Making Amends At Penn State


We could have called the cops, I guess,
In fact, I wish we had;
We might have done the proper thing
We didn’t, though—our bad.
If maybe we’d done anything
We’d not be here today.
But now it’s time to set things right…
That’s right; it’s time to pray.

The victims and their families
Have suffered for our sins
Too late now to prevent; the time
For penitence begins.
We didn’t do the least we could;
We shuffled and delayed;
The time has come to make amends…
I think it’s time we prayed.

It’s our responsibility
Since we’re the ones who failed
Our shame keeps growing deeper as
The charges are detailed.
It’s time for us to bow our heads
And pray with all our might
For god to touch these poor boys’ hearts…
And that will set things right

More after the jump:

So yeah, JoePa and others are calling on Penn Staters to pray for the victims. And no, that is not nearly enough. At the link, Richard Roeper writes:

“We owe it to [the victims] to say a prayer for them,” said Paterno.

No doubt Paterno is anguished by this tragedy and the aftermath. He’s a good man. But when a distraught grad assistant even hints at something untoward between one of your former assistants and a child, how do you NOT get more involved in uncovering the truth?

I’ll never trivialize anyone saying a prayer for someone. But those kids were owed a lot more practical consideration than prayers after the fact. They were owed protection from a predator. And if Curley, Schultz, Paterno or anyone else at Penn State had reason to believe crimes were being committed by an authority figure who had longtime ties to the university, they owed those kids more than prayers or someone following the chain of command and leaving it at that.

Yeah, well, I will (and have) trivialize someone saying a prayer for someone. If there is ever a time for that, this is.

(There’s a good chance that this post will be eaten by the eddies in the time-space continuum. Something about a server upgrade, and maybe a couch. So this is an experiment.)

Comments

  1. says

    Somebody, I think it was Tim Brando, just made a nice point on the football pre-game show–he said that this is a case of people replacing morality with loyalty to a brand.

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