“And you wonder where we're going
Where's the rhyme and where's the reason
And it's you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children...”
John Denver
In all of the failed humanity discovered recently in Happy Valley, notice should be taken that A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY FINALLY STOOD UP FOR WHAT WAS RIGHT AND A DYNASTY HAS BEEN SHAKEN.
Because now a whole society is forced at last to look at the alarming close-ups of the sickening results when expensive, sophisticated branding and image-manipulating overlap the monstrous egos of big time competitive football men.
Penn State's ignominy is the merely latest “denial” card to fall in our cover-up culture. Is anybody out here in Oregon thinking about Neil Goldschmidt right now?
Before we waste a lot of energy talking about the criminal and the crime, we must address the prevention. That people will behave selfishly and brutishly should not be a revelation any longer. What may surprise people is the number of “decent” folks who become silent conspirators to bullying, cheating, and power-abuse...people who use denial to cope with their own complicity...because they don't want to rock the boat (yacht?).
The candle glowing in this recent human darkness: Future potential victims (and advocates for children) are reminded that the face of evil can be a grandfather wearing classy college logos and high-priced sneakers. More significantly, this sordid revelation could create the resolve to finally address the root problem: Covering up.
Lack of oversight. No accountability. Instead, problems are obfuscated by lots of lawyers using obscure processes to prolong cases while demeaning vulnerable people, often until they are forced to accept some secret, silent settlement.
Explaining this phenomenon provides an unusual opportunity to juxtapose pronouns: “WE” keeping paying “THEM” to keep “US” from knowing what “THEY” do.
Our public justice system is super-injected with free-market ethics. For the right $, you don't have to do the right thing. If D-S-K were involved in this latest unsavory saga, we might already be hearing innuendo-spin about the lascivious character of the victim in the Penn State shower.
I write regularly in an effort to expose a cover-up process that has injured me and my family, one that education bureaucrats continue to enjoy in Oregon, facilitated by the OEA leadership.
When, in 2004, I told my new superintendent in Beaverton that some supervisors needed supervising, my employment contract was broken within weeks. I was locked out of my building in a surprise attack by administrators I had served well--for “sexually harassing” someone whom I didn't.
Within two days, I was introduced to one of the lawyers who would manipulate and demean me for the next several years. The opposing attorneys were paid by the public, secretly, while my “advocate” was paid by the union to which I paid dues for a decade.
No one involved, other than me, was interested in either expediency or justice.
The ordeal I experienced has taught me much about who in our society gets “secrecy agreements” with quiet settlements and who gets manipulation and abuse, preclusion and delay. (www.statesponsoredtheft.blogspot.com)
This unequal protection of the elite, we are now learning from the National Restaurant Association, is not limited by race. It is an economic thing. I can't say for sure, but I think the reason many of those American citizens are camping out in the cold is because they know it JUST ISN”T FAIR but nobody is doing anything about it.
Maybe now, as a very surreal Saturday looms over State College, Pennsylvania—the FINAL home game against the newest conference rival—we can quietly discuss why America has become a culture of people who once mocked a brilliant artist like John Denver to his death while hiding Jerry Sandusky's brutal bullying because he could defend against the triple option?
Rhymes and Reasons
by John Denver
So you speak to me of sadness
And the coming of the winter
Fear that is within you now
It seems to never end
And the dreams that have escaped you
And the hope that you've forgotten
You tell me that you need me now
You want to be my friend
And you wonder where we're going
Where's the rhyme and where's the reason
And it's you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Would clear a cloudy day
Like the music of the mountains
And the colours of the rainbow
T
hey're a promise of the future
And a blessing for today
Though the cities start to crumble
And the towers fall around us
The sun is slowly fading
And it's colder than the sea
It is written from the desert
To the mountains they shall lead us
By the hand and by the heart
They will comfort you and me
In their innocence and trusting
They will teach us to be free
For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Would clear a cloudy day
And the song that I am singing
Is a prayer to non believers
Come and stand beside us
We can find a better way
