Mental Floss: Some People the Adult Industry Is More Moral Than

PORN VALLEY—First of all, let's get it straight: Every industry has its losers and scumbags, and the adult industry is certainly no different in that respect... but then again, the adult industry, despite the many good works by the industry trade group Free Speech Coalition and the anti-child porn organization Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP), doesn't send out press releases touting what upstanding, moral citizens it has... unlike, say, Morality in Media, which just muddled through its annual week of impotence, otherwise known as "White Ribbon Against Pornography Week."

But we couldn't help but notice that there are some bad people out there that maybe Morality in Media, Family Research Council, American Family Association, Focus on the Family and a few other anti-porn groups might want to consider taking an interest in. For instance...

It's all over the news sites that Joe Paterno, the legendary coach of Penn State's Nittany Lions football team, has announced that he'll be resigning at the end of the current football season.

"This is a tragedy," Paterno said earlier today. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

More what, you may ask? Well, since at least 2002, Paterno was aware that his former defensive line coach, Jerry Sandusky, had been fucking young boys in the ass in Penn State's State College campus locker room and shower room—and he did nothing about it. (Well, nothing meaningful, anyway: He called Tim Curley, Penn State's Athletic Director, and Curley asked Sandusky not to bring kids on campus, and took away Sandusky's keys to the locker room in the Lasch Football Building. Didn't report the incident to the police, didn't report it to the university president, didn't report it to the FBI—he took away Sandusky's keys!!!)

In all, Sandusky is alleged to have had "sexual contact" (including several ass-fucking incidents) with a total of eight minors from 1994 through at least the spring of 2008, and on Saturday, Sandusky was arrested and arraigned on 40 criminal counts, then released on $100,000 bail.

"At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status," Paterno said in the statement announcing his retirement at the end of the football season. "They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can."

But y'know, the Board of Trustees just might want to spend more than a single minute discussing Paterno's status and maybe, oh, I dunno... FIRE THE SON OF A BITCH WHO KNOWINGLY ALLOWED HIS SUBORDINATE TO FUCK YOUNG BOYS IN THE ASS FOR ALMOST A DECADE!

And while they're at it, they might also want to fire Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the university's senior vice-president for finance and business, both of whom lied to a grand jury about their knowledge in December, 2010. They also might want to fire assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant, who reported the 2002 incident to Paterno but never called the police or any other civilian authority about his observations. And then there's James Calhoun, a temporary janitor at the Lasch Football Building who, in the fall of 2000, caught Sandusky sucking the cock of an 11- to 13-year-old boy (Calhoun wasn't sure of the age) but also never reported the incident to any authorities—but it's a little too late to fire his ass now.

And finally, the Board should strongly consider firing university president Graham Spanier, who did nothing after seeing Curley's report of taking away Sandusky's keys and asking him not to bring his victims on campus, and who's apparently is just fine with letting Paterno serve out the remainder of the football season, because 'lord' knows, it must be tough to replace a major college team's coach mid-season... even if he's a guy who KNOWINGLY ALLOWED HIS SUBORDINATE TO FUCK YOUNG BOYS IN THE ASS FOR ALMOST A DECADE! Political commentator and former sports reporter Keith Olbermann agrees, as he stated in during his Countdown program Monday evening.

But the staff and administrators of Penn State University aren't the only scumbags in the news of the past couple of days. There's also... the child porn enablers in Montana!

There's this clinic, see, in Missoula, Montana, named the Three Rivers Mental Health Solutions, whose "mission" is "dedicated to recovery based developmental path different model of mental illness that asserts no life is more or less valuable than any other," and which "focuses on meeting clients where they are by helping them to define their own happiness, and assisting them in identifying and accessing resources that will aid them in achieving their goals."

Seems one of Three Rivers' employees was not "with the program," though, because when the unnamed counselor went to the house of one client, John Gribble, she saw the words "female child nude" and "preteen nude girls by themselves" in the browser window of Gribble's computer... and promptly reported the sighting to the local police, who arrested Gribble on one count of possessing child pornography.

So the unnamed employee returned to Three Rivers only to be innundated with toasts and whistles and pats on the back from Three Rivers management, right?

Of course not: They fired her ass.

"In order to provide mental health services, we can't engage in dual roles," explained Three Rivers administrator Shea Hennelly. "We're not allowed to go to police" unless actual child abuse is observed, he said. "She didn't witness someone abusing a child. What this woman reported to this office was she saw the tab of Web browsers that said teenage girls. That's a lot different."

Yeah! Because after all, just because somebody is searching the internet for "female child nude" and "preteen nude girls by themselves" doesn't mean they're actually looking for (and likely have found) child pornography; perish the thought! And the fact that the cops did find kiddie porn on Gribble's computer must just have been a coincidence!

And just because the Montana law requiring certain professionals and officials to report suspected child abuse specifically states that someone "may not refuse to make a report ... on the grounds of a physician-patient or similar privilege" shouldn't make any difference, should it?

"Breaching a patient's [confidentiality] in a mental health center is not a clear-cut issue," Hennelly said, invoking the classic Nuremberg defense. "We're not law enforcement officers and we can't go policing our clients."

Hey, Joe—after the season's over, I think I've found a new job for you!

And finally, we ask the question: What do Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif., and  Lynn Paddock of Johnston County, N.C. all have in common?

Answer: Each was convicted of murdering one of their adopted children by beating, starving or smothering the kid to death... and all were in possession of the self-published book, "To Train Up a Child," by Rev. Michael Pearl and his wife, Debi.

The Pearls, y'see, teach "child discipline," including "advocat[ing] systematic use of 'the rod' to teach toddlers to submit to authority"—methods ... modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on 'the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.'"

"More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls' self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites," noted New York Times reporter Erik Eckholm. "The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, 'can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.'"

Other recommended methods of discipline include the concept that "a little fasting is good training," and the Pearls suggest hosing off a child who shits in his/her pants... but "If you find a 12-step book in an alcoholic's house, you wouldn't blame the book," Mr. Pearl said in an interview.

Yeah! Just because he recommends using that quarter-inch flexible plumbing line because "it's a good spanking instrument" because "it's too light to cause damage to the muscle or the bone," it shouldn't matter that the Williams' kid Hana had marks on her legs from "frequent whipping," and the Schatz's kid Lydia died from "severe tissue damage" after the Schatzes "whipped Lydia for hours, with pauses for prayer," and inflicted similar damage on Lydia's older sister, who had to be hospitalized for the abuse, and that Lynn Paddock's other kids that didn't die testified that they were "beaten daily with the same plumbing tube"—that's not the Pearls' fault!

"For older children, parents are told to respond to defiance by hitting hard enough to sting with a willow switch, a belt, a wooden spoon or the tube," Eckholm reported, noting that the Pearls like to cite biblical passages like, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son," after which they provide instructions for "switching" defiant children to provide "spiritual cleansing."

And you wonder why so many religio-conservatives seem to have a stick up their ass!

UPDATE: They fired Paterno! And the president too! AWRIGHT!

And then thousands of Penn State students rioted! 'Cause Paterno was such a good guy, you know...

"They’re just allegations," said Dustin Morgan, 20, a junior from Scranton, Pa., who probably wasn't fucked in the ass by someone Paterno was protecting. "A lot of people were saying Joe didn't make the right choice and morally he didn't do the right thing, but to just fire a man who’s been here for 46 years and pretty much made this campus what it is now, I think is a little harsh."