I really don't want to get dressed and leave the house again, but I must.

Also, I need a dress to wear to a wedding Saturday, and everything I have looks like crap. It's either too big or too small.

Does your family do anything to mark the day? My mother, my aunt and I used to go shopping and out to lunch on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. We haven't done it in a few years, though. It got harder, once I had the children, and the anniversary is ten days before Christmas, which makes it doubly tough. We don't really mark my father's death, though. My grandmother would have had her 100th birthday this month, so we're having a family reunion on her birthday.

Since it was the 10th year, we went to Mass. I find that we tend to do things now on the "bigger" anniversaries of events.

Going to mass (not at my regular church) lead to an odd moment that ended up making me smile. Since it was a weekday service the priest invited the attendees to say their invocations out loud. An older man said that since we are in The End Times, he prayed for the Jews to convert to Catholicism.

Which started me thinking First, we’re in “The End Times”? I know some protestant sects believe that, but we Catholics do too? Sheesh. Are we going to be Raptured too? Because I was thinking that could be tough if it happens while I’m driving.

Second, that was a rather exclusive prayer -- just the Jews? We don’t want the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Wicca, etc? (It was sort of like the scene in “Blazing Saddles” in which the townspeople were discussing whether to allow the railroad workers to join them – ”We’ll take the N------ and the Ch----, but we don’t want the Irish.”) So, no matter how old we are (the Catholic Church is 2000+), I guess we still want our parents’ approval. My mother would have appreciated that. Which made me smile.

Well, the Jews are already halfway there, see? The Buddhists are way over there, and the Moslems have sprinted way ahead.

Does proselytisation have a low-hanging fruit concept?

Could be. It would explain the Jehovah Witnesses going door-to-door. If you're opening your door to two well-dressed folks in business attire, I guess you deserve to be proselytized.

The rest of your day didn't exist to me. So.

Summation by juror 034.

The good: I got to read Assassination Vacation in one fell swoop. Finished 7 crosswords. Ate Ranier cherries. Didn't have to watch Monster in Law or Hitched. There was adequate a/c. I wasn't allergic to anything in the quiet assembly room.

The bad or dubious: Half my head threatened to explode in the main assembly room (but, see above.) I sat on my ass ALL DAY LONG and it hurts because jurybox chairs suck and are 100 million years old. And, duh, I got to jury a trial. Which isn't bad really, just.... Oh, and I spend all of it thinking I was bleeding all over the place, but I wasn't but sheesh.

Conclusions: PEOPLE ARE REALLY STUPID AND A POX ON ALL OF THEM.

Which is to say, we found the defendent not guilty, and there is probably a 95% chance there's gonna be a girlfight down on Hamburg Street tonight!

No one got called untill 3:30. At which point, thankfully, I'd just finished my book. And they select people by their juror #s. So I knew that unless the case involved something closely related to my person, I was probably going to be on a jury. I was right. I got to sit in painful seat #4.

Anyway, it was basically two women neighbors and their gangs (yes, they used that term) trying to say the defendent pulled the first punch. No one's stories really matched up. The only one remotely credible was one who testified for the defense who was friends with both. I think there were childhood vendettas, defendent getting victim's fiance arrested (um, never heard the why of that,) mediation...and it seems ...oh hell. None of it makes sense unless you decide they were all just stupid. Reasonable doubt, um yeah. About their senses especially. We all walked into the jury room at 6, looked around, started to snort (sober justice) and it was pretty clear we had a verdict. And then they had us wait another 20 minutes so we all talked about omg!stupid and how there's going to be a rumble tonight. And how we really wondered why anyone would even take this to court! It was all inconsistent she said-she saids.

POX ON ALL OF THEM FOR MAKING ME SIT IN THAT STUPID CHAIR.

All in all, interesting, but omg people!

Oh, another bad: parking cost more than the stipend because I couldn't find the special garage in traffic this morning.

And note to all prosecutors: When one of YOUR witnesses is on the stand testifying, seeing you mouth if she's telling the truth about YOUR witness when she's said something that obviously is news to you? Probably not a good idea.

[link]

Oh. My. Gawd.

All in all, interesting, but omg people!

Ah, Justice in the raw. Ain't it beautiful!

There's been what was a fascinating discussion of rationality and religion going on in the comments thread at Making Light, somewhat blighted by a pompous ass taking offense at Steven Brust being a Trotskyite, but otherwise interesting and workday-consumptive.

t pokes JS

Oh. My. God. (Like Aimee's post, this is also Mel-related.)

On his Fox News program, Bill O'Reilly called Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic comments "inexcusable," but said it is "more important" to discuss the "point where the media and individual Americans start to enjoy the suffering of rich and powerful people." Guest Geraldo Rivera later suggested that O'Reilly refer to "that schmuck from MSNBC," apparently MSNBC host Keith Olbermann; Rivera added that the "schmuck from MSNBC" is a "lowlife." Rivera also asserted that Comedy Central hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert "make a living putting on video of old ladies slipping on ice and people laughing" and that they "exist in a small little place where they count for nothing."

[link]

eta: more here: [link]

O'Reilly declared that media figures who have criticized Gibson's remarks are "smear merchants" who have "blood all over their mouth, these vampires," and also targeted the "corporate masters" behind them, who are "the truly evil people."