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THURSDAY. MARCH 5. 2015 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 11A
Rotary Reads to address child abuse, neglect
Jan Coleman, Jessica Koch and Margy Lohman of Prevent Child Abuse Pickens awaiting book
donations to help their families develop interaction skills by reading to their children.
By Max Caylor
Rotary member
“March is Rotary Literacy
month and our club is collecting
gently used and new books, in
fant to teen, to be given to local
families through various com
munity providers,” stated Don
Holt, Rotary president. Rotary
believes literacy is a basic skill
that helps fight poverty, gain new
skills and helps each other.
Prevent Child Abuse Pickens
is one of the local service
providers that will receive some
of the donated books. “Early
school readiness begins the day
a child is bom and by teaching
parents how to interact with their
children is the best way to pre
vent child abuse and neglect,”
stated Margy Lohman, executive
director. Reading to children is
one of the interventions done
with families and having parents
read to their children is one of
the stated goals of the program.
“We do not have enough
books to leave with each child
but we take them on each home
visit,” added Lohman. Prevent
Child Abuse believes each of
their children would benefit from
having their own book that they
could revisit, have an adult read
to them and increase their learn
ing.
Jan Coleman is all smiles
when she tells about visiting a 3-
year-old little boy that gets all
excited when he sees her because
she is going to read to him. He
calls their time together home
work.
“We invite the Pickens Com
munity to help us improve liter
acy one child at a time by
donating books,” said Holt. Col
lection boxes at located at Com
munity Bank, North Georgia
Bank, United Community Bank,
Jasper Drugs, City Hall, county
administration offices and will
continue through March 31.
Monetary donations may be
mailed to the Rotary Club of
Jasper, P.O. Box 39, Jasper
30143.
Words fly at Nelson work session
By Ralph O. Dennis
Contributing writer
At the Nelson City Council
work session on February 18,
words were exchanged during
the public appearance portion of
the meeting. Resident Bill Mc-
Niff told the council and the
mayor that the mayor was not
qualified for the position. McNiff
cited that the mayor had used an
address that is inside the city
when he filed to run for office
when in fact the address on his
homestead exemption and there
fore his legal address is outside
the city (see the Progress article
Nelson Mayor technically not a
resident, Feb. 19, 2015).
McNiff was saying that the
mayor should not have been per
mitted to even run. After words
between the two, some heated,
the mayor asked McNiff to talk
about the topics on the agenda or
leave. McNiff left the podium.
In other public comments,
Lamar Kellett suggested to the
council that they keep the prop
erty the “Marble Buildings” are
on and tear down the buildings.
The property could be then used
by the city for numerous func
tions such as storage of rolling
stock. He agreed that there
needed to be more comprehen
sive planning and projections for
the Community Center before
moving forward.
Duanne Cronic told the coun
cil that he thought the purchase
of the Odd Fellows building was
a good purchase and that he had
wanted to do it when he was on
the council. He does believe that
plans for its use and projected
cost and income should be
looked at very closely before
spending too much money at this
time.
In other matters, the council
discussed items such as recy
cling, delinquent taxes, picnic ta
bles for the walking path and
park area, the sale or use of the
Marble buildings, the commu
nity center and the replacement
of stop signs or a crosswalk at
Pickens Street at Pilgrim Church.
At the March 2 regular meet
ing the council will hear reports
and suggestions as to whether to
use a commercial real estate
agent or auctioneer to sell the
marble buildings or to keep
them. They will also review the
recommendation to not have a
city sponsored recycling pro
gram. They will look at the cost
of adding at least 2 pavilions and
picnic tables on the walking
trails close to the baseball field
and the park. A report of cost to
use an outside collection agency
for the collection of delinquent
property taxes will be received
and also acted on.
A major concern at the work
session was the stop signs or a
crosswalk at Pilgrim Church on
Pickens Street and signage
around the basketball court. The
council discussed the installation
of a crosswalk with the signs in
the roadway advising that it is
state law to stop for pedestrians
in the crosswalk. The mayor will
bring the total cost of the cross
walk markings and signage to
the regular meeting.
Many items of repair, up
grade and use for the community
center were discussed.
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Parenting Expert o ffers advice
Vaccinations show parents can be
well-meaning and irrational at same time
By John Rosemond
Copyright 2015, John K.
Rosemond
First, a full disclosure: I have
been vaccinated against measles,
mumps, diphtheria, rubella,
whooping cough, smallpox and
shingles and have had none of
these maladies. At one time or
another, my wife received all of
these same vaccinations. Our
kids were both immunized and
they have chosen to have their
kids immunized. None of us has
ever had an adverse reaction to a
vaccination.
The vaccination controversy
currently raging in the USA
demonstrates that it is possible to
be intelligent, sane and irrational
all at the same time. For exam
ple, I recently received an online
article written by an obviously
intelligent person who was rant
ing about the imminent possibil
ity, as he sees it, that the
government will mandate vacci
nations. He refers to America as
a “fascist state” and calls doctors
who push for the vaccination of
children “medical Satanists” who
are “assaulting” children with
“poisons.” His high school Eng
lish teachers obviously never
told him that name-calling and
hyperbole obscure one’s point.
(By the way, this brouhaha can
be traced back to a fraudulent
1998 research paper whose au
thor eventually lost his medical
license.)
On the other side of this de
bate are some equally irrational
rants. The author of a recent
opinion piece in USA Today as
serted that a) parents who refuse
to vaccinate should go to jail and
b) vaccines are “safe and effec
tive.” No, these parents should
not go to jail. Last time I
checked, America is not a fascist
state. Parents have and should
continue to have the right to re
fuse to vaccinate their children.
Likewise, schools, being a public
trust, should have the right to re
fuse admission to those kids.
Furthermore, it is not true that
vaccines are safe, unless one is
speaking only relatively. As is
the case with any drug or med
ical procedure, vaccines involve
risks, even very serious ones.
It is clear (to anyone who ap
proaches this issue objectively)
however, that the benefits of vac
cination far outweigh the risks.
The diseases that I was vacci
nated for as a child once caused
a good amount of suffering and
death. And indeed, there are con
firmed tales of suffering and
death associated with childhood
vaccines, but they are few and
far between and researchers have
been unable to confirm cause-
and-effect. Furthermore, nearly
everything involves risk of some
sort and degree. There is risk as
sociated with swallowing food,
but I highly recommend it
nonetheless.
In 2012 (the last year for
which statistics are available) the
leading causes of death in chil
dren ages 1-4 were unintentional
injury, congenital anomalies, ma
lignant and benign neoplasms,
homicide, heart disease, in
fluenza, septicemia, cerebro-vas-
cular problems and respiratory
disease. The only reason
measles, whooping cough, diph
theria and other childhood ill
nesses from years past are not
on the list is vaccines.
Many if not most of the in
juries that are the leading cause
of death in children ages 1-4 are
sustained in automobile crashes.
How would parents who don’t
allow vaccinations yet transport
their kids in cars explain the in
consistency? Per year, a lot
more kids drown than die of
vaccination. I doubt there is
anything approaching one-to-
one correspondence between
being anti-vaccine and anti
water-play.
Parents who don’t allow vac
cinations are well-intentioned,
which proves that being well-
intentioned and not thinking
straight are not mutually exclu
sive. But then, people who sug
gest that doctors who advocate
vaccinations are Satanists or
that jail is the right place for
anti-vaccination parents aren’t
thinking straight either.
These folks obviously de
serve one another.
Family psychologist John
Rosemond :
johnrosemond.com, parent-
guru.com
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