MORE Sex Abuse For Christmas

I was trying to decide what I was going to write about and then I remembered one of my grad school professors got arrested this week.  


For child rape.  


Ready for the classes he taught that I took?  


Mental Health Diagnostics 


AND 


Human Sexuality.  


Yes.  The irony train left the station with me sitting in first class. 


I hate, Hate, HATE that it has to a) be a damned Social Work professor and b) it has to be one that I not only know but actually took classes from. 


People I went to school with didn't think much of him.  He got into a heap of trouble in his early years because he kept changing the syllabus in all his classes. I always felt like he was just too busy trying to please the students to be all that effective. 


It just makes my degree feel cheap and somehow defiled.  Like I have to go back to school for a while and somehow repent for what this jackass has been doing for years.  


And no.  I have no qualms referring to one of my old professors as a "jackass" when it's plastered all over the news that he told police he likes to "stroke" young girls.  


We're talking ages 9 to 13 here.  


Excellent. 


And I certainly don't have any issues with posting about it here. He's not my professor now, this has nothing to do with my job, and the fact that he thinks he has a porn problem is now public knowledge.   


I don't watch the local news but you can bet I'll be keeping an eye on this story as it unfolds, which you can view here. I tried to embed it, but the code is bad and I'm not geeky enough to figure out how to fix it.


Additionally, this damn season is kicking my ass.  I always put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself every December--for instance I make, MAKE my Christmas cards--but for some reason this year feels overwhelming. My unorganized nature and tendency to procrastinate have finally gotten the best of me. Plus it feels as if we're hemorrhaging money with all the extra expenses families don't incur any other month of the year: Craft supplies the school party, dirty Santa gifts for social gatherings, food for The Big Dinner, food for when family is in town, charity giving, and the presents! Oh, the presents for all those people in our life who lack for nothing. 


So, all in all, not a great week. I'm sorry for the cynicism. Hopefully this will pass soon.    


Song of the week:  

My Thoughts on the Penn State Scandal

There are so many themes at work here with the Penn State Scandal, I just don't know even know where to start. I could potentially go off on any one of them, but the more I started thinking, the more I realized how this blow-up is a perfect microcosm of a lot that's wrong in America. 


I'll dispense with the obvious:  


1)CHILD ABUSE: It happens. It happens every day. It used to be my job, so I know it happens. I've seen what it does to kids and what it does to those who work directly with those kids. Not pretty in either case.


If you are a grown up it is NOT OK to treat children as your personal blow-up doll. Ever. 


EVER. 


I'm not going to go into the nuances of defining "grown up," (I don't count a 19-year-old in a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old as the same thing) but if you're middle-aged and you're in the shower with a 10-year-old, you should have known better for at least 2.5 decades. 


And here's something to keep in mind: Over 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their offender.  So for crying out loud, let your kid hang at the mall by herself with her friends. It's the proverbial minister at church you have to worry about. 


2)GOOD'OLE BOY NETWORK: Powerful men tend to take care of other powerful men, at the exclusion of anyone who isn't in their tight little circle. This podcast is a perfect parallel to the situation that went down at Penn State and contains nothing scandalous. Just commentary on political fund-raising. 


Never mind. I take that "nothing scandalous" remark back.   


3)FOOTBALL CULTURE: The reaction from the students at Penn State was appalling, there's no question. But I think it's indicative of a much more sinister problem we have here in our country. The man the students were up-in-arms about was a football coach for crying out loud. Had the university fired the dean of the arts and science department for the same reasons (read: protecting a sexual predator) there would have been no rioting. Hell, there would have been no national attention at all.


4)ENTERTAINMENT AND CELEBRITY CULTURE: a sub-theme of the above, I really don't need to expand on this one do I? 


5)CLASS WARFARE: Sandusky certainly wasn't poor.* And he had the perfect avenue for which to lure in his "underprivileged" victims: the foundation he started.  So the power structure was tipped in his favor twice over. Thrice over when you consider in tandem #7 and #8 on my list.


6)MEDIA AND MOB MENTALITY





7)BIG BUSINESS: College football generates billions of dollars a year in revenues for everyone from the universities to Budweiser.  


8)RACE: White  


9)GENDER: men  


still have the upper hand in this country, no matter how much we would like to think things are changing.  


10)SEX: God, Americans The Pure are ever fascinated with it. 


11)SCANDALS: We love those too. 


12)SEX SCANDAL: Touchdown! 


Song of the week:





*I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption given his history with the Penn State football program. I couldn't find any articles that gave me numbers, but this one eludes to him leading an upper-middle class lifestyle. 

Delta Upside-Down L

As you know, I live in a university town that has, I don't know, fifty-six? sororities and not one, but two Wal-Fart Super Centers.  


I can't believe it took this long for the two to meet.  ->  

Game Day IV

Tailgate Fallout *

      

Game time: T-minus 60 minutes.  This is one trashcan in one parking lot of the university.  I was wondering as I was uploading this how many trashcans are on the property.  My guess is 250.  (Surely I can dig and get a real number?) They're all overflowing on game days, as you can well imagine.    


As you can see, almost all of this stuff can be recycled.  The university does have recycling receptacles close to the stadium, but I haven't seen any in the parking lots around campus, which is where all the tailgating happens.   ->  


*I had a couple of other shots that I tossed today...I'm still not sure this is the right one.  It tells a story, though, which is what made it the winner. 

Related articles: 

• Panthers tailgaters recycle tons of trash (charlotte.news14.com)
• Buffalo Bills tailgater convinced to stay (dailycaller.com)

Game Day II

   

As you may or may not know, I live 1/2 mile from a major university with a major football team.  It takes no effort for me to saunter down there and capture the pre-game hype.    

Quote of the day: "I'm getting pregnant in December so I won't miss any games next year."  

  

Song of the day:  MmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmBop, which was blasting from a house during pre-game festivities. 

Say you: No one voluntarily plays that song.  

Say Me: Seriously, do you think I can make this shit up?  

On another note, I have this plugin that "reads" my entries, trolls the net, and then pops up recommendations of related articles that I can embed.  Here are a few examples of today's suggestions:

• All 50 Playboy Centerfolds Of Mafia II [Nsfw] (kotaku.com)
• iFixit goes beige with RCA Studio II teardown (engadget.com)
• StarCraft II offline authentication issues to be fixed in upcoming patch (news.bigdownload.com)  ->

Bel Air (Game Day I)

     

OK, even I couldn't be blase about this particular souped up ride when I saw it.  I specifically planned to go to campus today as there was a home game and tailgating activities are consumption fodder.  I  had walked only about 10 minutes when I saw this little gem out of the corner of my eye.   

It's a 1957 Chevy Bel Air station wagon, red and white naturally, and the dentist in charge has completely tricked it out for home games.  

Under the hood?  A grill.  

Where the windows used to be?  Fold down shelving--the other side had a nicely supplied open bar.  

The spare tire nook?  An ice chest.  

The gas tank?*  A keg.  


(The beer choice?  Really. Bad.  But you can't have everything, right?)  

In the station wagon section in the back?  A 36 inch flat screen TV.  

Up front by the grill?  Another TV mounted to the frame.  The guy said he got tired of not being able to watch other games while he was flipping burgers.  

It was completely over-the-top.  If I tail gated all the time I would totally want one.  -> 

*The tanks were inside the car back then.  Who knew? 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Chevrolet Bel Air 1957: The Collectors'favorite (athingforcars.com)
• Custom 1957 Chevy Bel Air worth $150,000 reported stolen from auto shop (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

In Honor of The First Game of the Season

    
Enjoy your games, everyone.  ->

Midwest Religion

               

So, yeah.  Football season is right around the corner.  And when you live in a college town as I do--a town that's inundated with tens of thousands of people six Saturdays a year to attend The Church of College Football--AND (this is crucial, I think) you could care less, I think you are able to see the logo of your entertainment center university for what it really is.  

A brand. 

A brand that in the past twenty years or so has made a lot of people a ton of money simply from merchandising that goes way beyond t-shirts and baseball hats.  When I was a kid, I certainly don't recall there being branded Zippo lighters do you (I mean, beyond the brand "Zippo")?  I'm not even talking about ticket sales and TV deals and play off games and what our sports-insane country has done to athletics at the high school level and younger. 

Say you: You cynic. College sports are fun! 

Say me:  Read Beer and Circus and then get back to me.  -> 

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