Matt is gone tomorrow and Thursday for work related business so it sure does seem like it will be a nice quiet last couple of days here. Janelle and I are going to take a nice loooooong lunch tomorrow to celebrate. I might even have a drink or two. That is of course if I am actually here. I might have to go to jury duty tomorrow. I guess if I had any faith whatsoever in the criminal justice system it wouldn't be so bad. I just don't really believe in putting people in prison. Unless they are rapists or child molesters. But then again rapists and child molesters deserve a fate far worse than prison...not the death penalty because I don't believe in that, but I am sure I could think of something.
Anyway, I am trying to think of things to say to get out of it should I be called forth to carry out my civic duty. I guess I could tell them that my Mars is in Libra and I don't think that that is conducive to making any kind of decision about anything especially one that involves someone else's life. I could tell them that I would be more than willing to serve on a jury as long as they are comfortable with the fact that I could never convict someone. Unless maybe if they had videotape of him/her committing the crime...but even then I would still feel a little uncomfortable saying guilty. I mean who am I to judge.
I could just say I don't believe in prison and I have no faith in a system that is racist and classist. I think that is what I will say. Had I not planned a European vacation for next week I probably would have said anything I could say to get ON the jury and then done my best to sabotage the entire operation. Oh my. Let's just all hope that when I call in tonight they will tell me not to report. With both bosses gone it seems like a pre-vacation vacation right here in the office the next two days so why spoil that by going to jury duty?
I saw some special on MSNBC investigates or something the other day about San Quentin State Prison and I was truly appalled that we allow people to live like that. As Caitlyn likes to say...we put people in cages...literally. It just doesn't make sense to me. "But they're murderers!" Ah who gives a fuck. If you think about it we are all at this very moment probably doing something to contribute to the death of another individual. And our society condones killing all the time. The government is allowed to kill terrorists, criminals, and pretty much whoever else they want. Not that I am condoning murder, I just think that we need to look at what is really behind all this "keep the streets safe" bullshit. Any guesses? $$$$$$
One other tidbit of interesting information. This I learned at one of my many job interviews over the past year:
"The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is one of the largest and most notorious maximum security prisons in the country. Nicknamed "the Farm," it is a working agricultural complex that utilizes cheap prisoner labor (wages range between 4 cents and 20 cents per hour) for traditional agriculture production and light industry. The penitentiary occupies 18,000 acres of the prime farm land that was once a 19th century plantation--the Angola Plantation--named after the area in Africa that supplied most of the plantation's slave labor."
Um, hello people...wake up and smell the roses. Prison...Slavery...Prison...Slavery. It's not that hard to figure out. I wont get into the whole long explanation of it here because you should already know by now. Just google it or something if you don't. Perhaps if I get called in for jury duty I should print out a bunch of information about the Prison Industrial Complex and how big business profits off of prisons. Contaminate the jury pool, that's what I'll do. But you do really have to be careful what you say about these kinds of things. Next thing you know you have people calling you a communist/terrorist and off with your head.
Well I am just going to spend the next hour or so finishing up my book and trying not to get too upset about the 2 million or so people locked up behind bars right now in this country that are innocent, or probably should be in rehab instead, or at the very least didn't have proper legal representation. Oh see there I go getting upset again.
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