USA Swimming Child-Abuse Scandal

Child-abuse scandals have been in the news quite a lot lately. The Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal has attracted the most attention ("Jerry Sandusky and Penn State's Punishment"), but there has also been the Horace Mann School scandal ("Not to Beat a Dead Horse, But...") where it appears that from the 1970s to the 1990s there were multiple instances of sexual abuse of students by teachers that were ignored or condoned by (some) school administrators. And there was also the story of the Assistant Principal at Leland High School who was arrested unlawful sexual conduct with a minor ("Celibacy and the Pastoral Abuse of Minors"). And so here's another one: USA Swimming is "home" to the largest child molestation scandal in U.S. sports history ("After Paterno -- now what about USA Swimming's child molestation scandal?"), but evidently little has been done about it:

With more than 50 coaches already banned for life for sexually molesting minor swimmers and many more still coaching at local swim clubs, not a single individual or board member at USA Swimming has been held accountable. Unlike Penn State, which cleaned house, those persons who had extensive knowledge about pedophile swim coaches and failed to act in any manner, resulting in countless additional incidents of sexual exploitation and molestation, have not only kept their jobs but have not received any kind of reprimand whatsoever (emphasis added). 

I think it's interesting that this scandal has received almost no coverage unlike the coverage the Catholic church gets when of its own is accused, caught, or convicted (which should make one wonder about journalist biases). One would hope that someone or some institution (e.g., the US Olympic Committee, Congress) will do the right thing and clean house at USA Swimming, in such a way that our swimmers don't "pay" for the crimes of others (like current and former Penn State football players are for the crimes of Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, and Penn State officials - "Jerry Sandusky and Penn State's Punishment").

Jerry Sandusky and Penn State's Punishment

In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child-abuse scandal, in which head coach Joe Paterno and Penn State officials didn't do enough to put a stop to Sandusky (an investigation conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh concluded that Paterno played a key role in concealing Sandusky's sexual crimes over at least an eight-year period, going so far as dissuading other university officials from reporting Sandusky to the authorities), the NCAA has come down hard on Penn State football. In particular, it has

• fined Penn State $60 million,
• stripped its football program of 40 scholarships,
• banned it from playing in any bowl games for the next 4 years, and
• vacated its 112 football victories from 1998 to 2011 (dropping Paterno from first to twelfth in the all-time wins list)

While the NCAA is obviously trying to make an example of Penn State, most of these penalties hurt current and former players more than they do Joe Paterno (who passed away back in January) or Jerry Sandusky. As a good friend and retired college professor put it to me in an email:

It seems to me that these sanctions are misdirected; that the people who committed the crimes in question have been, or are being, punished, and that the players and others who are being punished along with them had no part in them. I see a huge non sequitur in motion here. If I had a blog, this is what I would be writing about this morning. I know a rather sick culture has developed around college sports, but I am not sure this is the way to deal with it.

I agree. It's unclear to me why people who played or currently play for Penn State have to suffer the consequences of someone else's actions. Sandusky has been convicted and is in prison, and Paterno was fired and his statue was removed from in front of the Penn State football stadium. In my opinion, along with the $60 million fine, that's more than enough punishment. It's certainly more than the punishment that has been meted out to the USA Swimming association where dozens of coaches over several decades have been guilty of child-abuse and little or no action has been taken against board members who tried to cover the abuses up. That, however, is another story (and will be the topic of my next post).

The "Sitz im Leben" of Jesus' Parables

New Testament (NT) scholars who spend a lot of time thinking about Jesus' parables are often concerned with the "sitz im leben" of the parables, that is, their "setting in life." The idea lying behind this quest is that knowing the settings in which Jesus uttered his parables helps in their interpretation. The significance of a particular phrase or twist in a parable can be lost on modern interpreters if they don't have a grasp of the first century middle eastern world. Consequently, they spend a lot of time drawing on historical and socio-cultural studies in order to better understand Jesus's world.

As part of this quest to gain a better understanding of the setting of Jesus' parables, NT scholars often seek to reconstruct their original wording. Take, for example, the parable of the mustard seed (Matt. 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19). The gospel writers recount the parable differently from one another:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." (Matt 13:31-32)

"With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." (Mark 4:31-32)

"What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches." (Luke 13:18-19)

The New Testament scholar, Bernard Brandon Scott, ("Here Then the Parable," p. 373) argues that the original parable went something like this:

"[The kingdom of God is] like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden and it grew and became a great shrub and puts forth large branches so that the birds of heaven make nests in its shade/shelter."

While Scott's reconstruction is plausible, it operates under one of two questionable assumptions: Either (1) Jesus uttered the parable only once, or (2) he said it exactly the same way and in exactly the same setting each time he told it. Both of these scenarios strike me as unlikely. It is far more probable that Jesus told each of his parables multiple times to different audiences in various settings, and he seldom told them exactly the same way each time. If I am right, I'm not sure what it would mean for parable scholarship, but at a minimum I suspect that the extant versions found in the Gospels would carry more weight than they currently do among certain scholars.

Carpool Lane Scofflaws, Commuting, and Me

I understand why most people dislike carpool lane scofflaws. I, too, become angry (envious?) when solo drivers use the carpool lane during commute hours and are not pulled over by the highway patrol. However, when I take a moment to think about it, carpool lane scofflaws do not slow my commute down. In fact, they speed it up because they don't clog up any of the lanes to which I am confined.

The drivers who do slow me down, however, are those who are traveling with one or more passengers and are thus eligible to use the carpool lane but don't. Although I don't think they mean to, by doing so they unncessarily increase the traffic in the lanes that the rest of us have to use.

Dementia, Creativity, and the Unraveling of Bolero

Here's an interesting podcast ("Unraveling Bolero") from the Radiolab folks at WNYC Radio. It is the story about two individuals separated by time and distance who both experienced a burst of creativity that was caused by a rare and deadly disease:

Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then ... "Bolero." 

At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel's famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it "Unraveling Bolero" (pictured above). But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music.

This 20-minute podcast is absolutely fascinating and can be downloaded from iTunes or listened to at the Radiolab website ("Unraveling Bolero").

Lance Armstrong and Cheating

"Anything worth having is a thing worth cheating for."

-- W. C. Fields

"If you're not cheating, you're not trying, and it's only cheating if you get caught."

Mark Grace, Chicago Cubs 1st  Baseman 

Evidently, Lance Armstrong is in danger of losing his seven Tour de France titles because he may have used performance-enhancing drugs during his amazing streak. But if they strip him of his titles, who are they going to give them to since it now appears that just about everyone on the tour in those days was using performance-enhancing drugs? And if everyone was involved in doping, then how can we call what Armstrong did cheating? As I've written before (Cheating and Sports, Part I), cheating in sports isn't as black and white as some people believe it to be.

Update: Today (August 23rd), the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that it will strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles after he dropped his fight against charges that he used performance enhancing drugs ("USADA to Strip Lance Armstrong of 7 Tour Titles"). Related to this is a later post of mine regarding SF Giants outfield, Melky Cabrera ("Melky: Say it Ain't So") and the benefits of testosterone ("Testosterone's Benefits").

Courtesy is not Always the Best Policy

I'm all for courteous drivers. Our freeways, highways, and surface streets would be a whole lot safer if everyone was a bit more considerate of others. There are times, however, when being courteous is not always the best policy. For instance, recently I followed a car through a intersection and into the parking lot of a grocery store on the other side (i.e.,, the street dead-ended into the grocery store's parking lot), and the driver, being ever-so-considerate, stopped in order to let a mother and her children cross in front of him.

The right thing to do, right? Wrong. By stopping, the driver caused cars behind him to back up into the intersection (it didn't happen to me, if you're wondering), placing them in danger of being hit by another car. But what about the mother and her children? They weren't already crossing in front of the car, so the driver could have proceeded into the parking lot without endangering their well-being, but by stopping, he endangered the well-being of the drivers behind him. I've witnessed similar instances when I've been running: drivers stopping to let me cross a side street while causing a dangerous backup on the main thoroughfare.

The moral of the story? While being courteous is almost always the right thing to do, sometimes it isn't, which is why drivers need to be aware of their entire surroundings, not just what's in front of them.