Four years of exile... a lifetime of pain.

  Were you expecting the NCAA to actually take the knife of justice and slit the collective throat of a program as foul as Penn State?  If you answered no, then you're in the majority.  The NCAA would never sacrifice one of its business partners at the altar, even if it was necessary.  As proven, time and again, the NCAA is only interested in LOOKING official without really doing ANYTHING.  I know, the Penn State football program has essentially been set ablaze.  Sixty million in fines that are equivalent to, as reported, the total amount of revenue the football program generates for PSU football as a whole.  And then there's the lack of scholarships, which means that Penn State has been transformed into a tomato can for the next four years.  Still, in a perfect world, the NCAA would've sentence the football program in Creepy Valley to death and THEN issued the sanctions.  The point of the punishment was to make sure that Penn State pays for its sins of denial and untruth and lack of morality by NEVER becoming relevant as a football program again.  So what happens in four years when the sanctions are repealed?  I'll tell you what happens Penn State football gets out of jail and the collective amnesia begins.  Student Athletes wanting to go pro and looking for a landing spot until they can enter the draft won't remember any sins of the football programs past.  The sanctions will be repealed, parole will be granted and then the delusional masses in Happy Valley will get the gift of selective amnesia as they fill up Beaver Stadium 100,00 strong on selected Saturdays in the fall.  The Big Ten seems to be satisfied that it won't have to share its revenue pie with Penn State for four years.  That's all well and good but what happens after four years when PSU is eligible to sit at the table and help itself to a big old piece of Big Ten revenue pie.  A worse punishment for PSU football would've been branding the institution itself as a nomad.  The Big Ten should've cast them out, but of course, they didn't.  It's all about LOOKING efficient, not administering the proper form of justice.  In four years, Sandusky's victims won't have the benefit of selective amnesia.  No, his victims will have to live with what was done to them EVERY day of their lives.  Penn State has to weather four years of exile and then all is well.  Doesn't seem fair, doesn't it?  Give the NCAA credit, they acted on this issue at least.  Then again, they had to.

Confessions of a disillusioned liberal

  I will freely admit, I am a self hating liberal.  I admit, I cringe every time one of my fellow tribes men or women, especially the ones blessed with celebrity, fail to think before they open their mouths.  When John Kerry was attempting to overthrow the evil Stalinesque regime of George W Bush, the liberals, from George Clooney on down, ranted and raved about a much needed exit strategy in Iraq.  Problem is, Clooney and the rest of the Hollywood gang of nausea inducing partisans were a bit short on specifics regarding said strategy.  When the crickets weren't chirping the usual response was... Bush=Bad... War=Bad.... and this was usually followed by shrugs and blank stares and then indignation when someone outside the cone of ineptitude actually had the temerity to ask.... well what YOU do to get us of Iraq?  What is YOUR plan, Mister Clooney?  What is YOUR plan, Miss Crow?  But even after John Kerry waved the flag for gay rights in the bible belt.  Even after all of the political ineptitude of Al Gore and the Kafkaesque tenures of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and even after all of the red ink that my party, the Democrats, have unleashed on America  as a whole...... it took the self delusion of one Aaron Sorkin to make me wanna take my liberal membership badge and toss into the nearest wastebasket.  I will ask you, ladies and gentlemen, do you have access to cable?  Namely, HBO?  If you answered yes, then you've probably seen Sorkin's newest drama, The Newsroom.  Or maybe you haven't, considering that Sorkin, often using his political views as a blunt object, usually drives away a given audience in very short order.  I cite the early death of the vastly under rated Studio 60 as an example of this.  IE, Sorkin's three week diatribe on Iraq was the final nail in the ratings coffin for the aforementioned show.  But I digress.... I made it through three episodes of The Newsroom and I was OK with the thinly veiled partisan sniping that tends to permeate Sorkin's work.  I'm a liberal, Capraism is in our blood... we like spectacle.  Fine.  Still, I remained a viewer because of Sorkin's special chops as a writer.   And then it happened.... Episode three of said program ends with a monologue, delivered in character, by Jane Fonda (wait for it) that seems to suggest that the winds of political change and or upheaval often dictate both the content and the overall interests of a given media entity.  In the case of The Newsroom, this would be the fictional ACM network.  I wonder.  Is Sorkin misguided or is he simply delusional?  When you couldn't talk negatively about Dubya or the war in Iraq without being vilified, I seem to remember our friends at CNN producing special after special about this satanic little power monger from Texas who was going to lead the world towards certain oblivion.  I seem to remember CNN, during this time of red state dominance, sending in Anderson Cooper to interview injured vets to drive home the point that Dubya's war was a path to disillusionment and a life, for some young men and women, of unwarranted physical and mental anguish.  If this is the case, then what in God's name is Aaron Sorkin going on about?   If the winds of political change, as Sorkin suggests, dictate the content and or slant of a given media outlet, then how do you explain the folks at Fox News Channel?  A Democrat sits in the big chair on Pennsylvania avenue and yet, FNC continues to pound Barack Obama on everything from his foreign policy skills to his supposed ties to radical Islam.  I ask again.  What in the name of God is Aaron Sorkin going on about?  Then again, maybe I'm blind when it comes to the concept of creative fiction? And what's more creative than a news network, slanted towards liberals, being fronted by a corporate sugar daddy who happens to have the political sensibilities of a conservative?  It won't be long now.  The cliff is near.  Now here's the question?  Will Aaron Sorkin hit the brakes before he and the Newsroom sail off of the same cliff that Studio 60 did?  Or... will he do the liberal Hollywood thing and pretend that said cliff ceases to exist.  Stay tuned.