Thoughts from the Valley: Perspectives on the Penn State Scandal

I'm a proud Penn State alum (as well as a normal human being), so the scandal rocking Happy Valley has been dragging me through a series of emotions that I'm still trying to come to grips with.

I haven't felt adequate to comment on this catastrophe. Thankfully, others are more equipped than I. So, I've compiled a list of online articles I've enjoyed and found insightful in my own quest to understand this situation and deal with it, for my own soul and sanity. Here goes...

First and foremost, here's a fascinating Biblical perspective on this tragedy by a good friend of mine who has worked at Penn State for more than ten years. 

A Deficiency of Love: what the Bible has to say about obligation, love and the Paterno in all of us.

These two articles by Grantland writer Michael Weinreb helped me process this situation. He's got some great perspective as a Happy Valley native and diehard Penn State fan.
Growing Up Penn State: an initial reaction to what the scandal meant for him as a Penn State devotee.
The Culture of Unrest at Penn State: as PSU students gathered to protest, Weinreb tries to explain the       reasoning behind the rioting.


Here's a blogpost from the most loyal Nittany Lion I know, the Pretentious Filmmaker.
The Penn State Scandal:his time at Penn State and whether his memories will be tarnished forever:


One of my best friends recently posted this reaction on Facebook--
I am so sad for Joe Pa: defending the coach he's come to love and respect.


One more Grantland writer, Charles B. Pierce, encourages us not to look away from the scene of the crime.
The Brutal Truth about Penn State: A problem that can't be prayed or wished away.

I know how my heart works--it wants to move on, to forget, to brush this whole mess aside and pretend it doesn't matter. Instead, I need to lean in to the shame, process through it and come out the other side wiser and stronger, more ready to live the best way possible. Each one of these posts has helped me in the process, and I recommend them all to you.

Thanks for reading!

Our 'Idiot' Brother: How "The Idiot" Should Have Ended

Reason #1 that I love my IPhone: it stops me from looking stupid in front of other people. Walking out of the movie theatre after thoroughly enjoying Our Idiot Brother, I was having a hard time trying to talk intelligently about the movie because I couldn't remember the name of Paul Rudd's character. You know, the one the movie revolves around. He's kind of a big deal.



Turns out, his name's Ned. You could have given me a thousand guesses, and it wouldn't have been enough. And this was in a movie I LIKED! Rudd rocked it, fun story, great acting all around. And I forgot his flipping name. Who does that?!


So thanks to IMDB and my AT&T data package, I can sneak my IPhone out in the car and find out who Rudd played before I have to say something like, "Yeah I LOVED when, uh, what's that guy's name again?" and I've intellectually soiled myself.


I'm a forgetful person in general: this morning I forgot my wallet at home, even though I distinctly remember patting my butt twice to make sure I had it. Apparently I'm just fondling my own rear for fun now. I think I know why I forgot Ned's name, though--I was distracted. Watching Our Idiot Brother was like randomly bumping into an old friend.** A friend whose name I definitely remember: Prince Mishkin. He's the protagonist in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, and the more I watched Ned on screen, the more I was reminded of the Prince. I couldn't get the comparison out of my head--and I'm pretty sure that was the intention.

You're Welcome, Hollywood: 5 Movie Mashups That Need To Happen Immediately

I've been obsessing over mashups ever since Glee started popping them out like the Octomom. I love the idea of fusing two amazing things together to create the Perfect Storm of Awesomeness. It's that kind of innovative thinking that led to the Lasagna Sandwich (exactly what it sounds like), Halloween Trail Mix (Reese's Pieces and Candy corn combined), and Captain Planet (not my idea).


Hollywood's been a bit behind on the technology, so I'm going to do them a solid and give away some must-see movie mashups. Feel free to cherry pick. Just invite me to the premiere!


5. The Rocky Balboa 
  Horror Picture Show
During a spontaneous weekend getaway, TripAdvisor leads Rocky, Pauly and Adrian to an out-of-the-way B&B. Unknowingly given LSD by the owner/operator, Rocky faces his toughest test since the beach scene in Rocky III when Adrian reveals to him a dark secret: Adrian used to be a man's name. But, is it all a dream? To escape this psychotic vacation spot he must fight the owner to the death. The owner's name? Sylvester Stallone. Weird, right?!  

 


4. Phantom of the Opera 2: 
     High School Musical 4
Deep in the underbowels (Boiler Room) of conveniently named Harmony High lurks an outcast freshman sporting an awe-inspiring voice and an equally jarring pimple on his forehead. Otherwise strikingly handsome, he haunts the choir room, teaches a girl to sing, and eventually goes to Junior College.



3. Fast 2 The Future
Brian and Dom are working undercover as car thieves for whatever reason when they stumble upon Doc Brown's Delaurean hidden in a warehouse. Accidentally traveling back to the early 80s, they decide to change the course of their own history by stopping Terreto's Dad from becoming a race car driver. Instead, they convince him to open a neighborhood pizza parlor, but when the mafia steals the Delaurean they must choose between their future and a slightly profitable pizza place.


2. Point Break: Airborne 
        "Skate Or Die!"
Johnny Utah, retired FBI Agent, loves his life as an NFL Analyst. But when he offends the wrong crowd with an derogatory Heelys joke, a gang of unruly skater-types takes his dog, Bohdi, hostage. The FBI won't help; the police are on the take. Johnny has no choice but to go back undercover, this time as a rollerblader, to rescue Bohdi from the hands of some pretty angsty teenagers. But when he falls in love with the devil-may-care lady leader of the pack, he must make the life-or-death choice between skating and surfing.



1. Kindergarten Robocop
Aging officer John Kimble can't accept the fact that he's getting old. Desperate to reclaim his youth, he enlists in a top-secret police experiment to build a new race of super cops--by creating androids! Kimble becomes the first cybernetic organism on the force, and he's better than ever. There's just one problem: he has forgotten how to feel. Facing permanent shutdown by the Chief of Police, Kimble turns to his last hope: a classroom of kindergartners. Once upon a time, children melted his heart --can they do it again, before it is melted down?

        

What I'm Reading: The Green Mile and Twilight

Who Wants To Live Forever?

“…years later, standing in the pouring Alabama rain and looking for a man who wasn’t there in the shadows of an underpass, standing amid the spilled luggage and the ruined dead, I learned a terrible thing: sometimes there is no difference at all between salvation and damnation.”

-Paul Edgecombe, The Green Mile

“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason…and then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire, everything was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone…my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.

I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”

-Edward Cullen, New Moon

(from the Twilight series)

Paul Edgecombe, head prison guard at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary, treads the green-tiled floor of Death Row your average guy. Just a Joe Prison Guard who accidentally peeks behind life’s curtain and sees a reality that, for him, had been the stuff of campfire stories. That reality alters him forever, and gives him a chance to change the world. At least, his humble corner of it.

What you need to know about Paul to understand why he’s lamenting his “salvation” is that some supernatural power from behind that curtain healed him of a disease while he was still on the rich side of the train tracks of middle age. What’s more, the residual effects of the healing kept him incredibly, impossibly young. Paul was blessed with a miraculously long life, the gift that kept on giving.

In fact, it gave until it hurt.

Now, I’m in my thirties, old enough to wish that Life would put on the brakes, a member of the “where does the time go?!” support group. The thought of being healed from disease, protected from sickness and enjoying unnaturally long life seems at first like a dream. It’s only years down the road that those extra years lose their luster.

For vampires, Everlasting Life is one of the curses, not the blessings, of undeath. Just ask the Cullens, the loveable family of bloodsuckers from the Twilight series. Edward, two-hundred-year old teen heartthrob, has been around the block a few thousand times. Frankly, he’s bored. What do vampires with hundreds of years to kill (sorry) do, exactly? Apparently they play baseball, learn the piano, and repeat high school every ten years or so. Not the dream life we’ve all imagined. Vampire or not, high school sucks (again, sorry).

Edward’s SO over it; life for him had become unbearably mundane. And for Paul Edgecombe, it turned damnably cruel. 

What I'm Reading: John Donne and Zombies

"No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; 


if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; 


any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; 


And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. 


And, also, beware of zombies."


--John Donne, Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

What I'm Learning: New Words

I’m always on the hunt for new words. Not enough to use Word Of The Day Toilet Paper, but I’m definitely a word nerd. I even like that it rhymes.

So the other day I’m skimming through my Twitter feed, and I run across a word I’d never heard before. The word was “anisotropic.” Of course, I immediately determined to figure out what it meant and to drop it in the first conversation in which I could reasonably make it fit. It’s what I do. Go ahead, judge me.

What I'm Writing: my Super 8 review

I loved Super 8. So much. Here's why--or actually, here's why I can't explain it.

Super 8 Review on pretentiousfilmmaker.com

What I’m Watching: Kung-Fu Panda 2 and Sherlock Holmes

The BBC’s got a great new iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the form of an hour-and-a-half TV show. That’s 90 minutes WITHOUT commercials. Basically they’re making Sherlock movies, and they’re good. The creators are definitely fans of the famous detective—in three episodes they’ve drawn heavily on the original canon. It’s worth watching, and you can find it on Netflix.

 

One of my favorite bits of Sherlockian lore is Holmes’ infamous ignorance. He refuses to learn facts about life that he deems useless. Dr Watson discovers that Holmes doesn’t even know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and when enlightened, doesn't much care. “How can that information help me to solve crimes?” He demands of Watson. To him, it’s info not worth knowing. He determines to forget it.

In Kung Fu Panda 2, Po (Jack Black’s Panda character) finds himself in need of some information he’d previously thought of as irrelevant: where he came from.

What I'm Writing: "On Stranger Tides" Review

I'm a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, even though Pirates 2: Dead Man's Chest was ludicrous! But if you know me, you know that I like ludicrous. And Ludacris, for that matter. Ludii. lol!

So if you're wondering how the newest Pirates installment stacks up against its predecessors, you can check out my review here. Open wide and say "Arrrgh!"

Was that arrrgh line dumb? Sometimes I can't tell. You can let me know. I won't be offended :-).

What I’m Watching: Thor, LeBron, and the story behind the story

This summer is shaping up to be one of the greatest movie summers I’ve ever experienced.

This year’s NBA playoffs are the most exciting and intriguing since I can remember.

In both cases, it’s the story behind the story that’s pulling me in.

What I'm Thinking: Caprice/Son?

Get it?! I know the title’s lame, and this has nothing to do with the drink, but the idea’s been in my head for a whole day now and it’s not going away. So bear with the cheesy wordplay, okay? Okay.

Last night I went to see Brian Regan with my girlfriend. I had gotten the tickets late and there weren’t any seats together. The best I could do was one seat directly behind the other. It was thirty-five bucks each, a great deal, so I figured it would be okay that we didn’t sit together. Turns out the lady wasn’t as thrilled about separate seats.

So I told her I’d try and get someone to switch with me. On the way to Brian Regan, I prayed and asked God to let me sit together with her (and I brought along a bribe). Long story short, it didn’t work out. We were surrounded by lovely couples who didn’t want to switch. Prayer not answered.

Why was it that God didn’t answer that prayer? I mean, yeah, it wasn’t very important. But I’ve never seen a rulebook anywhere that says what you can pray for and what you can’t. It couldn’t have been that difficult—a 24-hour flu bug here, a flat tire there. Why is it that God didn’t want to answer my prayer? Did I fall victim to God’s caprice?

What I'm Watching: Fast Five

Here's some insight into who I am as a person: I LOOOOVE the Fast and Furious movie series. And 2 Fast 2 Furious ranks in my top five favorite movies. I know it's silly, stupid even, but I love it! I love a movie that doesn't take itself seriously, that you can laugh AT as much as WITH, complete with actors that are trying really hard to be cool--in this case it's Paul Walker, a poor man's Keanu Reeves. 

This is why I love Point Break so much--it's the king of the over-the-top, over-acted, silly movies that actually suck you in. If you ask me (and even if you don't) I will gush about Point Break until you slap me. I'll do the same with 2 Fast.

With that said, here's a link to my review for Fast Five, posted on my friend The Pretentious Filmmaker's website. Enjoy! And definitely go see it. It's everything I dared hope it would be.

What I'm Reading: World War Z

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by World War Z, Max Brooks’ Zombie-Apocalyptic classic. What’s been most surprising is the depth of insight into various themes that relate to my life. I expected a good read, but I wasn’t prepared to be personally challenged by Zombie fiction. Here’s an example of a passage that struck home:

“They showed us the meaning of democracy…freedom, not just in vague, abstract terms, but on a very real, individually human level.  Freedom isn’t just something you have for the sake of having, you have to want something else first and then want the freedom to fight for it. … They all had such grand dreams, and they’d lay down their lives for the freedom to make those dreams come true.”

I love the idea that freedom begins with a Grand Dream, a dream so strong and all-consuming that the dreamer will stop at nothing to see it realized, a dream so grandiose that it’s worth dying for. I don’t think I dream like that.

What I'm Writing: Scream 4 Review

Hey, so sometimes I write movie reviews for my friend's blog. Here's my review of Scream 4.
Hope you're doing great! I'm doing well, thanks! A bit tired, but I'm at home and my Mom and Dad bought me the best off-brand diet soda ever...Kroger's Diet Drop Red.  It's insanely delicious. 

Turn Up The Lights

It's been awhile since a rap song just blew me away.  In the past few years, mainstream hip-hop's been little more than a bragging contest. Houses, bank accounts, cars, women, even clocks--how many you got, how much they cost.  It makes for your typical song: fun, silly, catchy, and ultimately forgettable.

It's true, though, that art mimics life, and most of our lives reflect those underwhelming rap songs.  Our own lives revolve around what we can get and who we can get with, about how much and how fast. That kind of life is fun, for sure.  And, just like most modern rap, insignificant and forgettable.
Usually, music fights against the forgettable, against the mundane, shocking us out of our grabbing and grasping to point us to something better, more important, more worthy. Enter All of the Lights.

Credit Where it's Due

I'm pretty cynical of today's businesses, especially cell phone companies.  I complain about them all the time--the contracts, the cost of phones, service, you name it.  Mostly I see cell phone companies, and most US companies in general, as the enemy.  I have to fight to avoid getting screwed.

But AT&T just blew my mind.  Here's what happened:

I'm an AT&T subscriber, having been lured by the IPhone.  A few weeks ago, I committed the ultimate IPhone sin by accidentally dipping my phone in the Gulf of Mexico.  Needless to say, it freaked out.  It's currently chilling in a bag of rice, the chicken soup for a soaked IPhone.  While my baby healed, I had to get a beater phone to survive.  I got the cheapest one I could find, a little $20 guy that looked and felt like it was from 1999. No camera, no touchscreen...cellular hell.

So that's the backstory.  Since I was on this tiny phone for awhile without my usual array of ways to communicate with my friends (Facebook, Words With Friends, Skype) I was texting up a storm.  About two weeks into my new phone experience, I got a message from AT&T at 1am saying that I had gone "significantly over" my text message allowance, to the tune of $50 and counting.  I thought it had to be a mistake--I had 1500 texts--but I was freaked out, because I'd racked up some serious overages before. So the next day I check online, and sure enough I was a thousand texts over with a few days to go in the month!

I totally freaked out.  I went to change my plan, thinking that I was screwed for this month, but in a move of pure grace, AT&T lets you back-date your rate plan changes!  I couldn't believe it--I could change my plan to Unlimited Texting for $5 more and avoid the $50 I'd stupidly racked up.  It sounded so above-and-beyond that (after i changed my plan) I called AT&T to see if it was really true.  It was!
So AT&T not only lets me change my plan if I went over for that month (which takes money right out of their wallet) but LETS ME KNOW when I need to do it!  It's an unbelievably gracious move!
AT&T didn't treat me like a customer; they treated me like a buddy.

So, no more complaining for me about the evil cell phone companies!  Way to go, AT&T.  You rock.  

Zach Morris and the Irrelevance of Absolutism

I love all-night road trips and the Diet Dew-filled craziness they entail! I forget what brought Saved By The Bell to mind on my last journey, but once it popped in it stuck, thumping and churning like an old washer/dryer. 

Something that struck me anew after all this time was Zach Morris’s amazing super power—the ability to stop time with his infamous “Time-Out.” 

It was the Deus Ex Machina of afternoon TV. Whenever Zach got into a pickle he couldn’t grin his way out of, he’d turn to the camera like he was coach of the universe itself and yell “Time-out.”  The world would grind to a halt and he’d be able to think things over, rearrange what he needed to, and right his world—literally without missing a beat.  Why he didn’t use it more often, we’ll never know.  

What’s more, he used his incredible power for mostly benign, uninspiring feats—dodging a punch, skipping detention.  For a demi-god, he really shot low.  Sounds like a high-school dude to me. For years I’ve obsessed over the idea of absolute truth—proving its existence, using that proof as a hammer to pound home the reality of God—before coming to the conclusion that it’s impossible for me to prove that absolute truth exists, because I’m not absolute myself.  I’ve been around for  roughly .000001% of history.  My knowledge and experience is the proverbial raindrop in the ocean.  I’m also a prisoner of circumstance and time, powerless to press pause or change the view.  What can I ABSOLUTELY state about the universe? 

While I lamented my inability to declare any truth to be absolute, SBTB reminded me that it doesn’t matter, because I’m not Zach Morris.  Zach had the ability to slip out of the rushing stream of time and take a view from the bank.  The rest of us shmucks have to ride the paddle-less, rudderless tube-ride of life without a time-out.

Whether or not truth is absolute, we have to deal with it. Gravity may not be absolute truth, but it still affects you.  The same’s true for bus schedules, unit conversion, flu vaccines. Even lowly old relative truth can still ruin your day.

So, what do we do?  Actually, you’ve been doing it since you were old enough to make choices: you play the odds.  We do this without thinking most of the time—we treat life as a gambler’s game, and honestly we’ve gotten pretty good at it.  How many times have you looked at a wall and thought, “I might be able to walk through that thing today!”  It’s kind of a “duh” principle, but you catch my drift.  

The choices we make are wagers.  We’re betting things will turn out the way we want, based on what we’ve learned about life so far.

The one area of our lives that seems to rate exception is the spiritual.  We pretend that the same gambling principles of risk and reward don’t apply in that realm.  Instead, we can use the idea of relativity like a talisman, warding off the curse of having to choose a path.  The problem remains, though, that truth you don’t acknowledge still hurts (or helps) you.  The idea of spiritual truth being relative doesn’t excuse us from the consequences of our choice (or lack thereof).

Don’t get lulled into believing that you needn’t make a wise decision about spirituality.  It’s time to play the odds. Unless you’re Zack Morris.  In that case, better have that Time-Out handy.