Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/22/2011 01:53 AM Report

Boy, if I were Catholic I would hate to look in the mirror.

Yes, a system based upon exploitation should not expect there would not be other types of exploitation.

winter  11/22/2011 01:20 AM Report

It seems to me the NFL has a more natural role as the organization charged with sheparding football apprenticeship to its ranks. Its conceptual elaboration ought to flow easily enough when you remove any biases like how things have always been done.

Gelles  11/21/2011 05:55 PM Report

School and church crimes and scandals of this sort require medical and justice treatments to minimize their recurrence.

They may even require information to be given to children to help prevent the such tragedies from happening.

In a way they are accidents that are bound to happen -- but rarely.

We have to teach our children about accident, disease and disaster. But we ought not teach more than will help prevention. Some of the coverage of these disgusting events and their cover-up, tended to be excrement-mongering.

Our duty to clean up other crimes connected with exploitation of sports may not require linkage to this mess.

In a perfect world students and family would watch sports live for free. Others, like fans, could watch them on TV for free without any ads. Commercialization of sports would be prevented.

Military defense of human rights requires professional warriors, some of whom benefit from a life of competitive sport before they are 20. I favor such sport. Commercialization of competitive sport is just another pain we inherit for no good reason. Sport that transcends commercial profit joins our other civilized arts and must be prized.

So what about circus, opera, dance and music? Must these be policed to prevent filthy money from putting them in with prostitution as a fault not a blessing from on high? Yes. But training the police to do right by the people may teach us to leave some things alone because they are not possible to police without making things worse.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  11/18/2011 04:16 PM Report

So we see at least a decade of football that is so powerful you can turn your eyes away from one of the worst crimes we have in society today.

Joe Nocera thinks he might go too far with his suggestions for penalties for the entire team but he really does not go far enough.

Penn State should lose its accreditation as a university and become an NFL team. Perhaps Michael Vick is available as a free agent.

Ellen_Dibble  11/18/2011 04:03 PM Report

"Whistleblowing at dog frequencies" -- I'm going to file that away as memorable and useful.

winter  11/18/2011 03:11 PM Report

I agee, you get a powerful enough cabal together and you can fold space, fly right through your wormhole and

circumvent even the Constitution. The NCAA has carved out a tidy little feifdom for themselves. As for Penn, it's gotten to the point, if it hasn't long ago, to where our subordination to the Unit has invoked fear enough to where

our individual moral instincts have been robbed of us. Whistleblowing has to be done at dog frequencies even if its the right thing to do.

REMant  11/18/2011 03:11 PM Report

I've had a lot of thoughts about this episode of my own.

The first is that 85 is about 15 years past the age when Paterno should have retired.

Second, it recalls to me a recent episode of the Italian detective series Montalbano, where the eponymous hero, feeling he could not get a search warrant for a Mafioso suspected of killing two ppl, instead reports him holding a transvestite prostitute captive, which of course, sparks immediate ministerial outrage.

In other words, there are many worse things in college sports than that a sexually misguided person, who happened incidentally to be a quite good defensive coach, remained on the coaching staff of large university football program.

And it should be observed that homosexuality has been a part of collegiate education, and the like, for hundreds of years, no matter what we think of it now. Nearly every respected English statesman, churchman and academic experienced it until fairly recently. It will not do to try to call this case different, and one particular institution, or activity should not alone be held responsible for it.

Third, it is entirely hypocritical for these institutions to complain about lack of athletic academic standards when the athletes are treated no differently from the student body at large, who are similarly lacking in scholarship, and promoted and rewarded according to similarly narrow professional standards.

Fourth, American colleges hold ALL students hostage, more egregious those who get NO scholarships and have to pay for the privilege of being abused in that way.

Fifth, not only credentialing, but compensation for services performed by students in all departments needs to be reformed, not just athletics. This may mean paying the participants more, or it may mean selling it for less. Which would depend on just how virtuous the institutions really want to be.

Sixth, like a lot of American institutions, colleges have got themselves into the position of trading on status and prestige instead of their basic business, which has had the result of not only putting out an inferior product, but ensuring that it is poorly remunerated. Some have benefited greatly from this, but mostly at the expense of the rest and the nation as a whole.

Seventh, tho the NCAA was formed a century ago when collegiate sports exceeded the goals of muscular Christianity and required restraint, which no doubt remains beyond dispute, I have long thought that organization, like so many of similar scope, an exemplar of the kind of abovementioned hypocrisy, particularly since the late, and IMHO unlamented, Myles Brand became its president. There is something about divorcing responsibility from participation that encourages it, whether you are talking about collegiate or professional sports, FIFA, the European Union, or own government.