And the verdict is…Jury selection: no way out

I think more and more as time goes on, everyone will have to serve on a jury at least 20 times a year, based on how much crime is going on. So I open my mailbox and there it is: a summons to serve jury duty. When the hell do I have time to serve on a jury?

So, now I am working on ways to get out of it. As I'm reading the back of the jury summons there's an option to be excused or transferred. Let's see:

1. I have a physical or mental incapacity that prevents me from serving. Well, that might be true. I physically don't feel like wasting a perfectly great day or a few) and I get mental at the thought of having to serve on a jury.
   
2. I have a personal obligation like a dependent. Well, that may be true to. Since my kids are grown and gone, I have one dependent left and that's me.
   
3. I have no reasonable means of transportation to the court location. Well, can't get out of that one. I have vehicles and they know it. They picked me by my driver's license, so this isn't an option.
   
4. Other reason. Breastfeeding a child will qualify for postponement of service (Please explain in Section D). Well, can't use the breastfeeding defense. Well, I could say that—no, never mind. I plead the fifth.
   
5. Financial hardship. (Failure to properly explain may cause automatic qualification for jury service.) Ok, did anyone explain to the Court that we are in a financial crisis all over the country right now? That would qualify maybe since everyone is getting jacked one way or the other. Don't they get that serving on a jury where you get fifteen bucks a day creates a financial hardship? The court gets a freebie on the first day and you won't get paid for that but you will get paid for the subsequent days. They also give you 34 cents per mile which doesn't kick in until the second day. And you only get paid for one-way travel.
   

Now what I find amazing is that if you want to explain the reasons in Section D, and you're over 70 years old, you have to explain your medical condition. Now I'm wondering if the court gets to decide what medical condition is okay?

Then they have this Section E. Medical Excuse/Transfer. Okay, so if you're under 70, a doctor must complete this section. But here's the kicker. If I get my doctor to answer this questionnaire, he may be called in to testify before the Court about my inability to perform service. So if my doctor were like to say I am hormonally unbalanced, then they would want to know when I may be able to serve. The answer: never.

Okay, so I have no options. Well, there are two left which make you exempt. If I were convicted of a felony: that means I have enough time to try to rob the bank that got a bail out within a month. Or I could become a peace officer, which means I would still be in the police academy when the date for me to serve comes around.

Now if you don't respond to the summons you will get fined up to $1500. How come they just don't fine you $15 per day kicking in on the second day?

Crazy thing about being forced to serve on a jury, if you don't report on the first day of service you could be fined, put in jail or both. Then somebody else will be picked to serve on the jury to decide what to do with you about playing hooky in court.

Driving: It’s gone to the dogs

If I see another Southern Californian doing this I'm going to scream. This definitely brings me to road rage. Who the hell are these people who drive with a dog on their laps? Two days in a row I saw "dog lappers". One guy had two dogs on his lap while driving!

WTF! I see this often: folks driving with dogs on their laps and kissing and petting on the dogs when they drive. What the hell is this all about? Now here's some news. A bill was passed to fine drivers $35 who commits lapdog driving, last year. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his infinite wisdom vetoed the bill. I guess not enough dogs have died!

What else is ridiculous? In my research, I found that there was more interest in a dog's safety than human beings. Screw people, because we have seen that pets seem to get more attention than abused children. If dogs were molested and killed, I'm sure that the perpetrators would be facing life sentences or lethal injection. If children were dogs they'd have it made. It is absolutely ridiculous how children are so neglected when it come to their rights in this country.

From what I've seen, the pet owners are clueless when driving with their dogs. If the governor vetoed this bill, then he should eliminate the bill against driving with a cell phone to ones ears. When I pass by "lap doggers", they are so oblivious to what's going on around them that it's sickening. It's quite clear that their reflexes are on pause (or shall I say paws?) and they could not respond at the drop of a dime if someone cut them off or they were about to hit something large in the road.

I say pets are cute, but the level that this pet parenting has gone to is more than borderline ridiculous. Every time I see someone kissing their dog in the mouth, I cringe. HELLO! Dogs lick their butts!

This "lap dogging" thing is stupidity gone wild. There is absolutely no reason why this absurd habit isn't muzzled. Okay pet lovers; hate me if you think I don't like pets. I've had pets in the past, but there is a lot of responsibility and common sense that goes with having a pet. Lap dogging is one of those habits that has seriously thrown common sense out of the window.

Sparing The Rod

The rules of parenting have changed. Remember the good old days when you could discipline your kids in public without getting arrested or deal with some yo-yo at Child Protective Services? Now all I see is mommy counting to three, while the kid is thinking "She's got to be kidding. I don't give a damn about her counting! I don't give a shit about "time out" either!"

My skin starts to crawl and I break out in hives when I'm in the grocery store and little kids are whining to their oblivious parents about what they want….now! Or kids are running through the store aisles and pulling merchandise out of its packaging. When my children were little and we saw kids blow off their moms at the grocery store, my kids would look at them like they were crazy as they gave them the look. "You're lucky you don't have my mama 'cause she'd kill you!"

I always told my kids that I was crazy. I don't know, it seemed like the best way to impress the idea upon them that I was fearless and invincible. 'Cuz crazy folks seem to have a strength that normal folks just don't have the guts to muster up. I also wanted my children to know that I was crazy and fearless enough to protect them and their interests. Like the time I kicked the hell out of a cab that almost hit my kids in a school crosswalk.

Today, kids run the program and parents are cowards. They acquiesce to the wants of their children as if they'd pass out from "I want it fever". If kids today don't get what they want, you'd think that they'd have to be hospitalized for a terminal illness: Ididn'tget it-itous.

Somebody told kids that they had rights. The only right they have is to remain silent. Since when did a kid have the life experience to run anything? I remember Anthony (played by Billy Mumy) in that Twilight Zone episode "It's A Good Life" where he made that guy a jack-in-the-box because he thought he was "a very bad man?" Why was he a bad man? Because he was sick of being controlled by that bad assed kid!

There was no such thing as a Super Nanny when I was growing up. The Super Nanny: and that's the reality. It all but sums up the parenting style of today.

I grew up in the time where children were "seen and not heard". I knew my boundaries as a kid and stayed within them. If we were out and someone offered me seconds at dinner or dessert, my mother would give me this look. They call it "stink eye". I would politely say no thank-you to what I was being offered. Today I can tell which adults grew up with no boundaries as children. I can proudly say that I raised really good kids who knew how to behave when they went out. They were always a pleasure to have around when I visited my friends' homes or we went out on outings.

There have been many times when I have had to bite my tongue and give "stink eye" to other people's kids who misbehave in public places, but not always. Once, this kid kept begging her dad for something in the store. Now, I don't know where this comes from, but I always have the urge to shake the hell out of anything that whines. I got so tired of hearing this kid, I blurted out, "Damn, tell her she can't have that shit!" Of course the dad was insulted. He assumed that I didn't understand and didn't have any children. I replied, "Oh, I do. I have three in this store and you don't hear a peep out of them!"

There's a lot to be said about the real school. We learned that there were consequences to bad behavior. We would get a spanking if we misbehaved. There was nothing to second guess. When we got spanked, it was not child abuse, it was a message. I am not talking about extreme cases of child neglect and torture. I am making this statement for all that politically correct crap that gets drummed up and tossed in the pot with discipline.

Today, I believe that every school teacher out there should get a starting salary of at least $100,000 a year: and that's only tolerance pay, for babysitting bad-assed kids with no home training. Half of the kids who start school now can't even spell their names. If real school people back in the day misbehaved in school, they were "gonna get it when they got home". Not these kids today. The parents will go to school and threaten the teacher for trying to discipline the child.


This is what we are living now: parents who don't parent. They don't set ground rules. They think that the entire world should dance to the beat of their kids. They don't teach their kids that you don't touch things that don't belong to you or act out or have tantrums. The last tantrum that I saw, this 3 year old was giving much drama to her parents, who, the weak links that they were, attempted to use negotiating tactics. I couldn't take it anymore. So I said to the dad as I pointed to his three year demon showing out, "Is that yours?" The dad acknowledged the devil in the room and with surrender just threw his hands up. So, I said to him, "She sure is lucky you're her parent, because if she were mine, I'd give her a little can of whoop ass!" To which he said with disbelief, "I would never hit my child". I paused for a moment and replied, "I see. But when she grows up and you have a bigger problem on your hands she'll have no reservations about killing you!" I walked away.

Here's a little info for today's parents: Children are not ornaments or lap pets. You can't raise kids responsibly if you're afraid to say no, or buy them everything that they want. Wants are not needs. Children require guidance, nurturing, boundaries and love. And here's a little info for kids: The tantrums and bad behavior that worked with your parents isn't going to work out there in the real world. You're in for a big reality check.

I think that the hardest thing I had to do and my greatest accomplishment was raising great kids. Yes, we had our normal ups and downs. The goal in raising kids is to raise them to be responsible human beings. Not these monstrous little beings who'll turn adults into jack-in-the-boxes and "will" them into the cornfield.

Microwave Love: The Bachelor

My Wiz-Doom for today: You shouldn't bake a cake in a microwave. In other words, love doesn't happen in an instant. For ABC's Bachelor,Jason Mesnick it apparently does. This guy is the most fickle, weakest character I've seen on or off reality TV. And here we go---he's a crier. I have a lot of problems with "love pageants". First of all, there are 25 girls to choose from so until it gets down to the final two, there's a lot of lip locking with a lot of different women, which seems a bit risky.

I figured though that Jason would choose Melissa over Molly. Melissa who described herself as always being the "dumpee" ended up right in that space once again. So, if Melissa always ends up with the same result, it appears that she needs a little time for introspection. I tend to believe that if something continues to happen to you, you're the problem.

I could see that this girl wanted to be in love. To what desperate ends are women willing to degrade themselves to be chosen by a man and find love? Apparently many. Love takes time. It doesn't happen in a Jacuzzi in front of a camera, or spending the night alone with him to "get to know each other". It doesn't even happen as quickly as it took the producers to film the show!

So what did Melissa do that was so horrible? She became a self-sacrificing dishrag in desperation without any practical thought to protecting the investment of herself. This guy Jason proposes on national TV and that in itself hokey. She tells him how much she loves him countless times before the engagement moment and all he can say is he's falling for her. Translation? Evidently, somebody took a trip, arrived at their destination and the other party was still travelling to get there.

From a guys point of view this whole love pageant charade is the next best thing to having a harem. There really is nothing in this for the women, but the ultimate reveal of how shallow they make themselves to appear perfect, competing for the attention of one man. This is known as the bullshit zone. When you're in the bullshit zone, there is absolutely no clarity anywhere on the horizon.

So what's up with Molly? What I found disturbing about her was that she kept bringing up the concept of fantasy. Girls need to stop believing in "the prince charming theory" of falling in love and get with the reality. Love takes time because two people's rhythm with each other takes time. If they have no rhythm, they will not have a love connection. You can't force love. You can't have what you believe are the perfect ingredients with perfect surroundings and because he's there and she's there they have a connection between them. Love is energy that manifests in its own time.

Both Melissa and Molly sacrificed themselves by professing their love to Jason. I think that saying "I love you" is like a wayward basketball being tossed in a volleyball court by a whore in a wedding dress. It's said so much it's lost its meaning as a sacred proclamation between lovers. These days it's something people say out of obligation to give another a sense of being wanted and to absolve any insecurities. Love doesn't have to be affirmed by being said or heard. Love is an action word.

I found many things about this season of The Bachelor disturbing. First, I don't think that Jason's young son should have been a part of any of these scenarios. This kid is only 3 years old and to be introduced to these two final contestants must have been very awkward. It had no place in the show. I wonder how many times they had to shoot those scenes! I also found it disturbing that Jason always kissed his son on the mouth or asking his son to give him a kiss. I don't recall many men bonding with their sons in that way, even as little boys.

What I found totally distasteful was Molly's acceptance of giving it a go with Jason, ignoring Jason's appalling treatment of Melissa and even when he admitted to her the horrible thing that he did to Melissa. There were so many red flags that it could've been Flag Day. So what Molly did was settle for a jerk.

Don't women get this? Jason is certainly no prize, as his behavior clearly shows, but for a woman not to think that if he did that to someone he would do it again is the biggest show of desperation Molly could ever reveal. The best thing that Molly could have done was to tell him to get lost. But ignoring her instincts and the questions she had in her mind and going for it may be to her regret. The jury is still out on that one. You would think that Jason was the only man left in the world. It gives me hives to think that she believes there are no other options.

I must applaud Melissa's parents for not wanting to be meet this guy on camera. It seems that they weren't havin' any of it. I wouldn't either. Move over Barnum & Bailey, because this turned out to be a three ring circus.

Ring Ma Bell

Remember when Ma Bell broke up in 1984? It was no longer the monopoly that it used to be. Enter Verizon. Now if that ain't a bit of a monopoly! They are everywhere, but are they anywhere? I have to stand in line with everybody else complaining about their internet and phone service. They are one company that makes it quite clear that they don't want to talk to you. I've called 8 times in a half hour and was told by the virtual girl that my call couldn't be completed. This after going through a b-zillion menu options, that evidently lead to nowhere. Every number they give you to access them leads to the same place! I earned my right to be in the Guinness Book of World Records when I was on the phone for 7 hours trying to work out a peace summit between Vonage and Verizon.

To their credit, I must give Verizon points for the FIOS internet service. It's excellent, but—it all seems like a set-up to me, because as I see it, they're using their "high speed DSL", which I have been informed is basically dial-up and horrible, as a means to getting everyone on their more expensive system: FIOS.

First thing is when you call them to discuss your account, the rep will ask if they may have permission to access your account. Well, dah! I'm calling them about my account. Why am I calling again? This is not a social call. So, I asked the phone rep, "Why do you guys always ask me if you can have permission to access my account if I'm calling about my account?" The rep, says, "I know," then chuckles. At that point, we both laugh and I tell him that this is great blog fodder.

I think the stellar point of the conversation was when he was checking something on-line regarding my account and he says "Bear with me, my connection is kind of slow." He admitted that they don't have FIOS there! Now ain't that a bip! Damn! If I didn't laugh at that one! Here I am talking to the internet service provider and their own reps have Verizon's cheesy "high-speed" internet!

Before I switched to FIOS, my DSL would go out every night between the hours of 7pm and 12 midnight. It were as if I were getting rationed internet time. I've gotten responses from their customer service people as ridiculous as: my modem is over worked and tired. I got several credits because I had no service. Every time I called, I think I was calling some hut in Pakistan, where the person on the other end tried to kill his accent to sound more American. There were many times where they didn't understand the technology issues clearly because of the language barrier.

But the message is clear. Verizon is looking to be everything: TV provider, phone, internet. It looks like the market is gearing up for a competition. Because when all is said and done, there will eventually be one company and we'll all be singing the Theme to Welcome Back Kotter to old Ma Bell reborn.