Penn State

I've never cared about football at all, so the name Joe Paterno has never entered my consciousness until the last couple days.

As a parent human being, I am sickened, and appalled, at how many people failed to make sure that what they saw was reported to police. If you can't advocate for a child, then who will you stand up and fight for? That kid is somebody's child, nephew, grandkid, and he/she is a person that can't fight for themselves that will have to live with the abuse for the rest of their lives. How can anyone turn their cheek?

Why are students rioting at Paterno's firing? I don't know his history as a coach, apparently he was legendary. Guess what people, you got played. He may have been an effective, even amazing coach, but he's turned out to be a world class loser as a human being. And yes, his actions should overshadow anything great he may have done as a coach.

This whole situation brings up a point that we all need to be sensitive too. We might as well learn something from this right? How many times have we turned the other cheek, or not said something when we saw someone being mistreated? Hopefully none of us would find ourselves in the position of reporting child abuse (and if we are, you need to not just see and report, you need to intervene immediately). I think we have all found ourselves in much less serious situations - someone speaking poorly to a cashier, a parent dragging their child by the arm a little too roughly, a man verbally abusing a woman in public.

Do you say something? Or do you walk away? Where is the line? How badly does the injustice have to be before you will intervene? How many times do we say "it's not my problem" before we become desensitized to the actions of people around us?

What would it mean to the victims of these scenarios if just one person would step up and do the right thing?