Monday was Call the Senators Day, in support of the Feingold censure motion. (Nice to see the Dems lining up so courageously behind him on that one, by the way.)
Today was Jury Duty Day. I used to dread it as an inconvenience, although I've changed my mind about that. I think it's a good thing that everybody should do. But still have some personal ambivalence about the whole experience, for another reason. I've finally come to realize that no prosecutor, no defense attorney, is ever--ever--going to seat me on a jury. Even when my number gets called from the jury pool to go upstairs to the courtroom for voir dire, it takes them about four or five questions to decide I'm their worst nightmare: An overeducated guy (worse, author of three books on persuasion and influence) back there in the jury room saying, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Let's think this over . . . !" Rightly or wrongly, before you can say "habeas corpus" I'm back downstairs reading my book.
This morning it didn't come to that humiliating point; of the four trials scheduled, two pled out, one waived jury, and my name wasn't called for the remaining trial. So I was on my way home by 10.30am. Until I get the next letter, go back into the pool, and get passed over for service again.
He sent me on to Dr. Quimby, the specialist who had examined my eyes some twelve or fifteen times before. He gave me some simple reading tests. "You could never get into the army with eyes like that," he said. "I know," I told him.
James Thurber, "Draft Board Nights"
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