Letter to the editor: Wallin

Letter to the editor:

I listened to an NPR talk show Tuesday - January 24 - Neil Conan Talk of the Nation about the present conditions of the Catholic church. Google it under NPR - Catholic Church, if you want to read the whole thing.

I found that the "statistics" put out by the church that "only" 7% of priests abused children are from 2002 and since then has gone up so dramatically that 2002 was the last time the church put out that statistic! This figures since other rapists go to prison while the church pays lots of hush money to keep its clergy out of newspapers and jails.

It was as if 7% was perfectly acceptable to the church since this is the same rate as in any other aspect of society - a childish defense of: everyone-else-does-it-too, implying that priests are only expected to be morally average as far as committing heinous crimes. I know where the church can find men to solve their priest shortage - off the streets - no moral training necessary. But the church would be way better off promoting its women to first class citizenship by including them fully into the clergy. Right now the Catholic church is right down there with the Muslims and Mormons repressing women's rights and equality. And this is 2012. I believe, for what little it is worth, that women clergy at all levels is the only way to salvation (change) of this totally corrupt men's pedophile club. Otherwise the club continues on its merry, and horrific, way with a little temporary cosmetic here and there.

The hush money and other settlements paid so far by the Church is up to 2 billion dollars now! I was amazed. The last I knew it was "only" 200 million. You have to keep up with this. And these experts uniformly say that this is still just the beginning.

Conan's guests included one of the Boston Globe reporters who wrote the story 10 years ago that finally stirred public interest after years of other similar stories, since they now had proof from church documents (obtained only after a court order and years of obstruction and legal maneuvering by the church) proving priest abuse of children (well -rape) and the movement of priests to other parishes by Cardinal Law who purposely and knowingly protected the priests and endangered more and more children.

OH - Cardinal Law after resigning in disgrace in Boston was immediately promoted by the Pope to a cushy job in the Vatican - a reward from the pedophile club leader and of course an absolute indication, a proof, of the pervasiveness of the corruption, which includes the "Infallible" and arrogant Popes.

Reporter, Michael REZENDES: "not in our wildest dreams did we suspect that it was as big in Boston as it turned out to be. And I think all of us have been repeatedly thrown back on our heels as this story has spread throughout the country and indeed around the world. None of us foresaw how big this story really is."

CONAN: And we should be reminded about how difficult it was to find out in the first place.

REZENDES: Yeah, it's very, very difficult to get records from the church. "But what we accomplished in 2002 was to prove that high officials in the Archdiocese of Boston, including Cardinal Law, actually knew for decades that priests were molesting children and nevertheless, transferred those priests from parish to parish, which enabled them to continue molesting still more children."

CONAN: So have - some of them are still in office, some still enjoying great power?

REZENDES: Well, exactly. I mean, for instance, the auxiliary bishops who worked under Cardinal Law here in Boston, many of them were given their own diocese. For instance, John McCormack runs his own diocese in New Hampshire. William Murphy runs a diocese in Long Island. Alfred Hughes runs a diocese in New Orleans, ect. So the bishops really were not held to account in any way for allowing abusive priests to continue to abuse children, but it's only started to happen recently in the United States. A bishop in Kansas City has been indicted for not reporting child sex abuse to police, and there's a monsignor in Philadelphia who I believe is scheduled to stand trial for endangering children because he also oversaw priests who were known abusers who were assigned to other churches.

REZENDES: I think for a lot of victims, they have found justice. I mean, part of what happened over the last decade is victims who previously believed that they were alone or somehow responsible for what happened to them, which is a very common phenomenon, I think literally thousands of these victims suddenly realized hey, it's not my fault, hey, this is happening to other people, wow, there's a systemic problem here. And I think a lot of victims have found a sense of liberation in that sense. On the other hand, I think many victims still feel the damages of their abuse and continue to be troubled and continue to lead lives that are characterized by a lot of pain.

The Catholic governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, also found how difficult the Church officials can be after he was appointed head of the "Catholic Review Board" to investigate the church scandals. Keating resigned after only a few months because of non cooperation of the clergy. He said that the church was operating "like the mafia." Later when criticized for this he said:

"My remarks, which some Bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology.... To resist Grand Jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization"

Another NPR radio guest, Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who specializes in sexual abuse cases, has represented hundreds of victims in suits against the Catholic Church.
After asked if the church was reforming:
"No, not at all. It's business as usual. .....
 "To put this in focus, you have to realize you have - you are dealing with an institution that got caught. They did not volunteer their guilt. They got caught, and they fought it tooth and nail. They got caught allowing thousands of children to be sexually molested by thousands of priests over the course of centuries. They're not going to change on a dime. They have no reason to.....

"You have to remember Canon law states child sexual abuse matters when looked into shall be kept in secret. So there's a secret society there.

"When the priest molested the child, the priest would threaten the child to keep the matter a secret or, for instance, their mother would burn in hell. Then, the supervisors when they receive the report of the sexual abuse by a parent would tell the parent - and this is all documented - to keep this matter a secret.
"So you have this secrecy within an entity that has started to circle the wagons, and they play upon people's faith and morality. You have purportedly the most moral institution in the world acting the most immorally and using for leverage the fact that they tell little children if you tell anybody, your parents are going to burn in hell.

"It takes decades for victims to gather the strength and courage to come forward to report the abuse. I have individuals in their 80s reporting abuse for the very first time. One man has been carrying it around for 81 years, and I'm the first person he told. ....

"So in another 30 years or so, you're going to have children coming forward who will be saying, you know, I was sexually molested in 1995 or 2002 or whatever. It's going to take time for those individuals to come forward."

                Gary Wallin
                Mantorville

City would need to spend $1.4 million to get pool up to code

In October the DCI had an article describing the condition of the Kasson municipal pool and options available. The city has been "Band-aiding" the pool for as long as possible and now they are to the point where the baby pool will not open at all next summer due to expensive repairs required to reach compliance.

  At a city council meeting in December  Mayor Tim Tjosaas gave the board a list of required repairs to bring the pool up to code. USA Aquatics gave an itemized request  with a subtotal of $1,160,000.  Add on  "soft costs" of $240,000 to the estimate and the total repair estimates come to $1.4 million.

  Due to the anticipated cost of repairs the city and park and recreation director Ron Unger have a plan in place to have a new pool at the present North Park site by the summer of 2013.

  The current pool has had a capacity of 202 since 1982.  To meet ADA handicap accessibility standards would be very expensive.

  Rick and Tom Schaffer from USAquatics will do a presentation on the proposed Kasson Aquatic Center Wednesday night. The plan for a new pool is a close match to the Stewartville plan with the exception the water park will be a separate pool from the pool/diving area. If one were to be shut down for health reasons chances are the other one could still be operational.

  Council member Lorraine Hopkins said the plan has a "wow" factor and "ouch" factor when considering the facility will be used only 13 weeks of the year. Council members Mike Marti and Sheldon Torkelson said they were undecided and commented they were willing to let the public decide.

  Council member Matt Nelson did say the current pool has lost an average of $55,000 over the last four years. He also suggested that sinking $1.4 million into the facility could be like throwing money away.

  "The biggest ouch would be spending $1.4 million for a fix," said Mayor Tim Tjosaas. "I hope it passes with flying colors. We need it."

  Maggie Fitch, who is with Just Like Home Daycare, said the new facility would be a great benefit to the daycares. "We bring  50-60 kids up there a day in the summer," she said.

  Ron Unger said they get quite a few phone calls that something is not right with the pool. Also, city employee Lester Meyer is constantly up there "babying" the pool and doing some type of repair, added Unger.

  City administrator Randy Lenth asked the representatives from USAquatics about the possibility of installing solar panels on the facility. They said that was possible and would come up with a scheme.

  The tentative cost of a new pool is $2.8 million, consisting of 4,845 square feet of water surface with a bather capacity of 268 and the swimming pool will have 4,743 square feet of water surface with a bather capacity of 302 for a total capacity of 570.

  The amenities for the aquatic center include water slides, shallow water play elements, lap lanes, an aqua climb and out of water amenities such as shade areas, sunning areas, concessions, family change rooms and locker areas. There will also be an interactive play element in the recreational pool area.

  Wednesday night the council adopted a resolution calling for an election on $2.8 million in general obligation bonds to construct a new aquatic center. The special election will be Tuesday, April 3. More facts and figures as to tax impact will be available at a later date. If approved by voters tentative construction would be September of 2012.

Letter to the editor: Sports and Bullying

Letter to the Editor

One senior and two juniors cut. Two sophomores moved up on the varsity boys basketball team. What message is being sent to our kids-that if you are not good enough quit or get out. Is winning really the only thing that matters?

What happened to kids participating in extracurricular activities to assist with building self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as, learning how to work as a team and give encouragement to teammates.  These are skills learned that can help in the future with having good self-esteem to achieve bigger and better things that life has to offer.

The emphasis on winning is way overrated. I was told, “It is the nature of the beast,” What does this mean?? Cutting kids from teams? Don't get me wrong, winning is a good thing, but at what cost are we willing to go to accomplish this? My real concern is in the years to come (for those kids who are cut off a team). What happens to them and their self-esteem and self-confidence? Does this affect them socially, physically or emotionally?

I was embarrassed this past Friday as I sat in the audience for Kasson-Mantorville JV boy’s basketball game. At half time, the score was 38-7, K-M winning. Even at that score there were two players on the team that still had not played. Upon return to the court for the second half, K-M went on to play juniors and the sophomore starting team. The score went on and was 46-9. I noticed even the K-M crowd was quiet. I felt bad for the other team, the other parents, as I realized our team was not showing respect or sportsmanship. The game went on and on and finally with 3:31 to go in the game the final two players of the K-M were given to opportunity to shine. Does this make sense? Should K-M be proud of a win like this?

Participation in sports and other activities is not what it used to be. In fact now, kids are feeling very intimidated (bullied) by coaches and are feeling more and more reluctant to even say anything about this issue as there is a perception that the kids will pay the price if they or their family members challenge any of the new coaching ideas. Remember when you really looked up to and really respected someone as a coach? Are the kids today feeling like they have good role models in their coaches? Do they respect them?

If we do not monitor what our coaches and athletic director are doing, who is making the decisions in our children's lives that may affect them for the rest of their lives? I know some people will disagree and some agree. I want to be fair and most importantly, I want every kid that goes out for sports or other activities to benefit from adult mentoring in a way that prepares the kids for their future life. If some good comes of this then it is all worth the effort.

I made a phone call to my former coach, Molly Baum of Chatfield, who is now retired. I had the utmost respect for him in high school and even more respect after graduating. It was not until I had children in sports years later that I realized the importance of hiring a person who truly cared about how I was doing and encouraged me through my sports career.

To me a coach should encourage, discipline, build self-esteem and teach the kids to respect others. I think nowadays it has come down to only winning. Winning is the only thing that is important. We, as parents, and society have made this the main focus. Learning leadership skills and learning that hard work can help one accomplish goals should be most important.

One last thought about cutting players… We know that only 16 players can dress for playoffs. If you have 20 people on the roster dress 16 of them, sit four and if they win the game, then for the next playoff game sit the four that previously played and dress the other four that did not play. Realistically, only about eight players are going to get into a playoff game anyway unless it is a blowout. I am sure if finances were an issue the booster club could step in and help purchase additional uniforms.

I hope expressing these opinions, can only bring positive changes in our Kasson-Mantorville leadership and coaches. Please take on the challenge to teach the kids that winning isn’t everything.

            A concerned parent
            Mark Bernard, Mantorville

2011 Children’s Christmas Celebration Annual Holiday Concert

Goodman Productions presented the 2011 Children’s Christmas Celebration, an annual holiday concert, at Kasson State Theatre in December.

  Sarah Goodman Strobl, director/creator of Goodman Productions of Byron, said this was a wonderful experience performing the annual Christmas celebration concert at the State Theatre. “We auditioned children from the area who love to sing. We found so much talent and inspiration in this cast,” said Sarah.

  The cast put in over 40 hours of extensive rehearsal time in preparation to perform an hour of non-stop Christmas favorites. There were soloists, duets and group numbers. The cast had over 50 costume changes, some of which had only seconds to change.

  The children in the cast received professional vocal advice, theatre training the production included professional lighting and a sound system. “They gained self discipline and confidence at no cost,” said Sarah. “We wanted to make sure every child had the opportunity to perform if this was their passion.”

  Sarah said the State Theatre was also very generous. They added electrical outlets so the building could handle the additional electrical needs. They even cut a doorway in the side of the stage, making an accessible entrance from backstage for the children.