Al Pacino, Barry Levinson, Joe Paterno

If I had children I wouldn't leave them alone with anyone from Penn State.

Long ago, I was looking at a book on screenwriting. It argued that, in film, characters had to have a clear, objective motive for their actions. Psychological reasons weren't enough.

For example, if you were making a movie about disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, his motive for covering up Jerry Sandusky's sex crimes against children would be to keep the money rolling in. Paterno made millions every year, not just in salary from the university but from endorsements, apparel contracts, a share of TV and radio revenue and fees for his own media appearances.

This new made-for-HBO movie should start with a scene of Paterno about to sign a contract for a big endorsement deal. He asks his lawyer about something in the contract.

"Oh, that's just the morals clause," the lawyer explains. "The contract will be canceled if there's any scandal involving, for example, the rape of a child."

Melody J. Miller

I read an article in Variety about the made-for-HBO movie about Paterno. Barry Levinson directed, starring Al Pacino as callous, money-grubbing Paterno. I was pleasantly surprised that they hadn't been flooded with comments from simian sports fans moronically defending "Joe Pa".  I checked back later and there was a long comment written by someone calling herself Melody J. Miller.

I suppose there's more than one Melody J. Miller in the world, but according to melodyjmiller.com, she was a senior aid to Ted Kennedy and was a spokesman for the Kennedy clan, served on some committee at Penn State with Paterno that named their library after him, and now she's posting crap on the internet defending that degenerate.

She wrote in her comment:

...Joe was an old world Italian Catholic whom other men did not tell dirty jokes. He didn’t want to hear that kind of stuff and would throw up his hands in protest and walk away. So when he was told in a less then specific and halting way that Sandusky had been heard doing something with a boy in the locker room shower, he didn’t really understand exactly what he was being told, but reported it up the line to the Athletic Director as the rules dictated. It was only after he had been fired and was sitting in his living room reading the indictment that he turned and asked his sons “What does sodomy mean?”

This was after Miller gushed over Paterno urging football players to "get a good education".

Paterno himself said in an interview that he didn't understand what they were telling him about Sandusky because he didn't know you could rape a boy. He was a Catholic. He must have been aware of the massive sex abuse scandal in the church. What did that idiot think they were talking about?

Looking at other scandals at universities over the years, it's incredible how servile college students are. Students at one school staged a huge demonstration in support of their university president when he was arrested for making obscene phone calls from his office. They begged him not to resign. He had phoned a woman who advertised her services as a babysitter and told her had preschoolers locked in cages in his basement. He said he only let them out of their cages for to have sex with them.

So, in a way, Penn State students rioting in Paterno's defense didn't seem that surprising. Like maybe it wasn't necessarily because they were degenerate scum who thought a few impoverished children being raped was a small price to pay for football. But then you see Penn State alumni like Melody J Miller who have no right to be so stupid defending "Joe Pa".

I watched a YouTube video of a radio talk show host talking to a girl from Penn State who worked on the college radio station. She defended "Joe Pa" because he did so much for the university. The talk show host was aghast, told her we wasn't suited to work in radio being so stupid and suggested she talk to her parents about it.

"My parents agree with me," she said.

Then her parents are stupid, too, he observed.