"Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca get into a fight on stage at the 2011 CFL Alumni Legends Luncheon in Vancouver."

"It appears there is still some Bad blood between these two after a controversial hit on the field nearly 48 years ago."

Who starts it? Kapp, who hands Mosca flowers, or Mosca, who replies "Stick it up your ass"? Kapp, who re-offers the flowers, right in the face, or Mosca, who clobbers him? I blame Kapp, because those are insultingly scraggly flowers.

Green Bay Packers, still undefeated.

That's Aaron Rodgers, just now, doing his "Justice Prosser" imitation.

"The question is not whether but how will the student section at Camp Randall Stadium humiliate their Penn State foes?"

"I'm guessing they make a show of wearing shower caps and bath towels. Just a guess. I know that's gross and insensitive but so are those college kids, as were we at that age."

"Joe Paterno clashed repeatedly with the university's former chief disciplinarian over how harshly to punish players who got into trouble, internal emails suggest..."

"... shedding new light on the school's effort to balance its reputation as a magnet for scholar-athletes with the demands of running a nationally dominant football program."

Russ Feingold: "The big lie is beginning. The big lie is that this is an out-of-state movement...."

He was speaking about the movement to recall Scott Walker at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday.



"The big lie"? The "big lie" is a lie that has "a certain force of credibility" precisely because it is so big:

[T]he broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

Those aren't Feingold's words. Those are the words of Adolf Hitler, which Feingold evoked when he used the historically resonant expression "the big lie." In accusing his opponents of employing "the big lie," Feingold is likening them to Hitler.

Let me remind you that the Wisconsin protesters have been equating Scott Walker with Hitler since last winter.  From last March, here's a protester explaining why Scott Walker is like Hitler. Here's another explanation, from a woman with a sign portraying Scott Walker as Hitler. Here's a photo I took last February. I vividly remember this woman:



I asked her if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler...

... and she said "Yes." So I said, "Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America," and she said, "It's what's happening."

Russ Feingold is a very intelligent and informed man. His allusion to Hitler is subtle, not — I think — accidental. He's sounding the deep chord. His speech continues:

"How can they even say it with a straight face? This movement is so grass-roots, so red-and-white Wisconsin, that it is absolutely ridiculous to say that."

Can you look at this picture of a truck parked on the Capitol Square during yesterday's rally and maintain a straight face?



It says: "Kentucky/West Virginia/Indiana." (And here's a golden oldie from last March: "Chicago is up in the house... Everyone left is from Chicago.")

Feingold continues:

Now, we've got a great football team. They may not be #1, except for a couple little problems there, but they're darned close, but when it comes to grass-roots activism that is all Badger, we are #1.

All right. Quite aside from the truth of the assertion that the recall movement is totally in-state and grass-roots, how can he say "Now, we've got a great football team. They may not be #1"? We've got a great football team that is most certainly #1, but it's not in Madison, Wisconsin. It's in Green Bay. You can even hear an audience member yell out "Two!" in a prompt that Feingold could have heard. But it's a Madison, Wisconsin crowd, and Feingold is Madison-focused. He used the expression "red-and-white Wisconsin" as if the colors of the University of Wisconsin—Madison were the state colors. Red-and-white Wisconsin? What about green-gold-and-white Wisconsin? Feingold is unwittingly displaying that he is out of touch with the rest of the state — which voted him out of the U.S. Senate in 2010, despite his vast popularity in Madison.

And this is the state that voted in Scott Walker. The people of Madison never supported him, but they weren't in synch with the majority of the state in 2010. Now, it's a year later, and the people of Madison want to force another election, using the recall mechanism from the Wisconsin constitution, which doesn't limit the reasons why we might recall a governor. Russ Feingold addressed the question of when recalls are justified:

Our law says you can be recalled if you simply attack the people of the State of Wisconsin, and that is what this is all about. 

The state constitution says no such thing. "Attack the people"? It is for us, the people of Wisconsin, to decide when and why we want to use the recall device. There's no attack-the-people standard, whatever that's supposed to mean. Feingold attempts to infuse meaning into his made-up standard:

Now, I'm going to be the first to say I don't believe you should do recalls just any old time. I don't think that's a good idea. I think it could be damaging. 

I agree!

For example, I don't think it would be a valid basis to recall Walker because he ruined our chances to have a railroad system. I mean that was totally dumb. It was $800 million from the federal government that he just threw away. 

He just threw it away. Isn't it shocking to think of federal money like that? The federal government is deeply in debt. There is no money to throw away. Once the federal government offers money for some specific purpose it may seem to acquire reality, and if you are completely fixated on what you want for yourself, you may think, I'd better snap that up now or I'm going to lose it, but that's a delusion. There is no money. And if we'd taken the money for the railroad line (to connect Madison to Milwaukee), we would have been on the hook — as a state — for endless additional expenses over the years.

But according to Feingold, the railroad "was our future." It's not right to recall Scott Walker over that, however, Feingold says, because "he said he was going to do that." (That is true. It's why I voted for Walker.) What Walker didn't say, and what is therefore the reason to recall him, Feingold says, "was that he was going to go at the basic collective bargaining rights and voting rights of every citizen in this state. That's a big deal. That goes to the foundation of who we are."

Now, Walker didn't go after "the basic collective bargaining rights... of every citizen in this state." He only went after some of the collective bargaining rights of some public employees. And he didn't go after the "voting rights of every citizen in this state" — only the "rights" of citizens who haven't yet acquired a state-issued photo ID.

But Feingold is stirring up the crowd. And the fact is, he's a great speaker. He ends: "Where do I sign?" and signs a recall petition.

Our recall procedure requires an election with an opposition candidate, and what's the point of going through the collection of all these signatures unless the governor can be ousted? Who will oppose Scott Walker? The only candidate with a real chance, it seems, is Russ Feingold, but Russ says he's not running. That's what he's saying now, before the signatures are collected. I happen to believe that if there is a recall election, Feingold will run. But that is a subject for another post.

Football is better on TV... watched alone.

Asserts Luke O'Neil, whose friends "don't enjoy my company."

Now that a personalized, crystal-clear picture is at everyone's fingertips, it is pure torture to let someone else man the controls. Watching my friends operate a DVR makes me feel like a nervous backseat driver. When I'm at my in-laws’ house, for instance, I have to watch the Patriots game in a separate room because my father-in-law will inevitably flip over to golf during commercials. Personally, I like to pause the action every time there's a stoppage in play or when, say, the damn Patriots defense allows yet another third down conversion. (That happens a lot.) After I hit pause, I'll walk around the house a few times grinding my teeth. If I did that with company around, it would inevitably lead to someone complaining about being behind real time and somebody else whining that he can’t check his fantasy numbers without spoiling the game that’s now on pause. And they would be right to complain, if those hypothetical people still came over to watch football. Thankfully, I’ve scared them all away.

Gov. Corbett suggests that Second Mile groomed children for Jerry Sandusky.

Chris Wallace, on Fox News Sunday, did an excellent job of drawing out Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who, bound by ethical restraints, was trying to be circumspect. Here's a key moment in the colloquy. Wallace has just asked Corbett about the Second Mile charity "that Jerry Sandusky helped form for disadvantaged kids that quite frankly gave him access to these young boys."

WALLACE: Should actions be taken against the charity or the CEO who allegedly was told about some of these abuses as far back 2002?

CORBETT: ... I'm going to be very careful here....  If you talk to people who have worked with Second Mile, it has done great work.... But in this case, as the allegations indicate, some of it was used to pick on some children and the term was used, grooming, groom those children for Mr. Sandusky's purposes.

Did Corbett just reveal that there were other individuals within Second Mile who functioned in grooming children for Sandusky?

Corbett also appeared on "Meet the Press" this morning, and I thought David Gregory was much less successful in breaking through Corbett's controlled facade. It was interesting to compare these 2 interviews. Gregory expressed outrage on behalf of the children. ("You have to understand people, those of us who are parents, including myself, I have a nine-year-old boy at home....") Wallace, by contrast, came off at first — to my ear — as a Paterno fanboy. ("But, Governor, let me point out -- these are just allegations. Joe Paterno, who had spent half a century at Penn State, did not have an opportunity to offer a full defense. Why not let him finish his season and retire as he offered to do?")

I don't know whether Gregory and Wallace were showing how they really felt or using a strategy to lure Corbett into making revelations, but the Wallace interview was more revealing.

ADDED: Wallace also interviewed Franco Harris, a football star who came out of Penn State, and he seemed very much in service of the pro-Paterno attitude that I thought I detected in Wallace. It got a little odd when Wallace grilled Harris about the distinction — a vitally important distinction — between criminal law and morality.

"He gets drilled at the 22-yard line! What a stick!"

So says the ESPN announcer at the Penn State/Nebraska game — not noticing the accidental double entendre. Earlier they played this statement by Penn State's new president...

[VIEW VIDEO HERE.]

... and they had a reporter reporting from outside of Joe Paterno's house. They showed that earlier, 2 men came up and knelt down to pray — each in a manly on-one-knee stance. I'm pretty sure they were not praying for the kids. They were praying for Joe Paterno!

ADDED: Penn State should be super-careful what music they choose to blast over the public address system. Ridiculous to play "Tell Me Something Good":

You ain't got no kind of feeling inside
I got something that will sure 'nuff set your stuff on fire
You refuse to put anything before your pride
I got something that will knock all your pride aside...
Problem is you ain't been loved like you should
What I got to give will sure 'nuff do you good

NOTE: I am not finding anything funny here. I'm demanding more circumspection from ESPN and Penn State.

Rioting Penn State students, trying to make the point that "the media is responsible for JoePa going down."

That's one student's interpretation of what the mob was trying to say:

An orderly crowd first filled the lawn in front of Old Main when news of Mr. Paterno’s firing came via students’ cellphones. When the crowd took to the downtown streets, its anger and intensity swelled. Students shouted “We are Penn State.”

Some blew vuvuzelas, others air horns. One young man sounded reveille on a trumpet....

Just before midnight the police lost control of the crowd. Chanting, “Tip the van,” they toppled the news vehicle and then brought down a nearby lamp post. When the police opened up with pepper spray, some in the crowd responded by hurling rocks, cans of soda and flares. They also tore down street signs, tipped over trash cans and newspaper vending boxes and shattered car windows.

Some students noted the irony that they had come out to oppose what they saw as a disgraceful end to Mr. Paterno’s distinguished career as a football coach, and then added to the ignobility of the episode by starting an unruly protest....

As the crowd got more aggressive, so did police officers. Some protesters fought back. One man in gas mask rushed a half dozen police officers in protective gear, blasted one officer with pepper spray underneath his safety mask and then sprinted away. The officer lay on the ground, rubbing his eyes.

I'm interested in the way this protest resembles the Wisconsin protests and the Occupy [Your City] protests and the way it does not. We have a growing culture of protest in America right now. There are certain clichés, like: "We are [X]." So: "We are the 99%" is echoed here as "We are Penn State." There's a group claiming to embody far more people than are present at the protest. There are the vuzuvelas.

But the Penn State protest instantly went into riot mode, with violence galore. That makes it different from the Wisconsin protests, which got very big and went on for weeks and weeks, with lots of noise, but practically nothing that can be called violence and only one truly disorderly night, nearly a month into the protests. And even that did not include a battle with the police. The the Occupy [Your City] protests have likewise dragged on for a long time, in a lot of different places, but people are working reasonably well to control each other, even as criminals and lowlifes can easily join the overnight camps.

But look at Penn State. The young people receive the news that their hero-coach got the boot, and they're there in instant full riot mode. Why the difference? You might say it's an outburst of pure emotion. What happened has already happened. There's no policy to influence, no course of events to sway. There's nothing left to do but howl. But look at that quote I put in the post title, and look at the way the attacks were directed at reporters. There does seem to be a message beyond inarticulate screams of rage and sorrow. It's directed not at the government and not at the banks and the corporations, but at the media. The media was unfair. The media took a great man down. The protesters may be in a frenzy, but — taking that quote for all it's worth — the media had its feeding frenzy on Joe Paterno and destroyed him overnight.

There's a lot to think about here, but I want to highlight the anger at the media. Of all the things that are firing up protesters these days, it is the media that fired the most rage.

Paterno and Spanier are out now at Penn State.

That was necessary.

The "All-22" footage that the NFL won't let you see.

The WSJ explains about those camera shots "from on high to show the entire field and what all 22 players did on every play" which are most useful for understanding the plays and never shown on TV.

While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage....

Without the expanded frame, fans often have no idea why many plays turn out the way they do, or if the TV analysts are giving them correct information. On a recent Sunday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith threw a deep pass to tight end Delanie Walker for a 26-yard touchdown. Daryl Johnston, the Fox color man working the game, said Smith's throw was "placed perfectly" and that Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Corey Lynch was "a little bit late getting there."

Greg Cosell, producer of the ESPN program "NFL Matchup," who is one of the few people with access to All-22 footage, said the 49ers had purposely overloaded the right side of the field so each receiver would only be covered by one defender. Lynch, the safety, wasn't late getting there, Cosell says. He was doing his job and covering somebody else. Johnston could not be reached for comment.

NYT says Joe Paterno "not implicated of wrongdoing in a grand jury report."

That's buried in the last paragraph of today's article — by Mark Viera — on the Penn State scandal, followed by this paean to Paterno:

Paterno helped propel Penn State to the top tiers of college football, and the university had one of the most pristine images in the sport, largely thanks to Paterno and his success in 46 seasons as head coach.

But the indictment did allege facts that implicated Paterno! (Maybe there's something in that strange locution "not implicated of" that I don't understand.)

It's not just the NYT. I'm seeing a lot of news reports that are inanely quick to assert that Paterno did everything right. Here's an exception in the NY Daily News:

Advocates of sexual abuse victims are taking a hard stand against the Penn State athletic department, including venerable football coach Joe Paterno, saying he should face criminal charges for failing to tell police that one of his assistants allegedly sexually assaulted a boy in a Nittany Lions locker room.

“At the very least, he should be fired,” said Robert Hoatson, a Catholic priest who founded an organization called Road to Recovery that counsels abuse survivors.

“Any adult who learns about a child being abused should immediately go to the police,” Hoatson said....

In 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy in the locker room of the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State campus. The grad student and his father reported the incident to Paterno, who immediately told Curley about the allegation, prosecutors said. Curley and Schultz met with the grad assistant about a week and a half later.

Hoatson said Paterno had a responsibility to tell authorities about the report, especially when it became clear that university officials would not take action.

Obviously!

Why is the New York Times carrying water for Joe Paterno?

"Paterno wasn’t charged, but if Sandusky is guilty, Paterno would be guilty..."

"... just as Penn State’s athletic director and a university vice president, who were charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse on Saturday, would be guilty."

Mike Wise on the Penn State scandal.

You can’t read the 23-page grand jury report and come to any other conclusion; Penn State football and its pristine reputation apparently superseded the alleged sexual assault of a young boy — perhaps as many as eight young boys — over 15 years by Sandusky....

In Warped Sports World, the don’t-ask, don’t-tell, sweep-it-clean behavior is rationalized as loyalty, having your coach’s or teammate’s back, moving on from the problem. It’s seen as a noble quality, putting the team’s needs — the university’s needs — before your own.

The Boilermakers came to town.

This was their big moment:



See Boilermaker Pete there? And the small contingent of black-clad fans from Indiana?



But we won. Yay! It was 62-17, which... I don't know... I heard there was something called "running up the score." Seems to me, we overwon it. Too bad the previous 2 weeks we underwon it.

Thanks to "The Elder" for sending us the tickets. First time I've been inside Camp Randall, and I've been living within walking distance of the stadium since 1984.

"I'm regularly amazed that the [American Players Theater] attracts sold-out crowds of Packer-jersey-wearing theatergoers to the pleasures of, say, Molière."

Says Kenneth Burns (of the Madison tabloid "Isthmus"). I think he thinks he's displaying good liberal values there, and the elitist snobbery is unintended. Keep reading the comments. Meade is in there, japing.

What are Americans watching on TV?

In a word: football.

"Eat debt, screw you, Occupy UW" — the student debt wing of the Occupy [Your City] movement.

That was the chant yesterday as 20 students marched from Union South to the Memorial Union, here at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. 20 isn't very much, but it was Monday morning, that is, it was half past noon in a city where weekends are (perhaps) grueling (that Hail Mary pass!). 20 students when you expect — what? — 100. That's rough.

It reminded me of the old anti-war slogan: "Suppose they gave a war and no one came?” The phrase was used in the 1968 Monkees song "Zor and Zam," and their video of the song looks something like the protest marches I've seen in Madison this year.



Why aren't students more interested in protesting about student problems?

UW freshman Noah Phillips, who led the march, said it is difficult for most to attain a college degree without enormous debt in the current economic climate.

Students are in a difficult bind. If you're hyper-aware of this problem and you're still here in school, racking up the debt, do you march around with signs or do you get much more serious and study as hard as you can? That is, do you visualize your plight as a something that aligns you with others and put your efforts into seeking political and social change, or do you get fired up about your individual cause and do what you can to win in what looks like a very tough fight for economic gain? (Or do you just drag on, avoiding politics and taking your studies and your career one step at a time, and hope for the best?)

Associated Students of Madison member Justin Bloesch said "What we were told … is that if we work hard, if we stay honest, if we shine by our merit then this society will take care of us; that's the American Dream"...

Who told you that? This society will take care of you? Shine by your merit? How did the "American Dream" evolve into that message?

"But if that's ever how the game worked, that's not how it works now."

Well, it's not really how the "game" ever worked. Bloesch seems to be thinking about those public-school games where everybody wins: if you play and don't cheat, you are a winner.

Phillips said the movement, which recruited demonstrators via Facebook, hopes to build student participation in upcoming weeks by passing out flyers and speaking in lectures....

You might not even win at protesting. Even if you follow the rules of organizing: Facebook page, check... build momentum...

Once participation is higher, Phillips said the movement can take larger actions such as "occupying a building" or forming a teach in.

Occupying a building... that really does sound like 1968.

"Wisconsin should know we're coming... our lineman are getting after the quarterback. And they're going to hurt him."

Said Michigan State safety Isaiah Lewis the other day about Wisconsin's quarterback Russell Wilson.

Well, the game is on right now, and after the first play, Isaiah Lewis was holding his wrist, complaining, and had to be looked after and escorted off the field.

Be careful, delicate Spartans!

"I'm not aware of any meetings about 'the antiwar march hare in Madison.'"

My new iPhone's Siri program just got closer than ever before to understanding a question I asked, which was: "When is the anti-war march here in Madison?" I know there's an anti-war march today, and I'm trying to find out when. To be fair, Googling my question doesn't pull up the answer either.

But I love the robotic intelligence that substitutes — for "march here" — March Hare:



Hey! It's a tea party!

UPDATE: I just asked "What time is the Badger game today?" and was understood exactly and the phone immediately brought up the official UWBadgers site. So... go iPhone. And... go Badgers!

UPDATE 2: The phone seems to have figured out how to understand me. I asked "What's the best blog written by a law professor?" and it got it word for word. It wouldn't express an opinion however, but asked if I'd like it to "search the web" for the answer. That is, want me to Google that for you? I tested it with "Who's the best Republican Party candidate for President?" and, again, it offered to search the web. The iPhone is opinion neutral. And it's not cruel neutrality. You need a human being to get cruel neutrality. The robot provides bland neutrality.

"Strike a (Heisman) pose, there's nothing to it."

Nice post title.