Officer Down, Officer Down………… I Mean Gone
This is yet another sad moment for the City of Marengo, another officer turning in their badge. First it was Scott Crawford, "There is three sides to every story", the four legged beast Quanto, and now Kelly Given who was Quanto's partner and Crawford's girlfriend.
In all honesty, based on the media coverage and statements made by the Chief of Police Les Kottke, all fingers point to Kelly Given. I believe that Given resigned due to the fact that she leaked confidential reports to Josh Stockinger who was employed with the NWHerald about one of the teens suing her. Just like Crawford, Given is trying some evasive maneuvers to escape persecution.
The City of Marengo has been crapping their pants since the allegations of police abuse have started. If there is "Three sides to every story", why are the two key players for the cities defense no longer employed? Where would the credibility be?
I will try to explain my "Three side to every story" Theory. The conclusion to this theory is based on all facts publicly known.
Jack's Theory:
Story 1: Marengo police officers are being accused of using excessive force, creatively making up false statements, and secretly releasing top secret documents.
Story 2: Crawford "I am innocent." "The truth will come out in the end."
Quanto "Ruff…..Ruff." The translation….."Welcome to Walmart."
Given said she had nothing to do with it.
Story 3: Crawford, Quanto, and Given (in that order) no longer are in employed by the Marengo PD. Nor does Stockinger work for the NWHerald, coincidence?
Conclusion: Story 1 and Story 3 are very true. Story 2 is false. Therefore, if Story 3 is a true statement then Story 1 is telling the truth.
Whose in the Neighborhood?
We all live in Marengo thinking we are in a safe neighborhood. Yes, there have been problems with the police in the past. But most of us, I imagine, feel pretty safe. I know many people who let their kids out in the yard to play. Many more don't lock their doors when they are home during the day, or even at night. After all, Marengo is a small town, far removed from the big city. But how safe are we really?
Here is who lives in your neighborhood:
1. John Adamson: Lives on 408 Sunset. Convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a young victim from 13 to 16 years of age.
2. Kenneth Anthony: Lives on 622 Jackson. Is a sexual predator and convicted of child pornography.
3. James Kacena: Lives at 18704 Rt.176. Convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a young victim.
4. Gary Morrison. Location currently unknown. Convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault and violated the sexual criminal registration act.
5. Daniel Rohe. Lives at 719 Beggs, apartment 4. Convicted of his SECOND act of criminal sexual assault of a young victim.
6. James Uden. Lives at 330 W. Railroad. Convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a young victim and is also considered a sexual predator.
So, our town is not as safe as we thought it might be. These people might not present a danger to anyone, or they might be very dangerous. From what I understand, in his whole lifetime a sexual offended is known to abuse an average of 70 victims. So, if any of you live near these offenders, it is best to exercise caution.
Of course, not all the sexual offenders are what they seem. The last on the list, James Uden, was 18 years old and caught having a sexual relationship with his 16 year old girlfriend. The police found out and Uden wound up serving time in prison. So, I guess, they might not all be as dangerous as they seem and looks can be decieving. However, it still does not hurt to use caution with our neighbors, even in Marengo.
McHenry County Justice
It has been on my mind on how our justice system here in McHenry County has unfairly imprisoned and charged people with crimes. I can't help but wonder if this is a case particular to McHenry County or if it happens everywhere. Unfortunately, I have found an example that we can refer to, and that is what happened in New Orleans. The way people accused of crimes in New Orleans have been treated is truly horrifying. An organization from New Orleans called Safe Streets, Strong Communities did a study on how many days people were kept in jail without trial.They found the average number was 385 days. One person had been locked up for 1,289 days. None of these people have been convicted of any crime. Many of these arrests were for simple misdemeanors. Now, I cannot help but wonder how this could have been allowed to take place. Can you imagine if you got arrested (falsely or not)for, let's say, disorderly conduct. Let's suppose you were arguing with your husband or wife and someone called the police. Do you think it is right for you to be locked up for the next year awaiting a trial? But, wait, you might say, what does this have to do with McHenry County? Well, look at the Gaughan case. The Gaughans were originally arrested over a year and a half ago. Almost two years. Yet the State's Attorney keeps issuing continuance after continuance in order to postpone the trial, which they know would then wind up costing the Gaughans yet more money. Luckily, they are not sitting in jail as this is taking place. But there is no excuse for the constant delays, and if a person does not have the money to pay bail, then they would have to wait all this time in jail for a trial on charges that are not serious enough to even warrant that much jail time. What makes this even worse is that the only two witnesses against the Gaughans are both former disgraced cops who resigned in lieu of being fired. Both committed crimes which neither was charged with because of the State's Attorney not wanting to bring charges against them. Instead they continued with the charges against the Gaughans. The firing of these two cops has cost Marengo tax payers over $100,000 so far. A few months ago the city administrator, Scott Hartman, said Marengo was in the red because they had spent over $100,000 involving a police lawsuit. Well, what the city spent that 100G on was the investigation, and the removal of Crawford and Given. None of that money was spent on the civil rights lawsuit. That is being paid entirely by the City's insurance company, which has not even started using that money for anything yet. On top of that, the $100,000 that the City spent does not even count the $30,000 that Crawford got to resign nor any of the money Given might have received.. So, we are all paying the price for the police department's and the State's Attorney's incompetence, not just those directly involved.
I think this is something that we should all think about, as it might be ourselves or our children who might one day be at the mercy of the justice system here in McHenry County, as well as the rest of us, who will surely be stuck footing the bill.
McHenry County Peace Group
Last year, I was very surprised to discover that we have a Peace Group in McHenry County. The McHenry County Peace Group is a collection of citizens from this county who try to right injustices by holding lectures and protesting. At the time I met with the Peace Group, they were protesting the war in Iraq by holding signs on Rt. 14 and Main St. in Crystal Lake every Thursday. They also had a Christmas Vigil, which I participated in. Members of the Peace Group would take turns holding signs on the said intersection from 4pm until 6am. All night there would be someone out there. It was truly a powerful experience to try to fight injustices in this way. It was a really cold night, under 10 degrees, and I stood out there for 40 full minutes in the cold. By the end of my time I couldn't feel my hands or feet and was shaking uncontrollably. Cars would pass by and, while some would wave and honk, most would shout insults or hold out a finger. If anyone is familiar with that intersection, you would know it is not exactly a safe place to be standing at night in the dark, with angry people passing by at 40 miles an hour. But I was proud to have taken a stand against the Iraq war and done my share by being out there with rest of the members. From that point on, I wanted to be more involved in our County's Peace Group.
Here, I run into a little problem. You see, the way I understand the concept of being involved and trying to fight injustices and the way they see it seems to be rather different. For me, fighting things that are wrong always starts in one's backyard. I noticed that our McHenry County Peace Group has a lot of members of all sorts of backgrounds. There are doctors, lawyers, and teachers. These people want to fight things that are wrong and make a difference. Yet, all the Peace Group's efforts are aimed at national issues and things overseas. It's necessary to worry about conditions in Argentina and Mexico, but not about lack of McHenry County's health care and domestic violence programs for women(other than Turning Point, which is notoriously ineffective in providing a safe place to stay in the county). All these people, the way I see it, can be put to good use helping us here, at home, in McHenry County. When I put this issue to the Peace Group, however, I have received no response.
My biggest issue in McHenry County, however, is their justice system. Many people in Marengo have been arrested and falsely charged, even imprisoned, for crimes they did not commit. What the State's Attorney is doing with the Gaughan case is truly horrible, and I have brought these issues up with the Peace Group. Their latest protest was this Monday, the day the immigrants walked out of their jobs and schools, and it supports the immigrants. Now, I can't help but think that in McHenry County there are far more pressing concerns right now. But, regardless, the way I looked at it, if the Peace Group was willing to do their own little Immigrant Protest in downtown Crystal Lake, why not do something local that has far greater meaning and a chance to try to right an injustice? I suggested that we do a protest in front of the McHenry County Courthouse against the State's Attorney. Again, I have not gotten even so much as an answer on this from the Peace Group.
I hate to say it. Even though I really like the Peace Group, am glad to have them in our county, and greatly respect what they do, I am beginning to lose some respect for them. It seems that they only handle national or international issues, because those issues are safe to handle. No one is going to mind if they stay out there on Rt.14 protesting President Bush. He doesn't live in this county. However, the State's Attorney is an another story. Its apparently not okay to protest things that might involve some risk on their part, that might make people angry and help bring about some actual change, along with possible personal consequences. I'd be willing to do it any day. Why aren't they?
Murder in a Small Town
This week, a terrible tragedy occurred. An eighty three year old woman was murdered in her home. The Marengo Police have released little information. For instance, not only do we not know who actually killed this woman, but what the motive might have been. Yes, her car and a few possessions were stolen, but why? Was any money gone? Who did this?
Now, I have to say. When I first heard of this tragedy, I was hoping that the Marengo Police would have a chance to redeem themselves and handle this situation in a competent manner. I even thought so after it was announced that they shot an unarmed man. Now, I disagree. It seems that they have completely botched this investigation and are currently in the process of covering that fact up.
What went wrong?
Well, for one, the person who they shot had no weapon on him. Is it right to shoot someone just because he flees the scene? I don't think so. You don't know why they are fleeing. In this case, the person was an illegal immigrant and might have had a good reason to be scared and run. He might have had no idea just why the police were chasing him. But to me, it was still understandable how this could happen. A young, inexperienced officer could easily panic and shoot. Police officers cannot just shoot at a limb or a foot, as this might injure bystanders. They need to shoot to kill. So, while certainly not morally right, I really doubt that in this case the officer in question had any time to consider morals. He was a young rookie, who was scared and so he discharged his weapon. Why the other officers at the scene did not prevent this from happening, is anybody's guess.
But, see, it gets worse.
The Marengo Police decided to cover this shooting up. The name of the officer has not been released and neither were any details of the crime. State Police were called in to investigate. Which State Police? Why, Kronke, Schroeder, and Perez! The same people who investigated the Gaughans and the three police officers from Richmond, and whose integrity has been called into question in both investigations. Besides that, Joe(not Jose) Perez has been a long time Marengo resident, good friends with the Marengo Police Department. These people are not going to be impartial in their investigation. They are clearly there to cover up for the shooting, the same as they did in the Gaughan case.
Then…
There is the case of the car. It seems obvious that the suspect who was shot was driving the stolen car with the 83 year old woman's things in it, therefore he must have stolen it and killed the woman. However, this person has stayed in the area, did not flee, and even drove right past the police the very day he was shot. Why would somebody DO that? Does this sound like the work of a person who just murdered somebody? Even a man on drugs would have better sense than that, I would think! And this man has no criminal history, and has not done anything remotely like this before. My guess? He never knew that it was either a stolen car, whom he had gotten from somebody else, and he also didn't know about the murder either. Therefore, the Marengo Police shot an innocent man.
This is a scary thought for me. I see not too many people share my view, though. But, personally, I think that we as a community should not allow this kind of thing to happen. We should not allow crimes that the police commit to be covered up without us knowing so much as the officer's name. We should not allow the City to hold back information which we are entitled to. We should not allow lies to be told to the media without standing up and saying something.
McHenry County College
The main college within McHenry County that I have always heard about is McHenry County College. It is an interesting institution, mainly because it is the one place people go to school to after high school in our county. If they go to school within the county, that is. Oh, there are other schools, but McHenry County College is certainly the one that just about everyone has heard about.
Well, for me personally, this was a first time experience at a community college, as before I have always attended large Universities. What I have to say, however, after taking three classes last semester in the Early Childhood Education field, is that I am rather disappointed with the whole ECE program. I am not sure whether or not this reflects on the other programs the college offers, as I had not taken any other classes there. But from what I saw in the classes I took, I found the program lacking in many important ways.
My biggest problem with the ECE program is that it prepared the people taking classes for jobs only in child care. There were teachers in various fields taking many of the classes as requirements, there were people studying to become teachers and getting ready to transfer to a 4 year college for a degree, yet all of my classes basically only focused on how to use the information that was being taught in a daycare setting and nothing else. In fact, in one of my classes, when the instructor presented a chapter on conducting parent teacher conferences, something that I was more than a little anxious to learn much more about, the subject that was used for an example was the issue of toilet training. Now, this is not a problem, except that, in my opinion, the ECE field is very diverse. Those who work in daycares form the very bottom on the career ladder, those are the jobs that pay barely above minimum wage. Shouldn't the school have been trying to prepare the students for entering the teaching profession or government programs that use early intervention educators, rather than giving them an education that would only be useful for being a babysitter?
The other issue I had with the classes is that they did not encourage critical thinking. The instructors gave us projects to do that encouraged us to research things in whatever publication we wanted to, not distinguishing serious, scholarly articles from articles in the NW Herald. Whatever each student found, even from the newspaper, was considered to be unvarnished truth, simply because someone other than the student wrote it. In one of my classes, we even watched a video about a guy who ate nothing but McDonalds for weeks at a time, and how this ruined his health in a space of less than a month. I'm not saying that a diet like that wouldn't do that, but the question of some of the accuracy of the video was never brought up, except by me. I was given the answer that "they made the video. I'm sure they checked all that out, or it wouldn't be out there." Students were not taught to critically consider the information that they were presented with or researched, which not only doesn't develop those skills, but leaves them unprepared to go on to a four year college or University, where one is required to think critically and come up with one's own ideas. Instead, spelling and punctuation was considered of far more importance then the content of the papers the students wrote.
Last, my main issue with the ECE classes was the way they were conducted. In each, except one of my classes, the instructors chose videos and speakers, presenting very little of their own information themselves. When they did lecture, they put up overheads and read off of them. I felt that they had very little useful knowledge to impart to the students, other than what was in the videos and on the overhead sheets. I must admit, that I myself learned absolutely nothing new that I did not know before. I cannot think of but a handful of things that would be useful to me in my career. Now, I cannot help but wonder how many people go to McHenry County College, in order to prepare themselves for a career, or to transfer to a 4 year school, only to be left ill prepared by this experience. I have heard many good things about the programs the college offers, especially their mechanics and fire science program, which is considered to be one of the best, so I only hope that what I have to say here only concerns the Early Childhood Education program and not the rest of the school.
Herbivore or Carnivore?
In our society, most people eat meat. This makes sense, as human beings are basically carnivors. However, here in the United States, we live in a strange place, where there are many people who decide to do all sorts of strange, unnatural things, such as get earrings in their stomachs, spend a dollar on a bottle of water that can be gotten from the sink for free, and sometimes even go to stores to buy children clothes that cost more than those for an adult. So, keeping this in mind, it is not strange at all that various people would forgo eating meat and call themselves "vegetarian". To me, of course, it seems rather unusual to forgo items that are obviously natural to eat and necessary for our nutrition. After all, can you imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex forgoing tearing apart smaller dinosaurs in order to munch on grass instead?
I can't either. That is why I have decided to explore the subject of vegetarianism more. Is it really healthier than a meat diet, as people claim? Is it better for the environment? Is it more humane? To try to answer these questions, I have browsed through a Trader Joes today. Now, a Trader Joes carries a lot of items that are unusual and different. It also caters to vegetarian tastes, carrying such items as tofu, veggie meatballs, and even a tofu turkey for Thanksgiving. So, this seemed like a good place to see the variety of foods that are out there which vegetarians might purchase and eat. After thoroughly examining the various items on display, though, I became convinced one of the answers is decidedly a "no". A vegetarian diet is not any better for the environment. Why? Because it seems to involve foods that are not produced and grown locally in the United States, but are rather shipped in, such as unusual hummus's and tapenades, tofus, rolled grape leaves, and other foods of that nature. On most of the packages that I examined, the food was almost always imported rather than grown locally.
I also looked at the fat content of those foods. Surprisingly, except for tofu, it was actually pretty high. I also must add to this that I know of a person or two who eat only a vegetarian diet. The times I've been out with them, they seem to eat things that are far from healthy, such as grilled cheese sandwiches, pizzas, olives, and tortilla chips. Just because one has cut out meat, does not mean one's diet has gotten any healthier in the process.
Finally, the issue of humanitarian reasons comes up. I personally think that most mammals are designed to eat other animals. A fish will often have an even smaller fish in its belly. If it can eat the small fish, why can't we go ahead and it HIM? After all, he ate someone else! An eye for an eye, the way I see it. Also, one of the vegetarians whom I know has had giant ants in his house. He remedied the problem by setting huge traps and killing the ants! Yet he would not eat meat for humanitarian reasons. He feels disgust when he even looks at meat. Yet, he had no trouble killing the ants. I had brought up this inconsistency to him, and insisted that if he can kill an ant, he can surely eat a shrimp. Why not try it? I mean, a shrimp is a brainless little creature, less a living being than the ant, I would think. He replied that he did not eat the ants and that if the shrimps were crawling around his house, eating stuff, and breeding, he would set traps for them too! I don't know. To me, it seems the humanitarian argument for vegetarianism doesn't hold either. My guess is that we were born to eat meat, and that such aberrations in diet are a result of a culture that has gotten very comfortable. After all, if we lived in Pioneer times, and tried to be vegetarian, I would think we would all starve. People in those times were just glad when there was food on the table.
Gardening Corner
By: Museumlover
Some of you who read my gardening article were hopefully moved to want to buy plants and dig in the dirt. If you don't have a yard or space to plant, do not dispair. Container gardening is fast, easy, fun and colorful. If you have a balcony, a patio, even a rooftop, you can get on with growing.Any spot in the sun will work for a container garden. I have grown great tomatoes in a container. Using good potting soil, plant food and keeping plants watered will result in fine tomotoes! Right now I have basil in a clay pot and rosemary in another. I usually put basil, cilantro, oregano, thyme and tarragon all together in one huge plastic planter. The rosemary doesn't like to be as wet as the other herbs, so it goes all alone in its own well drained pot. It doesn't get watered as often. Mint, chives and most other herbs can also be grown in containers. Some will successfully winter over in the house, but I haven't had a lot of luck with that.Ok...you have found a space and you don't want to grow herbs and vegetables, you want flowers. Almost any container can be used for flowers. I once saw an old fireman's boot full of blooms. The key is to be sure that the pot has drain holes in the bottom or several inches of gravel so the dirt will stay in but the water will drain. Most containers will include three kinds of planting, a tall one, a mounding one to fill the middle and one that trails or bends down over the edges.I personally buy all of my plants in Marengo at Hubbs because they have wonderful stuff and really beautiful planters already done up. Just go to your favorite greenhouse, study the containers you like and then make your own. You will need to figure out what the weather will be like where you plan to put your containers If in the sun there are probably hundreds of plants from which to choose. Shade lovers require a little more looking. If you are real ambitious, you can go out and move your containers around, following the sun, but that is way too much work for me!Be adventuresome. Put purple heliotrope, red salvia and yellow gerber daisies together. I like to sort of overplant so the containers are really nice and full. Use you own likes and imagination to come up with plants and containers that please you. Just don't plant a sun lover in the shade because you will be disappointed with the results.There are many shade lovers that will look wonderful. For example, I have an arbor that is completely in the shade. This year I planted a tall feathery fern in the center of each pot and then put double tuberous begonias, bright red, around the fern. These planters are really beautiful and are in total shade. The begonias will bloom all summer, they cost about $3.29 each and the ferns I jerked out of another shady place I have.You can never go wrong with geranimums. They always look wonderful and will bloom all summer with little care. Just dead head and water....that's it. I really love hibiscus and have about ten of them. They are a little pricey, but they will overwinter find. I take them to the patio in June and bring them in just before the frost. Look around your house for unusually containers. I plant petunias in an old coal scuttle. A silver galvanized bucket from the dollar store, holes punched in the bottom, holds marigolds. Pansies and petunias look great in just about anything.Next time I'll tell you about moon gardens, if anyone is interested. Leave some feed back about the gardening and planting things that would interest you and I will try to help.
