The Life of Alexander Orlowski

by capper

In four days, it will be Thanksgiving Day, the kick off to the holiday season. Most of us are already preparing for the day. Some of us are looking ahead to stuffing ourselves on turkey, stuffing, yams and pumpkin pie. Some of us are looking forward to a day of football. Some of us are looking forward to gathering with friends and/or family, some of which we haven't seen for a long time.

Some of us aren't so lucky. Gary and Patti Orlowski wish that they could have their whole family over for Thanksgiving feasting, football watching and having good times. But they can't.

Their son, Alexander Orlowski (pictured at lower right), died last year, on Thanksgiving morning.

I wrote a post about Alexander's death last year, one of many posts I wrote about the problems and disfunctionality at the Milwaukee County House of Correction. Alexander was the inmate that passed away due to an overdose of prescription medication while serving his sentence at the House of Correction.

Not too long ago, I received an email from Patti Orlowski, Alexander's mother. She told me that she had done a search on her son's name, and had found my post. She also wrote that she and her husband have been struggling with getting any answers from HOC on their son's death, and having a difficult time getting things changed so that something like this doesn't happen again.

We started to correspond, and eventually I was able to meet the Orlowskis one evening for a cup of coffee, and they told me about their son, and the problems they've faced since his passing. With their permission, I will share their story, and Alexander's story, with you today and over the next couple of days.

Today, I want to just talk about Alexander's life.

Too often, I hear people on the radio or the TV, or read in the blogs, that anyone that is incarcerated is a "thug." It doesn't matter who the person is, what they did or why they did whatever crime they committed to get arrested in the first place. It is much easier to condemn and dehumanize that person, than try to understand them. I personally think that many of these people are subconsciously afraid that they will recognize themselves or someone they love in these people if they look to closely at them.

Alexander had a pretty normal start to life. He came from a blended family, meaning that Patti and Gary both had children from other relationships before getting married. Between the two, they have four children, including Alexander, who was the baby of the family. Gary works in sales and marketing. Patti was recently laid off from Reiman Publishing in Greendale.

Their family is much like any other middle class family in the suburbs. They have had moments of great joy. They've had times of great sorrow. And they have great pride and love for all of their children.

The Orlowskis told me that Alex was a really good boy early in life. They told be that he was very creative and artistic. They had shown me some of the artwork Alexander did while at HOC. These were just pencil and paper drawings, but one could just see the talent he possessed. They told me he was very popular with the other inmates who would "hire" Alex to do drawings for them to send home to their loved ones. They would give Alex a prearranged amount of canteen (chips, candy, soda) for his work.

When Alexander was in the third or fourth grade, some early signs of his future problems started to manifest themselves. He had a hard time studying and staying focused. He went through an assessment and was found to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

By the time he was in middle school, the ADHD was in full swing, and Alexander was prescribed to take Dexadrine. The medication had mixed results. While he was managing at school, he was starting to show an increase in behaviors. He was often caught up in lies as he tried to cover up things that he did on an impulse, but still knew was wrong. Things like saying he was going over to a friend's house, but then go off to someplace else, like the mall.

In high school, Alexander's behaviors grew increasingly more serious. Friends turned him on to drugs, including alcohol and marijuana. If you have known anyone with a mental illness, whether or not they are under doctor's care, you already know that adding street drugs to the mix is a dangerous recipe for disaster. The mentally ill person feels temporary relief from their problems, and are more likely to develop an addiction. This is what happened to Alexander.

His drug usage quickly escalated to include heroin, which is highly addictive in itself. To support his habit, he did what most addicts do, he started resorting to crime to get money to pay for it.
He started stealing from his parents. They would find money, jewelry, alcohol and other things coming up missing. Alexander also started to break into people's houses to steal from them.

His behavior also escalated. He was quick to become enraged and was punching walls. He was disruptive in school. He was bounced from school to school. He attended Greendale High, Greenfield High and an alternative high school. He never graduated from any of them.

He was also getting into trouble with the law. He was arrested for disorderly conduct, possession of a controlled substance and underage drinking.

He was involved with various agencies, often through Children's Court. The agencies included Running Rebels, Southwest Key and the Matt Talbot Recovery Center of Milwaukee. While he was in each of these programs, Alexander did much better. He was able to get off of the drugs and the alcohol, and became the sweet boy that Gary and Patti knew he could be.

Unfortunately, the support he received from these groups were not infinite, and soon after being discharged from them, Alexander would end up with the wrong people, in the wrong neighborhoods, doing the wrong things again.

When Alexander was 17 years old, he overdosed on heroin. He would have died that night, except that Garry noticed that Alexander was experiencing breathing problems and called 911. He was in St. Luke's Hospital's ICU for a month due to respiratory distress and a strep infection in his blood, all from the drug use.

When he became an adult, Alexander had been charged three times for breaking and entering. He was finally sentenced to the House of Correction. His parents actually felt relief when he was sentenced, thinking at least they knew where he was and that he'd be safe. We'll talk more about that tomorrow.

For now, I would just ask the gentle reader to reflect on their lives, compared to the Orlowskis. Most of us have, just like the Orlowskis, I'm sure, a fairly normal life. We get up, go to work, come home to our families. For those with children, we spend time playing with them, helping them with homework, and telling them that we love them.

But just like the Orlowskis, one never knows when something can happen to turn our worlds upside down. Some forms of mental illness, like any other illness such as diabetes or heart problems, are hereditary, so there might be a clue ahead of time. Many times, there is no such indication, and unless you already have an understanding of mental health issues, it can be very alarming and frightening, because your loved one is acting so bizarrely, so dangerously and you don't understand why.

I have worked with the mentally ill in one way or another my entire professional career. It still saddens and angers me when people with a mental illness are still being stigmatized by society as a whole. Mental illness is just that, an illness. We don't treat diabetics, cancer patients or people with asthma like second-class citizens. We shouldn't treat the mentally ill that way either.

This also reminds me of something I was told during my first week working at the HOC. The sergeant in charge of training us kept reminding us that the inmates are people too. They are someone's brother, father, son, sister, mother, daughter, aunt or uncle. And they could be anyone of us. All it takes is one mistake, one bad decision, or even one bad break in luck, and any one of could end up incarcerated. The point he was trying to make is that we didn't necessarily have to like the person, or even respect them, but that they still should be treated with respect anyway, because they are people too.

Alexander's story also reminded me of an old saying. It goes, "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Who's The Real Troop Hater?

by capper

I had the opportunity this morning to talk to a wife of one of our brave soldiers fighting in Iraq. She was upset because she had to talk to another one of his friends who were worried because they hadn't heard from him in a year. She said that he had dropped out of contact with everyone but her and his parents.

She further told me that her husband, who wanted to work in law enforcement or with the border patrol, no longer even wants to do this, because he is afraid of having to shoot another person. She also told me about her father, who was a veteran from Vietnam, who spent every Independence Day in a closet crying, scared from the noise of the fireworks. She also shared a story of another friend, home from his fourth tour of duty, saw a paper bag in the road while driving. He started screaming, "IED" and did a U-turn over the island in his Olds, and went tearing down the street for about a mile before his wife could get him to calm down.

She told me that her husband has told her that things are much, much worse than the media would let us know. And the right wing pundits' presentation would be laughable if it wasn't such a sick distortion of reality.

These are only anecdotal stories, but the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that our soldiers are experiencing is very common, and needs to be addressed with all sources available. And it is not surprising that our soldiers are suffering from PTSD. The National Center for PTSD has put out a guide (pdf) for family members of veterans, explaining PTSD and how to help their loved ones cope with it. Included in that guide is this chart showing combat experiences in 2003, on page 4:



We can also see the long lasting effects of combat in the story of Joseph Patrick Dwyer who killed himself because he couldn't cope. It probably explains why the media won't show us pictures (like these) of what it's really like over there. The outrage and demand for the troops to come home would be even greater than it is now.

Seeing this need, hearing these stories is heart-breaking, to say the least.

It also makes me wonder where the hell John McCain and the right wing blogosphere get off on criticizing Barack Obama as being unsupportive of the troops.

It is McCain who has only voted 30% of the time for giving benefits to help the troops, while Obama has a 90% rating. It is McCain that has no problem exposing our troops to harm for an indefinite amount of time, for an unjust war, mindless that neither the majority of Americans or Iraqis want our troops there. It is McCain, who personally experienced how deep the hells of war can go, and wears those scars with pride, that flip-flopped on torture, and is now just fine with it, as long as it's politically convenient.

But McCain and the right wingers ignore his own crappy track record, and try to criticize Obama for not visiting wounded soldiers in Germany. Of course, Obama was in a Catch-22 on this issue. If he didn't visit the troops, he's not supporting them. If he did visit them, he would be politicizing them, which they would have squawked about as well.

After all, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had already issued an order that military personnel should not be getting involved in politics. McCain and company would have screamed bloody murder about it, ignoring the fact that McCain had already violated that directive himself.

Just another example on how the "Straight Talk Express" is anything but.

The County Board Shows Some Common Sense

by capper

While catching up on the news, I was heartened to see that the Milwaukee County Board has decided to take some time to analyze the foolish proposal to move the mental health complex. This is especially true given that the county has already invested so much money and effort in getting the current facility up to code.

Furthermore, the numbers I have seen aren't adding up the way Walker is presenting them (more on this at a later date).

What is disconcerting is Walker's persistence on the issue:

Walker has suggested closing the deal soon, noting that St. Michael owner Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare might not wait much longer for the county to decide. The County Board last week voted to delay consideration for two months for more study.

After all, we all remember what happened the last time the board rubber-stamped a proposal from the County Executive without giving it a thorough vetting.

Shoddy Journalism

by capper

This morning's paper had an article about Walker trying to push his plan to move the Behavioral Health Division from the county grounds in Wauwatosa to the old St. Michael's Hospital. (By the way, it's still a very bad idea, on many, many levels.)

Steve Schultze wrote the article, and it is pretty obvious that he wrote it from press releases from Walker's office, with only one or two phone calls. He misses a lot of different angles to this story. But perhaps the most offensive part of the article (outside of Walker's plan itself) is the last paragraph (emphasis mine):

The report says the shift to St. Michael would provide an opportunity for "culture change" throughout the county's Behavioral Health Division, whose employees staff the mental health complex. High absenteeism, high overtime costs and difficulty in recruiting workers have plagued the division in recent years. In addition, employees have publicly raised concerns about safety at the complex after several instances of patient assaults on staff and other patients.

A "culture change"? And did he bother wondering why there was high absenteeism, high overtime, and problems with recruitment? Perhaps he should have referred himself to an article that he wrote himself last year, which discussed that due to the low staffing cause by Walker's ineptitude, there was an increase of assaults on staff by 50%. The citizens of Milwaukee County had their chance for a culture change on April 1st. Now it's too late. This move, from what I hear, will only make things worse, as far as staffing goes.

But Schultze didn't bother to check, and apparently went with whatever the press release said. This doesn't surprise me too much though. It's not the first time I've wondered about his reporting.

And What Of The Survivors?

by capper

(I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but the subject matter is very important and complicated. I tried to be as concise as possible without sacrificing content.)

It seems that one cannot open the paper, watch the news, or visit the blogosphere without reading about someone being sexually abused or assaulted. Normal reaction to these stories are anger, outrage and a call for action. This is even more so when the victim is a child. People focus their anger on exposing sexual offenders, making sure that the offender is incarcerated for longer and longer sentences, and banning offenders from their community.

People will try to tackle the problem in the best way they can, which is usually to focus on only a small part of it. Some will worry about the stranger, when, as Nick Schweitzer accurately points out, is only a small fraction of the problem. The greater danger comes from the predators that are family members, or friends of the family. Predators will also try to maneuver their way into positions of authority, such as teachers, counselors, priests, law enforcement officers, or other roles as trusted authority figures. This leads to people being distracted to arguing whether a teacher as predator or a priest as predator is worse. That is like arguing whether it is better to get burned to death, or to drown. Either way the damage is done, and I'm sure that the victim would have chosen "None of the above."

But no matter what the person's reaction is, what steps they take, or where they choose to put the focus of their anger and outrage, they balk when it comes to the most important part of the situation: Taking care of the victim.

I have already pointed out that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Appropriately enough, it is also Child Abuse Prevention Month. The numbers of people, and of children, who are affected by sexual assault is simply staggering. The affects on individuals who are victimized is even worse. It can and usually does affect them the rest of their lives, at least to some degree.

I have mentioned before that I have worked in the foster care system and in various psychiatric hospitals and group homes. I have worked with dozens if not hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault. I will not share their stories here, out of respect to the survivors, as well as confidentiality laws. Let it suffice to say that sometimes I still am disturbed by their stories, to the point that I can become weepy, or it affects my sleep. I cannot imagine the hell they are going through, on a daily basis. For a small taste of what a survivor of sexual assault/abuse is going through, please read this piece from Linda Flashinski, who works with young girls, often the survivors of sexual abuse, at Southern Oaks Girls School

What gets to me is that even with all the politicians, the community activists, radio squawkers, and bloggers who go on and on about their outrage, and wanting to extract society's revenge on the perpetrators, they almost always balk when it comes to helping the victim get the help he or she needs to deal with their trauma.

Most often, the victim is poor, and would need public aid to support the costs related to what could be easily years and years of therapy. Even if the survivor has access to private insurance, mental health coverage is often woefully inadequate. Any attempt to correct that situation is often subject to obstacles and attempts to block it.

Without the necessary therapy and support services, the survivor is likely to develop other issues, such as alcohol and drug dependence, thoughts of suicide, promiscuous behaviors (and the resultant pregnancies), eating disorders, criminal behaviors, and other similar activities that end up costing society more than the original therapy would have.

For more information on the symptomology of sexual abuse and assault, as well as how to interact with survivors of sexual assault, this site from Cool Nurse is one of the most comprehensive and quick reads that I have found. For more information regarding how sexual abuse/assaults affect boys, I would recommend this site by Ball State University. Here is another good site for how to prevent your child from becoming victimized, and how to help them if they should come in harm's way.

ADDENDUM: Besides children and the developmentally delayed often being targets for predators, the mentally ill are often targeted. Again, the cost to society can be huge, in more ways than one, as this news story out of Sparta, WI, shows us.

Happiness is Warm BS

by Keith Schmitz

Just got back into town on Friday and saw this wonderfully convoluted letter from one Karl Schubert of Wauwatosa, commenting on his fear that if people admit themselves into a mental hospital they would be stripped over their hazy "second amendment rights" under certain proposals.

Here's the money quote from Herr Schubert:

If voluntarily checking into a mental hospital makes one ineligible to own firearms, this will have a devastating effect on mental health care. Gun owners will avoid treatment simply to avoid having their rights confiscated. If the Brady Campaign wants to avoid crazy people with guns, keeping them from getting treatment will not help.

Maybe it is their irrational attachment to an inanimate object that is evidence of their craziness. Even crazier is the suggestion that there is some therapy in allowing someone to nuzzle up with the nuzzle of their weapon (or in many cases weapons).

Certainly there is exhibited here a profound level of pathology, i.e. not giving a crap about the welfare of everyone else.

It makes good common sense that if someone has mental problems to limit access to a firearm which would magnify the level of tragedy if this person would snap. Who could argue that?

This leads to a question. Second amendment rights do deserve consideration. But for some people, where does the coinciding responsibilities enter into the discussion?

Walker: Mental Health Fiasco

by capper

In what has become a recurring theme for Scott Walker, Tosa Ranger, he has been giving us less and less services for our money. He wants to continue to do the same with mental health services.

I have pointed out that Walker has mismanaged mental health services for the entire duration of his maladministration. He has been cutting out beds from the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex (MCMHC), until they are less than half of what they used to be. He has also continued to cut outpatient services for the mentally ill, on a yearly basis.

This has led to all sorts of problems. There has been a staffing crisis at MCMHC that has led to several workers and patients being hurt. The cuts in outpatient services has led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to run a whole series of articles of how mentally ill people were living in squalor, being neglected, and sometimes even dying due to the lack of help.

This trend of not providing adequate services to the mentally ill has led to many other problems.
It has caused the municipalities to pay tons of overtime to their police officers, as they babysit people in psychiatric crises, because MCMHC has no room for them. It can cost taxpayers even more money to house them in jails and prisons, and have to give them the necessary treatment there, only to have them commit more crimes when released, due to the lack of community-based support. And these two examples don't even mention the cost to any victims that might have been affected by a person in crisis. The list can go on and on about how Walker's mean-spiritedness is costing us a lot more money than he claims to be saving.

Walker has been pushing to waste more of our tax money and cut services again. He is pushing to move MCMHC to the old St. Michael's Hospital. This is a bad idea on many levels.

One it would cost a lot more to renovate St. Mike's than to bring the present building up to code. Secondly, to make the move, it would require eliminating at least two units, meaning sixty less beds in a system that is already in crisis due to not having enough beds. (As of yesterday, they had a waiting list to just get help in the psychiatric crises unit. They were turning people away, because they weren't violent enough.)

Another problem is that St. Mike's doesn't have the physical layout that works best for mental health care. When I just got out of college, I worked at First Hospital-Milwaukee, which had been a medical hospital in a former life. Due to the lay out of the building, there was no clear line of sight down the halls. It was very dangerous to staff as that it gave a lot of hiding places for patients. It also made it very difficult to monitor patients who were a danger to themselves and others.

One of the reasons that Walker is giving for wanting the move is that the current facility is being underused. I will ignore the obvious observation that it is being underused due to his closing several units, and the Child and Adolescent Treatment Center in that last several years. I would only point out that there would be good ways to use that available space.

One would be to move the Adult Services and the Department of Aging to the empty spaces. It would allow county workers to have easier access to the mental health complex, to Children's Hospital, and to Froedtert Hospital. This means that clients receiving services from Milwaukee County could have greater access to their workers, as that they often go to these other places anyway. This would keep these clients, who are often disabled and/or elderly from having to make extra trips all over the county.

Also, consolidating all these agencies in one location would save money. Currently, the Department of Aging is located in the Reuss Federal Plaza. By moving this department, not only would it save the county money on renting the space in Reuss (which I understand to be not inexpensive), but also on the money that the county pays to provide parking for clients and workers alike. It would also save money by not having workers travelling all over the county to get from one facility to the next, allowing them to be more productive and provide better service.

But Walker probably wouldn't like that idea. It makes sense, and would actually be the responsible thing to do. Plus, it would tick off the MVPs at Froedtert, Children's Hospital and the Medical College. And I'm sure he will be looking for their help for when he does his next failed attempt to be governor.

Walker's squandering our tax money is another great reason to vote for Senator Lena Taylor on April 1st.

Holding The Line On Taxes And Responsibilities

by capper

Walker is so very proud of his debatable claim on holding the line on taxes. Of course he's proud of it, as that it is the only thing he can claim, without being laughed out of the room. In fact, he is so proud that he has a new commercial touting that claim, showing that he is the reason Miller Brewing would stay in Milwaukee. Unfortunately for Walker, Miller has most recently indicated that they are still going to leave.

But what cost do we, the taxpayers really pay, for his holding the line on taxes?

I have pointed out previously that the transit system is on the verge of going belly up and that the parks look like brownfields, especially if you happen to live in the wrong neighborhood.

We have also seen, via Gretchen Schuldt, that Walker is shifting the cost on to the City of Milwaukee taxpayers to do county work, like shoveling out bus shelters.

In this morning's paper, we see it's just not the City of Milwaukee that Walker is giving the shaft to. He is screwing over all of the suburbs as well. The paper reports that due to Walker's short-sightedness, there aren't enough psychiatric beds in the County to meet demand. This forces the police, who are called on to deal with incidents in which people are having a psychotic episode, and are in danger of hurting themselves and/or others, to have to provide an officer or officers to watch over these people to ensure safety, while they wait for a bed to open up. This is costing the suburbs a lot of money.

I won't kid you and say that psychiatric care is cheap. It can be very expensive. You have to have social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and all sorts of other support staff. And psychiatric medications are very expensive, and there often is not a generic alternative to help allay the costs. But as I have also pointed out here, that having people going untreated for mental illnesses and/or alcohol and drug addictions can have much higher costs, in more ways than just money, than any moderate tax increase would have.

It's not that Walker is necessarily anti-tax, it's just that he is against taking on the responsibility of doing the right thing, or doing his job.

It's A Good Thing, So, Of Course, Most Republicans Hate It

by capper

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate passed the Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act by a large margin. (Not surprisingly, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan (R-Troha's Wallet) was one of the few who voted against the bill.) The Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act, otherwise known as Mental Healthy Parity, basically would force insurance companies to cover mental illnesses on the same level as they do other illnesses. The bill is named after the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) who was a great advocate for equity for those suffering from mental illness.

The House of Representatives have a similar bill that they have recently passed, but it would allow insurance companies to still greatly limit the diseases that they cover. The Senate's version would allow coverage for all diseases listed in the DSM-IV, which is the diagnostic guide used by psychologists and psychiatrists.

The conservatives biggest objection to the Senate's version of the bill has to deal with, what else, profits. They argue that it will cost insurers and employers more, which in turn, will pass the cost on to the employee. However, the cost of the bill would come out to be minuscule:

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that an earlier version of the House bill would increase premiums for group health insurance by an average of four-tenths of 1 percent. Some of the cost could be passed on to workers.

This bill needs to be passed, as it is, under the Senate's version. If you don't have a mental health related issue or an addiction, or know someone one close to you who has a mental illness or addiction, you are either a very lucky person, or are in total denial. The cost of untreated mental illnesses and addictions, both monetarily and socially, far outweigh, any costs that would be imposed by this bill.

Two other things of interest, as sidebars, popped out at me from the article.

One was that Bush's true colors again shown through, when he made it clear what his priorities really are (as if we didn't already know):

President Bush endorsed the principle of mental health parity in 2002. But on Wednesday, the White House opposed the House bill, saying it “would effectively mandate coverage of a broad range of diseases.”

The other was the reasons why advocates want the Senate's version to be the final version (emphasis mine):

Three factors contributed to support for the legislation. First, researchers have found biological causes and effective treatments for numerous mental illnesses. Second, a number of companies now specialize in managing mental health benefits, making the costs to insurers and employers more affordable.

Finally, some doctors say that the stigma of mental illness has faded as people see members of the armed forces returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental disorders.

If nothing else, maybe some good did finally come out of that damn war.

Walker Gets It Wrong, Again

by capper

There is another article in this morning's paper highlighting some of Walker's wish list on how to destroy Milwaukee County. It already has been covered on this site as well as numerous others, the poor decisions Walker has made about transportation, the parks, whether citizens should actually be allowed to express their opinions and other sundry topics.

Now, I'm not going to get into the zoo issue, because what he wants is not great, but at least shows a modicum of responsibility. Likewise, I am not going into the child support enforcement, even though he wants to shut down a third of the unit, being a boon for deadbeat dads (or moms), and increasing taxpayers expenses when the cost of raising the child is put on them instead of the father (or mother). This move is stemming from Bush cutting federal funding for this program (I guess enforcing people to be at least financially responsible for their children is neither compassionate or conservative)

Among the topics in the article that I do want to mention, again, is the ongoing crisis regarding Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division (or Mental Health, if you prefer). MSJ has done a series of articles relating how many mentally ill people are living in squalor and sometimes dying from lack of care and support. Then they run an article about how assaults are increasing in frequency and intensity.

Walker responded, for once, decently, by wanting to increase funding to provide decent housing and adequate supervision for the mentally ill in the community. He also wanted to hire up to 25 new staff members to deal with the critical situation at the mental health complex. But today we find out he wants to eliminate 12 positions from there and cut $1.5 million from the contracted agencies that provide supervision and case management for the mentally ill in the community. One cannot help but see the schizophrenic thinking that must be taking place in the executive's office.

This means that the crisis at the mental health complex will continue. There is already a shortage of beds at the complex, and people in psychiatric crisis are being put on waiting lists to just get help. Meanwhile, they are in the community, trying to cope the best that they can, but now without any community support programming to help them make it. Many will resort to self-medication with street drugs and/or decompensate to the point that they are a danger to themselves and/or to others. For those of you on the right, this means that when crime rate continues to climb, don't blame Barrett or Doyle first, but look at who created the scenario for these people to be out in the community, untreated.

If this wasn't bad enough, we read this line:

"It's a matter of shifting budget resources to an area of greater crisis," Walker said.

.

Gee, that would mean that if Walker would start facing the reality of the situation he placed the county in, there may not be any crisis. Instead, he is only worried about the greater crisis. I could just imagine if a firefighter said something like that, "We'll let those two houses burn, while we try to fight these three house fires." People would be screaming about getting more help in there, immediately.

.

But for the humorous pick me up, Walker then goes crying to his ol' friend Chuckles and whines, "Why are they reporting on this now?" Betcha Chuckles didn't tell him "Life is not fair. Get used to it."

Tax Freeze, Brain Freeze

by capper

I don't like paying taxes. I don't get all excited on tax day and act like it's Christmas. I also don't like paying more in taxes each year. I also don't like paying more for gas, for groceries, for insurance, for electricity, or anything else. I don't know anyone that does.

But, as an adult, I realize that sometimes I just have to face it and pay the price. If I want to drive my car, I have to buy gas. If I want to eat, I have to buy groceries. I also realize a lot of good things come from my taxes. My taxes paid for the cops who helped my wife when she had a car accident. It was my taxes that paid for the EMTs who helped my father when he fell on the ice and cracked his head open. It's my taxes that pay for roads to be plowed (and hopefully maintained). It's my taxes that help pay for the services that are needed by the disabled, the mentally ill, and the elderly that cannot take care of themselves.

I also realize that, just like my gasoline, my groceries, my electricity and everything else goes up every year, it goes up for everyone, including the government. Now, the government can cut corners, like I do, and do without some of the frivolities and unnecessary items. But the cuts in certain areas can only go so far. While I may not dine on lobster and steak, I still need to eat and feed my family. While I may not be able to go on driving tours of the country, I still need my car for my job. Likewise, the government can only cut some things so far. It goes to far when people are getting hurt and killed for the sake of saving someone a few bucks on their property tax.

When you cut or freeze taxes too much, you end up underfunding things, like services to the mentally ill. Then you get stories like the one in MSJ, chronicling the atrocities that have occurred at the state mental health hospital in Winnebago. Just how much in tax savings is a person's life worth, anyway?

But when one makes a career statement out of tax freezes, while ignoring the realities around you, all that is is a brain freeze.

Where's The Right When We Have A Real Crisis?

by capper

I waited for two days to see if anyone would post about the article about the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division (commonly known as the Mental Health Complex), but was disappointed that not one person had anything to say about it. The article reported about an increase in assaults by the mentally ill patients at the mental health complex, both on staff and on other patients.

I thought that at least the commentators on the right side of the blogosphere would have something to say. Maybe the headline wasn't startling enough, or maybe they read only the first few paragraphs and thought, "Mmph, serves those money-grubbing, overpaid, lazy county workers right!" Or it could be that the article doesn't deliver the full impact of the situation.

For the uninitiated, providing mental health care is expensive, running several hundreds of dollars per day. In the 1990s, the insurance companies were allowed to change how they handles mental health costs, making it more like the medical model. Say that a person is diagnosed with depression, they might be allowed five days of care, a schizophrenic might get a whole week. This is barely enough time to make a preliminary assessment and diagnosis, and start a treatment plan. It is not enough time to ensure the plan would work, or get the person stable enough to be discharged safely. These two factors caused a lot of psychiatric hospitals to close and regular hospitals to end or greatly diminish their commitment to mental health patients.

The overflow from these lost beds went by default to the mental health complex. But instead of increasing funding and preparing for this, the budget was slashed annually, entire wards were closed, and mental health professionals were laid off.

Now we are seeing the results of the budget slashing. There was a series of articles literally spanning months, discussing how the mentally ill in Milwaukee County are being placed in squalid, filthy conditions and sometimes left to die. This finally led the City and the County of Milwaukee to start looking at providing decent housing and services for these people.

In the article about the complex, it points out that patients are more seriously ill and staying for shorter lengths of time. That means that unstable, potentially violent people are being forced out of the complex to make room for even more unstable and violent people. These unstable, potentially people are going back into the community until they create a disturbance, hurt themselves, and/or hurt someone else. This makes everyone unsafe.

But instead of hearing cries about a crisis and demanding action from those responsible, there is nothing. When there was a perceived crisis in the spring, regarding crime, especially murder, there was plenty of hullabaloo about the mayor and the police chief, demands for action, and ridicule of anyone who would disagree. Now, with a real crisis, nothing.

I guess, in some people's eyes, it's only a crisis if you can blame a democrat.