Happy Valley (2014)

 I probably said all this before, but it's been a few years if I have.

There was the president of an east coast university who resigned in disgrace after being arrested for making obscene phone calls from his office. He kept calling a woman who advertised her services as a babysitter, so a wealthy university president targeted a woman without a permanent job. But students at the university rallied for him to stay. Just because he was an obscene phone caller, it didn't mean he shouldn't continue at his job. It's not like he was a flasher.

There was kind of an extreme case near here. A high school teacher working in a small town came up with an elaborate plan to murder his wife's boyfriend. He showed up at the guy's door but the victim easily fought him off. The teacher fled leaving behind his backpack full of murder supplies and a to-do list. He was suspended from his job while awaiting trial. The students circulated a petition calling for him to be allowed to teach. They had taken their civics lessons to heart. He hadn't been convicted. Who knows, maybe he DIDN'T do it!

 

I myself have seen anarchist university students launch a wave of vandalism and protest in defense of the university president who seemed like kind of a jerk. He was rude to members of the student government and groveled at the feet of a billionaire because he donated money to the university. He was fired by the state board of higher education. There was nothing to recommend this guy to any anarchist. I can't imagine Communists acting like this.

So, I don't know. Maybe the idiocy of sports fandom wasn't entirely to blame for the Penn State riots. No one working in any educational setting should be flattered when their students come to their defense. 

I was wide awake in the middle of the night. I thought I could turn on the TV and put myself to sleep. I turned on the HBO movie Paterno, but realized it wasn't going to be about a money-grubbing football coach covering up child molestation so as not to jeopardize his multi-million dollar income. So I turned on this documentary instead. Happy Valley. 

Turned out I had seen it before. It didn't focus on the riots. It didn't show violent drunks shouting their love for "Joe Pa", but it did show some belligerent adults. They had made a pilgrimage to Penn State to take pictures of themselves with a statue of "Joe Pa". They were outraged that a pensioner who was anti-child molestation stood with a sign protesting its presence. They shout abuse at him. A woman tries to shove him aside then her cretinous husband lumbers over and threatens him for attacking his wife. A really dumb-looking one stomps over like he's going to attack him then tears up his sign in a fit of rage.

The movie focuses on Sandusky's adopted son. He was ten years old when Sandusky got a court order taking him away from his mother who fought to keep him. A court ordered him to move in with the child molester. He was separated from his family, then, years later, when he reported that he was molested, the ghastly Sandusky clan shunned him.