Wednesday June 27, 2012

I made a comment on Facebook the other day about Jerry Sandusky, which said: "Jerry Sandusky is under suicide watch. Can we all just agree that it’s OK if they stop watching?" A pretty simple statement about a pretty evil guy. But what I didn’t stop and pay attention to was the sudden head-on-a-pike wave that overtook the nation.

Now, as Americans, we love our red meat, be it beef or drama, and Jerry Sandusky was on the spit for us. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t love it if he went the way of Jeffrey Dahmer with some prison justice, but deep down inside I know that it’s not exactly how we should approach these things.

If you’re a person that believes in karma, then you know that the only things you should put out there are positive thoughts and wishes. But when you’re dealing with pure black evil like Jerry Sandusky, I feel that a slow horrible death is adding something good to the world. After all, this guy rode the twisted train for a long, long time. But as a compassionate human being, I have to be careful about how much that hate and disdain I hold for him affects me. I’ll admit that I gave a violent fist pump when the verdict came down, but it wasn’t like I-scored-the-winning-goal fist pump. It was a fist pump of hateful revenge, one you reserve for someone you can’t stomach and the worst thing that could have happened to them just did. If we break that down and take

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a hard look at it, we’d find that it’s just not healthy. This kind of witch-hunt thinking does us harm, it hardens us and if we stopped to analyze how we felt in the moment we were feeling it -- I gotta say, there would probably be a physical pain associated with it.

Again, I need to reiterate that I’m happy that Sandusky is going away where he can no longer hurt anyone. And given what I just said, I shouldn’t say that I’m happy where he’s going he’s got a good chance of getting hurt. As much as I try to put good out into the world, when we finally catch one of the folks that do nothing but put bad out there, it’s good to see them in harm’s way. Yup, I guess I look for my red meat in these situations and Jerry Sandusky getting the adult version of unwanted "tickle time" seems OK because that’s the karma he put out there. As you can tell, I’m confused as to what to put out there and what to keep to myself.

But we do have a lynch-mob mentality when it comes to these things. It’s hard not to -- after all, this animal created an institution that invited children in and it would seem that he did it so that he could pull from a bigger pool.

So this piece of evil is off the streets, for that I’m grateful. Much like when the current administration took out Public Enemy No. 1 Osama Bin Laden. I was happy to see him go, I was not happy to see partying in the streets afterward. It bothered me to see kids in the middle of the fray celebrating alongside their parents. For me, the killing of Bin Laden was a good thing but at the end of the day we shouldn’t have a party.

When Michael Vick went to jail for his part in dog fighting rings I was happy. When he got out and was reinstated into the NFL it sent a message out there that it truly doesn’t matter what you do ... if you can produce money you’re good to go. Well, Sandusky produced money for the Penn State football program while he molested children and they turned a blind eye. But now that party is over and I’ll try and tamp down my ill will and pump better feelings into the universe. For now however, I’ll just hope he gets his -- what the hell is up with that?

Fish is the morning talent on Classic Hits 92.7 FM. He also offers up his opinion on-line at www.whatda hell.net. E-mail him at fish@wk vt.com.