I failed at the Russian Roulette of call in jury duty last week. On the last day to call in I was picked to go into the court and do a day or a trial. That's the way it works here in LA.
They said they were only needing 2 juries that day. There were over 100 people there in the waiting room. The most exciting thing that happened in the waiting room was when the woman explaining the whole thing saw a cockroach moving on the brown carpet. I had seen it earlier. But since it wasn't bothering me I didn't see a reason to kill it. The woman at the mic stopped orientation and said she didn't do well with cockroaches. A female juror jumped up, pulled off her sandal, and went after the roach. He was mightily resilient but in the end he was squished.
I got called to go to a court room with 59 others. The judge sat us down and explained the civil case. A guy admitted to molesting a 15 year old girl. Immediately my heart turned to stone. It was civil suit where she was suing for damages and pain and suffering. I'm not going to be impartial. My first thought was, "Why is he not in jail?" Maybe he had been and he was now out and being sued. I don't know or care. I sat listening as the judge questioned the panel. I was not put in a chair but I can hosetly say I would not be impartial. There are some things you can suspend your prejudices, but for me that is not one of them.
The crazy thing is he was representing himself. That made me think of the old lawyer saying. Whoever represents himself has a fool for a client.
Hope the girl wins a lot of money.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Mr. Spock Saved Me
You might say I have two totems. They are diametrically opposite of each other. Both represent me at my most extreme.
One is the Incredible Hulk. He is the rage that burns inside me. All the anger that has no outlet in a civilized world.
The other is Mr. Spock who was masterfully portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. He died this last Friday. When certain actors pass away I'm hurt because of what they meant to me. I may have loved their work or a particular character. It depends.
Mr. Spock is someone I identified with. He was among them but not part of them. He was always the outsider to some degree. It was his alien DNA and his alien upbringing which set him apart from his crewmates.
I was born in December and that always makes for a difficult choice. Do you put the child in school at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2? I got put in kindergarten at 4 1/2. So compared to everyone else, I was younger, smaller, and less emotionally mature than most of my classmates. This made me a target for bullies. Pick on me. Make me cry. It must have been a fun game for the mean kids. Apparently society figured out that bullying is bad and it is not the problem it used to be. But when I was a kid, I ended up getting picked on. I was constantly in the principal's office as a victim.
Mr. Spock was salvation for me. Since I was like him, among them but not of them, I decided to emulate him. I became logical and unfeeling. Or not unfeeling, but I damped down my feelings and didn't let the bullies see they bothered me. I didn't cry anymore. It made them leave me alone. If they got no reaction, they lost interest.
I remember one Halloween I dressed as Mr. Spock. The kid up the street was Kirk. My blond hair was dyed black with shoe polish and styled like his. Then when it dried, it became a helmet of black. It took many shampooings to make that learning experience go down the drain.
In some ways I'm still a bit like Spock. I keep my feelings pretty close to the vest. But, Oh, the things that boil inside me.
One is the Incredible Hulk. He is the rage that burns inside me. All the anger that has no outlet in a civilized world.
The other is Mr. Spock who was masterfully portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. He died this last Friday. When certain actors pass away I'm hurt because of what they meant to me. I may have loved their work or a particular character. It depends.
Mr. Spock is someone I identified with. He was among them but not part of them. He was always the outsider to some degree. It was his alien DNA and his alien upbringing which set him apart from his crewmates.
I was born in December and that always makes for a difficult choice. Do you put the child in school at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2? I got put in kindergarten at 4 1/2. So compared to everyone else, I was younger, smaller, and less emotionally mature than most of my classmates. This made me a target for bullies. Pick on me. Make me cry. It must have been a fun game for the mean kids. Apparently society figured out that bullying is bad and it is not the problem it used to be. But when I was a kid, I ended up getting picked on. I was constantly in the principal's office as a victim.
Mr. Spock was salvation for me. Since I was like him, among them but not of them, I decided to emulate him. I became logical and unfeeling. Or not unfeeling, but I damped down my feelings and didn't let the bullies see they bothered me. I didn't cry anymore. It made them leave me alone. If they got no reaction, they lost interest.
I remember one Halloween I dressed as Mr. Spock. The kid up the street was Kirk. My blond hair was dyed black with shoe polish and styled like his. Then when it dried, it became a helmet of black. It took many shampooings to make that learning experience go down the drain.
In some ways I'm still a bit like Spock. I keep my feelings pretty close to the vest. But, Oh, the things that boil inside me.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Fighting for Their Life
In the news you constantly hear about gravely hurt people in the hospital "fighting for their life." The turn of phrase I find a bit odd. Most of the people hurt enough to be fighting for their life at the hospital are simply laying in a bed unconscious.
But when it comes to news, it gives the person reporting the story something to say. Laying in a bed unconscious isn't very heroic of an activity. For all of medicine and the recuperative power that a body has, a body is going to do what it's going to do. That is, either repair itself or expire. Everyone will shuffle off this mortal coil, and some passings are tragic and too soon. But no person in a coma, hooked to machines to stop the body from naturally failing, is really fighting for their life.
Bodies fail. Whether it's quick or protracted, it comes down to death and taxes.
But when it comes to news, it gives the person reporting the story something to say. Laying in a bed unconscious isn't very heroic of an activity. For all of medicine and the recuperative power that a body has, a body is going to do what it's going to do. That is, either repair itself or expire. Everyone will shuffle off this mortal coil, and some passings are tragic and too soon. But no person in a coma, hooked to machines to stop the body from naturally failing, is really fighting for their life.
Bodies fail. Whether it's quick or protracted, it comes down to death and taxes.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Oil
In the news I'm hearing a lot about the oil markets. How low prices are great fro drivers but bad for the economy and countries like Russia who have basically one export. Oil. The price of a barrel dropped by half in the last few months.
This made me wonder about the wisdom of the market. Did they really expect a commodity to remain a fixed price? Never to go down? So stable in fact that all economic models for the future are based upon that one fixed point. This seems to me to be naive and ridiculous. The market goes up and down. Every commodity has fluctuations due to supply and demand and other ancillary reasons.
The news makes it sound like there is no profit to be made if the price of oil is at $50 a barrel. What was the price of a barrel a couple decades ago? About $30. In the 70's during the oil shortage what was the price I wonder? I'm sure there was a spike but nothing like the craziness of the 2000's. Are they trying to tell me that billions weren't made by the oil producers in the middle east during the 70's, 80's and 90's? that's just bullshit at best and disingenuous at worst.
There is a finite amount of oil on the planet. At some point it will be gone. Then what will the oil producers do? They have set up their entire business model without really thinking of the future. Stop bemoaning that you're only making half the billions you were.
This made me wonder about the wisdom of the market. Did they really expect a commodity to remain a fixed price? Never to go down? So stable in fact that all economic models for the future are based upon that one fixed point. This seems to me to be naive and ridiculous. The market goes up and down. Every commodity has fluctuations due to supply and demand and other ancillary reasons.
The news makes it sound like there is no profit to be made if the price of oil is at $50 a barrel. What was the price of a barrel a couple decades ago? About $30. In the 70's during the oil shortage what was the price I wonder? I'm sure there was a spike but nothing like the craziness of the 2000's. Are they trying to tell me that billions weren't made by the oil producers in the middle east during the 70's, 80's and 90's? that's just bullshit at best and disingenuous at worst.
There is a finite amount of oil on the planet. At some point it will be gone. Then what will the oil producers do? They have set up their entire business model without really thinking of the future. Stop bemoaning that you're only making half the billions you were.
Scoped
There was a chair in the examination room. High backed like in an optometrist's office. But there was no eye chart to read. This was not your normal exam room with an examination table covered in thin easily changed paper.
The door was open. I could see the doctor across the hall at his desk. He was 55-60, tall, thin, curly dark hair. He didn't look up from his desk and acknowledge me. It was weird but would be awkward to wave at him.
I wasn't in a rush. In fact I sat there thinking this was unnecessary. The reason I was there, a sore throat which lasted over 2 months had lessened in severity in the last 3-4 days. Like when you take your car to the mechanic because it's making a sound, but when you get there the sound no longer manifests itself. My throat was not 100% back to normal but it was 1/3 the pain it had been. And a hot spot of pain on one side remained. So I figured I'd go and get it looked at. They might be able to tell me what it was.
The nurse came in with a piece of equipment. A long black thin thing. Flexible. small enough to go up a nostril to take a look around. It had an eyepiece at one end and there was a cable on the side of the eyepiece which plugged into a light source. Flexible fiber optics would light the darkness. She took the scope and put it in a clear tube of liquid attached to the wall. Some sterile fluid I imagine.
The doctor came in and shut the door. He asked me about my issue and I explained what had been going on. What the symptoms were. How long. Etc... He looked in my ears, looked in my mouth with a tongue depressor (I guess "flat stick" is not impressive sounding enough.). He explained the scope, had me look thru it to see how it worked. The end of the scope was prehensile and could curve like a finger to look at the nasal passages and the throat all the while shining a light where it pointed.
The doctor looked up my nose and said the right nostril would work best for the scoping. He sprayed a numbing agent up my nose and said it would take 5 minutes to be ready. He went back to his office and in five minutes returned. He shut the door and told me to hold my head still but I didn't need to incline it. The scope did all the work. He put what I assume was Scope Lube on the end and began.
I didn't feel it really. I was aware of something going up my nostril and then heading south but it didn't make me jump. I could sort of sense what the scope was doing when in my nostril. When it went down I could tell where it was because I could feel the heat of the light on the sides of my throat. It kind of freaked me out. I got a little panicky in the back of my brain. I was concerned I might get the interior of my throat burned if the scope stayed in any one place too long.
He had me make an EEEEE sound to engage the vocal chords. I did that 2 times. After what might have been a minute or 2 but seemed longer he withdrew the scope.
I felt the need to spit. Pull up a ball of phlegm from deep within my soul and spit it out. That I figure came from the anesthetic being dragged by the probe into my throat. I sat back down and the doctor said he didn't see anything. There was no inflammation; nothing out of the ordinary. He said sometimes there's a weird thing going on with your body for no reason and it goes away for no reason too. No a very satisfying diagnosis, but better than hearing throat cancer or some such.
He gave me a card with his personal office number. If it gets worse call him. If it goes away call him.
As I left and for about the next half hour I was trying to extract the weirdness in my throat by spitting. I wasn't successful and it eventually cleared up on it's own but it was unpleasant and it made me look uncouth.
So an interesting day...
The door was open. I could see the doctor across the hall at his desk. He was 55-60, tall, thin, curly dark hair. He didn't look up from his desk and acknowledge me. It was weird but would be awkward to wave at him.
I wasn't in a rush. In fact I sat there thinking this was unnecessary. The reason I was there, a sore throat which lasted over 2 months had lessened in severity in the last 3-4 days. Like when you take your car to the mechanic because it's making a sound, but when you get there the sound no longer manifests itself. My throat was not 100% back to normal but it was 1/3 the pain it had been. And a hot spot of pain on one side remained. So I figured I'd go and get it looked at. They might be able to tell me what it was.
The nurse came in with a piece of equipment. A long black thin thing. Flexible. small enough to go up a nostril to take a look around. It had an eyepiece at one end and there was a cable on the side of the eyepiece which plugged into a light source. Flexible fiber optics would light the darkness. She took the scope and put it in a clear tube of liquid attached to the wall. Some sterile fluid I imagine.
The doctor came in and shut the door. He asked me about my issue and I explained what had been going on. What the symptoms were. How long. Etc... He looked in my ears, looked in my mouth with a tongue depressor (I guess "flat stick" is not impressive sounding enough.). He explained the scope, had me look thru it to see how it worked. The end of the scope was prehensile and could curve like a finger to look at the nasal passages and the throat all the while shining a light where it pointed.
The doctor looked up my nose and said the right nostril would work best for the scoping. He sprayed a numbing agent up my nose and said it would take 5 minutes to be ready. He went back to his office and in five minutes returned. He shut the door and told me to hold my head still but I didn't need to incline it. The scope did all the work. He put what I assume was Scope Lube on the end and began.
I didn't feel it really. I was aware of something going up my nostril and then heading south but it didn't make me jump. I could sort of sense what the scope was doing when in my nostril. When it went down I could tell where it was because I could feel the heat of the light on the sides of my throat. It kind of freaked me out. I got a little panicky in the back of my brain. I was concerned I might get the interior of my throat burned if the scope stayed in any one place too long.
He had me make an EEEEE sound to engage the vocal chords. I did that 2 times. After what might have been a minute or 2 but seemed longer he withdrew the scope.
I felt the need to spit. Pull up a ball of phlegm from deep within my soul and spit it out. That I figure came from the anesthetic being dragged by the probe into my throat. I sat back down and the doctor said he didn't see anything. There was no inflammation; nothing out of the ordinary. He said sometimes there's a weird thing going on with your body for no reason and it goes away for no reason too. No a very satisfying diagnosis, but better than hearing throat cancer or some such.
He gave me a card with his personal office number. If it gets worse call him. If it goes away call him.
As I left and for about the next half hour I was trying to extract the weirdness in my throat by spitting. I wasn't successful and it eventually cleared up on it's own but it was unpleasant and it made me look uncouth.
So an interesting day...
Friday, January 23, 2015
Gates
With the scandal of deflated balls for a play off game we get another suffix of "Gate."
The first Gate was Watergate so named because of the hotel involved in the break in that eventually brought down Nixon. And I do wonder if the hotel had been a Holiday Inn or Embassy Suites or something like Sheffield, would all the Gates of the last 40 years be Inns or Suites or Fields.
So to rename some of the recent scandals using this supposed system...
Benghazi Inn, Benghazi Suites, Benghazi Field
Ball Inn, Ball Suites, Ball Field
Deflate Inn, Deflate Suites, Deflate Field.
Climate Inn, Climate Suites, Climate Field
Hacker Inn , Hacker Suites, Hacker Field.
Bridge Inn, Bridge, Suites, Bridge Field
To see a full list of "gates" look on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix
The thing I'd like to see is to stop naming everything a fucking Gate. Seriously, just because you think something is a scandal you should stop using the suffix, GATE. It has become a lazy way to tell people that something is a SCANDAL. And many of these Gates no one has ever heard of or remembers as being as scandalous as they thought it was at the time. Few of them actually rise to the seriousness of a thing which made a president resign.
Ball Gate. Fucking really?
The first Gate was Watergate so named because of the hotel involved in the break in that eventually brought down Nixon. And I do wonder if the hotel had been a Holiday Inn or Embassy Suites or something like Sheffield, would all the Gates of the last 40 years be Inns or Suites or Fields.
So to rename some of the recent scandals using this supposed system...
Benghazi Inn, Benghazi Suites, Benghazi Field
Ball Inn, Ball Suites, Ball Field
Deflate Inn, Deflate Suites, Deflate Field.
Climate Inn, Climate Suites, Climate Field
Hacker Inn , Hacker Suites, Hacker Field.
Bridge Inn, Bridge, Suites, Bridge Field
To see a full list of "gates" look on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix
The thing I'd like to see is to stop naming everything a fucking Gate. Seriously, just because you think something is a scandal you should stop using the suffix, GATE. It has become a lazy way to tell people that something is a SCANDAL. And many of these Gates no one has ever heard of or remembers as being as scandalous as they thought it was at the time. Few of them actually rise to the seriousness of a thing which made a president resign.
Ball Gate. Fucking really?
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
2014
2014.
I didn't write much. When I would think of something to write, I never was able to get to a computer. And then time passed and it was gone. So I didn't write that much at all.
It was a crap year for a lot of reasons. So that is why I wrote so few posts.
Hopefully next year I will have more to say.
I didn't write much. When I would think of something to write, I never was able to get to a computer. And then time passed and it was gone. So I didn't write that much at all.
It was a crap year for a lot of reasons. So that is why I wrote so few posts.
Hopefully next year I will have more to say.
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