Today was a rough one for me; I had to report for jury duty at 7:30 a.m. and that sort of thing always throws me off course in a thousand ways. But inspiration came nonetheless. You just have to force yourself to open to it. Although I believe in participatory democracy and the right to a trial by a jury of ones peers, the actual process of serving the legal system in this way is oppressive. Getting up early, going through a metal detector, being forced to sit in a room full of strangers waiting for your number to be called, getting questioned by strangers and forced to conform to their mode of speech and behavior, listening to a nonstop stream of dialog inside a windowless room for 7 hours a day, having this all supersede whatever it is that you’ve chosen to do with your life. Plus, the judge cracked a misogynistic joke and made fun of a potential juror’s accent.
Basically, I didn’t want to do it, and when I was excused it felt as if I myself had been released from a kind of prison. The trial was going to be a minimum of 3 weeks! Ain’t nobody got time for that. I was planning of forcing myself to open to the possibility of jury duty. But it was just too much, and instead I was born anew into the early spring sunlight and opened myself to joy and inspiration and found this comic.
wow…3 weeks?! Also,fuck that judge. eww.
I know. There’s a part of me that wants to write a letter and part of me that says, “he’s over 60, he won’t be a judge much longer, that generation/breed is dying out.” But it really says something about our justice system and our culture when the people who hold all the power use it for the purpose of bullying and then get to laugh it off. All of the plaintiffs and their lawyers were women…
Beautiful butterflies too. =)
I’m such a nerd – I have ALWAYS wanted to be on a jury….!!!
I want to be on a jury. Just not on a trial that lasts 3 weeks, and not before lunchtime 😛