Penn St. Protests

A 24 year old aerospace engineering student at Penn St. was asked by the New York Times about the riots taking place on campus at Penn St. This is what he had to say....

"Of course we're going to riot. What do they expect when they tell us at ten o'clock that they fired our football coach."

This controversy at Penn St. has really got me speechless right now, but there are two things about this particular comment above that I have to address.

1. "Of course we're going to riot" - Since when is rioting so widely accepted as the appropriate response to inconvenience? All over the country we are now seeing more and more demonstrations of violent temper tantrums over anything and everything.

2. "they fired our football coach" - This is worth rioting over? I recently read the indictment against Jerry Sandusky which stirred up a cocktail of emotions such as pain, sadness, hurt, anger, rage and disbelief. There are eight known victims in this scandal, and Joe Paterno is not one of them. I have no intent to accuse or defend Joe Paterno. I am just shocked that given the recent circumstances, the firing of Paterno was the thing that enraged these students to protest and not first and foremost the abominable accusations against Jerry Sandusky. Have we become so misguided in our perspective of the world around us? Can we please open up our eyes and redirect our attention and sympathies on the actual victims in this controversy - the eight young men who were victims of horrific sexual assault as young children. May appropriate justice be served.

- Terry Evans