joe paterno is dead ...

a giant has died.

there is cause for genuine lamentation at his death, for who and what he was, and part of it is regret for the shameless way the midgets who were afraid of him in the height of his stature rushed in in an unseemly riot to kick and pummel him when he was down.

i am nearly 64 years old, and i have never seen such smallness in men, in any venue, my entire life.  i suppose the closest i have ever come is seeing baby monkeys at the zoo tugging at an aged infirm monkey, no longer able to defend himself.  well, what can you count on from baby monkeys and humans, except, i would suppose, a higher standard of conduct from the monkeys.

gulliver, bound by the lines of the lilliputians.  snide, insinuating, vicious little lilliputians.  little swarming piranhas. not much of a fish, all by itself, but formidable in a swarm. 

i mourn paterno's passing.  he was a good man in ways his detractors cannot even begin to sense, let alone comprehend.

let me put it this way.  if all of paterno's detractors, critics, those who savaged a reputation built over 5 or 6 generations, the most vehement of whom came late to the show barely having time to check their coats before haranguing the mob assembled, were all gathered on a train, and were they all killed in a train wreck, i would not regard the sum total of the loss worth lamenting, or even worth passing mention.  it would be a matter of good riddance to rubbish, and entirely of no significance.  (here's to the espn crew, the craven bastards.)

the likes of a joe paterno, however, seldom come our way.  he read latin the way you or i read english, did you know that?

he belonged with the romans.  not with the mob.  (yes, i am aware that in some sense that phrase is pregnant w/ irony, but, in the main, the romans were pretty damned noble, and for a long time.) i pity him for having to experience this age, having to experience us, what we have become.

he goes to a better place.

john jay @ 01.22.2011

p.s.  an index of articles on the joe paterno lynching.  http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2011/11/the-joe-paterno-hysteria-continues-espns-gene-wojciechowski-proves-that-he-too-is-an-idiot-.html .  there is a new annex being built in hell for the espn crowd, and i hope they thoroughly join it when they go.  they will deserve every second of torment.

Comments

[Brock Townsend]

http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2012/01/legacy-that-will-not-die.html