- Other than my usual snarky Twitter comments, I've pretty much stayed away from the ongoing Anonymous protests centered around the Civic Center BART station, because it's been pretty well covered and I don't have a lot to add about how stupid and pointless the whole thing is. I guess one of their demands at one point was to disband the BART Police. SPOILER: The BART Police aren't going to be disbanded. How about free coffee on Wednesdays or something like that?
You know what would end the now-weekly protests? STOP PUTTING THEM ON TV. I mean, it's eventually going happen anyway, if they keep it up long enough. After some period of time - 6 weeks? 7 weeks? - local TV is going to get bored of the story and once it's not covered in the media any more, the number of protesters will drop like a rock, I guarantee you.
Actually, I have an idea. If the protesters really want to effect meaningful societal change, go set up shop on International Boulevard in Oakland and see if you can do something to stop the daily violence there. Short of declaring martial law, people are fresh out of ideas about what to do. You guys seem like smart people. Maybe you can save some lives instead of just pissing people off.
- In other Sad News of the Day, your San Francisco Giants. Ugh, what a fucking trainwreck. Last night's ugly little 7-0 loss to the Cubs is just the latest chapter in a frustrating grind of a year. There's no big mystery about what's wrong; they can't fucking hit the baseball, and you cannot win a division, even the NL West, scoring 0 to 1 runs per game.
And yes, last year was a fluke. Aubrey Huff is a career .280 hitter who hit .290 last year and is hitting .243 this year. Cody Ross is a career .260 hitter who hit .288 last year and is hitting .231 this year. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe THIS YEAR is the fluke. Huff, Ross, fuck, just about everybody is hitting below - in some cases, WAY WAY BELOW - their career average. Might as well send batting coach Hensley Meulens into space now, instead of waiting for 2014.
- I'm on a jury. Not joking. Can't say anything else about it, but believe you me, I will tell you all about it when I'm done. But that means probably fewer posts between now and say September 12th or so.
As a friend once put it to me and an interesting fellow juror after we finished a two-month trial, "you sure must have had a fucked up jury pool if they selected the two of you." It was a wrongful firing suit based on the fact that the company was asking the appellant to commit fraud, which he did for a while, then stopped. The fraudulent company tried to confuse us, it didn't work, and the jury was so pissed that they'd wasted our time that we gave the guy a million dollars in punitive damages. Hope you have similar fun.
ReplyDeleteI'd make fun of you being on a jury but for some reason the public defender had me spend my last week of law school winter break as a 3L sitting on a misdemeanor DUI jury even after I TOLD her I lived with 2 cops.
ReplyDeleteThe theory was: he crashed a motorcycle. No one SAW the crash, therefore he wasn't drunk driving, just drunk wrecked in the middle of the road. We found him guilty.
Though: I got a c- in evidence, sitting on a jury was good prep for the bar.
Have fun! Buahahah.
I've served on juries for two murder trials and one possession of marijuana for sale trial (I was the foreman for that one). Not one of those juries came to a verdict. It's so frustrating being hung.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants are pretty much watching other teams get hits so they can see how it's done. LEARNING'S OVER TIME TO PLAY, GUYS.
ReplyDeleteHave FUN on jury duty!!!! OMGGGGGG!!!!1!!!11
I was in the UK a couple of weeks ago - cold weather / rain stopped the "riots" there ... lets hope it rains .. :)
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