Paterno funeral procession

Taken around 2:30 when the sun was still shining.

Crowd gets much thicker at 3:00.

Joe's hearse passed the stadium around 4:25.

Joe's family rode across campus in a football bus.

The JoePa statue after the funeral profession.

Paterno window tributes in State College

I walked around Downtown State College today to take photos of the storefront windows that are decorated for Joe.

*ndulge cupcake boutique at 206 West College had some tough words for the BOT.

Found outside New Leaf Initiative, 100 South Fraser.

Old Main Frame Shop, 136 East College

Above and below are from the side wall of the Deli, 113 Heister St.

Entrance to the Lion's Pride at 112 East College. The writing is hard to see but it says "Make an impact" and "We love & miss you, Coach"

Paterno Statue January 22, 2012

What a horrible, emotionally draining weekend for the Penn State Family.

I went to the JoePa statue tonight around 7:00. I had resisted going all day, but when it got dark I could see the light shining from Beaver Stadium at my house. The low cloud cover made it look almost ethereal and I couldn't help but check it out.

Despite it being a damp 28 degrees, they're were a few hundred people there paying respects, surrounded by about 20 news trucks. Below are a few photos I took with more to come later.

His shirt reads: Thank you for the many great victories and the championships you helped win. For your giving dedication, and for what you helped make my University. For the white socks, the black shoes, the cheers, and the memories. Good luck and God bless.

Joe Paterno is not the bad guy

Everyone has an opinion about what Joe Paterno should have done when he found out about Jerry Sandusky’s alleged molestation of young boys. The problem is, none of us can assume to understand what Paterno was thinking.

Since we have little information about Paterno’s reaction, we have to base our opinions on the Grand Jury testimony and his recent interview with the Washington Post. Based on these sources, the facts of Paterno’s involvement are this:

1. Mike McQueary told Paterno that he saw something inappropriate going on between Sandusky and a young boy.

2. Paterno told his superiors and set up a meeting between Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and McQueary.

3. Paterno knew Curley and Schultz were looking into the problem.

That's it.

No one knows what Paterno thought or did after that. Maybe he never thought about it again. Maybe he asked about it and was told that an investigation came up empty. We all would have liked him to do something more, but really…what more could he do?

By his own account, Paterno and Sandusky did not have much of a relationship even when they worked together. At the time McQueary told Paterno about the locker room incident, Sandusky had not been on staff for several years. Paterno had no authority over Sandusky. He did not have any legal authority to get involved and his information about the molestation was second-hand. He made the decision to let the appropriate people handle it. It was, we know now, a bad decision. But it’s probably the only decision he could have made at the time with the information he had.

Message boards and pundits like to blame Paterno for everything related to the Sandusky scandal. But Joe Paterno is not the bad guy. He may have been misinformed, ignorant, and too passive with his follow-up. But he is not to blame for the alleged rapes and molestations.

The bad guy in all of this is Jerry Sandusky, a fact that is often overlooked by critics. Blaming Paterno, blaming the football culture, or blaming the residents of State College takes the focus away from the real bad guy.

Media gathering again

News van and satellite trucks are setting up camp outside Beaver Stadium. It's like they are expecting an announcement or something.

Post-scandal photo tour of State College

One of at least a dozen blue ribbons that line Toftrees.

Key Church on North Atherton

Window of the now-closed Terminal Cafe, next to Rainbow Music and the antique store on Atherton.

Pi Kappa Alpha house on Prospect Ave.

Apartment building on Allen St., just above Cozy Thai restaurant. The windows say "Thank You Joe."

Why Bloomberg’s Paterno article is pointless and baseless

How Paterno Put His Penn State Money Above Full Disclosure of Child Abuse

That's the title of the article that Bloomberg published on Tuesday. Think, for a moment, about what information one would expect to find in that article.

There have been plenty of articles written about Paterno and Penn State in the past few weeks that serve no purpose other than to jump on the band-wagon of JoePa haters. Many of these publications, like the Sports Illustrated special edition, don't produce new facts, they just rehash what we already know while waxing poetic about Paterno's legacy. Usually, these are fluff pieces or blog posts written by a bitter CBS Chicago anchor who is just trying to get attention for himself.

But the Bloomberg article wins the award for Ridiculous Paterno Article of the week. Apparently feeling the need to be somehow relevant in the whole Penn State media circus, Bloomberg published "How Paterno Put His Penn State Money Above Full Disclosure of Child Abuse.” One might expect an article with that title to provide eyewitness accounts or a papertrail showing that Paterno purposely covered up the Sandusky sex abuse allegations for monetary reasons.

But that's not what this article is about at all.

The title isn't just misleading, it's factually wrong based on the rest of the article. The only thing the article proves is that there is a lot of money involved in college football. Bloomberg offers no facts to back up their initial claim, instead choosing to pair a traffic-generating headline with a fluff-piece of writing that spends too much time commenting on which sources didn't return their emails. The article is nothing more than a series of dollar signs about football revenue and quotes from people who have nothing to do with Penn State athletics or Joe Paterno.

The only purpose of the article? To drive up traffic on the Bloomberg website and add to the media dog-pile on Joe Paterno.