Emphasis supplied by James:
“The Freeh reports states quite explicitly and at least six times (a) that the 1998 incident did NOT involve any criminal conduct—on the part of Sandusky or anyone else—and (b) that Paterno had forced the resignation of Sandusky before the 1998 incident occurred … In any case, what EXACTLY is it that Paterno should have done? Fire him again? It is preposterous to argue, in my view, that PATERNO should have taken action after all of the people who were legally charged to take action had thoroughly examined the case and decided that no action was appropriate.”
I suppose if the question is, for some reason, limited to whether Paterno broke any laws in 1998, this exceedingly legalistic answer is marginally acceptable. But to sit here in 2012, knowing what we all now know about this, and about Paterno’s knowledge, subsequent inaction, subsequent lies and the tragic consequences of all of it which he, and maybe he alone, could have done the most to stop given his stature, and focus on whether at one brief moment in time Paterno was legally required to do more than he did seems preposterous.
It’s the sort of cherry-picking that, had someone done it to baseball data, would cause James to flip his lid. It is legalistic argument for argument’s sake that is so utterly beside the point when it comes to assessing Paterno in the present day that the word “misleading” doesn’t begin to do it justice.
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James? If he writes something about baseball I'll read it. I've found his writing on any other subject runs a wide range from occasionally banal to infrequently fascinating. I can totally live without that. Doesn't mean he gets a free ride for the stance he's taken on Paterno,
Poz? Well I'm a lot less likely to pop over to his blog. I still like his writing, but ... Dunno, I guess I there are enough good writers who haven't pissed in the swimming pool. I'll be disappointed if he doesn't do an adequate job on the whole Sandusky mess, but he has no real reason to care about my opinion. I wouldn't have bought the book before the whole Sandusky mess hit the fan and no matter how he deals with it, I still won't.
They are supposed to write their opinions, even when horribly wrong.
#901, I see this defense of columnists (news and sports) all the time, and it always baffles me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
If someone wants to argue that Paterno's good deeds outweigh his bad, that's an opinion. But as Ray documented, Poz got key facts wrong in his initial statements and hasn't walked those statements back as far as I can tell. Even opinion writers need to maintain their credibility and readers' trust, and Poz lost a bit of that in this episode -- YMMV as to how much.
Part of being a student at Caltech means “shopping” for courses for the first three weeks of each trimester. Students are allowed to sample classes before they have to register for them. “During those three weeks,” read an N.C.A.A. press release issued on Thursday, “because they were not actually registered in some or all of the courses they are attending, some students were not enrolled on a full-time basis.” And part-time students, you see, are not allowed to play intercollegiate athletics. Between 2007 and 2010, according to the N.C.A.A., this happened with 30 athletes in 12 sports.
It would be hard to imagine a more frivolous violation of the rules — or one that could do less harm to the integrity of college sports. What’s more, Caltech turned itself in after a new athletic director realized that the practice of shopping for classes probably violated N.C.A.A. rules. Yet the punishment imposed on the school was severe: three years of probation, a postseason ban in a dozen sports, the erasure of wins and individual records that were gained with ineligible athletes, and more. Indeed, Caltech was cited for “a lack of institutional control,” which is pretty much the worst thing you can be accused of in N.C.A.A.-speak.
Posnanski's reaction was akin to a child throwing a temper tantrum and covering his ears while screaming "I'm not listening." I would venture that most adults, upon learning of what was in the grand jury report, were like, "Wow, it's pretty stunning that Paterno, upon learning of what Mike McQueary told him, did not immediately see to it that the state authorities were informed; but he didn't, and it is what it is." Posnanski, instead of coming to that conclusion - which was the only conclusion possible based on Paterno's own testimony and the fact that the state authorities were not informed - made outlandish comments and lied about what the facts were, then doubled down on his comments, before going underground and (now I find out) even removing his posts that I was quoting from.
And you don't regard Posnanski as a worse writer after that? That doesn't lower him in your eyes?
Sure, and it's also still possible OJ finds the real killers....
At this point, new evidence coming to light would not somehow retroactively validate Poz, unless he actually knows about it now, and is keeping it to himself. The evidence against Paterno right now is so overwhelming, that really any response other than full condemnation of his (in)actions is simply unjustifiable.
I think the question of how this does (or doesn't) change our opinions of these guys is interesting. For me, Posnanski is the one that it has most changed. Bill James is my favorite writer ever, not just baseball - writer. But I already considered him quirky and cranky so I'm not that disappointed in him as a person. It does make me question his logic, especially as a man I've generally felt was well above my own capacity for critical thought. But he's sort of like Bob Dylan - he can crank out a Down in the Groove or act generally weird and get away with it because the canon is so strong. You'll remember it but weighed against the Abstracts and the innovations ... well, it's hard to trump those.
Now, Posnanski. His take bothers me more because I've always viewed him as so darn, well, sensible. And, for that matter, he seemed so accessible. One of us. That he temporarily cut off the comments on his blog and went underground struck me as cowardly. I just don't think he's handled this adversity with as much grace as I'd have expected. If this book comes out and is as favorable to JoePa as most of us fear/expect, then it's a real blight on Poz. Talented as he is, his resume is essentially a great blog, a good book about Buck O'Neil, a mediocre book about the '75 Reds, and (likely) a turd of a book about Paterno.
Neyer, I've never considered better than an average writer and thinker so I won't see him any differently at all.
- trouble is that most adults hearing/reading that aren't either
1 - an incredibly powerful worshipped person who stood to lose prestige and power over some stupid worthless nothing kid they don't know or care about
2 - a person who has been brainwashed/bathed in the glow of a saint for over a year and is bout finished with a hagiography that is suddenly void if those horrible words are true
i think that the terrible truth is that most people would actually have tried to cover up/ignore/get rid of anything that could/would bring them down. most people protect their own interests at pretty much all costs (see all the people such as the janitors who wouldn't turn sandusky in to CPS or the state police or anything)
i think it is very VERY hard to hear that someone you adore who is supposed to be a figure of virtual sainthood - a person practically without sin, is, in truth, a moral coward
not being able to face facts is not the same as lying...
- pos is my favorite writer now that john is gone. can't nobody tell a story like joe. joe is really a storyteller, much more than he is a reporter. it's his strength and his weakness.
i don't know what is going to be published in that book - for all i know, the publishers are editing out all of bad stuff because it is supposed to be a book of worship.
but i am gonna give him a chance to speak out in either his blog or some other writing about the truth about joepa and the cult of "amateur" football after the book comes out and goes thru the sales run and i'm sure there are plenty of paterno worshippers left who will be delighted that someone told the story of the "real" joe paterno, who can't wait for the book.
it won't change my opinion of his ability to tell a story, but it sure will disappoint me that he couldn't bring himself to face facts after all this time about what "amateur" football really is and the fact that joe paterno is the latest proof that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
i'm also one of the ones who was purged from his list of facebook friends. sigh. and i didn't even email him or comment on his blog about it...
I was going to add my 2 cents as to how outraged I was by various writers, but ran out of energy...
Well, that and, you know, years and years as an outstanding, award-winning newspaper columnist. I assume that even in 2050 we'll all remember what newspapers were.
Look, Posnanski has a mountain to climb with the Paterno book. I think we all get that. But all I really want to see in the book is a serious engagement with both what happened at Penn State and Posnanski's own initial reactions. If he does that, the grand moral balancing he'll have to engage in, playing Minos and weighing Paterno's sins against his virtues, that'll be less relevant, if still interesting (the general direction of this thread notwithstanding, Posnanski actually is a reasonably decent writer who is, GASP, capable of speaking critically). If Posnanski seriously engages with the facts, acknowledges Paterno's failures and says something like, "I had a stupid, immature initial reaction and that reveals something interesting about yada yada yada" that'll matter more than his precise reckoning of the moral ledger book of Paterno's life.
I suspect I'll end up disagreeing with that reckoning of Paterno's moral scales, but people disagree. It's the reasoning and the language that go into explaining that reckoning which will define Posnanski's book.
I think JoePo's national cred is based primarily upon his web presence and books. Perhaps SI as well, although if you blinked you missed it. But your criticism of my comment is, of course, fair.
It won't go back in time and magically erase every wonderful thing he has ever written. It can't. The words he wrote in the past don't shift or change with the fortunes and morals of modern Posnanski. Just as finding out that Michelangelo strangled kittens doesn't make the David any less powerful, finding out that Shakespeare killed hookers doesn't make the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet any less beautiful or finding out that Aaron Sorkin watches Jersey Shore doesn't make "Two Cathedrals" any less magical, finding out that Posnanski is a defender of a man who enabled child rape doesn't make his posts on the Royals any less funny or his columns about Buck O'Neill any less touching. Those things exist outside of the Penn State controversy. And however much I find myself disappointed or disgusted with Posnanski, the memories I have of what he wrote in the past won't be affected.
The answer to the first question would be "no", and to the second question "certainly". For me, they aren't the same question, I guess.
I'm trying to think who this would apply to for me, as it doesn't apply so much for Pos. Granted, I was never a real PozHead, or whatever his "read all his stuff" fans are called, because I certainly wasn't one of them. Not for any real reason, just turned out that way. I generally prefer my sportswriting in full-length book form over articles, so even the best among them - being Poz - doesn't really move me to follow.
Well, honestly, I can tell you for whom that has happened for me, and it's two sci-fi writers, so it won't make much difference to you. Orson Scott Card, who I had above-average admiration for as a writer, and Clarke. The reason for Card is well-known, you could look that up easily. Clarke is more personal, one longish passage/book that was so annoying to me it forever colored my view of him. THESE are writers for whom I cannot look at any more of their work without thinking of ways they've acted, things they've written that move towards despiccable.
Poz? Eh. He screwed up in a way that was sadly and petulantly human, but I simply don't consider his work important enough, I guess.
Shakespeare killed hookers?
CFBF's line was a hypothetical. About all we know about Shakespeare's extracurricular life is that he tended to get caught up in lawsuits.
No. By internet rules we now have quotable, attributable sourcing to the positive that Shakespeare killed hookers. Which makes Shakespeare a lot more awesome.
I think he also screwed up in a way that directly affects his style. He is very good at taking a subject with a lot of warts and finding the human inside. That is an admirable, laudable skill and world view in my opinion. Only, usually the warts we're overlooking are things like drugs or prickliness, etc. IOW, not real terrible sins and he always seemed to point out that there were bad people in sports and they should be called out. Even if he, himself, wasn't the one to do that.
In defending Paterno, it makes it appear, whether true or not, that the what one (I) thought was a laudable skill of looking past warts to get to the inner person might just be either the inability to really see evil or simply defending one's friends. Either way, it makes his analysis of sports personalities less credible.
Certainly his actual word-smithing is still the same. It's only what he writes that comes into question.
It makes me sound somewhat ridiculous, but his characterizations of the good daughter vs. the evil daughter in the last (two?) Rama book(s) was so rife with certain specific moralistic stereotypes it really stuck in my throat very badly. I never really minded his characters in general up until then... although I haven't read anything of his since.
What Lassus said. Or, um...*high-five!* Or something.
Pos is a good writer. He is skilled with words. He's not Shakespeare or Pessoa or Neruda or anything; his standing out as a wordsmith has as much to do with the fetid, rank worthlessnesses that surround him in the 'sportswriters' category as it does with his own skill - even Jeff Francoeur would look like a HOF'er if he played his entire career in semi-pro ball with AA washouts. Regardless, Pos is a good writer who stands out above and beyond his peers, and who is capable of finding a way to tell stories about baseball and sport that hook you and hold you in a manner that his peers simply cannot match. With that said, the only time I read Pos with regularity was at the blog, because 1) I'm not from KC, 2) I will never pay a subscription price for any sort of "sports magazine" and 3) I find virtually every sports themed book to be treacle that makes my teeth hurt to read.
All of that being the case, Pos is today the same writer he was two years ago. The fact that he's been caught on the wrong side of the PSU/Paterno event horizon doesn't change his abilities in that regard. But his apparent decision to bed down with the PSU cultists - I say "apparent" specifically here - does sully his reputation as a morally sound voice of reason in the sports writing world.
Yeah, a lot of his later books have such stereotypes in them. It's maddening and really does take away from their quality. I think his best stuff, by far, is early short stories. Such creativity and imagination in a format that doesn't really demand deep character development. Not many of his novels have any decent characters. First Rama, maybe. The one with the space elevator.
EDIT: I also wonder how much of those were written by Clarke. He teamed with people for most of the last 20-30 years and a lot of those collaborations, I'm given to understand, are such that the lesser known writes the book based on a universe or idea of the better known who lends his name to the book to boost sales. YMMV and all, but I'd put that in a different group than Card's.
Ray - Sorry for the delay in answering. Life.
Doesn't change my thoughts of him as a writer, certainly not his past stuff (which veers for me from OK to brilliant to overly sentimental). because I am human (well Mouse) it will likely influence my reading of his future writing, but I doubt it will that much.
As to "lower him in my eyes" I don't know him. I have never met him and can't summon a picture of him in my head (but I am bad with faces). I know nothing of him other than having read some of his work. I really don't have an opinion of him as a person. I have formed a stronger opinion of him since this whole thing started than ever before, but it is mostly second hand.
I know many (most) people link someone's public output (writers, sports figures, coaches, politicians) with "who they are as people" but honestly my mind does not work that way. I "sports" admire Barry Bonds, Joe Montana, Kirby Puckett and Kevin Garnett, but they are sports heroes I don't need to evaluate them as real people.
I don't care when a politician has an affair, it does not change my "political" opinion of them. I evaluate them on their politics. Abe Lincoln might have been a horrible lying, backstabbing, whore killing, lech (I kind of doubt it though), but he did what he did in the political arena, he saved the US and was one of our greatest presidents. Whether he stepped out on Mary is not that important. It might be if he was my brother, next door neighbor or what have you, but not otherwise.
I realize that moral failings can bleed into the public part of a person. Tiger Woods marital issues don't change my opinion of him as a golfer (and I don't care about him other than that), but clearly they impacted him as a golfer. Thus my "golf" opinion of him has dropped, not because he is a dog who stepped out (a lot) on his wife, but because his actions destroyed a portion of his career.
I also am willing to forgive (though generally not forget). People get to make mistakes. They get to be wrong. They don't have to prove themselves to me or meet my standards. But if I did personally know Tiger, Pos, Kirby, Lincoln or any of the others these things would very clearly effect my feelings and could easily lower thwm in my eyes.
And again I fully get my reactions on this are atypical. I just thought an alternate view from the drumbeat might be useful.
This is very fair and is making me rethink a bit. Perhaps it should impact my thoughts of his writing, but I would argue still far less than most of the posters are stating. Hmmm, stupid lack of black/white.
Then there's the case of David Mamet, who has recently shown himself to be a right-wing nutjob à la Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck, after years of being in the forefront of the contemporary theater in America. In Mamet's case I do think that the political garbage casts a troubling light on plays like American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna. But they were incipiently political plays all along, and ambiguous ones. It seems that Mamet locked particular interpretations of them in place by taking strident political stances later on. (Or at least made them harder to read as ambiguous or ironic.)
What this has to do with Pos I will leave to those who know more about his whole work than I do (and must leave till everyone's read his Paterno book, anyway).
I must say, though, that this thread has given me an idea for a game called Grand Theft Chariot, where William Shakespeare pulls drivers off carriages, steals their rides, and stabs hookers to death with a bare bodkin.
?!
That would be Grand Theft Coach. Shakespeare wasn't Ben Hur!
(Also worth noting, Shakespeare already wrote that plot. It's called "Titus Andronicus."
We'd never be able to listen to Wango Tango again!
You could make a great solo RPG starring Christopher Marlowe, if you proceeded under the assumption that all of the rumors about him (he was a hellraising counterfeiting brawling gay atheist spy who dabbled in the occult) are true.
Curt Schilling's ears are ####### burning up right now!
Go read your space books, nerd!
I totally wish Countee Cullen had written some sci-fi.
Card might now be the shining example of why I try to completely avoid learning about fiction authors and their political positions. I looked up what might have bothered Lassus (because I had no clue), and now it's hard to think about situations in his books without wondering if there's some hidden agenda. (I actually thought of the Bean character in the Ender series as a homosexual, but that seems very unlikely now.) Science-fiction in particular is a genre that is a bit of stealth (sometimes very thinly-veiled) political expression, and so an extreme author's views almost certain invade his work.
Sometimes it works the other way. If hard-pressed, I have to admit that Dean Koontz is a pretty one-note author, but knowing his incredible attachment to dogs and his charitable contributions (he's donated millions of dollars to service dog organizations) makes it hard for me to judge him too harshly. I'm surprised that I didn't think of this particular quote by George Vest that Koontz used in Watchers to explain what it is about dogs that makes so many people love them a while back:
Really? I never viewed him as sexual at all, in that by the time he voyages off he's still a fairly young man*. That he marries and has children is mostly a political and tactical decision. I can't think of anything that would lead one to think of homosexuality - leaving aside Card's views.
* Like, what? 14? Old enough for that to start to emerge.
M-I-Z-Z-O-U!
Are you insinuating that Ted Nugent *became* an ####### *later in life*? That may be the nicest thing anyone's ever said about him.
I was a really enthusiastic fan of his when I was in HS. Took a long veer into cyberpunk, and then learned enough about Card to never want to read another thing he wrote.
Interesting. I would've thought it was his apparently NAMBLAish views as regards young boys.
I read the Ender books at the same time I read the Uplift series. As such, I constantly confuse Card with David Brin.
Jeez, talk about your temper tantrums. Poz's comment was something to the effect of not wanting a rush to judgement until all the facts were in. Your position was that all necessary facts were already in. Frankly, Poz's comment is not that big a deal to me, because I don't really care what his opinion of Joe Paterno is. He's free to still think he's a good guy if he likes. I'll just skip those columns.
Now, if Poz had written this, I'd be stringing him up, so there is that.
I honestly don't recall this at all.
I don't need to know anything about William Carlos Williams' life to know that he sucks.
Now, if Poz had written this, I'd be stringing him up, so there is that.
That was only to poke Shooty, I'm not familiar enough with Williams to say either way, really. The triumverate of American poetry to me is Whitman, Millay, and Cullen.
I don't think Clark wrote those - he just stuck his name on the later Rama books. To be honest, I don't think he wrote much of Rama after the first one.
Absolutely. Ray's incandescent fury sustained over the last EIGHT MONTHS seems to be entirely because of two blog posts written in the FIRST WEEK of the scandal. That and a veritable smorgasbord of what can best be described as sins of omission, in other words that he failed to uncover the story himself while doing research for the Paterno book, that after bring a hurricane of abuse down on himself on November 10th he began a campaign of silence on the subject eerily reminiscent of Hitler's solitude in the bunker, that he stopped being Facebook friends with people, that he has made a career of preferring to write things that find the best in people, etc. Once the book comes out, then we can judge his, um, opinions on this one subject.
I think it's rumoured that one of the reasons he lived in Sri Lanka and refused to leave was its position on such matters. As far as I know, that's nothing more than a rumour though.
My position is that I'm OK knowing about a writer's personal life. If she's a complete jerk then I'll only check out her books from the library. If she's especially awesome (or impoverished or suffering from bad luck) then I'll be more likely to buy her books.
My biggest problem with Card is that the Enders books are interesting, but he suffers from the common sci-fi problem of being a bad prose writer with neat ideas. I think this condition is called "Asimov Syndrome".
EDIT: By "neat ideas" I mean ideas like little kids remote controlling spaceships, not his politics.
He is listed as the author and then "with Gentry Lee" on the last two. Kind of hard for me to get Clarke out of the way in that regard, I suppose.
My biggest problem with Card is that the Enders books are interesting, but he suffers from the common sci-fi problem of being a bad prose writer with neat ideas. I think this condition is called "Asimov Syndrome".
Even though I liked his writing anyhow, I still think Asimov gets a pass for this condition. If Card had even 1/10th the importance Asimov had, he might, too. But he doesn't.
Agreed.
He ignored the facts that were already in while saying that we needed to wait for facts to come in, while lying about the fact that some crucial facts were already in.
There. I've done a Keefe.
I think it is because I feel I am being preached at/lectured by him in the book. Sometimes the book overcomes this, but even when it does I don't like it very much.
Let's pretend the Sandusky thing never happens. What did Paterno do to make him "a great man"? He coached a football team? Kids graduated while under his watch? He refused to pay kids for their work or allow them to be paid (let's assume this is a Good Thing)? He disciplined kids himself when they got into trouble rather than allow the Dean to do it? He helped the school raise a lot of money? He got paid handsomely for his services? He won a lot of games?
Do these things make him a "great man"? I'm not saying there's a right answer here. I don't happen to think it makes him any better than the average Joe. But if you disagree (obviously Posnanski would), I won't argue. I just think that these coaches get propped up to a cartoonish level for no good reason. It seems immature and childish to me on the part of the people doing the propping.
I even agree with much of this. I ascribe it to self deception more than overt malice or external dishonesty (if that makes sense).
(From The Gawker).
As to whether that sort of thing showed up in any of his fiction, I have no idea. Haven't read much of it -- A Fall of Moondust, Rendezvous with Rama, probably a couple of others that aren't ccurring to me just now, & some short stories.
Oh, yeah: Childhood's End, too. The title of which I'll never look at the same way again.
Answer: No, it does not make him a great man.
Conflating success in some or all fields with greatness is common though. Put them on a pedistal and then if they are flawed be outraged and knock them off. Still he certainly benefited by being a "great man" and so to some extent it is just to have him fall so I guess.
Gives new meaning to Childhood's End I guess. I never did like that book.
And I don't buy it. Posnanski is far from an idiot. He admitted he had read the grand jury report. He was smart enough to understand what it said, and the conclusions to draw from it. He wasn't "lying to himself," whatever that means. He was just lying.
that's a lot of library to hold a book
//old joke by old jokester
"Lying" apparently now means "disagrees with Ray's inferences and conclusions".
At a recent spinal cord/brain injury meeting I had the pleasure of meeting Adam Taliaferro -- the player who suffered from a broken neck back in 2000. Adam received an awful lot of support from Joe and the Paterno family that wasn't "necessary" per se.
That said, this really was the way that MOST coaches used to be. Current coaches are clearly in this as a business...if the kid isn't able to stay on the field, it's time to recruit a replacement (I'm paraphrasing from conversations with several D1 coaches re: concussions), not to figure out if the kid has problems that might be treatable or need to be resolved for him to lead a productive life.
So, my opinion is that the "great man" remarks about JoPa are pretty similar to those regarding any past long-serving coach --- they had plenty of opportunities to positively affect lives of their players, and they tended to do more good than harm for these people, which results in lots of good press with a markedly positive integral (over the players) after many, many years.
So, was JoPa *unusually* good at these things? I doubt it...he just was unusually good at winning while PSU was an independent and kept other things "under wraps" well, too, it would seem.
I read the Blake Bailey biographies of both and their immense faults made me like them more as authors. Cheever was just so humane. Unlike Yates, Cheever always had an Anglo-Catholic-like belief in redemption, and that comes through in many of his novels (short stories sometimes less so, perhaps because of the medium). Yates's characters more often got what they had coming to them - he was a fatalist.
I don't think any author's or artist's views is going to make me dislike their art. I can't deny Wagner's greatness even though he was a dreadful antisemite. If their politics seep through into their art, it might make me like them less, but I still appreciate Mamet even if his worldview in Oleanna is quite right-wing (interestingly, Mamet was still a professed liberal at that time).
In relation to Bill James and Joe Posnanski, it's pretty easy to just write off James as being a wingnut with a wingnut opinion. It's not going to make me start looking at RBIs again. Posnanski is more difficult, because this is an authorized biography of JoePa. If, as we expect, it's a puff piece that minimizes his complicity in the Sandusky case, then I will lose a lot of respect for them. Bill James is expressing his opinion, but Posnanski is carrying somebody's water. Either he's a sucker, or he's dishonest.
Actually, no, it just means lying.
I guess Gawker didn't bother to note that the Mirror later retracted the claims and apologised?
"I don’t know what Joe Paterno knew." Half truth. Deceptive. We knew crucial facts about some of what Joe Paterno knew, from Paterno's own testimony.
"People are making assumptions about what Joe did or didn’t know, what Joe did or didn’t do, and I can’t tell you that those assumptions are wrong. But I can tell you that they are assumptions based on one side of the story." Deceptive.
"It is still unclear what Paterno did in this case. It will remain unclear for a while. You might be one of the hundreds and hundreds of people I’ve heard from who know EXACTLY what Paterno did. He HAD to know this. He DEFINITELY knew that. He COULD have done something. I respect that. Joe Paterno’s a public figure. You have every right to believe what you want to believe and be absolutely certain about it. But since we have not heard from Joe," Lie. A complete and utter lie.
"not heard from former athletic director Tim Curley, not heard from GA/assistant coach Mike McQueary," Lie.
not heard from anyone who was in the room, I’ll repeat: It’s unclear. A determined grand jury did not charge Joe Paterno with any crime. A motivated reporting barrage, so far anyway, has not uncovered a single thing that can tell us definitively what Joe Paterno knew." Lie. A complete and utter lie. The grand jury report told us definitively, by Paterno's own testimony, what McQueary reported to Paterno. That was "a single thing that can tell us definitively what Joe Paterno knew." And it was crucial, and damning.
This is not "disagrees with Ray's inferences and conclusions." That is silly of you to say. These are lies, half truths, and deceptions.
I hope you are happy now, I didn't know this before, and now I won;t be able to see/read his stuff the same way any more
Could be. News to me -- it's not like I have any kind of vendetta against Clarke; lord knows, several of my own favorite authors (Phil Dick & H.P. Lovecraft, most prominently ... & yes, the fact that my favorite writers are named Dick & Lovecraft is a source of some consternation to me) had feet of clay.
I know the British tabloids aren't exactly noted for unstinting accuracy, & I suppose the reporter(s)/editor(s) involved could've made up a direct quote &/or made wildly out-of-context use of it.
Or, hell, maybe Clarke had no philosophical problems with sex with underage males but didn't actually practice it. HPL was ridiculously racist but never raised a hand against anyone of any of any race or ethnicity he found objectionable.
People deceive themselves and then act out the arc of their deceit. Posnanski may be lying in the sense that he is espousing positions that are clearly not supported by facts, but based on everything we know about neuroscience and human behavior, I think he believes what he's saying. Our brains are rationalization machines, and they play dirty. Once his brain accepted the initial deceit; "Joe Paterno is a great and noble man who would never do anything evil or unethical.", he had no way to reconcile it with the subsequent reality. The easiest solution was to rationalize reality away.
What on earth does smart have to do with self deception? People of all intelligences lie to themselves all that time and always have. Telling someone a lie with intent to decieve is different than deluding oneself.
You really don't know what lying to ones self is? You have never known anyone who, for example, convinced themselves that their SO was not in fact cheating on them, "He was out late and didn't want to drive, so he stayed at a freinds house." Really? This sort of thing happens all the time.
The person in my example above is NOT lying with malice, they are deluding themselves because they don't want to know the truth (even if deep down they do know the truth). I find it difficult to believe you are not familair with this, but hey if you really don't understand (or just don't acknowledge) any difference between various departures from that thing we call facts then OK I guess.
EDIT: Or what GF said better than I. Thanks GF.
Like Lassus, I never thought that about Bean either. However, if you haven't read the Bean/Shadow series, then I could see where you might interpret him that way.
And yes, I try very hard to separate fiction authors from their personal views. I don't come close to agreeing with Card, but I still love the Ender and Bean series and re-read them frequently.
- here's the thing
for WHATEVER reason, human beings look at male athletes as if they are better human beings and regard them as "heroic" for playing games with a ball. exactly what is heroic about catching, kicking or throwing a ball, i don't get. but i don't matter because i am in the minority of people who think that they are just humans who were given great hand/eye coordination by God/DNA (pick your poison) and have a lifetime of having butts kissed and - let's say, "actions" tolerated that a non-athlete would get killt for.
college athletics is something that is a fantasy/storyline for most people - the guy who "fights" for his school and is just another student, but yet, selflessly sacrifices his time/body for The Greater Good.and i say fantasy because there are tons of people who root for "school X" and they didn't even GO there. no one except MIT and harvard/yale/princeton people boast about their school's ability to do stuff like TEACH. it's why people who know how to make money from branding make so much money offn selling figureheads like joe paterno who CREATES an actual "world" - joe was smart and strong enough to make sure he got hold of some of the money that was being made offn him.
college football/basketball players have long been allowed to get away with crimes that any regular student would have been punished/expelled/arrested for, ESPECIALLY sexual crimes. i think that the reason this went on and is almost certainly STILL going on is that screwing every vagina in sight is the privilege rewarded for Fighting For The School - and is part of the fantasy of the watchers. besides, the bytchez secretly wanted it and are better off in life for having been scrod by A Hero.
i would bet there is a WHOLE lot about joe paterno we don't know. i would bet he had heard about sandusky when he FIRST started showering with boys. i would bet he knew about his players raping females and having someone else do their homework/take their tests. he cared about no bad PUBLICITY. he cared about IMAGE.
and ray,
i know what poz said in the early going on - can you give the guy a little rope - he CAN'T/WON'T believe his false idol covered up child molesting. let's let him have a say until AFTER the book he had almost finished is out and he says his final say on the paterno thing?
pppppppleeeezzzzzzze?
Agree with this (and Good Face). Ray, this is the only issue I've had with any of your comments on the Paterno/Sandusky ordeal. In fact, I'd say it's likely you've experienced self-deception on a personal level - we all have, it's human nature.
In which I agree with Good Face, and in the process feel as dirty as the conversation about showering with boys. Ick.
I'd cut speakers some slack on this point.
If you want to hang pedophilia on him, you need to come up with something more than has been stated here.
I read some Neal Asher books I liked. Then I read his blog, and his politics are very different from mine. My solution was to stop reading his blog, but still his books. (Although I've kind of gotten bored with his books too).
Umm, this is not the same thing as reading X and then claiming that X does not exist. That is just called lying.
It really is the same thing. It is looking at a set of facts and refusing to assemble them in a sensible fashion. Then talking about the facts in that non sensible fashion. He claimed X did not mean Y, when you, I and most people know very well X did very strongly imply Y. He didn't want to believe Y, so the hurdle to get there was MUCH higher than it should have been.
No, it really is not.
No, it is looking at a set of facts and claiming the facts do not exist. There was no "assembling" needed to read that Joe Paterno testified to X.
No, he did not "claim that X did not mean Y." Once more: he claimed that X did not exist. Quoting now:
"A motivated reporting barrage, so far anyway, has not uncovered a single thing that can tell us definitively what Joe Paterno knew."
Joe Paterno's testimony told us, definitively, "a single thing" that Joe Paterno knew: that Mike McQueary came to him on a Saturday morning to report an incident between Sandusky and a boy that had occurred in the shower after hours and that was "sexual in nature."
This is not Joe Posnanski "lying to himself." This is simply Joe Posnanski telling lies.
This cannot be said enough. Until there has been some serious headway at solving the overall problem in these large programs, these Sandusky-type situations will recur.
I like the fact that at BBTF I disagree 90% with some folks (Ray, Dave N, GF, SBB) but every once in a while I find myself on their side. Similiarly I enjoy finding myself disagreeing with Andy, Morty and others. Makes for a great community here.
I must admit this is perhaps the first time GF and I are on the same side, which may well be distressing for GF (Since I believe I am a horrible person with no morals or some such), but thems the breaks. Do Ray and Andy ever agree? I can't think of it ever happening, but I bet it has (may regarding Paterno).
Just FYI, that wasn't me, but bunyon. I stopped with Speaker for the Dead a long while back.
I'm not really advocating that he be excoriated permanently. It lowers him in my eyes, but I never called for a boycott of his writing. I think he takes a hit here. But if people want to keep reading him, I of course have nothing to say about that.
Yes, they are. They are actually false.
"A motivated reporting barrage, so far anyway, has not uncovered a single thing that can tell us definitively what Joe Paterno knew."
That is actually false.
"But since we have not heard from Joe..."
That is actually false. And to the extent Posnanski meant that he was simply waiting for more facts, to say "we have not heard from Joe" is so deceptive as to be dishonest.
"I don’t know what Joe Paterno knew." Actually false, and to the extent Posnanski was waiting for more, his statement is so deceptive that it is dishonest. Posnanski was not dealing with what we did know. He was just claiming we didn't know anything.
"not heard from GA/assistant coach Mike McQueary." Actually false.
There was no "doubt" that Joe Paterno testified as to what McQueary reported to him. And there was no "doubt" that state authorities were never informed of the 2002 incident. There was doubt as to just how in the hell it came that they didn't report it, and there was doubt as to what else Paterno knew over the decade-plus period, but there was no doubt that Paterno did not either report it himself or see that it was reported.
And I didn't pound on Posnanski for his classroom comments, which could fairly be considered a "snap reaction." I don't view a considered column to be a "snap reaction," but even if it was, he never walked his comments back, and he never further explained himself. He only removed his comments. That behavior is not worthy of my respect. If others respect it, fine.
Assembling those two facts - Paterno admitted he was told and it was sexual in nature with "definitively what Paterno knew" is exactly what I am talking about. Of course 1 + 1 = 2. But if 2 can't be true, then clearly math is wrong or one of those '1' is not real or there is another factor or ... or ... or ...
The obviousness of it all strengthens the case it is not an ordinary lie but rather is self deception. Past six year olds and psychopaths very few people lie about something the audience can know is clearly a lie. People* will lie "better" than that, especially smart people like Pos.
But hey, I still maintain even if it is exactly as you say it is not worth much sound or fury.
*Politicians not included, campaign lying is a different animal, and even they generally lie with more skill than that.
I think your "assembling" argument is better served as saying that Posnanski added (1) Paterno testified he was told it was sexual in nature and (2) Paterno never saw that it was reported to state authorities, and yet Posnanski still couldn't see, because he held Paterno in such high esteem, that (3) Paterno was worthy of scorn. That is your "lying to himself," "unable to see that 1+1=2" argument. Which I can even get behind. (Although since Posnanski never dealt with (1) it's hard to even give him slack on this score.)
But it has nothing to do with Posnanski claiming that we don't know "a single thing" about what Paterno knew when we damned well knew a single thing about what Paterno knew. This is just plain lying on his part.
Not distressing at all. EVERYONE should agree with me at all times and about all things. It makes the world a better place, so you're actually doing your part here to help me help you help us all.
I don't agree with your characterization of Poz's comments as "lies", and agree completely with David's response in #983.
For instance, I did not (and do not) interpret Poz's statement "we have not heard from Joe" as suggesting that there were no statements from Paterno out there -- obviously there was his grand jury testimony, and I didn't take Poz to be suggesting otherwise. However, Paterno's grand jury testimony didn't address every issue about which people were speculating at the time. For instance, while we knew at the time what Paterno said he had been told by McQueary and what he had done (and not done) with this disclosure, we didn't know everything about what had happened afterwards, which could at least conceivably have explained -- or at least mitigated -- Paterno's failure to follow up after it appeared that no further investigation was being conducted following his report to the university/campus police officials. I took Poz's point to simply be cautioning against a blind rush to judgment on what was at least at the time an incomplete factual record. Characterizing his comments as "lies" seems to me to be a gross overstatement.
And I've disagreed with David's response.
To the extent Posnanski was waiting for Paterno to comment publicly, or for more facts, that was fine. (Well, not really - we already knew the thing didn't go to state authorities, and there is simply no justifiable reason for that.) But Posnanski was not dealing with what we did know, and his comments, while I think were lies, were at best misleading and deceptive in that they suggested that we knew next to nothing.
"A motivated reporting barrage, so far anyway, has not uncovered a single thing that can tell us definitively what Joe Paterno knew."
That is simply a lie.
I want to high-five with BBC and AuntBea on this one, for the record. Yes, child rape is particularly heinous and the PSU scandal particularly noxious, but it's basically because they were caught with "a dead girl or a live boy." Raping the local college girls is completely looked past by vast swaths of, well, everyone. Be it the star running back at Local U, or Ben Rothlisberger on a bender.
But that is not what happened.
I don't think you're wrong, Ray. I do think you're overreacting on the crusade against Pos's obvious cognitive dissonance though. YMMV, obviously.
No it isn't. It would be a lie if Poz said "we do not definitively know a single thing that Joe Paterno knew", which appears to be how you interpret what he wrote. However, I interpret what he actually wrote differently -- namely, as an assertion that "we do not have a single piece of evidence that tells us definitively everything Joe Paterno knew". This was certainly true at the time.
IIRC your comments in earlier threads, your position at the time is that it was irrelevant what Paterno might have subsequently known or believed (reasonably or otherwise), since in your view he should have personally gone to the state police, not just to the campus police officials. I disagree with you on this -- the campus police force was a real police force and taking the complaint to them did not seem to me to necessarily be an unreasonable thing to do at first instance, unless Paterno knew or expected them not to investigate it. Whether or not he should have followed up later when it appeared that no investigation was being conducted depended in my view on what he later knew or was led to believe, which at the time was largely unknown (I haven't read Freeh and thus don't know how much more we now know about this that we didn't know then).
So your argument that Posnanski is lying is that we do know one single thing that Paterno did know, even though Posnanski was speaking on a much broader topic?
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