“Umm honey, I’ll be late today. I’m stuck in traffic.”
(Source)
LIFE IS LIKE A HURRICANE
“if you’re not angry you’re not paying attention” used to be such a powerful phrase but now it’s more accurate to say “if you’re not angry you’re probably exhausted by 5+ years of Panic Outrage Mode and are nearing the limit of your emotional range for reacting to this shit”
The fact that this is pre-covid haunts me
the datestamp is a killer, yeah
ty for stealing this one much appreciated
people in the notes suggesting it was “improper” for the juror to do this or that it “introduced bias” to the court proceeding 🙄 the ice agent in question accused a moc of assaulting him / resisting arrest. how is the agent being a white supremacist not relevant. what universe are you living in
As a member of the world’s SECOND oldest profession, I assure you this is just one of many ways the justice system is systematically fucked up.
For anyone who wants to know how to fact check something you are told while on jury duty without getting fined:
First, you need to understand that the rule that jurors can’t just google things is coming from a good place. Like imagine that you are on a jury that’s considering, say, a medical malpractice lawsuit and one of your fellow jurors comes into the jury room and says to you, “I think the victim’s expert was lying because WebMD totally contradicts everything they said.”
And you might be like, “But WebMD is notoriously unreliable website and the expert you’re talking about is a researcher from Mayo Clinic.” But this person cannot be swayed.
Like, we can all agree that would be bad.
So even though these rules can contribute to unjust outcomes as in the case above (and seriously, the fact that the defense attorney didn’t fact check that is probably grounds for legal malpractice), they also prevent jurors from just looking up bullshit online and taking it more seriously than the actual experts the court has put on. And I think in the era of anti-vaxxers/QAnon/COVID denial/etc., we can all understand why it’s a bad idea to trust that people can tell fact from bullshit online.
So in light of this, how do you as a juror fact check something?
The key here is that you have to ask the court for information. Jurors can ask questions of the court during deliberations, so if something you said sounds off to you, you can ask for more information.
The key term you want to use here is “credibility.”
The job of a jury is to decide what are called “questions of fact.” Long before the trial even starts, lawyers will have hashed out all the “questions of law” — like, what the statute of limitations is; what laws, exactly, were allegedly broken; whether the court you’re in even has jurisdiction; stuff like that. Jurors are responsible for deciding which side’s version of the facts has more credibility.
For instance, if the prosecution’s witness says X and the defense’s witness says Y, the jury is responsible for deciding which is true, X or Y. And you do this by weighing which one is more credible.
So in this case, if the juror had known to, he could have told the judge, “In order to properly assess the ICE agent’s credibility, I need more information about his tattoo. I have doubts about whether he was telling the truth about it, which would impact how credible I would find his testimony. Can the agent please provide evidence that it really is what he says it is?”
There are a lot of problems with our legal system, and I think one of the biggest is that jurors aren’t educated about what they can and can’t do. Juries have a lot of power, if (and only if) they know how to use it.
Reblogging for that last post, because frankly, “what to do as a juror” is one of those things the schools should really be teaching us. Serving on a jury is one of the most powerful rights of citizenship and everyone should be educated in how to exercise it correctly.
somehow instead of saying "as a treat", I've started using the phrase "for morale", as if my body is a ship and its crew, and I (the captain) have to keep us in high spirits, lest we suffer a mutiny in the coming days.
and so I will eat this small block of fancy cheese, for morale. I will take a break and drink some tea, for morale. I will pick up that weird bug, for morale.
I'm not sure if it helps, but it does entertain me
this works because if i don't get a little treat my brain will absolutely stage a mutiny
I like this because “as a treat” makes me feel like I need to do something to deserve it. “For morale” means it’s a necessity. And yes, giving myself good things and treating myself well is a necessity.
realized that probably most people haven’t read the daniel martinico ds9 letter. this is classic literature me
I not only read this, I kept it on the cork board in my office for the entire time I was on staff.
I think we should let Ron Perlman burn a house down. You know, as a treat.
Thanks @ingdamnit for bringing this to my attention.
Someone on Twitter also remarked, “I think if some [entertainment CEO]’s house, you know, burns down accidentally… we should all do the Spartacus thing and claim to be Ron Perlman.”
GodDAMN does Ron Perlamn go hard!!!
"Ohhh ohhh Tolkien's a literary genius and his work has no flaws-" Tom Bombadil literally exists
I allow myself one (1) prescriptive tolkien opinion and this is it; people who say they like Tom Bombadil fall into one of four groups;
- They are doing it for the clout of knowing who he is
- They misremember the chapter and put him into the whimsical 'tra-la-lally elves' concept box
- They are doing it because it's a funny tolkien community meme
- Tradwife
Tom Bombadil's section piledrives it's way into the middle of all the hobbits relational development, you are so invested in their friendship and how it is growing on this journey and it seems to reach a climax of danger where the trees are trying to kill them and Sam is distraught!
Then Tom Bombadil shows up and the entire main cast forget each other exist in order to devote themselves to the vital task of being unnervingly obsessed with this random guy and his hot blonde wife in the middle of their isolate wilderness compound. The hobbits lose time, Frodo essentially falls in love with Goldberry but barely talks to her, none of their (or our) questions are answered and every sentence is now co-opted into the 'simp for Tom' agenda. It's like your investment and motivation has careened into a pile up against some weird author-monologue about.. something? It's like you're reading a different and worse story that's not even really a story it's more an incomprehensible opinion piece that you'd find in some new age eco-christo-ethnocentrism magazine. It's not only the worst part of the books, it's literally terrible writing, like Unwin should have hit Tolkien with a shoe until he took it out.
I've cracked the code; Tom Bombadil feels like a section of the book that John Boorman somehow snuck into the original manuscript by using time magic or something, it's that kind of creepy boring unnecessary-ness. John Boorman's script is vindicated by the existence of Tom Bombadil. Could not be more damning if I tried.
I really hope people online aren't getting the wrong impression of unions and that they're flawless Things that will protect them from any and all mistreatment and that strikes are fun little treats union workers get
Unions are People not Things. Union leaders can fuck up. Unions can definitely operate in a way that gets you low wages and poor benefits if you're not being represented well.
A union by itself does not guarantee you anything. Unions take work and money to run. You pay dues, you go to meetings, you vote. You protect each other in a union. You don't join a union and magically have everything taken care of for you.
Strikes are a powerful tool but are scary. They're not a goal to achieve. Unions don't aim to go on strike during negotiations.
CHEERS TO GUY WALTON FOR “OUTING” THE FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES
From the article:
Walton has devised his own criteria for named heatwaves in the US, based on duration and extremity, on a one to five scale similar to hurricanes. Heatwave Chevron is classed as a four and is “historic”, Walton said. The meteorologist said he has a list of 20 oil and gas companies – including Exxon and Shell – for upcoming heatwaves and will turn to coal companies if he runs out of names.
OUTSTANDING MOVE
Y'all know what to do. Use Walton's naming system. Make it catch on.
1313-mocking-bird-lane