11/11/11

Many years ago, when TNB's late mother was about to deliver, she unfortunately didn't hurry up by about a half hour so that instead of being born on the mundane date of 11/12, he could have been celebrating a birthday on 11/11/11. Those of you old enough to remember when Veterans Day was Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, will recall that the exact time the armistice was signed (11:11 AM) gave further significance to the numerology of the date.

Of course 11/11/11 is so intriguing a date that huge numbers of couples are apparently rushing to get married today (the mere fact of marriage is especially significant considering our present society). For many of these couples 11/11/11 conveys something spiritual. However considering certain recent events TNB (ever the cynic) is having difficuty channeling this.

There obviously wasn't much spirituality (or morality) exhibited at Penn State where the disgusting child sex abuse scandal (and more disgusting aftermath) just exploded. The "legendary" coach Joe Paterno, whose pedestal certainly cracked, and all the school administrators who like those from the Catholic Church and others were only interested in protecting the institution first (and the perp second) and never mind the innocent victims, have had a swift and deserved fall from grace. Very telling was that 4 of the 9 members of Penn State's Board of Trustees who fired JoePa the other night formerly played for him.

But what rankled TNB the most was the reaction of many in Penn State's student body who rioted to protest the dismissal. Wouldn't you love to pay say $40,000 per year to send your child to college only to have he or she behave like that? Worse yet, no one protested the concurrent ouster of the university president. Why should they--the head football coach usually earns far more and when you think about it, they're both primarily fund raisers--bringing in all that cash so that tuition can be kept "low"!

Another example of what makes America so great and why other countries are surpassing us in so many ways--our values are all screwed up. Sorry to ruin the spirituality of 11/11/11.