Michael McDaniel’s Dawning Awareness

Crows can make tools? Yikes!

(Via John Hodgman.)

Let’s get to it!

I’m sure all 3 of you who monitor my blog have seen this already, but just in case, Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday — a bold, courageous, visionary speech:

We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina—or as fodder for the nightly news.

We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.”

I found this shocking. The incarcerated now account for 1/99th of the US adult population. Even more frightening, 1 in 9 young black men (aged 20-34) is behind bars; among hispanic men, it’s 1 in 36.

The US has passed China as the worlds leading jailer.

I guess the prosecution was wise to boot me from the jury after all.

[via NYT]

I know, why bother, right? Because — otherwise, future madmen will pull crap like this, too:

This evening Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as expected, refused to prosecute the contempt of Congress resolutions against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers for their refusal to testify in the U.S. attorneys scandal.

[via TPM]

I got selected to a jury panel yesterday. Fifty jurors were pulled for a 13-person jury; I was #28. The jury is made up of the 13 lowest-numbered jurors who aren’t excused or challenged. You can be excused for hardship (being on the jury imposes an undue burden) or via a challenge from the prosecution or defense lawyers (they get 7 challenges each, and can dismiss a juror for no reason). “Challenge” sounds so adversarial, but that’s the term they use.

After the judge told us what was going to happen, she explained the likely trial schedule and dismissed people who had conflicts which would cost them significantly. Next, she asked us questions to ferret out biases for or against the legal system itself (example: “have you had a bad experience with law enforcement officers that might influence your interpretation of police testimony?”). After about 20 such questions, she turned things over to the lawyers for voir dire.

In turn, each side had two 15 minute periods to talk to the jury and ask questions to help their side identify who would be good jurors for them. This was a domestic violence case, so there were questions like “why might a victim lie on the stand?” and “if you had to deliberate right now, what would your verdict HAVE to be?” As they asked questions, they’d watch for general reaction (heads nodding, etc) and sometimes would ask an individual juror to comment. I was never asked a question directly, and didn’t volunteer an answer to any questions as I’d just have been duplicating other jurors.

Then, the lawyers began to dismiss jurors from the box. As they left, those of us sitting in the gallery would fill in the box as our numbers were called. When my number was called, I was dismissed by the prosecutor, using her 6th challenge.

I’ve been thinking about why I was dismissed. The prosecutor had only two things to go on to dismiss me. The first was my demeanor in the court. Maybe I didn’t nod my head enough. Maybe I didn’t seem severe enough. Hard to know. The second thing the prosecutor had was my biography, a sheet of paper listing my name, city, age, how long I’ve lived in King County, the city and state of my birth, the number and ages of my children, my occupation, and my experience as a juror (none), a felon (none), and a litigant (none). Oh, and my years of education (17). I should think all of that would make me a good juror for the prosecution, but maybe what she was really looking for was swayability, and she decided I wasn’t easily convinced.

I suppose that, as with the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-roll pop, the world will never know.

A TED talk combining John Philip Sousa, land ownership, and music royalty payments. Awesome style, just enough information, inspiration, and fun. Go watch it.

[thanks, Nick!]

[thanks, Nick]

I was called to jury duty for King County Superior Court today. I served two years ago, and things have improved markedly since then. The facility has been completely upgraded with comfortable, modern chairs, a well-lit, comfortable environment, and incredibly speedy wifi access (17Mbits/2Mbits unloaded, 11Mbits/2Mbits with about 75 computers in use).

We were directed to report at 8am, and I was here at 7:55. After checking in, I found a seat. At 8:45, they started the introductory video (didn’t have one of those two years ago). It’s really quite informative, and was complete without being tiresome. 20 minutes.

Jurors have to be residents of King County, US citizens, fluent in English, and non-felons (or felons with fully-restored rights).

So here we sit in the jury selection room. I got selected to a jury two years ago, but the defendant plead guilty before Voir Dire was complete. Of course, one thing that hasn’t changed is that there’s a lot of waiting involved (the wifi makes that much more tolerable). I hope they haven’t called too many more people than they need. I think they’re trying to do better.

Went to my first party caucuses today, and was really quite pleasantly surprised by the level of discourse, the range of issues discussed, and (most of all) by the dedication to hearing all voices. I had a very nice time, got to connect with my neighbors a little, and am a little more confident in my choice of candidate.

Feels great to be participating in the process.