17. November 2008 by admin.

Two words, Gentle Readers:  Jury Duty.

And not even the fun one where I got to decide someone’s fate.  Instead it was the ’sit in a room and wait for your number to be called’ type duty.  Not that the other is so much better, but at least you feel like you have a purpose.

I did get some decent writing done, mostly on the next story (more details later).  I’ve been late getting things posted because the jury duty, combined with the missus having a new night job means I had to adjust to a new schedule.  Things should go back on an even keel now (until the next crisis hits).

I actually didn’t mind doing jury duty.  Coming so soon after the election might have been part of it; the recent reminder of how lucky we are to live in America eased the inconvenience of the whole process.  Ask me after I’ve been called a second time.

I did get a PBN  out of it; that we choose people to judge others based on their ignorance  just seems absurd; that it apparently works so well is scary.  I know the idea of a paid juror position has been bandied around for years.  I wouldn’t want to trust my fate to someone compensated to be professionally uninformed.

I’m sure the Navy could have come up with a better plan than earmuffs.  It probably would have been funnier too.

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11. November 2008 by admin.

I’m not some high powered CEO, but I’ve done my time in retail hell at a managerial level and I know you don’t evicerate your sales staff by getting rid of your good  employees, so why didn’t the president of Circuit City?

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5. November 2008 by admin.

Congratulations to President-elect Obama, blah blah blah.  I disagree that we all woke up to a new reality, but I agree it’s the end of an era.  My youngest daughter will never know a time when presidents were only older white men.  That does make me proud.

But even the historical significance of Obama’s win isn’t the real reason we should pat ourselves on the back this morning.  Yesterday we, the Joe the Plumbers and Sixpacks and old ladies wearing bathrobes and house shoes lined up in an orderly fashion, sometimes in lines stretching for hours, to quietly choose who we will fractiously follow for the next four years.  Without a fuss, fight, or mob action in the streets we handed off control of the most powerful military in the world.  By paper and electron we entrusted to a quasi-stranger our finances and our hopes for the future.

And then we went home.

We waited patiently for the polls to close and the results to be tallied.  We trusted it would be done honestly and accurately.  For the most part we conceded defeat with grace and mostly accepted victory with magnanimity.  We went to bed and woke up the next day and went to work or school or just on with our lives, having a vague satisfaction of a job well done but focused on the tasks and needs of the day ahead.  Another election had passed, and life went on.

The fact that we see this as normal is incredible.  The fact that we, the toiling masses, have the ability to infuse a person with the power that comes with the presidency is extraordinary.  The fact that we don’t see it that way is mind boggling.

Sometimes it comes across very clearly that we do live in the greatest nation on Earth.

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