Court Duty

I was called to the court house yesterday for jury duty. Boy does that system need help. I believe more than ever that a professional jury system is the way to go. Anyway, people asked some good questions and I was all ears. " Where do you get your information on which people to call? Primarily from voting records and drivers license info". He said , "we worry that if people thought it was just from the former they might not vote but we know they wont stop driving". I'm not going to say for sure that he really knew or not but I thought it was interesting. He came across authoritatively and the way people talked about the issue later it was clear that most believed him. It has always seemed to me that some people never get called and frankly they were often the people I never knew to vote. I've got to look into that a little more.
It turns out the guy was quite a comedian. He had me laughing a few times. As he went on about this and that I sort of drifted off into some reading. Of course everything seemed to be about the mid term elections. A side note, can you think of a better value today than a newspaper? I cant.
So I'm sort of simultaneously listening and reading when I hear the guy say that he will call people alphabetically, "we'll start at the end so the the first group will be R through Z and I'm talking about your last name." A few people laughed. He said, "you'd be surprised." Not 30 seconds passes, people are starting to line up when the guy next to me leans over and asks, '' Is he talking about first name or last name." I kid you not. I thought to myself how is this guy going to serve as a juror? It's been my experience that the rules given during the course of a trial are not only complex but often illogical. Then I started reading again.
It's about some politician saying how smart the American people are and they know what's best for them and so on. Talk about timing. Not only is it not true since there is obviously a spectrum from smart to not very smart at all; I think of it as a great marker for when someone is lying through their teeth. It's kind of like when responding to a question someone says "I can only say." You hear that a lot from politicians. This usually means their worried about the down side of telling the truth. It can have a humble ring to it or the old protecting classified information feel but it's usually deceptive to some degree and used a lot by non-truth tellers. The so inclined have a deep aversion to the phrase,"I don't know". They avoid it at all costs. To be fair it's a human frailty and never more perilous than when one is taken to there mental limits.
After all with the package you must possess to be a politician surely it would be a lot to ask to have it all, mentally and intellectually to. They usually do have a good guidance system to keep them out of the rat holes and alligator pits. But this is that skill you use a lot when your young. It's a lot easier then . It's keeping your ducks in a row, a lot of balls in the air, one campfire ahead of the posse, and so on. But when your a politicians age it's harder. Not to say that they aren't good at it. They just have a lot more to think about like appealing to that large swath out of the middle, fringe groups, corporate interests, etc. It's a wonder any one would want to do this. But when you do step into the arena you are fair game.
I find it fun to listen to them navigate that treacherous course right now. It's too late in this election cycle to start taking whacks at politicians and I doubt anyone will read any of this before the election anyway so I'll save that for a later day. By the way I never had to talk to anyone, got sent home with 60-70 others. How efficient was that? I've got another year that I don't have to think about it and it got me to start this. That's positive.