child, anyway? On fucking Facebook, no less. There are better ways of handling it.

From the shitty blog post:

"We can't verify because his profile isn't public, but the avatars match for both Adam and his mother. (And if you were curious, Adam is 19, lives in Wilkes-Barre, and doesn't go to PSU.)"

His "mother" uses a generic avatar; Anne K could be another family member who also uses a generic avatar. Is she were his mother, would she really need to make it clear to her son that she's a Penn State fan? It's likely he would know that. And whoever heard of 19-year-olds being grounded? "Really think about it" Anne K says -- trying to get through to this dumbass.

But still, mother or not, to the grindstone!

[orpupilofnature57]

26. That's Good parental Guidance !!!!!

Instead of the success at any cost Wolf pack mentality, I see a lot of people instill in their kids.

[patrice]

27. Like bowl wins is more important than children. Yay, sports.