Sex Reassignment Surgery for Inmate

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf ruled that prison inmate Michelle Kosilek, who is serving life in prison for murdering his ex-wife in 1990, would be permitted to have the sex reassignment surgery on the tax payers. His attorney argued Kosilek is suffering from a mental illness, referred to as gender- identity disorder. Wolf ruled denying the surgery would violate Kosilek's Eighth Amendment Rights by denying him adequate care for his mental illness, gender identity disorder.

Kosilek strangled his wife Cheryl and dumped her body in a car at the Emerald Square Mall, north of Attelborough Massachusetts and then fled to New York state before being arrested. Kosilek was convicted of First Degree Murder in 1993 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Judge Mark Wolf feels the tax payers owe Kosilek a $20,000 surgery as treatment for his disorder. Now any person  who is not in prison and who is working and contributing to society who also has the gender identity disorder and wishes to have the surgery can not have the surgery unless they have the money to pay for it. Sex reassignment surgery is considered an elective surgery according the insurance companies. The usual treatment is hormone therapy. Before Judge Mark Wolf decides he wants to waste the tax dollars of working citizens to make history, he needs to start with the people who are not in prison who wish to have  the surgery and can not afford to pay for it.

In my opinion, prisons are just given way too much in prison. Kosilek had no regard or sympathy for his wife as he choked the life right out her and dumped her body like it was trash. Prisons should only have the absolute basics in prison. Cable television, computers and internet access which is a huge mistake, because they give the prisons access to the outside world which defeats the purpose of them being in prison and now a judge says they should be allowed to have sex reassignment surgery as treatment when honest hard working individuals doesn't have that right because they don't have the money to pay for it. Judge Mark Wolf that is bullshit!! How about giving that $20,000 to the poor hungry children in America who are starving? Well jeez whiz, that would actually make too much sense. Wolf should be yanked off the bench and stripped of his rope and gavel for that ignorant ruling.

The reason I am disturbed by this ruling is because there are so many people who need help, losing their homes, starving, children without adequate food and clothing  or shelter and are working so hard just to  keep their head of the water and this judge wants all of us to pay for a $20,000 surgery for a prisoner who is serving life in prison for murder, who will never travel outside the prison walls to ever be a productive contributing member of society to attempt to repay his debt he has forced upon the citizens of the United States. 

Does a prisoner really need cable or internet access while they are in prison? Now a person on the outside can not have cable or internet if they don't have the money to pay for it. There are children who go to school that need computers and the internet, but don't have it because their parents can not afford cable or internet. It drives me ballistic to hear prisons have more rights than us on the outside working and being a productive member of society.

Yes educate prisoners, but do it by giving them a books, make them learn the old way, teaching them their Three R's if need be. Treat them for their illnesses and give them therapy for their disorders. But, do not give them rights the average person on the outside doesn't have, then tell us we have to pay for it.

Here is a few questions for you, Judge Mark Wolf. Where do you plan on putting Kosilek after he has the surgery? Legally, he would have to stay with the males. His gender at birth was a male. He lived as a male the majority of his adult life. Are you going to force the women who are prison to live with a man who killed his wife? What about the psychological damage that may be caused to women in the prison who may have had similar experiences in the past, but survived? Wouldn't that be considered causing undo psychological harm to another human being and Judge Mark Wolf and Kosilek should be held to the same laws as everyone else. What if he decides to strangle another woman? On the other hand, if you put him back in with the men, he will just be used as everyone's toy, if he already isn't. So, here is the really big question "How is that ruling in the best interest of him, the tax payers or even other people in prison. No matter how Judge Wolf  tries to justify his ruling, he can't. His ruling was made with very little common sense or research. Continuing with psychotherapy and hormone therapy would have been the appropriate ruling in the best interest of Kosilek and everyone involved or burdened by the judge's ruling. 

Max's New Baby

All weekend we heard a whining outside and we didn't know where it was coming from. Yesterday, the hubby went outside to check and see where the whining was coming from and discovered a baby squirrel in the back yard. Max had been wanting to go outside a lot and would not come in the house for hours at a time. He was laying in the grass in the same spot.  He was watching his baby. The only time we heard whining was when he was inside. The baby squirrel was calling for him. Max, our dog loves any kind of baby. He will watch it and protect it. He loves just about any animal smaller than him. He will take it on as his baby if they let him. He does the same thing anytime my parents bring their little Maltese over or our friends bring their little rat terrier over. He will share his food and water and the little dogs can do anything to him and he will just lay there and let them walk or climb on him or even pull his hair trying to get him up to play. When ever they make a sound, he will run to them to check on them.  

We called someone from the local wildlife rescue and found someone to come and pick up the squirrel. Max went crazy when he saw the woman holding his baby. He was jumping and whining, trying to get outside to his baby. She said, he could come out and say goodbye to his baby. He went straight to the baby squirrel to sniff it and he tried licking his baby. She said we could name the baby since we found it. We decided to call him Max after his adoptive daddy. He sat on the living room couch looking out the window watching her pull away with his new baby. Poor Max, he lost another baby. 

ABC's of Relationships

After my most resent question from a reader regarding relationships, he inspired me to create my own blog talking about the basics of relationships. I thought, why not? I have plenty of life experience of bad past relationships and I have a BA in Family Life Education, so naturally I am curious about what does make relationships work? Read more..

Sanity is essential.

Everyone has their own way of escaping from reality for a few minutes and just breathe. As a mother if you don't do this you will lose your sanity and your ability to be rational. Yes, this is true, it has been scientifically proven that you must take a break to just be alone to breathe or you will lose all common sense before your job is completed as parents.

I have a couple of ways I do this. First, one of my favorite ways to lock out the world for a few minutes is to lock the bathroom door, open the door to my room, turn on some blues music loud, turn off all the lights and lay in the bathtub soaking in Epsom salts with the candles lit to fill the air. But, not before letting the tweenies know, that it would be in their best interest not to disrupt me while I take a bath. Yes, i am guilty of trying to escape from my family at times. I admit, I have a tendency to take too many baths.

One of my other favorite things to do other than sit on the ocean and watch the sun come down is sitting outside own my swing, just relaxing in front of the fire drinking a cup of hot tea. It is so relaxing and I don't have to be alone for this one. I even enjoy my quiet time I spend in front of the fire with my children.

One thing I love to watch in the dark is a fire. No, not a burning house, I am not that demented. I like tiki torches, fire pits and soft lighting. Here are some pics of my sanctuary.

My patio, with my antique umbrella that actually shields the sun
and rain.  This was made in the U.S.A.!!!  This has been used as my work space a lot through
 out the week. I surrender the house and seek shelter outside.

The perfect fire to stare into as my thoughts drift off and I am able to sanely
return to my family. 

My favorite swing. I have done a lot of thinking on this swing.

Don't be ashamed if you have a secret hide out to regain your sanity in. It is essential to your mental health and your child's opportunity to grow up to be a healthy productive member of society. 

McDonald's, your next.

But, that doesn't mean I will be awake when I cook your order. 

Has anyone else noticed when you go through the McDonald's drive through, no matter which McDonald's you go to in the same state or a different state about 50% of the time they get the order wrong? It's on the receipt right, but they still get it wrong in one way or another.

I have been to McDonald's in different states and different ones in the same state. Every time we pick up an order through the drive through window, something is wrong with the order.

Over the weekend, the adults got Chinese and we picked up McDonald's for the kids. Yes, we had a lot of take out over the weekend. It was just one of those weekends where I did not feel like doing a lot of cooking. Well, back to the story. My daughter's sandwich was supposed to be a fish sandwich plain with no cheese or sauce. The fish sandwich had everything on it that we asked not be on the sandwich. My son's chicken sandwich was also supposed to be plain. They gave us the his sandwich with mayo, lettuce and tomato. So, back to McDonald's we went to get the right sandwiches.

Then yesterday, we picked up McDonald's for dinner, because I was sick and couldn't drag myself to the kitchen to cook for everyone. So, McDonald's it was again.Once again the order was incorrect, they were missing a french fry. Considering we just went through this whole ordeal, I checked the order before leaving the parking lot. There is nothing more annoying than having to run back and exchange food, because the order is wrong. That's right up there with the wrong food being delivered. It is called fast food for a reason.

I am beginning to wonder if this is a McDonald's trade mark. Is it a secret joke among all the McDonald's employees? Do they teach this technique during training? If you are a former McDonald's employee, please answer these questions for me. I am puzzled how so many McDonald's nationwide do the same thing.

Maybe know they have us addicted to the fries and the secret sauce on the Big Mac. So, they sit around laughing saying those fools will come back anyway. 

Bad food combined with bad service cont.

Sorry it took me so long to get back. The kids just returned and I have been working on getting the little munchkins ready for school and get settled in after returning from Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Just a mental note, this is my first bad review. But, with all the mistakes made and the order totaling over $57.00, I think this one was well deserved. 

So, now back to Bad food combined with bad service. A little refresher, the order was placed at the Cottage Inn in Westland was:

Order

One large pizza with pepperoni.

One medium pizza with just cheese.

Order of bread sticks that came with the special.

One large order of chicken wings with BBQ sauce on the side.

One 6" Italian combo sub with olive oil on the side.

One 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms, minus the onions and peppers with olive oil on the side.

The last item on the list was, one 6" ham and cheese sub. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, you think it would be. But, not quite so easy for the Cottage in. What we got was one 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms with no lettuce and tomato, very little ham and a side of mustard sauce on the side.

When I called to place the order, I told them I would be paying with a $100.00 bill and if they could not make change for it, I could use my bank card over the phone. The person taking the order said, that is fine, I will make sure the driver has the exact change for you. When the driver comes, He had no idea I would be paying with a $100 bill and did not have the correct change.  Between my parents, us and our son , we managed to come up with enough money to pay for the order. Do not put me in that position when I am doing delivery. You never know, I may not have been able to come up with the money. Then what?!

Now onto the other mistakes. They said the order would arrive in 35 minutes. However, we received the order wrong and the subs were just too skimpy and wrong to let this one slide. 

When I called back to let them know the order was wrong, I spoke with a girl and she took my complaint, put me on hold and disconnected the call when placing me on hold for the second time. I called back to talk to someone and when I noted the was disconnected, she got very mouthy and told me the call was not disconnected, I must have hung up. Which I did not do. Rudeness, another strike against them.. 

Finally, I get to a person to talk to about the order and they said they would make new subs and have them there in 15 minutes. Then he would give me a $5 credit. Did he not get that I told him we paid cash and the driver did not have the correct change?  

Problems

It took almost two hours to receive the complete order after two attempts and four phone calls, we finally got the order. But, of course they still did not get it completely right. They were missing the side of olive oil, they sent another container of mustard sauce. They gave me a $5 credit towards my next order. I told him "You actually think I will place another order with the Cottage Inn? Not a chance in hell, the $5.00 credit is not worth the aggravation. 

Bad food combined with bad service.

There is never anything good that comes out of bad food and bad service. That's exactly what I got when I ordered food tonight, August 11, 2012 from the Cottage Inn in Westland. It was a big disappoint to find out that one of my favorite pizza places to order from near me was terrible and most definitely my worst pizza delivery I have ever experienced.

For years while working, I used to order Cottage Inn Pizza in Dearborn. The food was always very good and I never had a problem with any of the orders I had ordered from there before. I ordered Cottage Inn in Westland and it was horrible. I am not one to hand out bad reviews, but this one was welled earned. 

To begin with, when I called and the girl who answered the phone put me on hold and we got disconnected. I should have just took my money somewhere else. Then I called back, it several tries to get the order right. Finally, we get the order right and he say's cash or credit. I told him all I have is a hundred dollar bill, but could use credit if the driver could not give me change for it. He says, yes I can have him be prepared to give you your exact change. Great response, but it's such a shame he couldn't follow through with that promise. 

Order

One large pizza with pepperoni.

One medium pizza with just cheese.

Order of bread sticks that came with the special.

One large order of chicken wings with BBQ sauce on the side.

One 6" Italian combo sub with olive oil on the side.

One 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms, minus the onions and peppers with olive oil on the side.  

By the way, I am enjoying a absolutely mouth watering checkerboard ganache cake from Kroger. 

Not too complicated. Right? this is what we got from our worst pizza delivery order ever. 

One larger pizza with pepperoni, barely warm and nothing makes it any different than your below average $5 hot and ready. That is not a good thing when mass production pizzas that you really don't know how long it has been sitting in the warmer pizza. 

One medium pizza with just cheese-same as above. Strike two.

One order of bread sticks-cold. Strike three, it's not looking good. 

One large order of wings with BBQ sauce on the side- Nothing to write home about.

One 6" Italian combo sub  with olive oil on the side. This one is funny. We got a 6" sub of some kind with two very small pieces of salami that looked like eye balls staring up at you from the skimpy bed of ham it is laying on, cheese you would have to use a microscope to see, onion, peppers with a side of mustard sauce. missing ingredients- lettuce and tomato. I think that one is worth two strikes. 

Well, it's 1249a.m. and my I am very exhausted. I will have to finish up this review in tomorrow. I never thought it would take me this long to write a review. 

Hast la vista baby!