Last week, I got to perform that most dreaded of civic responsibilities: jury duty. I say "dreaded", and when people expressed excessive amounts of sympathy, I smiled and nodded and didn't exactly disagree. But honestly? When I saw the envelope in the pile of mail, I was downright excited. They even sent me a notice several months in advance asking when I'd like to serve, and then they accommodated me. My doctor is barely willing to do that.
In the days leading up to my time at the courthouse, though, I started to get less sure. As I pointed out to the husband, the whole concept of a jury of your peers sounds great until you consider the unfortunate reality that is your peers. You know those people? The annoying people who ignore the traffic rules you hold most dear, never turn their cell phones off before the movie, and help keep Fox News on the air? Those are your peers. Should you find yourself in legal trouble, there is a good chance they will decide your fate. It's a bit worrying, really. So on my first day, I was still excited, but a little bit wary.
By 9:30 on the first day, I understood the actual reason that some people dread jury duty. It's not necessarily because of the part where you serve on a jury; it could be the part where you wait around for hours in a freezing cold room only to be told that you don't have to serve on a jury today. I couldn't even bring my current knitting project, because it is on skinny, pointy, metal needles and would render me a threat. On Day 2, I finished the book that I was in the middle of, and started my back-up, only to find that I didn't actually want to read a whole book's worth of Michael Chabon's reflections on manhood. (Perhaps to some of you this conclusion would be obvious, but I actually enjoyed it for about 50 pages. I like Michael Chabon; I just don't want to hang out with his family for 300 pages.) This left me bookless. Bookless! If I have one piece of advice for anyone who might be headed for their own stint in jury duty, it's this: don't let yourself be caught bookless (or entertainment-less, if you're not into the whole "books for pleasure" thing). They may provide you with magazines, but trust me, they suck. Perhaps they put out good ones, but if so, they get stolen immediately. It would be a sad irony to be brought before a jury for stealing the jury duty magazines, so just be on the safe side and pack as though you were going on a trans-Atlantic flight.
On the first day, there was an orientation, where we got to watch a video of a judge standing in the same room we were sitting in and giving a presentation about what to expect. The projected image of the light switch was just a few inches below the actual light switch. It was almost as though they wanted us to think she was a hologram, but weren't willing to invest the time and money into completing the illusion. Anyway, a little while after that, they called a bunch of numbers, and since my number wasn't called I got to go home.
That's pretty much how it went. Someone would call a bunch of numbers. I was #102, so the anticipation would build as I waited to hear if I would be called. I was called twice. The first time, I was part of a large jury pool, but even though a lot of people got dismissed for reasons I couldn't see, my number never came up, and I went home. (Once you're in the jury pool, they call twelve numbers. After the judge goes through some basic questions, the lawyers get to ask questions and dismiss people for undisclosed reasons. As jurors get dismissed, new ones are called to replace them.) The second time, I wasn't part of the initial twelve, but when one was dismissed, I got called to replace her. So I got to be a juror.
And here's the cool part: as a juror, I freed a man! It was a traffic case - basically the person was accused of not pulling over when a cop was signalling to do so. And while there is a pretty decent chance the person actually did it, it was not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. And ultimately, that's what I want to share. I had my doubts when we were put into recess in the jury room. You're not supposed to deliberate until the trial is over, but people started to ignore that and then say that they hadn't been told. People talked about matters that bordered on the political, and they clearly didn't share or respect some of my opinions. Some of them were just people I didn't really like. But once we were in there actually deliberating, it's like we all snapped to attention. If someone started to speculate about things that were off-topic, someone else would remind them, and they'd stop. Everyone genuinely wanted to be a fair and unbiased juror. It was actually kind of beautiful.
So that's it. Jury duty = not so bad. If my job didn't pay me for my jury duty, I might have a slightly different opinion, but as it stands, I would still be kind of excited if I got another summons in the mail. If it does happen, this time I'll be equipped with plenty of books and a little more faith in the power of peers.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
TIBDIOB #1: I Killed the Chicken
This is part 1 of a potential series: TIBDIOB, or Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging. I'm going somewhat chronologically here. Today's topic actually occurred two weeks before Thanksgiving.
So, I've talked before about my proposed Beautiful Life. For those of you not following along at home, my Beautiful Life would consist of a homestead farm filled with various farm animals, particularly sheep and other fiber animals, but also chickens. The husband and I feel perfectly capable of taking care of laying chickens. Chickens, in general, are far less demanding than dogs, and Beckett seems to be doing okay. We were less sure of our ability to raise meat chickens. After all, Beckett is basically our son, and we wouldn't even think of eating him. Besides, as of yet, we have not found any recipes for Fox Terrier au Vin.
But we are meat-eaters, and we both feel very strongly about our decision to be conscientious carnivores. We only eat meat raised by farmers we know and trust, which basically means that outside of our home, we are functionally vegetarians. We have thought a lot about whether we would eventually be able to go to the next level and raise (and thus, kill) our own meat once we reach our Beautiful Life. So when our local co-op offered a chicken processing class at a member's house, we were pathetically - some might say bizarrely - excited.
The class was about the whole process of raising meat chickens. In September, we met the chicks. In October, we met the chickens. And then, in November, we killed them. I won't go into the details of the whole process. I will say that as I watched our instructor do the first bird, I wasn't completely sure I'd be able to do any of it. The whole thing was set up in his yard. In Illinois at least, if you live in a town where you can raise certain livestock within town limits, you can also butcher the animals, as long as you aren't selling them or doing enough to qualify as an agricultural enterprise. (That's an oversimplification of the rules, so don't go processing any chickens without checking your local ordinances, okay?) He had it set up as a four-step process, with a station for each step, and of course, with step 1 being the drawing of the knife. I ended up doing every step at least once, with varying degrees of success.
It wasn't what I'd call a fun time. It was hard, emotionally and physically. But I felt that if I couldn't handle it, I was going to have to reconsider my stance as a meat-eater. Eating other creatures means enacting violence against them, indirectly at least. When we were buying our meat shrink-wrapped in the grocery store, we didn't think about that too much. I'm not going to go into the politics or ethics or morals behind the decisions that the husband and I have made about food. I'll just say that whether or not we end up raising our own meat birds, we do know now that we would be capable of doing so.
I'm going to close with a warning. Kids, be careful what you read. If you had told me when I picked up Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle that I'd end up holding a freshly killed chicken by the feet, I'd have told you that you were crazy. Don't even try to tell me that books can't change lives. The husband and I have chicken blood on our hands (metaphorically, at this point), and little but books to blame.
So, I've talked before about my proposed Beautiful Life. For those of you not following along at home, my Beautiful Life would consist of a homestead farm filled with various farm animals, particularly sheep and other fiber animals, but also chickens. The husband and I feel perfectly capable of taking care of laying chickens. Chickens, in general, are far less demanding than dogs, and Beckett seems to be doing okay. We were less sure of our ability to raise meat chickens. After all, Beckett is basically our son, and we wouldn't even think of eating him. Besides, as of yet, we have not found any recipes for Fox Terrier au Vin.
But we are meat-eaters, and we both feel very strongly about our decision to be conscientious carnivores. We only eat meat raised by farmers we know and trust, which basically means that outside of our home, we are functionally vegetarians. We have thought a lot about whether we would eventually be able to go to the next level and raise (and thus, kill) our own meat once we reach our Beautiful Life. So when our local co-op offered a chicken processing class at a member's house, we were pathetically - some might say bizarrely - excited.
The class was about the whole process of raising meat chickens. In September, we met the chicks. In October, we met the chickens. And then, in November, we killed them. I won't go into the details of the whole process. I will say that as I watched our instructor do the first bird, I wasn't completely sure I'd be able to do any of it. The whole thing was set up in his yard. In Illinois at least, if you live in a town where you can raise certain livestock within town limits, you can also butcher the animals, as long as you aren't selling them or doing enough to qualify as an agricultural enterprise. (That's an oversimplification of the rules, so don't go processing any chickens without checking your local ordinances, okay?) He had it set up as a four-step process, with a station for each step, and of course, with step 1 being the drawing of the knife. I ended up doing every step at least once, with varying degrees of success.
It wasn't what I'd call a fun time. It was hard, emotionally and physically. But I felt that if I couldn't handle it, I was going to have to reconsider my stance as a meat-eater. Eating other creatures means enacting violence against them, indirectly at least. When we were buying our meat shrink-wrapped in the grocery store, we didn't think about that too much. I'm not going to go into the politics or ethics or morals behind the decisions that the husband and I have made about food. I'll just say that whether or not we end up raising our own meat birds, we do know now that we would be capable of doing so.
I'm going to close with a warning. Kids, be careful what you read. If you had told me when I picked up Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle that I'd end up holding a freshly killed chicken by the feet, I'd have told you that you were crazy. Don't even try to tell me that books can't change lives. The husband and I have chicken blood on our hands (metaphorically, at this point), and little but books to blame.
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