It's shocking to think that at a school like Penn State, athletes (well, football players mostly) get preferential treatment. Everyone thought that the players involved in last year's apartment brawl (not to mention the HUB brawl, and the underage drinking thing and that other "alleged" thing) were going to be treated with the heavy-handed discipline of Joe Paterno, right? HA! Of course not, they're football players silly.

Today's CDT tells us that in a memo to Graham Spanier dated May 8, Paterno outlined the three disciplinary actions that would be taken against the team. According to the CDT the memo stated "the players directly involved in an April 1 apartment invasion and assault case would see their roster positions drop and their game time decreased ... regardless of actions taken by State College authorities or by the university Judicial Affairs office."

As the CDT points out, two players (Anthony Scirrotto and Lydell Sargeant) have started every game this season - hardly decrease in game time.

As the second part of their punishment, Paterno wrote that the entire team clean the stadium after each home game this season. Well, we already know that's done with when Paterno said the players stopped cleaning the stadium after the Wisconsin game on October 14. Meaning the team did not clean for the final two home games (Ohio State and Purdue).

The third prong of Paterno punishment was for the team to perform 10 hours of community service. Apparently they were able to handle that by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics earlier this semester.

So, what is the lesson to be learned from all this? That regardless of your special titles, Graham Spanier, Joe Paterno runs this town with an iron fist ... or maybe a copper fist, some kind of soft metal. Oooh, a velvet fist, that is made to look like iron, yea.