Source: Paterno in grave condition

[OKNancy]

http://citizensvoice.com/news/source-paterno-in-grave-condition-1.1260837#axzz1k8dFfEK5

Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno is near death, a source confirmed to The Citizens' Voice.

Paterno's wife, Sue, summoned close friends and longtime staff members this afternoon to the State College hospital where Paterno has been undergoing treatments since last weekend.

Paterno wanted to see them and say a final goodbye, Sue told one of the staff members, the source said.

Paterno, diagnosed with cancer days after his Nov. 9 firing, has been weakened by radiation and chemotherapy treatments, a member of his family told the Voice.

[Justice wanted]

1. I'm sorry I know I'm a terrible person for saying this: "So what!?!?" As far as I'm concerned

I honestly believe he knew more than he lead on and I think he should have done more.

[JI7]

11. i wish he had more time away from the game

to think about what happened and maybe realize how wrong he was and how he could and should have done more. and apologized to the kids who were hurt.

[SoapBox]

14. Ditto to your post...nt

[Siwsan]

2. Sometimes the treatment is deadlier than the disease

Especially in the elderly.

[4dsc]

35. Treatment killed my uncle

so I can relate. Chemo is bad news for older people.

[roguevalley]

40. my sweet dad lived through the chemo and died of the follow up radiation

this man isn't escaping from his crimes. he has to face what he did and didn't do on the other side. no one will be a harder critic of what he did and didn't do than he will.

IMHO.

Near death experiencer, here.

[Zoeisright]

50. Treatment SAVED my husband

27 years ago. We could see the cancer shrinking on every scan. And he's healthy now too.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. How sad his life is ending. It isn't easy to see someone you love die like this. I had a brother

who never smoked but died of lung cancer at the age of 39. The treatments just did him in. He couldn't handle it anymore. He was holding on waiting for my sister to tell him it was ok if he was ready to go that they would be alright. It still breaks my heart to this day. I hope his wife can be strong for him.

[DesertRat]

26. I'm sorry about your brother

Lung cancer is a horrible disease.

[southernyankeebelle]

28. Yes it was horrible to watch a strong man finding out about a week before Thanksgiving and by

Easter he was dead. He never smoked. I still can't get over it. He was the baby in our family.

[DesertRat]

29. That must have been horrible

It does seem so unfair when someone that young dies. I've been through it in my own family. You might not get over it, but you will get through it.
Peace to you.

[southernyankeebelle]

30. Thank you for your kindness. I hope your right. It's been 5 yrs and I think about him almost every

day. I'm 64 and I was his oldest sister. I come from a large family. I know none of us thought the baby of the family would go first. But maybe he is in a better place. At least I try and think of it that way. Life goes on. God gave me a beautiful granddaughter so I can't complain to much because she keeps me busy.

[bullwinkle428]

38. I had a co-worker (never smoked) that was 32 when she died of lung cancer

a couple of years ago. She was a college athlete (swimmer) who was in great physical shape, and left behind two young daughters. A tragedy of really unimaginable proportions.

[southernyankeebelle]

39. OMG that is even worse then my brother. At least he had no children. He played football and

racquet ball which he loved so much. The thing was he was so friendly with people especially across the social lines. There were professors, little kindergarden children, lawyers and doctors. He was a simple person. Just had a high school degree and maybe 1 yr of college. His high school buddies fly in from all over the country. Made me proud to know he was well liked. I am so sorry for your friend. The loss for the children is terrible. Hopefully they have memories.

[valerief]

4. Ken Lay dead? nt

[TheDebbieDee]

12. Lol ! Are there going to be Joe Pa sightings all over Pennsylvania?

[underpants]

5. Maybe a nice hot shower will do the trick

[Faygo Kid]

6. They have taken him off a respirator. The end is near.

All of this is inestimably sad.

Sounds like he is definitely leaving us. He was a very good man who failed to stop very bad things.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/01/legendary_football_coach_joe_p.html

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. I agree. nt

[Posteritatis]

22. You've got interesting standards for what constitutes a "very good man." (nt)

[Faygo Kid]

31. "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones"

Julius Caesar, Act 3. Shakespeare had it right.

The sum of his life includes the awful failure to more affirmatively act to stop the monster Sandusky, but it is not the whole of his life, which was otherwise worthy of praise.

[MADem]

44. Not to pile on the dying, but I agree. He was a guy who could coach football, who ignored bad stuff

because it was INCONVENIENT to his football franchise.

That's not a good guy. That is a guy with a particular (coaching) talent that earned him fame and accolades... and a HUGE moral and personal failing.

I'm betting he's probably figuring that out if he hasn't already...

[adigal]

24. I don't think he was a very good man; he was, at best, a denier protecting his friend

At worst, he aided and abetted a horrendous child abuser.

[creeksneakers2]

32. Look at the whole

We've all made mistakes. Its unfair to judge a life on less than its sum.

There is enough blame to go around for things that people do. When its expanded to what somebody could have done but didn't do, we all fail. Failure to report child molestation is the common response when indivuduals learn about it. We've even had to pass laws to force people in positions of responsibility to report. Paterno only had second hand information about an incident he wasn't even involved in. And Paterno did act. He just fell short of doing all he should have done.

Its sad to see it end like this for a man who otherwise led an extraordinary and good life.

[HangOnKids]

34. Sorry Dude

I've made mistakes, enough for 5 human beings by my count BUT failing to report child sexual abuse is not one of them. Paterno failed. FAILED. And he will take this to his grave. He knows.

[bluestateguy]

7. He needs to apologize right now for his negligence in letting boys get hurt

He has limited time left to do that. I hope he makes the right decision.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

43. He's been too busy sheltering his estate's assets to apologize.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. The problem every time this man is mentioned, is that everyone treats him like THE pedophile

And he is NOT *THE* pedophile. There are countless cases in which pedophiles abuse children, and the family KNOWS, or the wife/mother knows, or someone knows, but they say nothing out of FEAR, but I don't see anyone burning them at the stake.

There needs to be consistency, and there is clearly none.

[enki23]

10. I'm sure this massively overpaid prick was living in fear of his fucking subordinate.

.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. Do you react this way when you hear that mothers have concealed the fathers abusing their daughters?

I sure hope you get this angry, and take it this personally. If not, I'll have questions for you.

[JohnnyLib2]

13. For sure.

And the fear isn't necessarily of the perp.; it can be of the scandal and fall-out when the whistle is blown. In Paterno's case, his world did fall apart.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. Yes. nt

[Tansy_Gold]

20. But it might not have fallen apart

if he'd done the right thing at the beginning.

The cover-up is ALWAYS worse than the crime.

ALWAYS.

[creeksneakers2]

33. Joe didn't cover up anything

Covering up is encouraging witnesses to be silent, or conspiring on a cover story, or things like that. Paterno never took any action that made it less likely that the truth would be discovered.

I don't understand how failure to report a crime is a worse offense than committing the crime. That sounds crazy to me.

[Critters2]

54. He enabled the crime. nt

[Posteritatis]

23. If he was more afraid of "scandal" than protecting a kid, his world deserved to fall apart. (nt)

[CTyankee]

21. sarah, there IS a difference. Joe was in a position of great power. He had much less to fear

than ordinary people in the instances you reference, but he said nothing nonetheless. Of ALL people, he had the power to overcome that system and he did NOT.

However, at the end of life, I cannot be cruel to his family and his friends. It is too bad, really. But it is a lesson in life issues and of real morality...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

27. I beg to differ. People that are responsible for children, such as parents...

should be held even MORE accountable than strangers.

I'm not much for sports, but I think certain people are taking this personally, who ordinarily couldn't care about children who were abused in different settings.

[MADem]

46. These were "at risk" kids who were getting abused--not Beav and Wally Cleaver.

Responsible parents? They were in that Pedophelia Training Program BECAUSE they had crappy parents and lived in lousy conditions. It was supposed to be their lucky break--instead, it became their nightmare.

Those kids never had a chance--and "JoPa" knew where those kids came from, and knew they had no damn voice.

Sorry, I'm not onboard with your excuses for the guy. Shame he's dying, he really should have used his waning days to issue a formal apology, but whatever--when he had a chance to step up and protect a few helpless kids, he looked away. He covered up. He pretended it didn't happen.

That's just not very nice.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

48. I'll repeat what I said. This is misplaced anger. The same "angry" people mouthing off on this

would not be angry if the mother of an abused child next door to them had remained silent as the father abused the hell out of her.

Paterno is not the parent of the abused child, is not the pedophile, and yet these people are mouthing off out of their ass as if he were the parent of the abused child, and as if he were the pedophile, and as if he were responsible for the program.

I suggest all these allegedly "ANGRY" people go work for a program that helps abused children (which are primarily GIRLS by the way), and channel their alleged "ANGER" there instead of misplacing it, directing it incorrectly, or occupying their bored days and minutes accusing the wrong person.

[PassingFair]

52. Why do you keep repeating that? It's not true.

People DO get angry at the mother who turns a blind eye to child molestation.

Why do you think they don't?

Mother's are frequently convicted of endangerment in these cases and they
DESERVE it.

My sister-in-law was a social worker who often was involved in the termination
of parental rights.

PLENTY of people held mothers' responsible for the children's situation.

[MADem]

53. I don't know what kind of people you associate with, but your experience is not mine.

I can't imagine a parent not placing their child first, but that is my experience. However, Paterno wasn't an abused wife, now, was he? He was an all-powerful football-coach-hero. He snapped his fingers, and stuff happened. People did what he said. He was a boss, not a victim.

Paterno doesn't have to be related to the child to grasp the notion that an "at-risk" child is helpless and vulnerable and deserves every protection that adults in positions of mentorship and responsibility can give them.

This has nothing to do with "ANGRY" people, as you keep insisting.

It has to do with common decency.

See it? Say it. We teach kids that--we should expect that adult coaches should get the drift too. Paterno had an essential failure of his basic integrity. He was an authority figure--he wasn't an "abused mother" standing fearfully by while her kid got molested.

I realize your post was hidden downthread, but it's important that you parse the difference between your unrelated "abused mother" scenario and a guy like Paterno, in the catbird seat, holding all the power.

People are not angry, they are appalled at his failure to lead, failure to do the right thing, failure to have basic, essential decency for the weakest among us--it's all about disgust, not anger.

His legacy was written with his own deliberate inaction, as well as his active cover-up.

He's dead now, so if there's anything on the other side, he's dealing with it.

[sabrina 1]

36. Thank you for your compassion.

It's easy to judge others from afar. I don't know much about him, but from what I read he was a good man. He has a family also that are blameless yet have had to deal with the tragedy that the end of his life has become. I hope they find peace.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

41. Absolutely. It's easy to judge, and to misplace blame, which is what's

often seen with regard to this case.

[MADem]

45. He is just "the accessory after the fact" to pedophelia....not nearly as bad? To me, it is.

The only thing "JoPa" was fearful of was losing his cash cow college football franchise. Gotta protect that, even if a few kids get abused along the way...

I mean really--what was JoPa afraid of? Sandusky beating him up? Come on. He was afraid of his reputation being sullied, his football juggernaut's reputation being sullied...so instead of doing the right thing, he allowed the abuse to continue.

There are times when we are called to make clear moral choices. This was one of those times for JoPa. He could have done the right thing, instead, he covered it up, kicked the can down the road, abdicated his duty, and failed to protect innocent kids. He's every bit as despicable as Cardinal "Above The" Law. It's a shame he has to end his life knowing this, but we're a product of the choices we make.

[Zoeisright]

51. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

The consistency would be that Paterno and Sandusky and anyone else who knew about these horrible crimes would be IN JAIL.

Excusing Paterno is pathetic.

[uppityperson]

15. Condolences to his family.

[alp227]

18. He'll be remembered more for his deliberate inaction in 2002 about that kid instead of football.

I won't miss Joe. JERRY SANDUSKY IS NEXT!

[caseymoz]

19. How swiftly and totally his life unraveled!

He loses his reputation, is fired in disgrace with a shadow over everything he stood for and he loses his life within a few months. Amazing.

[47of74]

37. After the firing I didn't think he would be around too much longer

Seeing pictures of him right after the firing I got the distinct impression that the fight had gone out of him and he'd go within a year.

[TBF]

25. Prayers for the family -

cancer touches so many and personally I've been watching a friend lose her grandma the past few months. She is in hospice now with maybe a couple weeks left at best. It's not something you wish on anyone.

[pam4water]

42. Wonders if he dead will be an excuses for another riot. n/t

[Tunkamerica]

47. Me not know. Scary is thing that me think.

[Bucky]

55. Ha ha ha, what a tasteless pun!