THINGS NOT TO DO

I read that a 22 year old butcher, Alan Elliot from Northern Ireland, has won the “Best Haggis Recipe in Scotland”, and I have a few questions. First, how in God’s name do you judge a cooking contest where the ideal is a food group best described as “regurgitated meat by-products boiled in a sheep’s stomach.” Oh, yum, yum. Just how do you tell the difference between the winner and the loser of a thing like that? If the first bite makes you want to vomit, is that the winner or the runner up? And my second question is, how do they find qualified judges for that contest? Do you advertise in magazines that appeal to war veterans who have had their taste buds shot off? And what would the name of such a magazine be? And, third, I must ask…just, why? Haggis is one of those “foods” which is perfectly named and I wonder if the best recipe was not the one that read simply, “Don’t do this.”
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And while I am on the subject of doing things you probably shouldn’t do, there is the decision by the Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm that jailed rapists have as much right to pornography as any other prisoner in Sweden does, which is that they do. They don’t get videos or “adult web sites” or child porn, but dirty photos are pretty much okay, in Sweden.. But those old maids, the prisons authorities, felt that allowing rapists to view hardcore pornographic magazines would increase the risks of violence and assaults in the prison, not to mention increase the likelihood that a prisoner might relapse or commit repeat behavior. But Sweden’s highest court has decided that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service are just a bunch of old ninnies. It’s shocking, I know. Don’t these liberal, tree hugger socialists see how much better things run in America jails, where we don’t allow any pornography at all? There are almost never any assaults or rapes in American prisons, because we have a zero tolerance for pornography and drugs. And that has worked out so well.
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You would think that after 10,000 years of crime and punishment we would have perfected one or the other. The fact that we haven’t would seem to indicate that whatever we’ve been doing hasn’t worked very well. We’ve applied torture, mutilation and execution as a punishment for everything from religious tolerance to religious intolerance, murder, treason, segregation, integration’ wife beating, adultery and childishness, and so far we haven’t gotten better at doing any of those things, nor do we do any of them less often. So maybe we should try making the “punishment” more humane and maybe the criminal act, too. What could that hurt?
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In Boston the question is phrased as follows; should a convicted murderer get a $20,000 sex change operation, paid for by the tax payers? If you listen to talk radio the answer is a resounding no. And what better place to go to for an opinion on the subject of sexual identity than to an idiot whose primary qualification is that he or she is capable of operating a push button telephone. That’s where we went to for thoughtful advice on immigration reform!
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Not that it is relevant to the current discussion, but in May of 1990 Cheryl Kosilek was strangled to death by her husband with a wire planter hanger. Then her dear hubby dumped Cheryl’s body in the back seat of her own Hyundai and left the car parked at the mall in Attleborough. Then he went home, shaved off his beard and ran for New York State.
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Robert Kosilek was caught speeding and driving drunk in New Rochelle, and told the cops, “I can’t call my wife. I murdered my wife.” Then he pled innocence and it took Massachusetts five months to get him extradited. Once back in Massachusetts he claimed he couldn’t get a fair psych evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital because he had once been a guard there. He claimed he had been fired for reporting other guards had beaten patients, but state pointed out he had also concealed a three year sentence in Illinois for theft and attempted burglary. During the trial he grew his hair down to his shoulders, and began wearing a dress and calling himself Michelle, who claimed she had murdered her wife in self defense. (It was almost as if she had seen this act someplace before.) The jury convicted her in 3 ½ hours, I presume with a long lunch break.
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When the Sheriff refused to provide Michelle with female hormone treatments, she launched a write-in campaign for sheriff, labeling herself the “New Woman Party”. Then she sued the state, and a federal judge ordered the state to provide her with hormone treatments. And now that same judge is hearing arguments that the state should pay for the sex change operation because “Michele” has testified that without the operation she will commit suicide.
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So if I understand the situation so far, the convicted killer is saying that if the state doesn’t give him an operation she is going to kill someone, i.e., herself, which would make the state a co-conspirator before the fact in a suicide. Which I think is illegal, and which should bother the right-to-lifers and the law and order types who seem to be, generally, the majority of those folks who are saying “Screw her, I’m not paying for that!”
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Actually it’s a nasty little conundrum if you think about it too much. So don’t do that. Listen to some talk radio, instead. You’ll be surprised at how much better you feel.
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