We're coming to you today from one of the many Jury Rooms in Downtown Los Angeles where I'm here to do a civic duty I can no longer postpone. One time when I did this in Van Nuys, I walked in to report for what I expected would be a long, boring day and found that one of my fellow jurors was my longtime buddy Scott Shaw! That day passed in a hurry. We sat there and talked about comics and cartoons and mutual acquaintances.
No such luck today, though I did get into a not-uninteresting political discussion with a gent who made this point. He, unlike me, thinks the 2020 election will be Trump v. Biden, two men who are famous for their verbal gaffes and for getting too familiar with the opposite gender.
Says he, Democrats will fault both men for those two things, whereas Republicans will fault only Biden. "Look at the way Dems reacted to Al Franken pretending to grope someone as opposed to the GOP ignoring rape allegations against Trump, the whole Stormy Daniels thing and other charges. Since Bill Clinton, Democrats demand their guy be perfect while Republicans just demand that theirs win." I don't think it's quite that bad but the guy has a point.
I got here at 7:45 and from 8 to 9, a lady explained to us how jury duty works, how to fill out the forms we have to fill out, where the vending machines are, how to ask for a postponement of service, etc.
Each topic was covered a half-dozen different ways and explained in microscopic detail, including this point: At the end of your service, you will be given a Certificate of Completion that affirms you have served and need not serve again for twelve months. If you served more than one day and are therefore to be paid $15 per day, a check for your juror pay will be mailed to you within two weeks. Do not take the piece of paper you will receive at the close of your service to your bank and attempt to deposit it. It is not a check.
No kidding. They really had to explain that, no doubt because people have made that mistake. Frightening to think that those same people sat on juries and made decisions that altered the course of someone's life. They also vote. More later.