May 2003

One of the primary thrusts of my social philosophy is that individuals have the right to do almost anything they choose so long as it does not cause damage to other people who are excercising the same right. However, there is a disclaimer involved: Just because someone has the RIGHT to do something does not necessarily mean that he SHOULD do it nor does it suggest that he is free from any ramificantions which might arise from doing so.

For example, people have the right to accost complete strangers in the street and nag them about smoking. However, these same indivuduals must realize that doing so might not produce the exact result (“You’re so right. I’m giving up the habit right now on your recommendation. Thank you so very much.”) that they’d anticipated.

So the jury thing is over, the rest of the jury more or less agreed with me, and I don’t have to walk to Civic Center early in the morning anymore. And just to make life that much more pleasant, it’s raining out. This whole late spring series of storms has me all squishy-happy…

Anyway, some notes on jury duty:

I arrived at 10:15 on Wednesday and immediately spotted Larry-bob and a nice guy named Smurf, about whom I can tell you little more except that he’s a DJ and an obscure music buff, which I find to be admirable qualities…

We watched the orientation video, which told us how beautiful California is and how wonderful and emotional we’d find jury service. “Many jurors even keep in touch after the trial is over,” it stated proudly. Funny, I’d never thought of jury duty as the cool new way to make social contacts…

I was called upstairs for jury selection pretty quickly. Mercifully, it was to be a very short trial, only two or three days. I was on my best behavior lest I be excused and assigned to a nastier one. It took a couple of hours to get twelve jurors and one alternate seated. Fortunately, the flakes and other people with whom I dreaded serving were all eliminated…

The first two to go were the two who apparently couldn’t understand a single question asked of them and needed every one repeated. One seemed hard of hearing and the other evidently had, at best, a tenuous grasp on the English language. I sort of wondered why neither one had checked his respective little box on the questionnaire, which would have saved him (and the rest of us) considerable time. Another guy was eliminated because — although he seemed like a very nice guy — he just wasn’t terribly bright…

And then there was the “issues” guy. You know the type, especially if you live in the Bay Area. He was the quintessential San Francisco granola neurotic, the sort of individual who has to spend fifteen minutes pondering the metaphysical implications of such probing questions as “what is your name?” and “what is your spouse’s occupation?”. This guy was a pure 100% flake, a basket case, and he went on and on about his wife’s illness, his job difficulties, and a litany of other issues which had nothing to do with the (very simple and straightforward) questions being asked. Note that this was very obviously NOT a performance to get him excused from service. The thought of watching this guy try to make a decision about a case (or even of being in a closed room with him for a couple of hours) horrified me. Fortunately, I was spared the nightmare…

The trial was uneventful, if odd, and it centered around a semi-violent 1998 encounter between a postal worker and one of her customers. I didn’t find either account particularly believable, and (as it happened) neither did my fellow jurors. Since the burdern of proof was on the plaintiff, we found for the defendant. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but you get the picture…

I was rather impressed to see that most of my fellow jurors were more or less rational and reasonable individuals. I’d really feared being part of a San Francisco jury, assuming that the native silliness so common in this area would surface, but it never really did. We went about our business and handled things quickly and efficiently (but also with sufficient attention to detail)…

All in all, it really wasn’t bad, although I’m not itching to do it again anytime soon nor to have cocktails and quality time with my former colleagues…

Evidently, it also takes a village to raise a homosexual:

“We can’t allow the few to continue to carry on the fight for many,” he said. “As a community, we have to define that crystal is not acceptable for this community.”

So sayeth SF Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who seems to believe that drug abuse is a community decision rather than an individual one. It therefore follows that the community in question — rather than its individual members — bears the responsibility for its impact as well…

I beg to differ. I am homosexual. I do not use crystal meth, nor do I enjoy the company of people who do so. And I feel no particular sense of responsibility to random strangers who are suffering from drug addiction merely because we share a sexual orientation. Why should I?

This is not to say that I don’t feel any compassion toward my friends who have (or have had) problems with drugs, but my support is based on my individual relationships with them, and not on some contrived notion of “community”. Similarly, their behavioral changes were (or will be) based on individual decisions rather than on any “community mandate”…

Drug abuse is not a marketing problem…

Tolerance? You’ve got to be kidding. San Francisco is many things, some of them quite wonderful, but I can’t quite see it as a bastion of “tolerance” nor of “wide-open encouragement to be as independently minded … as you can possibly be”. Maybe I’m missing something…

To me, tolerance suggests that one not only embraces anything and everything which is outside the mainstream, but that one also has respect for those who DO choose to live their lives in a relatively mainstream fashion. This includes people who shop at Wal-Mart, people who work for a living and want to own homes, people who (for whatever reason) actually watch Fox News, and (gasp) even people with conservative religious or political views…

The writer babbles on and on about our “tolerance” while his whole article rather reeks of the direct opposite. About the only people worthy of tolerance, it seems, are the ones who live here, think like he does, and are terrified of stepping out of line by getting out of the city and seeing something different once in a while…

And how come his idea of “independent mindedness” only seems to apply to those who agree with the “tolerant” (and, of course, left of center) party line? I’d always thought that critical thinking (you know: analyzing ALL sides of an issue and coming up with your OWN opinion rather than adopting a pre-packaged one) might play a small part in that definition as well. Frankly, I’d argue that San Franciscans are no less intellectually lazy than anyone else in the country, just somewhat more inclined to walk down the granola aisle at the dogma store…

While I like to think of myself as “independent minded”, I’ve never really considered myself “tolerant”. If I think something is a crock of shit or that someone is a flaming idiot, I’m probably going to say so. Say what you will about my weakness of character, but at least I’m not a hypocrite about it…

I’m sitting here in front of my computer making a list of everything I’ve eaten in the past 48 hours just so I can make sure I never eat any of it ever again. I’ve also been taking occasional breaks from doing so, but I won’t elaborate on those…

It’s no fun being ill when the weather is so miserable. I’d gotten a bit spoiled by having the cold and the rain continue so late in the year, and I wasn’t at all ready for this annoying sunshine and heat, thanks…

Gonna watch a movie now, albeit with one finger glued to the pause button…