Vitriol

VITRIOL - as defined by the word nerds at dictionary.com, means: something highly caustic or severe in effect, as criticism.

Welcome then, my friends, to the week that was in social media.  It's been a veritable cavalcade of vitriol.  And what pray tell was the source?  That would be the one and only Vice Presdential debate of this insufferably long political season.

Earlier this week, America's favorite crazy uncle, Vice President Joe Biden, and Republican congressman, VP candidate, and P90X/Tony Horton acolyte Paul Ryan debated.  I was only moderately interested in the debate and as it began, my wise best friend, the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML, suggested that perhaps I watch something else or watch nothing at all.  I opted for watching nothing at all.  I then started checking my Twitter feed and comments on the interweb's favorite place to spew, Facebook, and decided that maybe I should not look at that either.  So I started reading a book about North Korea and the modern-day underground railroad that exists to help people escape that vicious regime.

Based on the invective that was all over the two aforementioned social media outlets the following morning, I was never so glad I opted to read a book.  I'm all for a good debate and I'm all for political discourse but the level of personal vitriol that has erupted is incredible to me.  And I'm not talking about the snarkfest that was the spat between Biden and Ryan.  I'm talking about what I saw on the FB and Twitter and for comments that were directed to me personally because I am not of the Mittite tribe. Wow.

I have friends from across the political/social/religious spectrum and if I stack up the comments that were made during the VP debate and the first Presidential debate, in terms of acting/reacting really poorly and spewing personal attacks on those who choose not to support their candidate, the folks supporting Team Romney win.  Frankly, I'm not sure that's an award you want to win.  It's been interesting to have those supporting Team Romney (and who, ironically enough, share the same faith as me and Romney) call me an idiot, call me ridiculous, and mock me because their candidate "won" the first presidential debate or because I somehow had something to do with crazy Uncle Joe's snarky performance.  If only I had that kind of influence...I don't.

Everybody, relax.  Remember what you were taught in your high school civics/government class (except for those of us educated in the Arizona public school system), these things have a way of working themselves out.  We still live in a mighty and great nation.  Be grateful for the freedoms we have.  Be grateful that we are free to have open political dialogue.  Be grateful you aren't a young Pakistani teen-age girl with a bullet in her brain, courtesy of the Taliban, because you had the audacity to speak out.  Be grateful that you aren't living in a vicious, oppressive regime like North Korea.

That said, Tuesday, November 6, can't come soon enough.

18/19

Yeah, these numbers are going to have new meaning

Every six months, we members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gather for a worldwide conference.  It is a time to be fed and taught spiritually, to be reminded of what is important in life, and, occasionally, to shake things up.

Thanks to the satellite television and the interwebs, this is one conference that we enjoy from home.  It makes for a different experience as we gather to hear the counsel of a prophet and to be taught.  Sure, we also wait to hear of anything new, like new temples (congrats, Tucson and Arequipa, Peru) or to see if any long-rumored changes come to fruition (c'mon, two-hour meeting block!).  While the two-hour meeting block was not announced, yesterday an announcement involving the numbers 18 and 19 was made that was nothing less than epic.

In the Church, it has long been expected that young men upon reaching their 19th birthday embark on two-year missions.  Young men sacrifice two years of schooling, work, etc., to serve these missions at their own expense. They are sent all over the world to do some good.  These are life-changing experiences.  I was honored to serve the Spanish-speaking people in Miami for two years in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission and my life was forever changed for the better as a result.  Not only did I learn practical skills, including another language, but I learned to be a better man.  I served with a lot of great people, including young women who voluntarily served for 18 months, beginning at age 21.

As of yesterday, 18 and 19 became the new 19 and 21.  It was announced that now young men can embark on missionary service at age 18, provided, of course, they have graduated high school.  Young women can now serve, if they choose, beginning at age 19. The reaction to this announcement was priceless.  The reaction of those assembled at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City was audible.  Several young men who looked to be about 18 and whose reactions were caught on camera looked like they had just been punched. Young women were giddy.  Several mothers looked stunned.

The stunningly patient and mighty fine SML was one of those stunned mothers. She immediately began to cry, saying, "I just lost a year with him (him being The Boy, of course)!" Well, not really, I explained to her. He doesn't graduate until May 2014, about four months shy of his 19th birthday.  This realization seemed to be a bit soothing.  I'm sure plenty of families have tons to think about right now.

This is a pretty exciting thing for members of the Church.  It will be most interesting to see how this plays out. I'm eager to see how this goes down.

While this little bombshell announcement has overshadowed the Conference, there has been great teaching this weekend as well. The counsel to man up here is one I will be studying and will work to implement. I've got to be better for my family and for me.

Trial by Jury, Part II

Mercifully, Hollywood opted NOT to inflict a second installment of Pauly Shore's crapfest acting opus, "Jury Duty," on us. I, however, have chosen to give you a follow up to my last post on my fun in the jury pool.

Once we fled Arizona for Nirvana north of San Diego, it seemed like the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I got jury duty notices with alarming regularity.  This is where I was introduced to professional jurors. These are, for the most part, elderly people with nothing better to do than hang out at the local Courthouse, hoping to fill in for all the prospective jurors who elect to skip out on their summons.  It was also in SoCal where I ran into maniacs who would stop at nothing to get out of jury duty a la Liz Lemon from "30 Rock:"

The costume didn't work for Liz and similar shenanigans failed for some of the prospective jurors I ran into on multiple occasions.  It was on my last summons that I found myself unable to get out of my civic duty and I was selected to serve on a jury.

In spite of my pronounced desire to NOT be there, once I was picked, I took my role as a juror seriously.  You don't grow up the son of a highly-respected trial attorney without respecting the legal process.  I wish my fellow jurors had taken the case a tad more seriously.  It was a criminal case, involving charges of police brutality and questionable immigration status.  Anyway, the juror next to me spent the bulk of the trial downloading porn to his cell phone.  Nice.  The other jurors, a mishmash of the aforementioned professional jurors and a few people who were more concerned about where they would be going for lunch, seemed pretty much disconnected from it all.

I made the mistake of taking notes.  I made the mistake of noting that when the Spanish-speaking mother of one of the accused was speaking that the court-appointed translator incorrectly interpreted what she said. Why mistakes? Because when the case was handed over to the jury, guess who was made foreman unanimously?  Me, good readers, me.  Fantastic.

When one of my professional jurors announced, with more pride than she should have, that every jury she'd ever been in had ended in a mistrial because she was always the lone hold out, I knew things were going to be interesting. When she said that, I looked at her, and said simply, "Ma'am,that will not be the case with this jury." So we deliberated for a day and a half.  This was no "Twelve Angry Men" but our deliberations had there moments.  I am delighted to report that we reached unanimous verdicts on all of the counts.  We did our work.  Civic duty done.

A funny thing happened the day after we delivered our verdict.  Since I'd been in the trial all week and working at night to not be completely buried at work, we took the kids to the San Diego Zoo.  As we walked around that animal jail (I'm not a fan), lo and behold, we run into my professional juror lady.  Her husband pulled me aside and said, "She's been on a lot of juries and she says you're the best foreman she's ever worked with."

So, I guess that was a good thing? Now we wait - wait for the summons here.  Who knows what lurks in the jury pool here...

Trial by Jury

Please, no.

It struck me the other day that as new residents of this corner of New England that a jury duty summons can't be far away.  This thought does not make me want to make a beeline for the mailbox every day to see if the summons has arrived. Rather, it makes me want to curl up into the fetal position and weep uncontrollably.

I should feel like serving on a jury is an honor.  In my experience, it is not.  It is, instead, a parade of the damned and that's just the collection of society's flotsam and jetsam in the jury selection room.

When we lived in the barren wasteland that is Arizona, I got called to jury duty with disturbing regularity.  I almost always managed to get out of it.  My best excuse was to simply mention that I was my father's eldest son.  My late father was a pretty well known attorney who had done much to champion legal ethics and attorneys and judges knew who he was.  That typically got me out.  Also, saying that the defending attorney was so attractive that I would not be able to focus on the trial worked once.  Although that nearly got me a psych referral because said attorney looked like the sister of JoJo, the dog-faced boy.

It was while were in Arizona that I was selected for my first jury.  I did all I could to get out of it, to no avail.  Here's the skinny on that case (and beware, it's going to get unpleasant) - it was a civil case, involving an injury on a worksite. As the case was being explained to us, the prospective jurors, we learned that it was a most delicate injury.  A cement truck driver was delivering cement to a site and, long story short, he'd gotten out of his truck and jumped over an area where cement was being poured.  He slipped, or something, and was impaled on a piece of rebar.  Said rebar penetrated one of his testicles and kept on going up through his abdomen.  Can I get an OUCH!? Suffice to say, he was a mess.  The instant the defense attorney described the injury, every single of us men in the room, slammed our knees together and gasped audibly.  I hadn't even been selected yet for the jury and I was already prepared to award this poor soul $10Million for pain and suffering.  The wife was suing for, well, loss of services.  So this case was going to be a good time all around.  Until two yentas in the jury pool started asking about workmen's comp. The judge had made it clear that this case NOT about workmen's comp.  This mattered not an iota to these two idiots.  They kept asking questions about the intricacies of workmen's comp and they kept being admonished by the judge to shut it, basically.  This led to a couple of other prospective jurors asking aloud about the comp issue.  At this point, the judge called for a recess, asking the attorneys to follow him.  I knew this wasn't going to end well.

It didn't.  A very irritated judge returned to the bench and announced that he was declaring a mistrial before the trial had even begun.  Laying the blame squarely at the feet of the two women who would not shut up, he said he had no choice but to declare a mistrial because of their actions.  The poor plaintiff and his wife were crestfallen.  They'd waited so long to get to trial and now it was time to set the clock back.  I feel quite certain that if the judge could have ordered the summary execution of the workmen's comp yentas, we would have seen them eviscerated.  That would have been a powerful lesson to foolish jurors everywhere.

That would not be my last jury.  I would get a chance to serve again.  This time in California.  That's a story for another post.