Light

She has a name. Jyoti (JOO-thee) Singh Pandey. She was the young woman fatally raped on a bus in India recently. Her father asked Britain's Sunday People to publicize her name. Up to this point, she was anonymous. Or Anonymous, a representative of all the women who have been raped in India. Perhaps in the world.

Greater minds than I speak of the cultural problems in India that foster an environment where women are sexually harrassed and even raped. As with all problems in the world, it is our collective problem.

Her father wants the world to know her name. It is a beautiful name, isn't it? Jyoti. It means "light." As you can easily see, I am not very articulate in this post. I just hurt. For her, for her father, for all of us, male and female, who live in a world where such a light can be so cruelly snuffed out.

Susan

Fat Cats

College football is big business. I've believed for a long time that college athletes should be paid a salary. It's true that they receive a free college education in exchange for playing a sport, yet it's nothing compared to the money universities make off them. In addition to the criminal charges leveled against alleged rapist Jerry Sandusky, I hope the victims bring civil proceedings against Penn State to hold it accountable. All the money in the world would never compensate a child for being raped, but money is the only language these fat cats seem to speak.

Authority figures at every level failed these children, and there are so many accomplices to Sandusky's crimes it is difficult to keep a count. The most visible accomplice is larger-than-life legend Joe Paterno himself. He was never going to retire. I always imagined him passing away suddenly one Saturday afternoon in autumn, right there on the sidelines of the football field. So I suppose being fired was the worst thing that could happen to him, yet it's nothing compared to the rape of these children.

If civil lawsuits are filed, the fat cats will be eager to settle out of court. The victims have already suffered so much that they might not want to relive the horror all over again with a civil trial, so maybe a financial settlement from the school will feel like justice to them. Any way it happens, they deserve justice since they got no mercy.

I imagine that over the past few days, there have been lots of men and women in suits conferring nervously with lawyers and talking about damage control there in State College, Pennsylvania. This bombshell had to have given the fat cats a heart attack. Yet it's nothing compared to the rape of these children.

Susan

Lyrics to "Uprising" by Matthew Bellamy