Ouch, Penn State. They’d already pulled down Joe Paterno’s statue, which surprised me. Now I see the NCAA has hit them with a real penalty.
The NCAA has hit Penn State with a $60 million sanction, a four-year football postseason ban and a vacation of all wins dating to 1998, the organization said Monday morning.
The career record of Joe Paterno will reflect these vacated records, the NCAA said.
Penn State must also reduce 10 initial and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period. …
…The Penn State athletic program will also be put on five-year probation and must work with an athletic-integrity monitor of NCAA’s chosing.
More from the power corrupts, etc., department — Business Week has an eye-opening article on How the Mormons Make Money. A snip:
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,†the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples. …
… Mormons make up only 1.4 percent of the U.S. population, but the church’s holdings are vast. First among its for-profit enterprises is DMC, which reaps estimated annual revenue of $1.2 billion from six subsidiaries, according to the business information and analysis firm Hoover’s Company Records (DNB). Those subsidiaries run a newspaper, 11 radio stations, a TV station, a publishing and distribution company, a digital media company, a hospitality business, and an insurance business with assets worth $3.3 billion.
Hmm, vast wealth, little transparency or accountability, mixed up with religion. Is there anyone here who doesn’t think this will blow up into a mega-scandal someday?
Awhile back I read a book about the Mormons called Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. It is gripping, and disturbing. All manner of whackjob religions and spiritualisms emerged in the late 19th century, for some reason, and Mormonism is but one example. But it’s the most successful one, possibly because it has evolved to become more acceptable to mainstream culture.
I’m not saying the Mormons are a menace to society, but even for a religion it’s a tad out of whack. The faithful are taught to be obedient and to keep the church’s secrets from outsiders, even if they have to lie. Mormonism rather than chicanery may be at the root of Mittens’s reluctance to reveal his tax returns. And that’s a recipe for internal corruption.
Frankly, ALL religions scare me – with the possible exception of Buddhism. At least they don’t seem bent on some sort of world domination.
My experience is that there are people who do have true faith – and they mostly keep quiet about it.
I respect them, and their faith.
It’s the other 90+ percent, or whatever, of religious people who I think suffer from some sort of mental illness.
It’s an illness that allows them to think that they, and the people that believe in the same magic exactly as they do, are ‘God’s chosen people’ – and that people who believe in any other variation(s) of the same God and religion as theirs, or who believe in something completely different, or have no beliefs at all, need to, if not be tortured and made to believe the same as them, or killed for not doing so, then damned to some kind of Hell in the afterlife for thinking differently from them.
It’s nothing more than some sort of God-sanctioned, “MY WAY! OR DIE ON THE HIGHWAY,” or, “AMERICA – LOVE IT OR DIE! DIE!! DIE!!!”
This is a mental disease shared by most Western religions – and, in the realm of politics, almost ALL Conservatives.
The louder, and more obvious, the faith in something by someone, the greater is the mental disease – and the less tolerance and more hatred there is for others.
Religion is a way to create a very exclusive club, where only people of like beliefs are allowed – and all other must be outcast, ostracized, hated, and/or punished – preferably killed, like in ‘The Good Old Days.’
I’m sorry if anyone finds that offensive, but that’s how I feel.
Yeah we really got you people snookered on that one. 🙂
Tons of commercial real estate, too.
Those magic salamanders are greedy, aren’t they?
GULP!!!
😉
OT – In the category of, “You can’t possibly make this sh*t up,” here’s Mitt talking to our Olympians:
ROMNEY: You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.”
OY!
THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE – IT BURNS!!!
OY! OY! OY! IT BURNS!!!!!!!!!
c u n d,
Do you have a link to the Rmoney talk to the Olympians?
I think the only reason Romney has gotten a pass on being a Mormon Bishop is because not enough people know much about the Mormon religion. Wish that were not the case. Not being a religious person, most religions strike me as a bit weird, but Mormonism really pushes the envelope.
Do you know the part in Roughing It where Mark Twain visits Salt Lake City? Among the many things that can be said about the Mormons is that one of America’s greatest writers devoted several chapters to ridiculing them.
Slightly OT- the new powers on the new “Catfood Commission,” to decide the “Grand Bargain” they’re going to make for themselves… er… uhm… the BENEFIT OF THE NATION! From the great, Digby:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
And the WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ceos-and-simpson-bowles-30/2012/07/20/gJQAMLfp0W_story.html
David M. Cote J.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Honeywell International Inc.
$37,842,723 annual compensation
Alexander M.(Sandy) Cutler
Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of Executive Committee, Eaton Corporation
$13,586,010 annual compensation
Gregg M. Sherrill
Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tenneco Inc.
$5,750,640 annual compensation
Martin L. Flanagan
Chief Executive Officer, President and Executive Director, Invesco Ltd.
$13,420,458 annual compensation
Mark T. Bertolini
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of Executive Committee and Member of Investment & Finance Committee, Aetna Inc.
$10,556,335 annual compensation
Thomas J. Quinlan III
Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company
$6,059,714 annual compensation
James Dimon
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Member of Operating Committee, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
$23,105,415 annual compensation
AND the great Erkind Bowles, Mark Warner, and Saxby Chambliss.
SAXBY CHAMBLISS!!!
And not one person on SS, Medicare, or Medicaid, or a single Liberal economist to defend those programs.
THE FIX IS IN!!!
Excuse me while i go and buy a gun to shoot myself in the feckin’ head…
Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
Enough said.
Maybe he can be Mitt’s VP choice. Keep it all in the ‘family’.
Stephen, to tag onto what you said, here’s my favorite Twain take on Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon:
“The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old fashioned sound and structure of our King James translation of the Scriptures, and the result is a mongrel — half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural , but grotesque by contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern — which is about every sentence or two –he ladled in a few such scriptural phrases as ‘exceeding sore,’ ‘and it came to pass,’ etc., and made things satisfactory again. ‘And it came to pass’ was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.”
Chapter 16 in Roughing It is devoted to Twain’s analysis of the Book of Mormon, and well worth the read, if you don’t mind laughing until your sides hurt.
“Chapter 16 in Roughing It is devoted to Twain’s analysis of the Book of Mormon, and well worth the read, if you don’t mind laughing until your sides hurt.”
Maybe Tom Cruise would be an appropriate running mate……
Reddit has a great ex-Mormon section. I have found it quite informative.
I didn’t know Mitt was a bishop. Scary.
Most of the alumnae I’ve read from (including myself) think Penn State’s penalty was more or less deserved, and are glad the school is taking its bitter medicine, so we can move on. I was creeped out when they erected the Paterno statue, and am glad they had the sense to remove it. Even Joe didn’t care for it. Too much like the Israelites worshiping the false god, their golden calf, at the base of Sinai, Beaver Stadium. It had to come down IMO, for the healing to begin. Really looking forward to the period of soul-searching, to see how my alma mater will now find itself, without a glorious football program.
“Bishop” in Mormon is somewhat different than what the word means to non-Mormons.
“The Mormon position of bishop is most analogous to the position of a rabbi, minister, pastor, or parish priest in other denominations.”