The gods of Sports… By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

November 17, 2011 Whitney Farmer 19 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an M.B.A, and is conflicted about competitive sports.

On Monday, alleged child rapist Jerry Sandusky confirmed how smart it is to invoke the 5^th Amendment. He did this by demonstrating the damage that can be done by doing the opposite. Calling into a Bob Costas interview being conducted with his lawyer Joe Amendola, Sandusky spoke like a protected and successful molester who was accustomed to being victorious when his contenders were impoverished children rather than adults who might not worship football.

When asked directly by Costas whether he was attracted to little boys, Sandusky did an accidental impression of a Twix commercial: He repeated the question slowly (because he ‘needed a moment’ to ponder…what?!?), and then rambled on about all the things he loved about little boys before insisting that he wasn’t into the naughty parts. His attorney Joe Amendola listened confidently, assured that public sentiment would sway in favor of his client. Joe Amendola, who some few years ago, at the age of 49, impregnated an underage girl.

This investigation has been progressing since 2009 when grand jury testimony began. Only last Wednesday – after at least a decade of inaction in the face of damning reports – were legendary coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham B. Spanier fired. Last July, four months before the story broke to the widespread media, Paterno began to shield his personal assets. He sold the family home to his wife for $1.00 in a move that was described as for estate planning purposes despite the absence of any tax benefits in such a move. Mike McQueary who witnessed the incident that led to this investigation, got his great job as assistant coach with Penn State after reporting what he saw.  Rather than being incited to protect and defend the victim of the attack and press the issue, McQueary instead  apparently worked comfortably beside Sandusky for a number of years.

The head of the charity that Sandusky founded that put him in direct contact with victim prospects resigned, stating that he was aware of the allegations but did nothing. The judge before whom Sandusky appeared had worked with his charity. This might have been the reason that bail was set at 1/5^th of what prosecutors requested in addition to an ankle bracelet request being denied. A county prosecutor referred the original criminal complaint to the State’s Attorney General rather than followed it up himself due to “an indirect conflict of interest”. A report surfaced two days ago that the abuse may have expanded into Sandusky arranging sexual liaisons between the victims and powerful allies.

In the midst of the layers of damnation that continue to develop and be leveled against the rings of power that surround and shelter Penn State football, an unexpected thread of inquiry continues to be heard: Should more have been done to protect the child victims? The question is unexpected because the answer is tragically obvious. What acceptable reason could be given that justifies only shifting the opportunities for a child rapist to attack rather than fighting to the death to stop it? Is it the game of football or the money that it generates that lets children be sacrificed without a penalty flag getting thrown?

Child sacrifice is a team sport with a long history presided over by a communal spirit named Moloch. The name can be translated ‘king’ and with origins in the Syro-Phoenician region. Archeologist have found bull-shaped alters, hollow furnaces, with arms stretched out to receive offerings. This was the hateful practice that Jehovah warned the Hebrews against embracing after leaving Egypt and coming into that area. The ritual of offering children to burn in public for a cause followed the Ammonites who became sea-faring Phoenicians as they colonized other lands. Moloch, Molech, Milcom, Melqart, Ba’al-Hammon (from Ammon)of Carthage, Cronus, and Saturn which led to the basis of the minotaur myths…it was all the same public spectacle of making children ‘pass through the fire’ to receive favor for the community while the victims received immortality.

At University of Texas-Austin Longhorn games located in the seat of football idolatry, the owl/bull hand sign of Moloch is thrown by fans with the frequency seen in death metal concerts or occult rituals. Jenna Bush caused startled reactions in Norway when she flashed the Hook ‘Em Horns salute in Norway as did Texans celebrating a win who were arrested in the Vatican for the same. It is done in ignorance and could be ignored as a coincidence, if some of the cultural manifestations didn’t appear to be the same.

Talented athletes graduate without being able to read because their contributions on the field were more important than educational intervention. On Football Sunday, fathers ignore families when teams are winning and scream curses at them when teams are losing.  Faces are turned to televisions during meals rather than to each other. Strong men choose to use performance-enhancing steroids which make them impotent and psychotic, unfit to be fathers and husbands, and become willing eunuchs for the love of the game.  Life-altering sports injuries are dramatically rising in child-athletes who aren’t given the opportunity to benefit from the biomechanically stabilizing physical development which results from being allowed to just play on the playground.  The willingness to put children in peril for family or community glory is the first step that ends in deciding that poor children don’t have the same expectation of being protected if a football coach wants to rape them in a shower.

Perhaps it isn’t glory that causes sport-idolizing communities to demolish their moral foundations. Perhaps it is the financial machine that is linked to capturing the attention of large groups of people who are will to pay money for public spectacles. Sports make big money. In America, it is football. In other countries, it is the football we call soccer or some other coliseum event. Conspiracy theorists point to the owl/Moloch symbol printed on the $1.00 bill as proof that money is the root of all evil. Humanity will make any costly sacrifice to get a buck. But it’s loving the money – not money itself – that infects with that peculiar mixed virus of arrogance, greed and appetite that starts to assign numeric value on everything beyond the bank vaults. How much is the body of a poor child worth?

It is this betrayal done by the Penn State community that is the deeper story. Child molesters are common. Our books of law contain simple prescriptions to deal with the plague. But what do we do with spoiled students who riot FOR the circle of perpetrators? What is the answer to the baffling question of who should you tell when you see a child attacked? What justification can you give to functioning adults when they ask what more could be done when their interventions stopped short of stopping future assaults? How can harboring criminal behavior within a community be justified?

I’ve tailgated, screamed at games, and given and received beer-flavored kisses from former and current athletes. I’ve been a cheerleader. But I don’t care if I ever walk into another stadium ever again while I live. It doesn’t seem like it’s a game anymore.

Quote of the Blog, excerpt from HOWL by Allen Ginsberg:

“What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!

Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!

Children screaming under the stairways!

Boys sobbing in armies!

Old men weeping in parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch…

Moloch the incomprehensible prison!

Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows!

Moloch whose buildings are judgment!

Moloch the vast stone of war!

Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!

Moloch whose blood is running money!

Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!

Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo!

Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! 

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!…

Moloch who entered my soul early!

Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body!

Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!

Moloch who I abandon!

Wake up in Moloch!

Light streaming out of the sky…

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!…”