Jerry Sandusky, A Pension, And The Nature of Cobras

The poster boy for predators, Jerry Sandusky, is getting his pension reinstated, with a juicy check for retroactive payments cut to him over the Christmas holidays.  I don't know what he'll use it for, except to buy Top Ramen and toothpaste. Maybe he can get himself a TV; heck, even the Unabomber and Joseph Duncan have them. Maybe Jerry can now make more phone calls to his lawyer, bitching that he didn't do anything wrong (because he thinks he didn't--I would say a majority of criminals like him think they are the "right" ones and decent human beings in society are the "wrong" ones). I would assume some of this money might go to Sandusky's family, who suffered incredibly at the hands of this man.  Perhaps some will go to his victims.  That would be just, and right, in this scenario.

I feel sad for the people who thought Sandusky was such a wonderful person and had their illusions shattered--as is always the case with those who are capable of enormous criminal behavior, ones who do not think their propensities are wrong at all.  I would wager that many of us know a person who capable of enormous harm, maybe more than one. You have to give them some slack, I guess, if they seem to be doing nothing wrong, but it is disconcerting especially when you know what could happen and that they don't think they really have a problem.

I look at their friends and family, and wonder at times how how deep the betrayal would be if these people did what they are capable of doing (to say nothing of the victims: what a scorched earth these crimes leave behind!). I wonder if friends and family would extend their denial to protecting these people if a crime occurred. It frightens me to see how unsuspecting people can be. It's like they go about their lives not seeing that there is a cobra coiled up underneath their house. Believe me, it's quite a sobering experience to watch them metaphorically give a bowl of milk to a cobra, thinking it's a kitten. People like their illusions all too well.

Maybe the cobra will sleep in its den lifelong and the betrayal and waste will never happen. I have not occasion to accuse the cobra if it's sleeping...but honestly, how can you tell if a cobra is sleeping or if it is just lying in wait? You can't: if you know there is a cobra about, the last thing you give it is your trust and your blindness.  Sometimes, in this real world, there is nothing you can do to warn about the presence of malignancy at the heart of a person who has put up a very careful facade. You hope the facade stays in place forever, that the facade has actually become the real person entire; maybe you even have a shred of hope about it. But you equally hope that if the malignancy is active, arrogance or carelessness catches up with them. Arrogance is a good banana peel.

Even a cobra can slip up.  A cobra is not immune.