caroljane

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a young website in possession of a good traffic, must be in want of a Coates."

Sorry for the Canadian Smugness moment, but why? why? What is it with Americans that sexual behaviour is such a dealbreaker politically? Politicians are usually male, usually oversexed and feel overentitled anyway, everybody knows that. If I thought Jack Layton was a groper I probably would have voted for him anyway. Of course we all want our leaders to be normal (straight-normal or gay-normal, with no illegal or disgusting proclivities). But how, exactly, does the whole sexual history of a person affect their ability to make good political decisions? That said, in some photos poor Cain does remind me of Clarence Thomas. One of our greatest Prime Ministers had had multiple and serial hetero affairs, with lots of gay rumours thrown in,, and everybody knew it when he was elected, a bachelor at the time in his late 40s.

Which is the argument of all people who's values are rejected: That if I can't have your values, I can have none? Of course you know the matter I called trivial isn't ethics but the story at hand. You chose to ignore that in order to deliver a cheap shot. At least my cheap shots can spell "too" and "whose". The story at hand is not trivial. sex crime sprees, child rape , criminal corporate cronyism and institutional despotism are not trivial.

Which is the argument of all people who's values are rejected: That if I can't have your values, I can have none? Of course you know the matter I called trivial isn't ethics but the story at hand. You chose to ignore that in order to deliver a cheap shot. At least my cheap shots can spell "too" and "whose".

It's interesting that you find ethics trivial. This thread, so far, is basically about the moral obligations of human beings to each other, and the crucial moments of failure in that obligation by individuals whose actions we know of. Shakespeare has dealt with such themes, as have Rand and others. I'm not surprised you call yourself a cynic. You appear to know the value of nothing.

They should forfeit the game and the whole season. That unfortunate team is now just a symbol of evil. Make the cut now, and start over next year.

Parenthetically a lot of our good young hockey players are weighing their options now, free college education in the US or straight to the farm team I hope this helps them make up their minds. If they don't make it to the NHL in a few years, they will still be young enough to go to school and get a real degree. I don't know of any outrages in any of the colleges where hockey is important (maybe there aren't any such colleges) but the NCAA should be weakened as much as possible, now that it's vulnerable.

Can't Joe Pathetic, Mike McCoward etal be prosecuted federally? As "educators" they had a duty to tell outside authority. I wouldn't let those janitors off the hook either. The message needs to be sent. If being more afraid of going to jail than of losing your job is what it takes to make people do the right thing, so be it.

You are so, so right. College should not be a place for a young athlete to train for a career in professional sports in any case (another story again) and as for the NCAA I can't put it better than Cam Cole: "The NCAA is a cancer and college football is its symptom." Carol from the land where the college coaches earn less than the philosophy professors.

Correct Brant. It is being announced that Paterno will retire at the end of this season. I believe that was the plan before this disaster was revealed. However, this hits at such a deep moral level that I think Joe would be wise to retire before Saturday and, for the sake of the current team, defuse this issue. Adam How super to see someone who knows his defuse from his diffuse! In admiration, Philippa

Adam, you & Brant are right on in all your comments. I think JP and everybody who passed the buck in 2002 should be fired for bad moral character, including Mike and his father wherever he works, but that's just me. Somewhere in the dorms at Penn there's a desperately angry boy wondering why, why ' can't people get that the football is separate from all that other sick stuff and the politics, and just let him concentrate on the game? And then he starts to think about why. Part of me empathizes with those players and their families, but mostly I'm glad for them. They are getting more real education from this than they were ever likely to have been offered at dear old Penn.

Mike: Dad, Dad! I just saw Coach Sandusky in the shower doing something real bad to a kid! Dad: Oh, my God. Are you sure, son? Mike: Yes. Dad: Oh, my God. There's a big game coming up...look, you better tell Joe Pa about this. He'll know what to do.

I can understand the support for JP though. He was a face of integrity for the high-profit meat machine that is the NCAA. He was encouraged to keep "coaching" long past his sell-buy date, so that he could break more records by sheer attritiion. Note that the indictments weren't announced until he had passed another milestone. I bet there were strenuous efforts to hold them off until the end of the football season (I suppose the pesky press ruined that one). God help us all.

Thanks for the link, but I don't think I can read it. Not just now anyway. Paterno's conduct in 2002 seems to me more and more contemptible and hypocritcal. As the most powerful and influential person at the university, he passed the buck to his nominal boss who he must have known would start a coverup. He covered himself legally and headed off to sign autographs. By the next game day he had probably forgotten all about that 10 year old boy.

So far it appears that not one person in that whole organization evinced the moral sense of a gnat. When they couldn't avoid knowing about the crimes the guy was committing, they just told him to go and commit them somewhere else. But the police did finally arrest him -- somebody, sometime must have called them. Who, I wonder?

I never heard of Joe Pantero before yesterday. Now that name will be forever linked in my mind with another group I had not read about until recently: the German chaplains who accompanied the Sonderkommando troops. This will be his legacy. In the minds of millions who know him only as the boss and mentor of Sandusky, "Joe Pa" will be known as the man who could have saved Sandusky's future victims from being raped, but fulfilled the letter of the law and did not. The echoes of his declining years should be the terrified screams of children pleading for rescue. But I suppose he will only hear the distant cheers of adoring crowds.

Uh-oh......paging "Dr" Bachmann!.

If they try to paint the walls and put in execise equipment, Mags and the Queen Mum will haunt them. Scary, scary wakings in the night to hear G&T rattling in glasses....

So do I! C'mon in Brant -- bring your own drinking horn.

I thought the better class of Canadians use a straw to drink wine. Or so I have heard. Ghs George, I think you have confused this with the straw man custom, practiced in much of urban Canada, in which the strawman is liberally plied with wine and then ritually burned, emerging as toast. A natural mistake.

I buy most of my clothes from a nearby thrift shop. I hit the jackpot a few weeks ago when I bought a heavy winter coat, in like-new condition, for $20. It is an Abercrombie and Fitch. I figured the coat sells for around $250 new, but when I went to the Abercrombie and Fitch website I learned that the exact same coat sells for $700. I don't pay anything for my ideas, however. I have a bottomless well of those, and they don't cost a cent. Ghs But I guess the theme of IP is, they don't pay a cent either.

I assume you were addressing Jonathan and not myself, since if any indecorous repetitions occurred they would naturally be the fault of the gentleman. Amongst the better class of society in Canada it is acceptable for respectable widows to sip beer from a wineglass, I have heard. I

Well, it is November and the playoffs might never approach closer for TO, so it behooves the Nation to make maple syrup while the sap is running and the Leafs are at the top of the tree. The Jets are back. No words. Mark Chipman will someday join Tommy Douglas as an alltime Canadian hero. Does anybody else read Down Goes Bown (Sean McIndoe)? He is brilliant. I especially like his fantasy scenes, like when Shanahan was interviewing for the Discipline job, or when Bettman held the Halloween party inviting all the NHL players. He usually features Christ Pronger -- outside the office door, revving up a chainsaw, or out in the parking lot with a crowbar. I would like to provide links but you know my disability, so I'll probably just plagiarize him. Heart with the Habs and the Saint John Seadogs, CJ

Upon consideration the Committee have decided to give Phd.Doctoral Knickers in a Twist the runnerup award. See how easy it is people? Just have your credit card handy...

Throne Speech makes me think of a good alternate for "Philosophy in Action". It ought to be "Bowels in Action". Or Bowels in an Uproar? Knickers in a Twist? --I like it!