Interesting article on the happenings behind the scenes of the BOT and President after this mess came down. One thing I found interesting was Serma saying that having the entire BoT discuss what should be done was too cumbersome, so the executive committee would handle things. Guess this answers our questions about who really made the decision to fire Paterno and how could it have possibly been "unanimous".
Why even pretend to include everyone? Let's just make it the Governor and his cronies and be done with it. This is disgusting. You would think that during one of the most critical times this University has ever gone through, inclusion, rather than exclusion, would be rational.
Why even pretend to include everyone? Let's just make it the Governor and his cronies and be done with it. This is disgusting. You would think that during one of the most critical times this University has ever gone through, inclusion, rather than exclusion, would be rational.
Another interesting tidbit was a powerpoint presentation that outlined how to deal with irate donors. One of the recommendations was to remind them their gifts were non-refundable. Now that is excellent customer service if I ever heard it. We are being led by a group of morons. And those morons plan on freezing out anyone who is elected so there is nothing we can do about it. Anyone else feel like jumping off a bridge?
A few selected comments
Pretty much as I thought it was
Today I received this reply to an email to the President’s office
to me
Dear Sir
As Vice President for Administration I help President Erickson respond to emails and important issues brought to his attention. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I will be sure the President sees your email.
Thanks again for writing.
Sincerely,
Tom Poole
Thomas G. Poole, Ph.D.
Vice President for Administration
From: [mailto:aurabass@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2011 3:17 AM
To: Office of the President
Subject: Why your treatment of Joe Paterno was a serious mistake
From University of Tennessee graduate.
The GRAND JURY AND MEDIA MANUFACTURED “PSU SEX SCANDAL” VERIFIED BY THE PSU BOARD OF TRUSTEE’S and statements by President Erickson
A concise overview based on all available evidence after the Perjury Hearing on Friday Dec 16th – an attempt to boil down my obese verbiage into it’s basic essence. Toss out everything else I’ve written – this is the whole story in as small a nutshell as I can make it – from the outsider in Tennessee. There is NO PSU Sex Scandal.
If the Grand Jury Presentment had simply accurately described Mike McQueary’s testimony as “strong suspicion of sexual activity based on a brief glance in the shower and some slapping sounds” do you think Joe and PSU would have suffered this vilification? That is the first question you need to answer.
Based on a misleading Grand Jury Presentment and Perjury Hearing Testimony under oath by Mike McQueary; we can derive the simplest explanation for what transpired in Mike’s meetings with Joe and then with Tim and Gary.
Dear Sir
As Vice President for Administration I help President Erickson respond to emails and important issues brought to his attention. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I will be sure the President sees your email.
Thanks again for writing.
Sincerely,
Tom Poole
Thomas G. Poole, Ph.D.
Vice President for Administration
From: [mailto:aurabass@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2011 3:17 AM
To: Office of the President
Subject: Why your treatment of Joe Paterno was a serious mistake
From University of Tennessee graduate.
The GRAND JURY AND MEDIA MANUFACTURED “PSU SEX SCANDAL” VERIFIED BY THE PSU BOARD OF TRUSTEE’S and statements by President Erickson
A concise overview based on all available evidence after the Perjury Hearing on Friday Dec 16th – an attempt to boil down my obese verbiage into it’s basic essence. Toss out everything else I’ve written – this is the whole story in as small a nutshell as I can make it – from the outsider in Tennessee. There is NO PSU Sex Scandal.
If the Grand Jury Presentment had simply accurately described Mike McQueary’s testimony as “strong suspicion of sexual activity based on a brief glance in the shower and some slapping sounds” do you think Joe and PSU would have suffered this vilification? That is the first question you need to answer.
Based on a misleading Grand Jury Presentment and Perjury Hearing Testimony under oath by Mike McQueary; we can derive the simplest explanation for what transpired in Mike’s meetings with Joe and then with Tim and Gary.
How accurate, graphic, and believable was McQueary when speaking to Joe Paterno? What did he and Joe say to Tim Curley and Gary Schultz? If MIke handled his talks with them like the light cross-examination at the Perjury Hearing I believe their reaction would have been: No reason to call police when the only suspicion is based on a 3 second glance of Jerry’s back and 3 slapping sounds that did not confirm any criminal act. Reporting suspicion is not required or even advisable. This will be a leap for some of you but a long review of the tweets make this conclusion compelling.
Penn State people and Joe Paterno are unfairly cast in this travesty.
I hope you read the attached links to understand the problem you caused by your mistake.
Born in Fort Sanders - 1st Residence Aconda Court (Alumni Hall) - 1st games at Neyland 1947 - Mother = TORCHBEARER - Dad grad of UT & UT Law + professor BORN ORANGE and BLEED ORANGE .......
by aurabass on Jan 4, 2012 5:37 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
"Reporting suspicion is not required or even advisable."
The involvement of children makes this a particularly ticklish problematic, but I’ll try anyway
Yes and no – there simply aren’t absolutes, no permanent, ahistorical matrix is available to guide us. Accordingly, aurabass’ statement, while too unconditioned as well, resonates much more than you seem to credit. Which is not to say never report suspicions, just that when one does choose to report, he/she better have some damn well-founded reasons for so doing. Always err on the side of the utmost caution. Perhaps you are taking the latter point as axiomatic.
If we are to be a free people, then there must be shared risk for everyone from cradle to grave – risk being a necessary precondition of freedom. Security is in a dialectical relationship with liberty. You just can’t have it both ways. And, while it is uncomfortable to think of the vulnerable being at risk, the alternative leads all of us on a descending path from life to mere existence.
The problem then is that our system requires trust, not suspicion. It’s Foucault’s extension of the Benthamian panopticon from physical space to psycho-social space, with each and every one of us "watching" the other, or at least wondering who is "watching" us. This sort of discipline and control is antithetical to freedom and is doubly insidious since it is founded on self-generated doubt. So, not only do we damage the collective, we as well damage the individual in the bargain, leaving him/her miserably cynical.
There are going to be victims in this life, some of them children. Nonetheless, while far from perfect, that is a better outcome than the alternative – a place where we are all victims of one another.
Both poles of this opposition strike me as too universal. Yet I completely realize that my own position isn’t fully satisfying either.
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm with you on this - let me try my hand at SubLime for Dummies
(let me know if I was way off base, as I’d hate to bastardize your points. I know most people can probably grasp your meaning, but this is probably more for me to digest your points and see if I can convey them than for anyone else. I’m very nerdily into this line of reasoning.)
Security and Liberty are arranged on some sort of continuum. People must have a certain level of trust in one another and a certain level of privacy must be respected in order for us to live in a “free country” as it were. While this trust and respect for privacy allow more personal and societal freedom, they also bring about risk (in security terms) since you’re essentially taking all the dogs off leash and expecting them not to bite someone or run away.
In order to keep up with this level of freedom, trust should be preferred to suspicion. If we live in a society where everyone is suspicious of one another and erodes walls of privacy to ensure nothing bad happens, society would lose its overall framework of freedom, and individual liberties would be pretty much dead. People would always feel a responsibility to watch others for anything suspicious and wonder who was watching them, and would rightly become very cynical, lacking trust for everyone (probably including themselves) and (to take liberties and expand the point) life would basically be more like the Penn State “pucker” offense of the Paterno era – so concerned with making a mistake that one must limit what he/she exposes him/herself to, and in the process nearly everything good and effective is left behind.
Keep in mind that SubLime deferred comment on whether McQueary would be advised to report his suspicion IN THIS CASE. His stance clearly presupposes a sort of tipping point, where suspicion should trump trust, and he didn’t attempt to give an opinion on where this instance would fall.
"We gon' get down. We gon' do the do. I'm going to hit these mother****ers" - Dock Ellis, May 1, 1974.
Two recommended blog posts
I think these provide some thoughtful scrutiny of Penn State’s current governing structure and could help jump start a conversation about how it might be changed for the better. There are many lessons about the internal failures and excesses of our University to be learned from this tragedy.
The depth of both my sadness and anger is unfathomable.
We (Still) Are...
by PSU_Buch on Jan 4, 2012 7:45 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
Understanding what Octa and Sub Lime so aptly address
this is an attempt to apply it to the McQueary situation having just re-read the Perjury Hearing transcript where Joe Paterno, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz’s Grand Jury testimony are read into the Perjury Hearing record.
First we have to recall this is 9 years following two 10 minute meetings. (encounters seems more appropriate). The memories of each are understandably vague.
Joe’s meeting is the morning after and he wrestles with “fondling” or “something sexual”
Joe struggles with what ‘fondling’ means and says ‘sexual nature, I’m not sure exactly what it was"
MM admits he was not “graphic or detailed” with Joe “out of respect”?
MM admits he was not “graphic or detailed” with Joe “out of respect”?
It appears MM is quite willing to be led into saying whatever prosecutors want based on two 2 second glances and 3 slaps, but he is unable to express these same suspicions to his father or Dr Dranov – if we are to accept the reports. And he certainly did not make a strong impression on the coach about any specific sexual activity
BECAUSE HE DID NOT OBSERVE ANY
BECAUSE HE DID NOT OBSERVE ANY
On Sunday Joe calls Tim and Gary and they come over and get a second hand version of what Mike said to Joe – further diluted because it comes through Joe
and days later they have a 10 minute meeting
Schultz testimony to the Grand Jury
.
Schultz has the vague recollection that MM was reporting horsing around and wrestling that might have involved incidental contact with genitals
and days later they have a 10 minute meeting
Schultz testimony to the Grand Jury
.Schultz has the vague recollection that MM was reporting horsing around and wrestling that might have involved incidental contact with genitals
Curley Testifies
Curley’s recollection is quite similar to Schultz
Curley’s recollection is quite similar to Schultz
It seems to me we have 5 responsible adults told this story on 3 occasions and hour, a day, and a week or so after the incident. These suspicions are based on the two 2 second glances and the 3 slaps.
So when I apply Octa’s and Sub Lime’s standards for reporting suspicious behavior it seems fair and right to me (in the absence of what we now know about other victims) that 5 intelligent and capable individuals heard his account and decided not to report this to police. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY COVERUP TO PROTECT INTERESTS OF PSU.
It was reported to Second Mile and they should have investigated the reports because it was most likely a Second Mile kid who was the alleged “victim” 2. Maybe he was known to them. We haven’t seen any testimony from the Second Mile director and as far as we know he was not even questioned. It was the kids they were supposed to be benefiting that were at risk and Sandusky was there icon and standard bearer.
Instead we have investigating AG now Gov Corbett taking Second Mile money in donations during his “investigation” and AG Kelley his protege trying to blame this mess on PSU and Paterno Curley and Schultz.
The suspicions that should be reported now all point to the AG the Gov and Second Mile. IMHO
Born in Fort Sanders - 1st Residence Aconda Court (Alumni Hall) - 1st games at Neyland 1947 - Mother = TORCHBEARER - Dad grad of UT & UT Law + professor BORN ORANGE and BLEED ORANGE .......
No comments:
Post a Comment