My wife had a similar thing going with "Seven Nation Army."
Castock might want to become a parent one of these days.
So Paul Revere is a song, I take it, that people know by heart.
I have actually learned quite a bit about the War of 1812 in the last couple of weeks. A song was only tangentially involved.
3: Maybe. Though apparently I'm also fine with short periods of exposure to other people's kids.
I learned recently about the War of 1812 that Americans (or at least American documentary makers) still think of it as a win. Which is a trifle sad.
Though apparently I'm also fine with short periods of exposure to other people's kids.
Most people are, but some require antihistamines to avoid a reaction.
How did you explain the wiffle ball bat?
I learned recently about the War of 1812 that Americans (or at least American documentary makers) still think of it as a win.
Wait, you only learned this recently?! It's like you've never really listened to the lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner...
It's very martial compared to "Oh, Canada?"
The "Star-Stangled Banner" basically says, "Holy shit, that was a lot of explosions. Do we have to go back to being British colonies now? We don't? Sweet."
I think the Star Spangled Banner has other verses. Maybe they go into more detail about the explosions.
Or the delusions.
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave
11: Well, in fairness, the portion of the Star-Spangled Banner that everyone knows is just about cool explosions, winning a battle and digging on a kickass flag. I was always under the impression that most people who sing it may don't necessarily even know it relates to the War of 1812, let alone what its later verses say (I didn't know until recently that its last verse was the inspiration for the motto "In God We Trust," for instance).
It's very martial compared to "Oh, Canada?"
Both anthems are martial, of course (as national anthems tend to be).
But "O Canada" strikes me as basically defensive ("we stand on guard for thee") in its military tactics, possibly passive-aggressive, and indicative of a fortress mentality; whereas "The Star Spangled Banner" strikes a decidedly triumphalist note ("Then conquer we must, when our cause is just...And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!").
17: whereas "The Star Spangled Banner" strikes a decidedly triumphalist note
Which is rather ironic, given the actual circumstances of that conflict.
Which is rather ironic, given the actual circumstances of that conflict.
Look, Lord C: obviously "the Brits," or some provinces of British North America, or some Scottish Highlanders of the Black Watch regiment, perhaps, won that conflict, no question, or there wouldn't even be a country now called 'Canada.' But a plurality of Americans seem heavily invested in the notion that "we've never lost a war, because 'in God we trust,' and God is always on our side;" and is it really worth the aggravation to counter that notion?
I was at a thing today, a thing that was run entirely by the federal government, and someone sang the Star-Spangled Banner and forgot some of the words early on and mumbled through them. Cringe.
Note that the Star-Spangled Banner was actually written while the war was still going on, so its lyrics aren't really evidence for any judgment of who ultimately won.
Anyway, the important point is that while many Americans do indeed think that the US won the War of 1812, most Americans don't really think about it very much at all. The bicentennial hasn't really been a thing in American public life, even though it's one of the most obvious possible events to notice an important anniversary of.
7
I learned recently about the War of 1812 that Americans (or at least American documentary makers) still think of it as a win. Which is a trifle sad.
It's just as well. Otherwise we would be looking for revenge.
Harper's government has spent something like $28 million on War of 1812 commemoration. While cutting millions in funding for heritage organizations. Don't get me wrong, I think deficit spending is fine - spend more on heritage!
The Canadian's I know seem to think that the war of 1812 was between the US and Canada (with Britain being largely irrelevant), and that Canada won decisively.
I doubt most Americans know that there was a War of 1812, or even necessarily that the years go back as far as 1812.
The argument that the war was an American win is that a) it was stupid, b) in a just world it would have ended with the US reconquered by the British, but c) it didn't. Yay, us!
When I was in high school, my dad took me to the Cincinnati Opera and (at least at the first opera of the season) they would play the Star Spangled Banner before things got rolling, and so you'd have 3,500 Eileens-Farrell-manquees* going for the unwritten high note and it was sort of fun. But so I was 17 and apparently brimming with petty rebellion and would remain seated while everyone stood, and my dad thought this was just the best thing ever. So now, as a little tribute (he's still among us, but I dunno, it's a little gesture of fondness I sometimes don't express so well directly, in his presence), though I actually feel a tiny bit awkward about it as an adult who can't quite find a terribly important anti-authoritarian gesture in it, I continue, at opening night of the opera, to sit in stony silence as everyone rises to belt the national anthem.
*I dunno, she came to mind as a particularly American soprano with lungs of steel.
Love it. Appreciate these moments now heebie, she'll act appalled in 10 years' time. (But be secretly impressed and tell her friends.) Did you do different voices at the appropriate parts?
We never had a tradition of actually singing the national anthem, although "God Save the [insert appropriate monarchical title here]" is a much easier tune that "The Star Spangled Banana". It was and still is, though rarely, played by the band, or on a tape if there wasn't a band. If it was done at the start of the show, you stood silently to attention, while surreptitiously patting yourself down to make sure you could remember what pocket you tissues, snacks, etc. were in once the lights were dimmed; more commonly it came at the end, and there was a convention that it was introduced by a five second drum roll and if you could get to the back of the house before the tune started you were home free and could get out. So there would be a god almighty scrimmage with old ladies and disabled people thrown to the floor as everyone dived for the exits faster than if the fire alarm had gone off.
Happy days. I think they only bother for super posh events any more.
I wish heebie had recorded the words of the song about piano players.
19: is it really worth the aggravation to counter that notion?
Well, maybe if we got to torch the White House again. Admittedly that's not looking good.
Now that you mention it, though, it does occur to me that the sense of inbuilt Providence that has powered American military adventurism to the point of ruination does indeed originate with 1812.
27: Canada wasn't separate from Britain at the time, and Canucks are perfectly willing to blur that distinction now and again for the sake of a good story.
The belief that Britain/Canada won decisively is real, though, and to be fair is not entirely unfounded, what with America failing to achieve any of its war aims and being reduced to spinning its supposed mere survival as a still-independent country as "victory", or to counterfactuals about how if it weren't for the Battle of New Orleans, the British would totally have created an independent Native buffer state in the Midwest (because that was a Totally Sirius Plan You Guize). It's not a correct belief, I don't think, but as pop history goes it's not crazy.
But a plurality of Americans seem heavily invested in the notion that "we've never lost a war, because 'in God we trust,' and God is always on our side;"
Otto: "We did not lose Vietnam! Vietnam was a tie!"
And a massive yes to 32.
if you could get to the back of the house before the tune started you were home free and could get out. So there would be a god almighty scrimmage with old ladies and disabled people thrown to the floor as everyone dived for the exits faster than if the fire alarm had gone off.
Ray Bradbury, "The Anthem Sprinters".
I doubt most Americans know that there was a War of 1812
Agreed, and a decent-sized chunk who do know there was a War of 1812 couldn't tell you anything more about it than what year it started.
It is one of the two Memorable Dates in US history, but scholars are divided as to whether it was a Good Thing. (Surely someone must have had a go at "1776 and All That"?)
scholars are divided as to whether it was a Good Thing
"A short, offhand killing affair" is already taken for another war.
29 I used to do the same thing in high school. I used to get some real ugly looks when I sat through it at ball games when I was an adolescent but that just made me more determined. And surly. And smug. I don't go to ball games anymore but given the uglier nationalist tone to these things post 9/11 I suppose I'd just stand and whisper my allegiances to Seitan. Or something.
22, 23: That book is on my endtable! (Don't worry, Canadians, I also have all those books by Pierre Berton with the lurid, embossed covers.)
19
But a plurality of Americans seem heavily invested in the notion that "we've never lost a war, because 'in God we trust,' and God is always on our side;" and is it really worth the aggravation to counter that notion?
I didn't care about the War of 1812 until you put it like that, and now that you mention it, yeah, it probably is.
27
The Canadian's I know seem to think that the war of 1812 was between the US and Canada (with Britain being largely irrelevant), and that Canada won decisively.
Same here. A Canadian friend of mine sent out a list of reasons why Canada was great, and every other reason was "invaded America and burned Washington, DC to the ground." That was back when you could still joke about that kind of thing, of course.
I continue, at opening night of the opera, to sit in stony silence as everyone rises to belt the national anthem.
And everyone around you is thinking, Huh, a real live Jehovah's Witness at the opera!
Did you update the lyrics the way MCA did in later life, from
The sheriff's after me
for what I did to his daughter
I did it like this
I did it like that
I did it with a wiffle ball bat
to
The sheriff's after me
for what I did with his daughter
We did it like this
We did it like that
We did it with a wiffle ball bat
?
If it was done at the start of the show, you stood silently to attention
33: it does occur to me that the sense of inbuilt Providence that has powered American military adventurism to the point of ruination does indeed originate with 1812.
I might argue that the First Barbary War helped set the tone. Including the heroic burning of our own ship (not that it wasn't in fact heroic, but still ...).
43: I hadn't known that update! That's a definite improvement.
Last time you heard my voice you claimed it was obnxious
Your foot started tappin' it was in your subconscious
I know it's hard to believe a million sold
Every time I start bustin' you lose control
My verbal correlation is a little outrageous
Like the Plague, my rap is contagious
Causin' much grief, no sympathy for pain
Hard beats and fresh lyrics is what I obtain
You could take this brand new style of hip-hop
Could put it at the bottom it would reach the top
Because the rhyme is so def you stand in amazement
Time's up, I got another engagement
Rhyme's never empty, I keep them replenished
The crowd skeezer teaser, until they're finished
Smoke from the cut, you better put on your glasses
As I begin to knock you all on your asses
And ashes to ashes, and dust to dust
Like on the back of the dollar says "In God We Trust"
The smoke-filled room make the suckers perspire
Don't get close, this cut is on fire
Did everybody know what heebie was talking about? Am I the only that had to google to figure out that Paul Revere is a Beastie Boys song? Should I not have admitted to ths?
Then she sang a bunch of jumbled up rhythmic nonsense involving punching piano players in the face
Is she so precociously hipster that she already hates Billy Joel?
48: Well, you and parsimon, apparently.
Admittedly, if you are not a big Beastie fan, or were the wrong age bracket to get into Licensed to Ill, it seems forgivable. You ought to know most of the lyrics to Paul's Boutique though.
48. No you're not. The Beastie Boys were part of the cohort that led me to stop listening to pop music altogether. When I read the post my first reaction was that I didn't know anybody had set Longfellow's poem to music; my second reaction was that even if they had, it would be too long to sing twice and hold the attention of a three year old.
So I googled...
48: No, I didn't know that. But the Beastie Boys are like the Beatles for me: I get that it's important music to a lot of people, and that they were innovative and important historically. But it's not my gusty bus.
I do, however, remain open to the idea of performing in an chicken-suit-clad Beastie Boys cover act, where we sing their songs in the manner of chickens (which is how their songs sound to me):
Bock, bocka-bock. Bocka-bocka-bock, BOCK!
Bocka-bock bock. Bocka bock-bock, BOCK!
53.1: also, you're too young.
When MCA died I mentioned it to one of my grad student cohort, and she said "oh, right. I've heard of the Beastie Boys. Uh... how do I know who they are? I think they played them at swim meets when I was really little?"
48: I had no idea either, but not because I was too young.
51.1: I couldn't tell if parsimon didn't know the song at all, or if she was just surprised that heebie knew the words by heart.
51.2: Well, I remember when "Fight for your Right to Party" was a huge hit. I didn't like it -- I was probably too old. I've heard of Paul's Boutique.
53, 55: Thanks!
53.2: You should get my wife and her friend for this band. They are the most awesome chicken-imitators ever!
I loved License to Ill, but in general:
Bock, bocka-bock. Bocka-bocka-bock, BOCK!
Bocka-bock bock. Bocka bock-bock, BOCK!
gets it exactly right. They're not my all-time favorite.
And that is past-tense love for License to Ill. I mean, I don't hate it.
As a teenager I used to attend discos in a vast barn of an hotel in County Monaghan, which attracted a crowd from all over the nearby border area including Dundalk and South Armagh. It was generally considered prudent to assume the position for the national anthem (at ease, not at attention) and to sing if you could. Otherwise someone of a more republican persuasion might take offence.
The lights would come up properly then and "New York, New York" would be played, to which correct etiquette was to form a large arms-around-shoulder high-kicking circle with your friends.
52: Who was in the rest of that cohort? Here are the top 20 songs of 1986:
1. "That's What Friends Are For".....Dionne & Friends
2. "Walk Like An Egyptian".....Bangles
3. "On My Own".....Patti Labelle & Michael McDonald
4. "The Way It Is".....Bruce Hornsby & The Range
5. "You Give Love A Bad Name".....Bon Jovi
6. "Greatest Love Of All".....Whitney Houston
7. "There'll Be Sad Songs".....Billy Ocean
8. "How Will I Know".....Whitney Houston
9. "Kyrie".....Mr. Mister
10. "Kiss".....Prince & The Revolution
11. "The Next Time I Fall".....Peter Cetera & Amy Grant
12. "Burning Heart".....Survivor
13. "Stuck With You".....Huey Lewis & The News
14. "When I Think Of You".....Janet Jackson
15. "Rock Me Amadeus".....Falco
16. "West End Girls".....Pet Shop Boys
17. "Sledgehammer".....Peter Gabriel
18. "Human".....Human League
19. "Sara".....Starship
20. "Higher Love".....Steve Winwood
Of those, I could see the Bangles, Prince and Pet Shop Boys forming some kind of a grouping (though still pretty heterogeneous, stylistically), with Bon Jovi and Whitney Houston as outliers. To the extent that the UK singles differ, I'd say there's even less commonality with the Beastie Boys. Interesting to see, in both lists, how little hip-hop* made it in at that point.
*Licensed to Ill being somewhat marginal hip-hop, admittedly.
I think the 1986 UK singles that pushed chris y over the edge were "Rock Me Amadeus" and Mel & Kim's "Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend)".
I also had no idea what heebie was talking about. I'm familiar with a few Beastie Boys songs that were major hits, but I'm definitely too young for them to be a major cultural touchstone for me.
Yankees fans in Ireland? Doesn't seem right.
To the surprise of no one, I'll cop to having had no idea about the OP. Listened to my first BB song very recently, as my distant cousin the ex-gf of the late Boy was reminiscing (she's in the Fight video, and some other things). On the other hand, I know the songs in 61, but this was pretty much at the end, for 10 years at least, of my listening to pop music. (Had a kid, moved to a metro area with better radio choices, etc).
I got the reference, but I don't think you can grow up in Massachusetts in the 80's and not absorb all the lyrics to Licensed to Ill.
I'm glad they changed the lyrics about the wiffle ball bat. Considering that the Beastie Boys initially wanted the album to be called Don't Be a Faggot it's nice to see that they've matured somewhat. Unlike many, many other rappers, e.g. Eminem who is almost 40 and still rapping about farts and diarrhea.
Yankees fans in Ireland? Doesn't seem right.
I don't think we had any particular sporting associations with the song. Mind you some of the older guys or perhaps the DJ might have spent some time working in NY, it was the era of the Donnelly visa. Some of the songs on that list are giving me further flashbacks.
66: Well, Ad Rock is all partnered up with Kathleen Hanna now, so. But yeah. LtI is not real great on gender. They should have kept Kate Schellenbach around awhile longer.
Eminem who is almost 40 and still rapping about farts and diarrhea
Not everyone outgrows intestinal issues.
61: OMG, that's the complete soundtrack to Knecht Loses His Virginity
FWIW, I found "Fight FYRTP" unbearable at the time (and pretty much still), but I've been surprised at how much decent stuff is on the rest of the record.
And Paul's Boutique is obviously a masterpiece.
Knecht had impressive stamina.
I'm including the entire seduction / persuasion process, which played out over a period of months. The culmination was apparently underwhelming, at least for one of the parties involved.
72: Twenty three minutes pop songs, for someone who is probably about 18? That's not too hard to imagine.
66: They matured immensely and very quickly. That, combined with the elements of musical inventiveness on License to Ill makes me suspect that they were only playing at being immature assholes.
Can someone please, for the love of god*, tell me what "Kyrie" is supposed to be about?
*pun intended
I hated License to Ill when it came out (I didn't really come around on hip hop until 3 Feet High and Rising) and still don't like it. Paul's Boutique has its moments, but Chack Your Head and Ill Communication are at another level.
FWIW, I found "Fight FYRTP" unbearable at the time (and pretty much still)
God yes.
I believe the early Beastie Boys narrative is that they started off as usual UMC New York liberal white kids hardcore guys, with lots of women friends and a general sort of feminist attitude. Then, they met Rick Rubin, got into hip hop, pretended for a few years to be sexist meathead beer swilling assholes. Then they started smoking way too much pot, moved to some house in LA, and created a masterpiece.
80: POPUPS POPUPS POPUPS POPUPS BROWSER CRASH
Thomas Beller (former Beat Brother): No one ever actually said, "Kate, you're out." She went away for the weekend, and Rick bought the other three members matching Adidas sweatsuits, red and black warm-ups, and sneakers. They were at the [Manhattan] club Area dressed up like a trio and Kate bumped into them, kind of by accident. She just started crying, because it was obvious that there was not going to be a woman in a band that's like, going to have an inflatable penis on stage.
I've had the chicken-rapping mental image from 53 stuck in my head the entire day. Stanley, you magnificent bastard.
Then they started smoking way too much pot, moved to some house in LA, and created a masterpiece.
You make it sound so easy.
it was obvious that there was not going to be a woman in a band that's like, going to have an inflatable penis on stage.
And now, in our enlightened age, we have Die Antwoord to show us that a woman can be in a band with a giant inflatable penis on stage.
61: Who was in the rest of that cohort? Here are the top 20 songs of 1986
I recognize only half a dozen or so of those songs, though I've heard of all the artists. The Prince and Peter Gabriel are the only ones on the list I actively listened to in 1986. I was listening at that point to Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, Laurie Anderson, and Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, The Specials/Special AKA ... very little pop radio. I was, embarrassingly or not, pretty much unaware of the Beastie Boys, though I see they toured with Madonna in 1985. A lot of people were beginning to talk about Madonna.
Bock, bocka-bock. Bocka-bocka-bock, BOCK!
Bocka-bock bock. Bocka bock-bock, BOCK!
This is still cracking me up.
19: yeah but which song is it?
35: a decent-sized chunk who do know there was a War of 1812 couldn't tell you anything more about it than what year it started.
So sad, I was among them. For reasons I can't really fathom, my mandatory high school US history class stopped roughly around 1800, after the Revolutionary War. There were elective history courses available: I took the 20th century one, which was chiefly cultural history (so we covered prohibition and the civil rights movement and the Jim Crow era, and the 60s counterculture, but not the world wars or the Vietnam war). I didn't figure out until college that there was a huge lacuna there: the 19th century disappeared. No Civil War. I think there may have been funding cutbacks that eliminated US history 19th and 20th centuries -- certainly the German and Latin language classes were cut -- but otherwise it's a mystery.
I didn't figure out until after college what the word "lacuna" meant.
||
Businesses with a policy of cutting the flaps off their discarded cardboard boxes are odious.
|>
We all have our lacunae, Stanster. I didn't know until last week that the US engaged in this War of 1812 which appears to have been totally stupid. I'm sort of embarrassed for the US.
I didn't know until last week that the US engaged in this War of 1812
wat.
96: What if they cut the flaps off to speed emptying the boxes.
I mean, I know there was a War of 1812, but I really had no idea what it was about. !! Embarrassed.
Even given the hyper-vigilance around sex perverts these days, I bet he'll wait a couple of years and buy a big sentence reduction.
What if they cut the flaps off to speed emptying the boxes.
I was going to say, that's what we did to open the boxes back when I worked at restaurants.
neb wasn't as hard working in his youth as we were.
The 19th century is hard for US schools to teach. The actual history supports a Marxian critique of empire, and that's terribly inconvenient.
Also, if you mentally pronounce Bock, bocka-bock. Bocka-bocka-bock, BOCK! as Bok, boka-bok. Boka-boca-bok, BOK!, then you get hilzoy and H/arvard presidents in there for extra giggles.
He never was Harvard material.
Bock, bocka-bock. Bocka-bocka-bock, BOCK!
Bocka-bock bock. Bocka bock-bock, BOCK!
102: On the other hand, he has also sinned against Football. I actually would not be surprised if he dies in prison.
101: I'm still surprised that it ever got to trial--a minuscule chance of success and his legal team seemed marginally competent at best. But it seems that many of his family and friends remain in a delusional bubble; sixteen people testified as character witnesses including his wife. To me that spectacle only reinforces his potential for continuing to be a threat to society if he were not imprisoned.
If the prosecution wasn't offering anything better than the sentence he could hope to get, what with all those witnesses, then there's no reason not to go to trial, and take an appeal (or 2, in Pa?) if he stays out while they are pending.
Yeah, Superior Court and the SC. A couple of years out is a big deal to a guy that age. And money doesn't seem to be an object, what with all the supporters of Penn State football.
I thought most convicted criminals went to jail while appeals are happening.
Pa.R.Crim.P 521(B)(2) -- Looks discretionary.
Unless the offenses carry life imprisonment.
http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/234/chapter5/s521.html
I know that various convicted people keep asking for release pending appeal, but the last time they granted it to a prominent criminal, the public outcry was huge and the release was very brief. The only way Sandusky gets release pending appeal is some judge decides to quit in the loudest way possible or an actual alien lands in Happy Valley, and after demonstrating obviously superior technology, admits they used mind control on him.
But, delay was obviously their only hope.
Someone on FB is now shrilly insisting on the lifetime jailing of Sandusky's wife Dottie and the elimination of the PSU football program. I would interpret his motives more generously if he, say, sometimes posted about the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals, or anything else involving the exploitation of children, but mostly he just posts about Ohio State.
You have to figure that the prosecution was offering nothing better than what is effectively, for a man his age, a life sentence. And so what's he got to lose even if there's a 5% chance of being free pending appeal (and a 15% chance of acquittal -- to pick a nice low number). When all the choices are bad, and money is no object, you think pretty seriously about the strategies that offer even the slimmest hope.
120: Doesn't he realize he's spending his kids' inheritance.
...but mostly he just posts about Ohio State.
Understandable.
Just wait until we find out that the University of Michigan is actually a Mexican drug gang.
Even given the hyper-vigilance around sex perverts these days, I bet he'll wait a couple of years and buy a big sentence reduction.
Unless you're talking about the appeal process, that seems unlikely what with mandatory minimums for presumably a large number of the 45 charges he was convicted on. (Does anyone know if the minimums carry possibility of parole, or limit parole to after a certain time served?)
I could readily believe that the French national soccer team was a false-front business for some tax evasion scheme, given how they're performing against Spain right now.
Ribery and Malouda aren't playing badly.
No, true enough. Spain is an extraordinary team right now.
From the Guardian liveblog:
"Watching Spain with a lead is like watching a boa constrictor finish off a chicken," opines Richmond Walker. "Tight and inevitable, but not so easy to watch."
129: that's what she said.
It seems like there are just more spaniards on the field than there ought tO be.
It seems like there are just more spaniards on the field than there ought tO be.
I had the same impression and was about to post that.
Oh, that was just miserable. 2-0 at the finish.
I see the commentary that Malouda was shirking on defense. Too bad.
Someone on FB is now shrilly insisting on the lifetime jailing of Sandusky's wife Dottie and the elimination of the PSU football program.
I have no problem with either of those.
135: Of course you don't, darling, but it's not because "your boys" will have an easier time of it come fall.
136: True, that's just fucking asinine and of an imbecilic piece with the thinking that concealed multiple sexual assaults because a pack of twerps thought Joe Paterno was the referenced priest-king in the "Not to Touch the Earth"/"Not to See the Sun" chapters of The Golden Bough. Christ, college sports suck. [Incoherent gibberish produced by bashing fists on keyboard in wrath deleted.]
137: I feel you, bro.
(This same fellow is incandescently irate about ARod's grand slam Lou Gehrig tying record. It shouldn't count! Because . . . ARod!)
He's not a total munghead, btw. A foofy academic in fact.
This stuff about Sandusky's adopted son admitting in the middle of the trial that he was abused adds an even more bizarre twist to the whole thing. Apparently that's the reason the defense decided not to have Sandusky testify.
139: I don't know, that is how I imagine it is when someone that deeply inside the "bubble" finally breaks through the psychological compartmentalization and comes to their senses.
When all the choices are bad, and money is no object
Was money no object, though? It seems to me that Sandusky didn't exactly benefit from the professional expertise of the best lawyer that money can buy (any lawyer who allowed him to give that interview ['it's all been distorted and misunderstood, I just like to play Tickle Monster...'] is already playing on the 'B' team, or perhaps the 'C- to D' team).
I think the bastard is guilty, and may he rot in hell.
141: Maybe, but there's inside the bubble and then there's inside the bubble. Sandusky's wife, for instance, would have had very strong incentives to figure out a way to believe he was innocent and ignore or reinterpret any evidence suggesting otherwise, and I can imagine her hearing the testimony and suddenly realizing that it had to be true and reacting unpredictably to that revelation. (Not saying this is actually what was going on with her; she may well have been aware of everything from the get-go.) Matt, though, if he really had been abused and if Jerry adopted him in order to molest him (which, Jesus fucking Christ, how evil can you get?), would have known Jerry was guilty and that everything anyone in the family, including himself, said claiming otherwise was a lie. Hearing the testimony would for him have been not so much a revelation of what the truth actually was but rather a different sort of epiphany in which he decided he really needed to get on the side that he already knew was right.
143: Matt was adopted as an adult, which suggests to me it was both a reward for not speaking out about the abuse and an incentive never to do so. I'm also guessing that means his parents' rights were not forcibly terminated, so the adoption would also be a wedge to keep him away from them and aligned toward the Sandusky camp.
I know there are stats that say kids are more likely to be abused in foster care than in their birth homes, though I've never looked at the accuracy or details. I do know that in reading a few dozen case histories of kids we were considering adopting, I can't think of any over the age of 8 or so that didn't include abuse or some moral equivalent (like in one case a foster family member opposed to the adoption demonstrably falsely accusing one teen of sexually abusing a child in the home so the teen would have to leave the family) while the child was in care. For the record, these were not all cases from my state and I don't think my state is worse than others in that regard.
143: to get on the side that he already knew was right.
But I suspect "knew" here does not capture the relevant state of mind very well. Compartmentalization and repression of painful memories of even direct experience can be very powerful.