The national media continues to bloviate about the awfulness of Paterno and Penn State and show clips of a small percentage of the almost 45,000 students rioting. Commenters around the internets boast about how they'd have taken a two-by-four to Sandusky if they'd been in McQueary's place. Our tea bagger Governor and the Board of 1%er Trustees play politics exploiting the tragedy for their own agendas.
And the rest of the Penn Staters, students and alums, pull together to put the focus back where it should have been all along: on the victims. And for that, the community whose children were the prey for this horrible predator are profoundly grateful.
But you won't see these two stories playing over and over and over in the national media.
First, last night over 10,000 students attended a student organized candlelight vigil for the victims that was in the works even before the rioting.
Light shines on tragedy: Candlelight vigil honors victims of sexual abuse
By Chris Rosenblum
Posted: 12:01am on Nov 12, 2011; Modified: 8:22am on Nov 12, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK — Some sat in glass jars, others in plastic cups.
There were candlesticks, tea candles, fat candles, many with paper plates and cups to catch wax. A few were battery-powered.
Held aloft by the thousands, they formed a sea of flickering flames stretching to the back of the Old Main lawn.
And in a moment of silence broken only by 10 bells chiming the hour, the lights spoke straight from the hearts of Penn State students trying to recover from a turbulent week.
.......
Candle-holding students said the vigil represented the true spirit of the university.
“I’m just here because this is what I feel Penn State is really about,” said senior Sasha McCarthy, of Nairobi, Kenya. “It’s about love and caring for others.”
More than 10,000 people responded to a Facebook event site, and judging from the mass of people, it appeared the publicity worked. Co-organizer Kyle Harris, a senior from Northborough, Mass., said the goal of the vigil was to re-focus attention on the victims and to emphasize the good qualities of Penn State students.
“We’re more than a football program,” he said. “We’re not the representation of the actions of a few.”
Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/...
And,
Penn State in crisis roundup: Community responds to events
Five alumni are leading an effort to raise $500,000 by the end of today’s game against Nebraska for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. As of midnight Friday, they’d raised more than $211,000, according to one of the organizers, Jerry Needel.
“It’s a grassroots alumni effort,” Needel said. “As a fan of both of the university and the football program, I just got really frustrated sitting around watching this happen — seeing Penn State’s reputation dragged through mud, watching this happening to the victims — so I wanted do something to help.”
Former Penn State running back Evan Royster and ESPN reporter Erin Andrews have tweeted about it, and the group’s donation page, www.proudtobeapennstater.com, has been featured on national media outlets including CNN and ABC.
Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/...
That's all I can write for now. I want to write a longer diary about the Monster in my Town to look at how the football culture here in State College allowed this to happen, how Sandusky's foundation, Second Mile, allowed him access to all our kids for years and years and yet the AG has said no one there is being charged, and how the code of silence extends far beyond Penn State. But now I need to be with my two boys, my husband who has been covering the story since it broke, and my community. If you pray, then pray for all of us here especially for the victims. And please consider donating to RAINN, either through the Penn State link in the story above or directly. Thank you.
