A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Courthouse

Of the many Groucho Marx lines I’ve committed to memory, one of the more profound ones was, in fact, sent by the legendary funnyman via telegram to the Friars Club of Beverly Hills:
“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.”
I gained renewed respect for that line after I was kicked off a jury last week.
Well, to be fair, I was never technically on the jury... For about a month and a half, I was a “prospective juror” on Colorado’s only death penalty case waiting to go to trial.
For 38 days, I pondered over and over the responsibilities of the possibility of having another person’s life in my hands along with 11 other citizens charged with their civic duty.
Thankfully, I don’t have to think about that anymore. The writing was on the wall long before I filled out the juror questionnaire.
Know about the case? Yep. Seen media coverage of it? Check. Already formulated a personal opinion on innocence or guilt? As a citizen, yes. As a journalist, no.
But I feel bad because in those 38 days, my mind was completely changed on the subject. When I was first summoned to jury duty, I had some pretty strong opinions on the matter as a Colorado resident, as an Auroran... as a human being.
Looking back, I’m not entirely sure what I think about murder, the death penalty and the like, but I do know my mindset on the issues has been changed when forced to think about them.
For me, the verdict is in: I probably didn’t belong anywhere near that courtroom as one to pass judgment, but I’m better for the process. Case dismissed.

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The burst of the Obama bubble, or The ghost of Howard Beale rears its ugly head

Take a look at your stock portfolio and shake your head a tad. Maybe bite your lower lip and subtly grimace.
Read about golden parachutes on Wall Street and snear.
Hear news of the latest round of layoffs in town and sulk.
Do you dare mention the letters ‘A,’ ‘I’ and ‘G’ together in mixed company without fear of initiating some Incredible Hulk-esque populist rampage?
This nation is mad as hell, and it’s not going to take this anymore. Somewhere, Howard Beale is smiling.
This sort of vitriol was supposed to be a thing of the past — something that had no place in the post-partisan world of the Obama presidency.
Maybe we had our hopes too high.
The economy didn’t make a miraculous recovery (although it’s trying), and those celestial choirs Hillary Clinton talked about never did show up, just as predicted.
In a time where information travels at the speed of Twitter, we fooled ourselves into believing that big things could happen very quickly with a few Blackberry-wielding fresh faces in D.C. Unfortunately, most of the nation’s capital is still operating at the pace of a gubernatoral impeachment in Illinois.
We knew better, and we’re not happy about it.
But before we acknowledge that Obama & Co. bit off more than they could chew in the expectations department, we’re going to exhaust the list of scapegoat suspects.
Jon Stewart was compared to Edward R. Murrow for his grilling of CNBC and “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer. While few on and near Wall Street are innocent in this recession, Stewart got religion in this matter pretty late in the game. If Stewart were much more than a comedian or commentator, he’d tone down the holier-than-Dow attitude and realize he has more in common with Howard Beale than Murrow. With no Bush baddies to rail against, Stewart fixed his sights on the purveyors of honest mistakes and simple failures... and he’s not the only one.
AIG doled out retention bonuses for some time (for better or worse), and all of a sudden they’re persona non grata d’jour because they took money the government was offering. Obviously AIG failed its customers, many of its employees and the industry it helps shape, but in reality they did little worse than what happens at any workplace.
You might have been paid $24 an hour to perform duties X, Y and Z, but no one launched the full force and fury of the Congress against you when you spent 15 minutes watching YouTube when you were waiting for that fax to come in.
The reality is we’re having trouble being angry at ourselves... for not seeing this coming, for not doing more than we did, and for letting ourselves get cut by the jagged edges of shattered dreams.
And by God, someone’s gonna pay.

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