Eye On Illinois: Young victims must be empowered to identify their traumas

The line from cause to effect isn’t always uninterrupted, but a recent Lee County news story – regarding a quite unpleasant topic – presents a stark example.

Shaw Media’s Kathleen Schultz reported recently about the arrest of a 60-year-old Dixon man on charges of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and aggravated sexual abuse. According to a probable cause affidavit, a child who watched a “good touch/bad touch” video brought concerns to parents. That led to forensic interviews with two other children. The accusers are boys and girls, all between the ages of 3 and 9.

This is, most unfortunately, a textbook example of the importance of speaking to children about their bodies, autonomy and inappropriate conduct. Feel free to haggle over which adult or institution is the proper source of such information and the manner of conveyance, but if a person is old enough to be victimized they are old enough to be empowered to name their trauma and report it to a trusted guardian.

When people speak stridently against such education, who are they really protecting?

PORK PRIZE: The Illinois High School Association and the Illinois Pork Producers Association just completed their second Pork & Pigskins Championship, a contest blending online voting (nearly 150,000) and in-person judging to determine the best concession stand pork chop sandwich at almost 60 high school football fields. The 2021 champion, Normal Community High School’s A-Train, has passed the crown to Hall High School in Spring Valley.

I spent my high school football years in the marching band on sunny suburban Saturday afternoons far from the nearest hog lot and never knew what tastes I was missing under the Friday night lights.

MAILBAG: Reader C.E., on mandatory road tests for seniors: “Each year, I make a point of asking both my primary care provider and my ophthalmologist if I retain the capacity to be a safe driver. It will greatly diminish my life when I am no longer able to drive, but I simply do not have the right to endanger others if I cannot for reasons of physical or mental decline be a safe driver. I would favor a law that required health care providers to notify the Secretary of State if patients of theirs no longer met objective standards for the capacity to drive safely, and having that notification trigger a SOS evaluation, including a road test, within say 60 days.

“My Mother, late in her life, only drove within the village in which she lived, and did so perfectly safely, in spite of diminished capacity that would have made her unsafe in heavy traffic or highway speeds. Perhaps a limited license like that could be developed for those who could qualify.”

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.