1. Really, is there an any less charming room than the jury assembly room at the Lane County Courthouse? At the same time, is there an any more charming public employee than the woman who runs that room? I remember her from the other times I've been called to jury duty and I love how she is faithful to the principle of citizen participation in justice, while at the same time speaks to the assembled adults in the room with irreverence about the bad coffee, the tedium of waiting, the apathy on the faces of many people in the room, and the bad programming on the televisions. She's determined, professional, competent, focused, funny, airy, tough, and, I can tell, way underpaid and underappreciated. It's just got to be tough working for the underfunded, understaffed, broke, and broken Lane County government. She's up to the task.
2. I took my notebook, a pen, poems by Richard Hugo, and You Are Here, a book on creative cartography, to the courthouse and made great use of the waiting period. Writing and reading made the time go quickly. I didn't have any real response of either happiness or disappointment when I was released and didn't get called to the next round of jury selection.
3. Jane, Rita, Clif and I had a really fun Lebanese dinner at Dalia's downtown before going over to the Festival of Films from around the Muslim World where I introduced The Syrian Bride and was successful, judging from comments afterward, of helping viewers see the movie as a story in the long and often overlooked tradition of comedy, of separation and reunion, violation and forgiveness, love and goodness, reconciliation, and confusion clarified into a better and transformed order. The audience was moved by the story and enjoyed its humorous elements as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment