Hooray! I escaped the clutches of the American Police State; I got out of jury duty.
One of the benefits of being a long term outdoor traveler is that Mother Nature forces you to branch out; you can only be interested in pretty scenery for so long before you've had enough of it. In order to stay interested, you have to evolve into a type of sensualist/hedonist who appreciates contrasts and conflicts that go way beyond mere prettiness.
I believe that conflict and contrast are under-rated pleasures when thinking about politics. Some people think politics is a nasty subject, good for nothing but ugly name calling and cynicism. Maybe there is ugliness some of the time, but it just whips up your appetite for its opposite. After all, the intensity of the ecstasy is proportional to the agony that preceded it.
Recent experiences have given me a spectacular example of this. After being worried sick about it for a long time, I had to appear before a federal court and answer questions about serving on the jury of a high profile capital case that could drag on for months. After a whole day of being treated like a prisoner, instead of as a prospective juror, the American legal system -- saved perhaps by a vestige of common sense -- rejected me as a potential juror.
This morning I got my life back and stumbled onto an essay in the New York Times that made me feel really good. The subject was the legality of Obama's brush-off of the War Powers Act; I had a ravenous appetite to find anything with a legal theme that made me feel optimistic. That fact that I read this essay in the (usually hated) New York Times made the experience more delightful and powerful.
One of the benefits of being a long term outdoor traveler is that Mother Nature forces you to branch out; you can only be interested in pretty scenery for so long before you've had enough of it. In order to stay interested, you have to evolve into a type of sensualist/hedonist who appreciates contrasts and conflicts that go way beyond mere prettiness.
I believe that conflict and contrast are under-rated pleasures when thinking about politics. Some people think politics is a nasty subject, good for nothing but ugly name calling and cynicism. Maybe there is ugliness some of the time, but it just whips up your appetite for its opposite. After all, the intensity of the ecstasy is proportional to the agony that preceded it.
Recent experiences have given me a spectacular example of this. After being worried sick about it for a long time, I had to appear before a federal court and answer questions about serving on the jury of a high profile capital case that could drag on for months. After a whole day of being treated like a prisoner, instead of as a prospective juror, the American legal system -- saved perhaps by a vestige of common sense -- rejected me as a potential juror.
This morning I got my life back and stumbled onto an essay in the New York Times that made me feel really good. The subject was the legality of Obama's brush-off of the War Powers Act; I had a ravenous appetite to find anything with a legal theme that made me feel optimistic. That fact that I read this essay in the (usually hated) New York Times made the experience more delightful and powerful.
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