WHOOOOOO IS THAT GIIIIRRLLL I SEE?!

My Mulan transformation except that instead of going from beautiful to society's warped idea of a perfect bride, I go from "What is that thing?!" to "huh. She looks kinda nice today." Another way in which I am deficient is that I do not have a sword. Or a horse. Or a talking dragon with Eddie Murphy's voice.

The Literary Equivalent of Dick Pics

Sometimes inspiration hits you, full in the face, while you're sitting on the cold toilet seat of a library bathroom, interrupting the thoughts of actually starting your essay as soon as you finish peeing, washing your hands, reapplying concealer, getting a drink, answering your emails, checking your Facebook, and then finding the right motivational song to type along with the rhythm to.

Sometimes inspiration hits you but doesn't really hit you like a sort of love tap that you may or may not choose to ignore depending on how engaged you are in the current stream of cat videos and pug gifs.

And sometimes inspiration hits you by completely missing you and tackling your friend in a fit of giggles and enlightenment as she starts babbling incoherently about something that you are sure would be genius if only she would stop interrupting herself mid-sentence.

Inspiration has never, however, hit me as I scrolled through pictures of coffee, selfies, and memes.
Oh alright, maybe some of the memes some of the time actually cause me to think critically about my situation, but let's be honest with ourselves: Bad Luck Brian's latest catastrophe with sexual innuendos and his teachers does not exactly illuminate any light bulbs.

Imagery and icons have become so commonplace in modern social commentary that, sometimes, I wonder if people forget how powerful the spoken and written word is.  I wonder how relevant the saints and founders of critical, classic literature are in a society so consumed by the fleetingness of time measured in Facebook statuses and Tweets, in Instagram uploads and SnapChats.

Oh sure, we writers have our equivalent of blurry nudes, pictures of pancakes followed by pictures of falling down a flight of stairs because of a preoccupation of taking pictures of pancakes, and the endless reels of scenery that one takes on a vacation because there is nothing more interesting than this mountain that I can't remember the name of but look how pretty the sun is coming up over it and it was so much prettier when I was there, honest.  But most of those writers usually have blogs that no one reads (...ouch!...) or don't do well in sales (now you understand the use of the world usually.  Twilight is one of the exceptions to the rules.  There! I came out and said it! Twilight is bad writing!!!).  Either way, it is much harder for a bad writer to get publicity, views, likes, comments, etc than it is for a girl with an iPhone, no sense of privacy, and an Instagram account.

I'm getting to a point here. Bear with me.

This makes the recognition of current and future literary genius important and the introduction of brilliant writing into the mass media crucial.  The problem, however, is that a lot of brilliant writing is written by ivory towerists, that is, people who use big and fancy and scary words, schemes, tropes, forms, tones, and the like that make their work so very much high art that regular people like us are afraid we can't understand.  So how do we solve this problem? You're in luck! I happen to very good at meddling until things are solved one way or another!

The first step is adult literacy.  The United States, as a nation, is pretty good at making sure that children who are citizens have access and means to start learning how to read.  These programs can always be expanded upon, increased, made to do better, but we've got a pretty good start.  Where we are lacking, however, is adult literacy.  To the many immigrants who come here, completely unable to read in their own language, much less in ours, there are few opportunities for them to become fluent in reading and writing in their own language, much less in ours

 Do you see the problem?

If the United States can't take the time to teach people how to read and write in the language that they speak perfectly, who are we to expect that they should read and write in a language that they can barely speak at all?  And what about citizens, yes citizens of the good old US of A, who were denied schooling, who had to drop out of school, who didn't and don't have access to a decent school system?  I'm thinking specifically about rural areas, where there literally isn't a school for miles around and young children have to board in a house two, three, four hours from home just to go to elementary school (I'm looking at you, South Dakota.). And it was only a few decades ago when black children were shuffled through a school system that didn't care enough about them to make sure that they stayed in school and learned how to read and write coherently, not to mention instill them with  basic critical thinking skills.

And if the United States, whom we seem to think is a world power, is struggling to promote literacy at the adult level, then how are other countries doing in comparison?  Well, thanks to worldmapper.org, we can see visually.  Eastern Asia is doing remarkably well at making sure that the largest percentage of their population is literate, China and India both ranking highly.  Awesomely enough, Eastern Europe is also doing well, many of their countries in or above the 90th percentile of adult literacy.  The United States is not doing as badly as I made it sound.  We've got a solid 91% of our adult population literate (not that they're all necessarily thinking critically, but that's a whole other rant.)  And, as you'd expect, the developing countries in Africa and South and Central America are in the upper 50/lower 60 percents of their population being literate.

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=196#

Literacy is just the start.  Once we get people to start reading, we can focus on getting them to start reading the good stuff.  Here, I will kindly refrain myself from going all English major on you, talking about grand poetry and obscure meanings.  No.  I don't believe that deep introspective analysis is necessary for people to enjoy good literature, just as the entire world does not need understand the meaning behind Da Vinci's muse in order to enjoy the Mona Lisa.  I believe that good literature should be integrated at an early age, and steadily increased the older one gets.  People should be quoting love from John Greene's The Fault in Our Stars on Facebook, tweeting inspiration from The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens, Instagramming the cover of Truancy by Isamu Fukui, blogging the brilliant imagery in the poems by the mad William Blake.  I'm sure you recognize "Tiger, Tiger burning bright/In the forests of the night/What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" Thankfully, "The Mentalist", an American TV show, used that part of "The Tiger" in one of it's shows which may have tricked several curious observers into classic, romance era poetry without their knowledge.

None of the authors, besides William Blake, are "old school" classic.  John Greene is co-owner of the Vlog Brothers YouTube franchise.  Eric Greitens was a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan and Iraq.   Isamu Fukui is a student at New York University in New York City.  These are contemporary greats who have made books that stunned their respective audiences.  The written word is not dead.  But sometimes, we get so caught up in our selfies (Oxford, I am particularly unhappy with you) and our "filters" that we forget that words can paint a prettier picture in our minds than we will ever be able to see with our eyes.  Our minds can imagine so much beyond what the eye can see and words are the trigger to unleash that imagination.

So next time you're sitting on the toilet, don't pull up iFunny or imgur.  Look up Tennyson or Byron or hell, even Dr. Seuss was brilliant in his own way.  A complete nutter, but there was satirical genius in his books that exceeds the understanding of childish minds and you, as an adult, might better appreciate its layers.  Because progress comes from goals and goals come from dreams and dreams come from inspiration and inspiration...can hit you anywhere.

tp://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdnntwsUVN1rpsy0mo1_400.jpg

A Jury to Decide (Part 3)

This is (hopefully) the final installment of this blog series.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to force myself to sit down and write this.  The one thing I think that we as a society don't like to do is think about the hard situations we've been through.  We think, "Well, I've been through that hell once.  Why should I do it again?"  But I've (very very slowly) come to realize that We need to analyze the hard parts of our life so that we never forget the insights and epiphanies we had during those times.  We can never let ourselves forget.  I can never let myself forget.  And so, without further ado, I give you the hardest, worst, most illuminating part of the jury process: deliberation.

A Jury to Decide (Part 1)
A Jury to Decide (Part 2)
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After having heard the testimonies, the judge instructed us on our procedure.  We were given a packet with definitions of each of the 4 counts with which Mr. Jensen was charged as well as definitions of some of the jargon that made its way into the law dealing with each of the 4 counts.  We were to use our own common sense as well as the word of the law to come to a unanimous conclusion on each of the 4 counts.  Each of the 4 counts was a separate entity and must be decided upon based on the evidence that supported or discounted the definition of the specific charge.  We were not to consider the consequences of a guilty charge, but merely determine whether or not the prosecution had enough evidence to prove that Mr. Jensen was clearly guilty.  If we had any questions, we could write them onto a piece of paper, hand it to the bailiff, and a response would be given (as it turned out, the judge was not very helpful in providing responses.  He believes, and probably correctly, that the best and most honest jury decisions can be made without any interaction with the judge.  So, except for one yes or no question related to a piece of testimony that may have been stricken, all of our other questions were responded to with a note that told us to refer to our notes and other pieces of evidence.  Still, it was annoying...)

Thirteen jurors had stayed through the entire trial in case one of us had an emergency and had to be excused from jury duty.  This was not the case however so the extra juror was excused and the rest of us were dismissed into the jury room to begin deliberating.  We elected a jury foreman (who was one of the 3 men selected for this trial) and then initiated our deliberations with a vote of guilty, not guilty, or reserved for each of the four counts.

Note: from this moment forward, I will refer to the foreman as the foreman, myself as myself/juror 12, and the rest of the jury members as 2-11.

The initial vote was all over the board.  The majority of the jury seemed convinced that he was guilty of something and there were a bunch of tally marks in the reserved section.  While there were a couple of not guilty votes in each of the various accounts, there was only one juror who voted not guilty for all.  Clearly there were some discussions that needed to take place.

For the sake of ease, I will assign the guilty-on-all-accounts to jurors 2-7.  We began our discussion by asking them to state their positions.  These jurors had to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr. Jensen was guilty and so we needed to hear how they had interpreted the evidence and analyze the assumptions they had made before continuing.  They drew a lot from Ms. Smith's testimony including her demeanor as she was giving her testimony.  They were persuaded by her tears and her story, by the pictures of her bruised and cut feet and legs, by her eye contact with the jury as though she were pleading for help. They also thought a lot of Mr. Jensen's story didn't add up.  Immediately following his sexual activity with Ms. Smith, which no one was denying, he had committed some very suspicious activity and his explanations were not, they felt, satisfactory.  The evidence provided by the DNA expert showed too much of Ms. Smith's DNA on Mr. Jensen's knife for simply picking it up and putting it back down and so the knife "must" have been out more often than Mr. Jensen let on in his testimony.  This would beg two questions: 1) why would a knife have been out during consensual sex and 2) why would Fred Jensen lie about it?  This was their explanation for their guilty verdicts on the counts of use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and sexual assault.  They then claimed that if the sex was not consensual, that the transportation between locations constituted as kidnapping and the use of terroristic threats was the only way that he was able to get her back into the car time after time.

This drew a lot of reflection and, from the physical evidence that we were allowed to have in the room, we found the pictures of Katie Smith's hospital visit and examined up close how badly cut her feet and legs were.  We found the DNA report from the crime lab and looked much more closely at the amounts of DNA present on various pieces of evidence, including Ms. Smith's clothing and Mr. Jensen's knife.  Several jurors changed their votes from reserved to guilty and from not guilty to reserved.  I myself, who had voted reserved for everything, did not change any of my votes.  I had not spoken at all during this time because, as much as I wanted to convict Fred Jensen of everything, I realized that my judgement may be very clouded due to the nature of the subject.  It was very difficult for me to separate my hatred of rapists from my humanism and, more often than I would like to admit, I caught myself dehumanizing Mr. Jensen instead of honestly evaluating Ms. Smith's story.  And so I waited.

We then asked the room in general if the juror who had voted not guilty on all counts would feel comfortable discussing and explaining her side of the story.  She, whom I will refer to as juror 11, came forward and admitted that she felt that Ms. Smith's story seemed strained and forced, more like a performance than an honest confession.  While she didn't like the idea of what was being discussed and said that if the allegations could be proved to her to be true then she would have no hesitation in convicting Mr. Jensen, Juror 11 said that she was not convinced that there was enough validity in the prosecution's case to make her vote guilty without a reasonable doubt on any of the charges.

This  naturally caused some friction and the foreman suggested that we take each of the charges and break them down individually.  I am proud to say that I was way ahead of them at this step in the game.  I had been flipping back and forth between the charges, the definitions, and my notes, trying to convince myself that what I felt in my gut was the truth.  At this point, juror number 10, a short bald man from a very rural area, got the jury's attention, turned to me, and said, "What do you think?"  I'll be honest, it was kind of amazing that someone cared about what input I had.  I realize that I was one of twelve, but still.  As the entire group quieted, I thought very hard because I needed myself to come off as objective and rational, so I answered with a question.  "Fred Jensen admitted that the knife was in his car.  When Katie picked up the knife, that's how he said her DNA got on it.  Assuming that one of the other felonies had been committed, and this is in no way saying that there was, and also assuming that Fred Jensen's testimony was right about the knife simply being in the car, does the knife's mere presence at the time of these crimes qualify it as being used to commit the felony?"  According to the law, the definition of use including the demonstration, possession, or visual appearance at any time before, during, or after the felony was committed.  But whether the knife simply being within sight in a car console constituted as possession and appearance caused me to pause.  Upon further discussion, everyone unanimously agreed that, if one of the other felonies could be proven, then the knife's mere presence would qualify as the use of the deadly weapon to commit said felony.  And, if the knife's presence was enough to qualify as the use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and Ms. Smith was frightened by the deadly weapon, as she had stated multiple times in her testimony, then the knife and the threat of Mr. Jensen using the knife would be enough to constitute a guilty verdict on the charge of terroristic threats.

By the time we had gotten this far, it was past time for the court to close and we were allowed to go home with the continuation of the solemn oath to not talk about the trial and especially deliberations with anyone until the trial was through. This is important because of what happened when we came back the next day.

I arrived in the morning and, after a time we were ushered into the court room instead of the jury room.  The judge said that, before we began deliberations that morning, that he and the lawyers needed to talk to several of us and that deliberations were to be postponed until further notice.  Then all of us except for juror 2 were sent back to the jury room to chat until the judge either called the next juror or told us that we could resume deliberations.  One by one, jurors were called to the court room to speak with the judge and the lawyers only to be sent back with the name of another juror to call to the court room.  I was called and I made my way to the room and sat in the jury box.  The judge began by asking me some questions about the oath we had taken.  I told him that I had not spoken to anyone about the case.  My family, my father especially because he's a lawyer who know the judge who presided over this case, had asked how it was going, and people had talked about saving the newspaper articles for me to read afterwards, but I had neither received nor searched for information regarding the trial outside of what I heard in court.  The judge then asked me about conversations in the jury room and at lunch, about whether I had remembered hearing anyone talking about sharing the trial with outside parties.  I told him that I didn't remember anything specific.  We had had short conversation a couple of times about how funny it was when our neighbors came up to us saying that they saw about the trial in the paper and that they'd save clippings for us, but that, as far as I knew, we had all kept our oaths.  The judge then opened up the questions to the lawyers and, while Mr. Mills had nothing to ask, Mr. Paulsen questioned me specifically about juror 11.  He asked such things about whether I'd heard her say that she had confided in her husband about the trial.  I said that I had not and then I was dismissed with the name of another juror to call to the courtroom.

It was close to lunch time when they called us all back into the court room.  The judge apologized for calling us all in.  He'd originally thought that he'd only needed to speak to a few.  He told us that we could resume deliberations after lunch and then he dismissed us.  During lunch, we tried to figure out what had happened and none of us knew exactly.  After the trial, we found out that juror 11 had been accused of breaking her oath and divulging secrets to her husband and so Mr. Paulsen motioned for a mistrial.  After receiving our testimonies, however, the judge denied the motion.  Still...it was strange to be both a member of the jury and a witness at the same time.  I felt strange as I realized that much of the discussion of witness unreliability was evident in my testimony of the happenings within the jury room.  I was put in the unique position of experiencing the same skepticism of my credibility as I was putting on the credibility of each of the witnesses in the trial.  To say that it was eye-opening would be an understatement.  I finally realized that the true evaluation of a testimony is not entirely a measure of the chronological and sensible nature of the facts, but a measure of the significance of the inconsistencies.  In other words, does one's demeanor match up with one's story?  How many times does this person have to back track?  If the same question is asked in a different way, how will the two responses match up?

After lunch, we resumed the discussion of the two hot-button topics: kidnapping and sexual assault.  After a night of restless contemplation, I was more convinced than ever that Mr. Jensen was guilty of all charges and, because juror 11 did not value Ms. Smith's argument, I used the evidence in Mr. Jensen's own testimony against him.  It came up more than once that it appeared as though Ms. Smith had indeed made plans for hooking up with Mr. Jensen later but Mr. Jensen convinced her to leave and go with him sooner.  She was without shoes in the middle of October.  There were no explanations as to why they had had to have sex outside Mr. Jensen's car, as to why she had had to walk barefoot to those remote locations.  Based on our assumptions of her character, we also assumed with reasonable certainty that she would not agree to performing oral sex after anal sex, that she would simply neglect to lie to her boyfriend and friends about where she was going to make sure that they wouldn't find out about what might have otherwise been construed as an affair.  In regards to her kidnapping, even if she had left her apartment willingly, there was a moment in Fred Jensen's testimony where he admitted to turning down a road leading away from her home, claiming that he wanted to go the long way back so that they could talk about what her story was going to be.  Mr. Jensen admitted that Katie had told him to stop the car, to take her back to her place, and that he had said no and gone ahead with his plan to "go the long way around".  Suddenly, Katie is in his car against her will, going in a direction that was unplanned and unwarranted.  This, by the law's definition, was kidnapping.

Slowly, the rest of the reserved voters changed their votes to guilty and juror 11 was finally convinced. We had convicted him on all four counts.  It was over.

We were summoned back to the court room and the foreman handed the bailiff our unanimous decision, which was read in front of Mr. Jensen.  As I saw the look in his face, I was reminded that, no matter how this case would have turned out, one person's life was going to be ruined.  Fred Jensen began to cry and, though my conviction behind our decision never wavered, I felt my heart twinge as I remembered that he had a wife and kids, that he would be in jail for a very long time, and that I am partly responsible, even in the mere execution of my duty, for tearing this family apart.  It only got worse as each of our last names were read and we were asked to verify that the conviction fairly and accurately represented my views on the matter.  I had to say yes and watch him hang his head and sob.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to sit through.  Sure, you can say that he deserved it, but it's different saying that about someone and saying that to someone.  It is so remarkably, heart-wrenchingly different.

We were finally allowed to leave the court room and the sobbing Fred Jensen and return to the jury deliberation room.  The judge came back and spoke to us about our decision and the process that would take place now that he had received a guilty verdict.  The pit in my stomach grew as the judge informed us of the penalties for each crime.  Terroristic threats could get 5-20 years in jail.  Kidnapping and 1st degree sexual assault both ranged from 10-50 years.  Use of a deadly weapon could get 1-5 years, but it was the only charge that could be served simultaneously with another charge.  All of the others were separate, consecutive penalties.  I had just condemned a man to a minimum of 25 years in jail, by which time his kids would be grown and independent.  I must say that I did not feel pity for Fred Jensen, but for his family who would be torn apart by his actions and our judgement of his actions.

The judge went on to say that the case would be appealed, but appellate courts make decisions based on the assumption that the evidence was there for the defendant to be convicted; a guilty until proven innocent system, if you will.  After that, he asked if we had had any questions and then dismissed us all.  Our jury duty had been fulfilled and we were free to go home.

This was one of the hardest,  most rewarding experiences I had ever had.  I had a major headache and fatigue everyday after coming home from the stress.  So rarely does one have such power over the lives of complete strangers.  I am grateful for having such a great jury that valued my opinion and encouraged open discussion without fear of judgement.  The judicial system is a complex system of varying levels and it relies heavily on the participation and integrity of each and every individual who takes part in it.  It is a system that deserves wary respect, the kind that you give an overworked and stressed out  mother (I love you, Mommy, but sometimes you scare me).  I hope you all have this experience once.  What it lacks in luster and amusement, it makes up for ten-fold in wisdom gained and the gratification that comes with accomplishing something unique and important.
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I hope that you found at least some of this insight helpful.  I am a firm believer in being politically informed, if not active.  We make the world of tomorrow and it doesn't happen overnight.

http://www.courtroomlogic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jury-deliberating.jpg

The Government may have shut down, but its People can still rise up

It's time to get angry.
I'm not talking about venting-to-a-friend angry.  I'm definitely not talking about going-for-a-long-hard-run angry.  I'm not even talking about so-pissed-off-you-could-walk-up-to-a-tiger-and-punch-it-in-the-face angry, not that I condone violence to animals.

It's time to get angry enough to swallow your pride.
It's time to get angry enough to sacrifice a part of yourself for the greater good;
To step back from your anger and take the time to look at yourself, no, I mean really look and make sure that your theories fit with the facts and that you're not trying to fit the facts to your theories.
To learn that enough is enough and to realize that leadership requires consent from those whom you are leading, and that if you stray from them, then you are no longer fit for their representation.

It's time to get angry enough to realize that this morning, on the first of October, two thousand thirteen, the conservative GOP Tea Party in the United States of America cared more about being "right" and protecting the status quo than it did about its hundreds upon thousands of constituents who did not have access to affordable health care.  The consequences of this serious misplacement of priorities resulted in the loss of over 800,000 jobs and several "non-essential" branches of the government be shut down or drastically reduced.  Some of these "non-essential" branches include NASA which represents the future of the USA's global standing in science and technology; the Environmental Protection Agency along with many national parks, museums, monuments, and zoos, which represents the USA's natural resources and its rich, melting-pot history; and the Department of Education which helps fund the curiosity and enthusiasm of the true future of the USA.

This government shutdown, the climax to the national healthcare argument that started 3 years ago, was intended to show the foolishness of this "universal healthcare".  It was intended to show the leaders of the opposing side that there are consequences of allowing Obamacare to go into effect.  But that's not how I see it.

I see the government shutting down all access that the American people have to our future.  By failing to resolve the budget, Congress has eliminated our opportunities to learn about our nation's history, about our nation's vast and wondrous environment, to find statistically important trends in disease migration and socioeconomics and the physical universe on this planet and those outside of it.  Congress has reduced our ability to foster an environment where its replacements can learn about legislation and politics and precedent.  And meanwhile, the GOP Tea Party caucus is failing to show the American people the consequences of Obamacare because, even as all of these definitively beneficial programs are halted, thousands of citizens are signing up for affordable health insurance for the first time.  Thousands of people can finally get help and treatment that was previously unavailable to them.

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals," said Sirius Black in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  This remark is brilliantly insightful and pertinent.  Look at the way Americans treat those who are inferior to them, and this will show you our true character.  We will deprive our inferiors of affordable health care, limit their resources towards personal and professional development, and then, when we finally have created an opportunity for them to gain what the rest of us already have access to, we will shut down the institution that has created such an opportunity.  This is the mark of our character today, but it does not have to be this way.

There are many dissenting Americans who feel the same way I do.  I feel like this shut down is silly, rash, and irresponsible.  And so it is time for me to get angry.  It's time for me to ask for others who feel like I do to realize that this problem can no longer be someone else's problem.  We can't afford to ask what someone else is going to do about it.  We have to make this shutdown our problem and we have to do something about it.  So speak up.  Call your senator, representative, both local and federal.  March in protest.  Put up flyers.  Graffiti.  Chalk. Everything and anything you can do.  Just make sure you're loud.  Because even though the government has been shut down, We the People can still rise up.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/government-shutdown-begins-slideshow/

Extra! Extra! Italians Kiss and Make Up in Parliament!

Let us mark the date, ladies and gentlemen, when an entire body of government stood unanimously and kissed their neighbor.  Yes, kissed.  Yes, their neighbor was of the same sex. And yes, this was in support of a bill that was being voted on in the house banning discrimination of the LGBT community.

But let's back up a bit.  For those of you who don't know, LGBT (and sometimes there's Q) stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, (and Questioning) and this community has become very vocal in the past few years about wanting their right to marry, to obtain jobs, to admit that they're homosexual or transgender without being ashamed.  But why on earth would we want to let people not feel ashamed for who they are?

We already tell women that they need to be skinny, wear cup size D, wear lots of make up, and have a perfect complexion.  We tell women that they should not sacrifice their complexion for game-day enthusiasm in all of it's face painted glory (Thanks Dannon Light and Fit Greek Yogurt).  We tell women that they should lose the blubber and save the whales (Thanks PETA).  We tell women that they should be ashamed of being who they are and that they should try to be someone else.

We tell men that they need to bulk up, to buy the next big truck, and to fall in love with the next big screen TV just in time for Game Day. We tell men that they can't cook for themselves so they'd better find a nearby pizza place with a deal (Thanks Pizza Hut).  We tell men that they are the horse's ass if they can't figure out the next big tech device (Thanks Sony).  We tell men that they should be ashamed of being who they are and that they should try to be someone else.

It seems, then, as though no one can be OK with themselves unless they are actively trying to be someone else. Did I get that right?

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all about personal improvement.  There are times when I have to reconsider my opinions and beliefs and let them go or revise them in light of new information.  There are times when I need to push myself a little farther on the track or do just one more push-up because I'm never going to get fit if I don't stretch my limits as well as my aching muscles.  But there's a difference between personal improvement and trying to be someone else in that the last one is wrong. It's unhealthy. It's an ever present disappointment.  It's Just. Plain. Wrong.

And the Italians, being the stereotypical outspoken love-mongerers that they are, had something to say about it.  The M5S party (which stands for the Five Star Movement), after being told that being gay was inappropriate, stood unanimously and staged a Kiss-In that took the internet by surprise.  In the midst of this violence and revolution, there are still people out here with me shouting, "Make Love, Not War" and they are shouting this message to the world, for the world, and this message is of this world. Italy is now one step closer to becoming a nation of acceptance and peace, of unity and sweat, of hard work and hard play, simply because they are choosing NOT to withhold this message from ANY of their people.  And I am choosing NOT to withhold their message from ANY of the people whose lives I may touch.

And now a message to Italy: I love you.  I love your pizza. I love your sausages on your pizza.  And I love your audacity and courage to spread love when it seems that there is little to go around.  Thank you.

A Jury to Decide (Part 2)

My last entry on this topic was not graphic.  It was introspective and retrospective.  I warn you now.  I am going to talk about very uncomfortable things.  Specifically I will be talking about oral, vaginal, and anal sex.  I will be talking about a girl who claimed she had reason to fear for her life and a guy who was high on meth and just wanted somebody to relieve his desires.  Both the words and the content in this post is for mature adults who are interested in the brutal duality of a rape trial.
Now that you have been warned, I continue....

A Jury to Decide (Part 1)
A Jury to Decide (Part 3)
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The testimonies began with the 'victim' herself. I use the parentheses because, at the beginning, we were not to view her as a victim, but merely as an accuser.  Once again, I was forced to remind myself that I was not there to determine a just punishment for a rapist, but the validity, if any, in the story of the accuser.

Katie Smith was called to the stand and sworn in.  The first thing I noticed about her was that she was a small girl, thin and demure.  The second thing I noticed about her was that she appeared smaller than she actually was.  Her body was folded in around herself and, throughout her testimony, she seemed to duck her head and hunch her shoulders, almost as though she was ashamed or scared. When she was asked a question, her eyes locked with the lawyer she was talking to and sometimes, when I let my thoughts run away with me, I imagined that the eye contact was a life line to her, helping her distance herself from her horrific story.  And when she was not being asked to do anything, whether the lawyers were conferring or looking through their notes, she glanced frequently at the 13 of us who might decide her fate.

I shall take the time to run through her testimony as I remember it, and also that of Fred Jensen's.   I will try to do this in chronological order, inserting differences in their testimonies wherever I believe they are relevant. There were many other witnesses called, some who had contact with Fred and/or with Katie, the officers who arrested Katie, and one expert who testified to the DNA evidence that was submitted and I will submit them when relevant.   But as both parties admitted that sexual intercourse had taken place, and there had been no eye witness accounts to Katie refusing consent, it ultimately came down to his word versus hers.  And now we begin.

Katie had woken up on a Saturday morning in late October of last year (2012).  She had some plans to go to a worship practice and to get her car's AC repaired in the afternoon, but neither were set in stone.  Her boyfriend, Nate, had stayed the night, though they did not have sex that night.  Both had woken up when they heard a loud knock but, as it was Katie's apartment, only Katie got up and dressed enough to see who was at the front door.  Fred Jensen, who had been to Katie's apartment once before to use the bathroom after a work shift, was standing there.  Fred and Katie knew each other, but not by name.  Fred worked as a gas station attendant at a station that was frequently visited by Katie and her friends and family.  Katie, thinking it was funny for him to be at her door again, asked him if he needed to use the bathroom again and when he said yes, she let him in.
      ---My thoughts at this moment: why did he come over the first time if they were only barely acquainted? I am sorry to say, I never got that question answered.----

This is where the story starts to get fuzzy.  Katie, after letting Fred in, says that he came back from the bathroom and wanted to ask her a question.  When she got close, Fred pulled out a knife and threatened her for money.  When she said she didn't have any, Fred started to pull her to the bedroom but Nate was in there so he improvised by taking her out of the small town and into the country where he forced her to have sex.  According to Katie, the time spent in the apartment was no more than 15 minutes.  Backtrack to the beginning of this paragraph.  Fred said that he came in, really pissed off at his wife and wanting to talk.  He was high on meth, so all of his emotions and desires were heightened.  He said he went to Katie's apartment to hook up, but, after using the bathroom [an odd consistency in all of the testimonies], suddenly he started talking about his problems at home with his wife.  He said he was crying, was depressed and angry at the way he treated his wife and that she didn't someone like him, who had been caught cheating before.  But he couldn't hold in his desires.  After at least 30 minutes, he started coming around to his original purpose.  Fred asked Katie if she wanted to have sex and her words were "We can't. My boyfriend's in the bedroom".  Thinking that this might be a ruse, Fred gets up, checks, and sees she's not lying.  So they make plans to meet up later (directions were found in her handwriting from approximately her town to a location very near where Fred lived).  But Fred still wanted it then and there, so he thought that if he could just get Katie out of the house, maybe she'd change her mind.  His testimony was that she left her house willingly without shoes, her cell phone, or even her apartment key to go have sex with him out in the country.  We'll get to that later, but in essence, Fred spent nearly an hour in Katie's apartment.  And stranger still Nate's testimony estimated about the same time within the apartment.  So why did Katie lie?

Returning to a chronological order: Katie said that she was forced into the back seat. (Fred's story was that Katie jumped into the backseat first, before he asked what she was doing and told her to sit in the front seat. Another weird consistency...)  She said that she was told to keep her head down whenever any cars drove by (Fred said she kept ducking down).  They got to the first location which was an access road to a creek.  Katie, without shoes and only in PJ bottoms, a flannel over-shirt, and a sports bra, went into the forest (forced, walked willingly, I think you know whose story is whose).  When they got away from the road, Katie (was forced, willingly) took off all of her clothes, Fred dropped his pants and Katie (was forced, willingly gave) oral sex to Fred.  Katie then walked, naked, across the creek where, in a clearing,  Fred and Katie tried to engage in anal.  Here's a very important part so as disgusting as it is, I'm going to walk with you through this one because I, as a juror, took this into serious consideration when deliberating.
Katie's Story:
Fred kept saying "You know you want it.  You know you want me to fuck you in the ass."  His pocket knife was closed but in his hand and, scared, she let him do it to her.
Fred's Story:
Katie wasn't thrilled with the idea but she was willing to try anyway.  They didn't get very far before he had to pull out because she was in pain.
Here's where it gets gross but important.  Immediately after anal, Fred's penis was wiped with Katie's sleeve and she put it in her mouth and began to give him oral sex.  From Fred's testimony, the jury would be led to understand that Katie did it of her own free will.  She willingly stuck something that had just been in her butt into her mouth.  While Katie's story had made me question some of her credibility in the earlier stages in this affair, the fact that both parties agreed on the exact order of events at this point made me analyze what I know about myself and every girl I know.  And what I came up with was that Katie's story made more sense.  None of the girls I am familiar with, none of the girls that any members of the jury were familiar with, would willingly perform oral on a man immediately after anal sex.  In a jury of her peers, Katie's testimony was the most reasonable explanation of events.

After oral wasn't going fast enough for Fred, Katie turned over (once again, whether it was upon coercion or done willingly depends Katie or Fred) and they engaged in vaginal sex. [ In testimony from the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, the jury saw in a diagram that Katie sustained a laceration on the back of the opening of her vagina which is common in really rough sex or non-consensual sex and in the crotch of her pajama shorts, there was a stain that looked like blood that verified the laceration's existence.] Because the vaginal sex was going to fast for Fred, he pulled out, Katie wiped his penis with a sleeve again and then performed oral sex until he, once again, ejaculated onto the grass nearby.  Katie then (was allowed to, or did on her own) got dressed and the two walked back through the woods and got into Fred's car.  It is at this point that I would like to remind readers, as well as myself, that it was late October.  Autumn was well underway and it was cool out.  Cockle-burs and dead leaves and sticks blanketed the ground that Katie walked over without shoes.  Setting is key.

Katie got into the front seat this time and Fred drove them to a different location, what happened to be a dead-end road nearby a couple of farm houses and another creek.  Fred led Katie through a cornfield and down a bank to a clearing in the woods by a creek.  There, Fred once again pulled down his pants and pulled up his shirt (Katie said that the pocket knife was in his hand in his shirt.  Fred admitted he had a pocket knife but that it never left his car.) Katie started giving him oral but they were interrupted by the sound of a 4-wheeler.  A Mr. Stevens lived across the way, saw Fred's car parked at the end of the road and came to see what was going on at the edge of his property.  Fred told Katie to stay in the trees while he talked to the man on the 4-wheeler, making up some story about him and a friend fishing.  The exchange took place a distance away from the woods and it was pointed out by Mr. Paulsen that Katie could have run (earlier, he had given a fantastic barrage of questions leading up to the point that Katie could have bitten Fred's penis hard or even off, could have pulled his scrotum down and twisted it or shoved it hard into his pelvic region if she felt that she was being violated, but she didn't. Why didn't she? Sorry. Tangent.). Katie could have run into the creek, run away, run towards the man on the 4-wheeler, screaming.  Why didn't Katie try to run for help?

When Mr. Stevens drove away on his 4-wheeler, Fred came back and told Katie that she had to get dressed and that they had to leave this location.  Katie got back in the front seat and Fred then drove to a third location near a fairly busy bridge.  Katie, still without shoes, walked the rocky downhill to the bottom of the culvert and then (was told to, willingly) jumped into the large drain in the side of the culvert.  But what would compel her to just get into this drain in the bottom of a culvert when not many people can see her?

Fred, after looking around decided that the bridge above the culvert was too busy for him to finish the oral that was started in the second location.  So Katie got out of the drain (about 4 feet off the ground), and they went back to Fred's car.  Fred had decided to take Katie home, roughly 5 hours after they had first left her apartment. Here's where kidnapping really comes into play.  It may have been a little suspicious in the apartment in the morning, but Fred does himself in.  Watch.
Katie's Story:
"I kept telling him, 'Just stop the car. Let me out. I can walk from here [about 2 miles from her apartment].  If you let me out, I promise I won't tell anybody, just let me go'.  He started driving down the road that would lead to the street to where my apartment was.  He kept saying things like, 'Shit, what did I do? I'm so sorry'. I kept saying 'It's ok, just let me go'.  But when he got to the street where my apartment was, he turned the opposite way.  I thought he was going to kill me and then dump me somewhere and I started crying."
Fred's Story:
"She was getting all weird on me.  She kept saying things like I didn't really love her, that I only wanted to use her body, that she was going to be in so much trouble with her boyfriend.  So I was just going to take her home.  Yeah, I turned down a different way than that street that went to her apartment.  But I needed to make sure that she wasn't going to tell anyone.  I couldn't let it get back to my wife.  She'd be so disappointed.  So yeah. I went the long way. I asked her 'What are you gonna tell your boyfriend?' but she wouldn't tell me. She kept freaking out."
Here he admits that he took her, against her will, somewhere that she didn't want to go, careless of her feelings. Kidnapping 101.

Apparently, Katie was "freaking out" so much, that Fred just slowed the car down and Katie jumped out on a bridge into the main part of the town.  Fred told her to just get back in, that he was sorry she felt bad (but whether bad was in regards to a rape/kidnapping or to being used for her body and that he didn't actually care about her or her reputation is up to the storyteller. )  But Katie refused to move until Fred drove down the bridge.  As he started driving away, Katie began to walk down the bridge into the town.  Fred turned his car around at the bottom of the bridge (he said that it was simply because where he lived was the other direction, but Katie's testimony was that he pulled up to her again to say he was sorry and to get her to promise not to tell anyone.  She said she promised).  Once Fred's car was on the other side of the bridge however, he turned around again.
Katie's Story:
"I was afraid that he had realized that he made a mistake in letting me go.  I was afraid he was coming back to kill me."
Fred's Story:
"I turned around because it was a busy street and I shouldn't have let her just walk on the bridge by herself.  I was going to just pick her up and take her back home."

Regardless of the rationale, when he turned around again to come back up the bridge, Katie jumped the guard rail and took off to the nearest row of houses whose back yards were less than 25 yards from the bridge.  After sprinting to the fronts of the houses, she located a driveway with several vehicles parked in it, ran up to there door and started ringing the doorbell over and over again until a teenage boy answered.

From here until the end of this post will be Katie's story about the rest of the events that occurred that day. All of it was verified by the testimonies I heard from those who interacted with her after she reached this house.

Katie was looking over her shoulder when the boy (last name McMiller) answered the door.  She pushed her way past him saying, "I need to get in" and then she shut the door quickly behind her and sank against door in a huddle.  The boy was (understandably) confused.  Katie and the McMillers had never met before and yet here she was, sobbing, shaking, dirty, and without shoes in the front room of their house.  The McMiller boy called his mother, an RN or Registered Nurse, up from downstairs where she was watching a movie.  When Mrs. McMiller came upstairs and saw what was going on, she first tried to comfort the girl a bit before pulling aside her son, asking if he knew what was going on and who the girl in their house was.  He said no and by this time, Katie was asking for a phone to call her mom and her boyfriend.  Mrs. McMiller called to Mr. McMiller, a volunteer fireman, and told him to bring the house phone.

Katie called her mom first but she as soon as she heard her mother's voice, she fell into incomprehensible hysterics.  Mr. McMiller took the phone from her and explained that no, he was not the one who had made Katie cry like that and no, he was not aware of what was going on, but he was going to call 911 and get someone out to help them figure the situation out.  Mr. McMiller then handed the phone to Mrs. McMiller to explain where they lived and how Katie's mom could get to the McMiller residence while Mr. McMiller called the 911.

By this time, Katie had calmed down enough to allow the McMillers to lead her to the living room and sit on their couch and ask questions pertaining to her physical and emotional states.  Katie, after prompting, told the McMillers (and through them, the 911 operator) that she had been kidnapped and raped.  Her emotional state was consistent with that of a trauma victim.  She would cry intermittently and she was incredibly apologetic for small things like getting the McMiller's couch dirty, walking on their floors with dirty feet, crying so often, barging in on them, etc.

 Because Mr. McMiller was a volunteer fireman and Mrs. McMiller was an RN, they knew (although the 911 operator told them) what Katie could and could not do.  She was allowed water but she couldn't brush her teeth or shower or clean herself in anyway that might remove evidence of her claims.  An ambulance arrived shortly after Mr. McMiller ended his call with 911, and a few minutes after that, a county sheriff's vehicle arrived.  After an initial check up with the EMTs and a few questions from the officers (Katie didn't want to relive her story again and brushed off the officers at the McMiller house), she rode in the ambulance to the hospital where she was to be given a SANE examination (Sexual Assault Nurse Examination. Yes, I know the last part is redundant, but that kind of thing happens with exam or test acronyms).

The SANE exam was given to her by a nurse who had had lots of experience with women who have been or who claim to have been sexually assaulted.  She was knowledgeable and skilled, and knew what to expect from someone who truly had been sexually assaulted.  Her assessment of Katie's emotional state and overall composure throughout the exam was that Katie's reactions and attitudes during the exam and towards the exam itself where consistent with those of a woman who had experienced sexual trauma.

The SANE box (a sealed box that is only opened once when the person is to be examined and again when the evidence is tested by the lab) had a packet of questions about a potential victim's situation (which the SANE nurse asked Katie, initiating the exam in a non-invasive way), an envelope for pictures of all injuries, an assessment for immediate medical attention (which, if Katie had had a broken bone or internal bleeding or some other medical emergency, the SANE nurse would have deferred her to the emergency room), a head-to-toe body exam, a comb and paper for head and pubic hair combings, small plastic containers for stool and urine samples, and swabs for the mouth and exterior genitalia.  The exam would also include an exam of the exterior genitalia and rectum and the internal genitalia and rectum. Each procedure, it is important to note, is completely under the directive of the potential victim.  Katie had the right at any time within the procedure to say, "No, I don't want this.  This is too invasive." And the nurse was required to ask, before starting anything knew, if Katie wanted to or was ready to go on with the examination.  The examinations have been known to take up to even 6 hours for those who need time to come to terms with what has happened and what is happening to them.  Katie took several breaks between portions of the examination and submitted to everything but the internal examinations of her genitals and rectum, two very commonly declined portions of the exam.

During the exam, her mother was nearby, as was her boyfriend Nate, who Katie had instructed the McMillers to get in touch with.  Several hours later, after the SANE exam, an interview with a deputy, and picking out Fred Jensen from a photographic line-up, Katie went home.

Sexual Assault Examination Kit

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On Your Mark...Set...GEEK OUT!

Ok, so I know I'm supposed to be finishing up my jury duty blogs, but it's serious stuff. I really don't like being serious that often (maybe you can't tell that from my blog because I write about a lot of serious things...but in real life, I'm a happy-go-lucky person. Honest!). So, I am proud to present to you...YOUTUBE'S FIRST ANNUAL GEEK WEEK!!!! (applause! cheering! etc.)

If you haven't been following it like I have (by stalking every single video on the spotlight channel and TOTALLY fangirl-ing over every single YouTube star that collaborated in the projects), YouTube is finally recognizing the Age of Geekdom by dedicating a whole week of featured videos having to do with all things geek.  Each day has a different theme (which I will go through shortly and link videos as well) and the partners of YouTube collaborated to produce a lot of high (and low) budget videos to honor those who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of geeks everywhere. I don't know if I'm explaining the overarching idea of this very well, so we'll just cut to the daily doses of geekery.
                                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok. So cuts don't work very well in written blogs. It was worth a shot, right?
1) Blockbuster Sunday

This is the video that started it all and is hosted by none other than FreddieW, CGI master and actor extraordinaire. Here, we are introduced to spoofs, trailers, and premieres from some of the geekiest channels on YouTube.  Be prepared for a date that ends badly, a Star Wars look-a-like with a diva personality, and Breaking Bad: The Middle School Musical. Yeah. If that doesn't catch your attention, I don't know what will.

2) Global Geekery Monday

Chester See brings his talent to the table with Global Geekery Monday, a day devoted to geeks around the world. YouTube features a Naruto movie trailer from the infamous NigaHiga, YomYomF's brand new hit single "How to be More Asian", and Alex Day finally being introduced to Dr. Who. As though he's never seen it before. Really. Even people living under rocks have heard about the Doctor!  Who does this kid think he's trying to fool? Not me, I assure you.

3) Brainiac Tuesday

Derek from Veritasium inspires us all to ask analytical questions and get our hands dirty when he widens our minds and our eyes with his cornstarch-and-water-on-a-speaker trick.  Not only that, but we get see a Free Runner dive into a ball pit, eggs failing to break on plates, Neil Degrasse Tyson's top 10 reasons to love science, and how to make a Robot Mech that even MythBuster Adam Savage is impressed with.  Guys? This is why I'm a science major.

4) Super Wednesday

Nerdist Matt Mira wants to welcome you to the wonderful world of SUPERHEROES!!! (Too many "W"s, I agree. Presented for your pleasure (I know. I need to stop the alliterations) are a Flying Man who may or may not be on the side of the law, the answer to the question "What if Batman drove a Nissan?", and none other than Stan Lee himself explaining to the simpletons of the Hollywood industry how our favorite superhero movies should have ended. Maybe we could start a petition for Wolverine to get him onto Kelly Ripa next Thursday. Yes? No? Maybe?

5) Gaming Thursday

FINALLY! A day for all gamers to just let loose and not be ashamed and tell someone that the cheese puffs ran out and the no0b of the group needs to go get more. Bad joke? Ok. But seriously, Dodger (presshearttocontinue) and Adam (Inside Gaming) highlight the best of the gaming videos from the ENTIRE INTERNET!!! Just kidding. They're not the best.  Just kidding.  They are, but the videos are YouTube only, not the entire internet. That would be crazy.  You know what's not crazy? Gravity Guns. Video Game High School. Elders React to Grand Theft Auto V.

6) Fan Friday

The queen of all things Geek, Felicia Day in all her glory and awkwardness (aka, geeky-ness), hosts Fan Friday, a day to celebrate what really makes the geekdom so powerful: users and fans. From her own channel, we see her constructing movie monsters from really strange foods (up to AND INCLUDING dried squid and chicken feet).  Also featured are a quiz game show with 7 of the best YouTubers in the UK, a Smash Mouth Parady featuring SoulPancake, Tay Zonday, and more on "How to Make a Viral Video", and none other than the WEASLEY TWINS hosting a top 10 best cos-playlist.  See what I did there? Just kidding. I can't take credit for that one.  Fred made it up. Or George.  Or Fred.  I can never tell the two apart.
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Cut to an end scene where I tell you that GEEK WEEK IS NOT OVER YET! That's right, there is 1 day left!  I know I got this up late, so you haven't been kept up to date, but there's still time to jump on the bandwagon.  Which is weird...because usually the bandwagon has a rather strict "No Geek" policy.  My point is that tomorrow, Saturday, is the Closing Day for Geek Week. Not that the videos will be gone or anything. You'll just be behind the times.  The geekdom has no room for useless baggage (muahahahaHAHAHAH!) Tomorrow I will update this blog post with the final highlight video from Geek Week.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy spending hours upon hours catching up on the productions from the royal court of the Geekdom.

Geek out, my friends.

UPDATE: So...apparently Saturday is "Best Of Saturday".  This is essentially YouTube's excuse for just reviewing some of the best videos of the week and not finding anything new for us to geek out over. Oh well. So it goes.  Enjoy the rest of the playlists! :)

A Jury to Decide (Part 1)

The following blogs are based on my experience as a juror on a criminal trial.  They have had to be broken up because the original post was too long and I know for a fact that smaller blogs are much more manageable and fun to read than long ones.  I have changed the names of all people and places involved in order protect their and my identities.  Please read this blog as I have written it, as a person who went to court, full of pride and self-affirmation, and came away with insight, a broadened mind, and a more empathetic heart.  Thank you.

A Jury to Decide (Part 2)
A Jury to Decide (Part 3)
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As a feminist, a rape trial is among the most difficult of trials to judge. There is a part of me, nagging in my hind brain, that says "Rape is rape" and it tells me that every allegation she makes deserves to be met with the utmost seriousness and punishment by the law.
But there's another part of me, part scientist, part democratic republican, that says "Wait. Wait until all the facts are in. Wait until the sate has proves him guilty. He is innocent, he must be innocent, until he is proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty. So wait."
I remember on the first day of trial, I showed up in my nicest pair of blue jeans and a dress top, hoping I'd get picked so that I could serve and be done. The courthouse was easy enough to navigate. All I had to do was act lost (not hard, seeing as I really did have no clue as to where I was going) and ask a security guard where jurors were supposed to report to. Looking back, I'm only half-ashamed of my lost puppy act.
I found my way to a public lounge where a large crowd (large for inside a building, anyway) was milling about. The looks on their faces ranged from faintly bored to mildly annoyed and possibly overtly inconvenienced. After checking in, I found myself mirroring the facial expressions of those around me. It was a long wait.
 Eventually we were led to a cold courtroom. When I say cold, I don't mean barren with an atmosphere of despair or hopelessness. It actually appeared inviting (in as much as those words can apply to wooden pews and short red carpet). I mean cold as in the judge turned the thermostat as low as it could go and still wished it could be colder. Yeah. I spent the rest of my jury duty in pants and long sleeves in the middle of summer. 
Numbers were pulled from a hat and names were called to come forward, including mine. We took seats and were then questioned by the judge and lawyers, both prosecutor and defense, in a process known as voire dire. During this process, a large group of potential jurors (27 in my case) are apprised of the overarching themes and conditions of the case at hand and are asked questions about their backgrounds and philosophies that may pertain to aspects of the case or influence a juror's interpretation,and therefore the final verdict. Having a lawyer for a father, I've seen voire dire done before. Not only him and the lawyer he was up against, but also the famous trial lawyer Jerry Spence, who has handled and won some of the most public cases in the late 20th and early 21st century. I've seen the best in action and let me tell you, these were not the best. The prosecution was soft spoken and sometimes hard to here. Going first is never fun, but the lawyer we shall refer to as Mr. Mills did not connect with the jury as he should have. He briefed us of the case, but focused the majority of his questioning on the potential jurors who worried him most, those who, if left on the jury, might hold a grudge against the state or divulge details of the case to others during the trial. While this strategy may have helped him in selecting jurors to release, it set him up as a long-winded, detail oriented, quiet speaker who would need to work hard to grab the jury's attention.
The defense attorney we could call Mr. Paulsen however, connected with the potential jury and methodically worked his way through each of the 27 potential jurors, asking each a question or 2 before turning his attention to the next. He was humble and used his life experience to relate the case and, specifically, any issues a potential juror would have with this case as if he truly did care about the juror's comfort with this trial. After voire dire, the lawyers are allowed preferential selection.
Out of the 27 potential jurors, each lawyer is allowed to eliminate 7, leaving only 13 jurors. Jurors who are selected for elimination are not necessarily dishonest or lacking in credibility, but they are the ones that have had some sort of life experience that could influence their decision.  I was, however, was not one of those eliminated.  Instead of having an attorney as a father calling into question my potential stance on the case, it actually solidified the lawyers' opinions of me that I would make a fair and unbiased judge of the facts that were to be presented.  Of the 13 jurors selected, 10 were women.  Clearly, this was going to be a case of pathos (or for the non-English majors out there, the use of emotion as a tool of persuasion).
This whole process of jury selection took until about 11:30, roughly 2 and 1/2 hours of questioning, of talking, of listening, and of hurrying up just to wait again.  Because it was not quite lunch time, the judge allowed opening statements to be read.  Keeping in mind opening statements tend to take about 30 minutes each, we were well into the lunch hour before we finished.  That was unfortunate as I had forgotten to eat breakfast that morning.
Tangential aside, opening statements is where the jurors find out the premise of the case.  Prosecution always goes first and lays out what they have to prove.  Mr. Mills, as factual as always, did exactly that.  It was a textbook example of an opening statement that accused the defendant, who we shall call Fred Jensen, of the following: 1) Terroristic threats, defined as a threat to commit a crime of violence either by intentionally conveying the threat to the victim or by acting in reckless disregard to the victim's demeanor, 2) Kidnapping, defined as either abducting a person or, having abducted the person, restrains them with the intent to terrorize, 3) 1st degree sexual assault, defined as subjecting a person to sexual penetration without consent or doing so knowing that the person is either physically or mentally incapacitated to withhold consent, and 4) use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, defined as using a knife (in this case) to commit one of the above felonies.  Within all this legal jargon, I could tell that this case was going to have some incredibly serious consequences, whatever the outcome.  I was nervous.
Mr. Mills was nothing if not honest.  He came right out and said, "There were no witnesses to these crimes. At the bottom of this case, it is her word against his. Mr. Jensen is going to claim consent."  As soon as he said this, my innards scoffed.  Of course he was going to use consent.  They always do.  It's easy and nobody can actually "prove" otherwise.  But we'll get to that later.
When Mr. Paulsen stood up to give his opening statement, it was very different from what I expected.  Instead of stating the prosecution's error in charging his client, instead of intending to prove his client's innocence, his statement was simple.  "The burden to prove any aspect of this case rests on the prosecution," he stated.  "At no point during the course of this trial does the burden switch to the defense.  Innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt is one of the most wonderful thing about our system.  The defense is always innocent during the trial and he remains that way until the jury unanimously decides that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and must therefore be convicted.  Even in deliberations is he innocence.  He does not become guilty until those last moments if the jury finds him so."  And that made me think.  During the course of the prosecution's opening statement, as blunt and factual as it was, I kept thinking, "How could he have done this?  Why did he do it?  What kind of person kidnaps, threatens, and rapes a girl, and then gets up there and says 'it was all consensual'?"  At Paulsen's statement, I realized that my thinking was very, VERY wrong. Undemocratically so.  I should not have been so easily swayed by the opening statements of the prosecution.  If anything, I should've been skeptical and ruthless in my analysis.
I have never been so aware of my human fallibility, of how easily I could be persuaded by mere words.

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I Suffer From Depression

It's been a tough month guys.  My Grammy died just before the 4th of July (American Independence Day for any readers not native to the U.S.) and my great-aunt died shortly before her.  Not only that, but I have been on a jury for the past week and will continue to sit on it for a few more days and, while I can't say anything about the case itself until it's concluded (and I assure you, there will be a blog about my experience, like it or not), it has been a really tough trial, with allegations including kidnapping and rape.  Suffice it to say that my life is not exactly cheery at the moment.

Anyone who has read my blog before knows that I have had experience with depression.  I've said it before: Depression never fully goes away.  It'll dissipate for a long span but, when I think it's finally gone, and that I've finally beaten it, something will trigger a relapse and I go back to feeling worthless, empty, and worst of all (for me anyway) apathetic. Times like I have currently been dealing with do not, as you can imagine, make things any easier.

At one point in my depression I was, like Mr. Kevin Breel in the video below, suicidal to the point of sitting on a cold bathroom floor with a bottle of pills in my hand.  I didn't go through with it.  I was, as Breel says, "one of the lucky ones who went up to the edge but didn't jump."  And, also like Breel, I would be remiss if I said that I had not thought about suicide again.  But going to the edge, seeing the long and scary drop, has only made me stronger and I know that, having beaten it back once, I can beat it again and again and again.

Kevin Breel's words are poetic, succinct, and hopeful.  They provide understanding for those who have not ever suffered from the debilitating hopelessness that is depression.  They provide comfort and strength for those who have.  They are a call to action by those who are able and a call for relief to those who have been fighting the battle alone for so long.  We are not alone.  We don't have to be ashamed.  We are going to be OK.

Heroism: To be or not to be...condoned

Hello folks! I know I only posted once last month, and for that I'm sorry, but I didn't really find anything that I especially wanted to post about.  I really love to write when I am absolutely inspired (which is bad for career writing, I know) but nothing really caught my attention.  That is, not really caught my attention until today.

On this blog, I post a lot about action.  Action needs to be taken.  Quiet action, public action, online action, mass action, individual action.  We all just need to act.  There are too many people who just stand by and let life happen around them, even when someone else is in trouble.  By this generalization, you'd think that any action taken to help another would be celebrated because hey, somebody finally stood up for their fellow human.  Isn't that what you'd think?

Here's my question: is simple action heroism?  Is doing the right thing now defined as performing heroics?  Is saving your fellow classmate from a "knife-wielding bully" classified as trying to be a hero?  According to a Calgary school, it is and heroism is not an action condoned by the school.

My first thought: Umm...what?

My second thought: Maybe there's something going on here that I'm not aware of.

My third thought (after furiously scanning the article in question): Nope.  There is nothing I'm not aware of and this school is teaching its students that action is not something to be taken by yourself, but by an older and more experienced adult.

My fourth thought: .... well, shit.

The article (http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/31/briar-maclean-reprimanded-for-stopping-a-knife-wielding-bully-at-school/) describes a teenage boy who wasn't looking for trouble but nonetheless found it right beside him, threatening a classmate with a knife.  His first instinct was not to go running for help, but to use the few vital seconds afforded him by the unsuspecting nature of the bully to push the knife away from his friend and significantly decrease the risk of injury.

Let me pause here and ask: if someone next to you was being threatened with a weapon and you have less than 3 seconds before someone gets hurt to decide whether to call for help or to push away the attacker, what would you do?

The article continues to say that the boy, Brian, was later called down to the principal's office and held there until the end of the day for police and school interrogation while his locker was being searched.  His mother also received a call informing her that her son was being irresponsible and "playing hero" and that the school did not condone his actions.  Essentially, the fact that Brian saved his classmate's life was inconsequential but the actions that Brian took to save the student were reprehensible and worthy of punishment.

May I take another minute and just restate my first thought? Umm...what?

This is not okay.  Take it from a four-eyed fat middle schooler named Sara who has also been a victim of bullying.  That's right.  I had my back against the wall.  I was surrounded by girls who were "better" than me. I was asked all kinds of shaming questions that I couldn't answer and when I tried they laughed in my face.  Had one of my friends, a beautiful and brave woman even at age 13, not acted, I have no doubt that the verbal harassment would have turned physical.  Katie had to walk into the semi-circle all by herself, grab my hand, and pull me out because I was incapable of getting out myself.  But Katie is not a hero for pulling me out of a situation like this just once.  She is a hero because she would do it over again.

Just like Katie, Brian's actions in the classroom did not make him a hero.  He simply did the right thing.  What makes Brian a hero is that he did the right thing and would do it again even if he knew he was going to get in trouble.  A hero is not someone who does the right thing once in public, but who tries to do the right thing always, regardless of the consequences of the perceptions of others.

Heroism cannot be a noun.  It must be a verb because to be a hero, you must never stop acting in ways that will protect the basic human values around you.  So Brian, continue to protect your friends, your peers, and most importantly, yourself, and you will be known as a hero the world around.

For more information on how to be an everyday hero visit: (http://www.raproject.org/).  This is really helpful in determining the difference between a value and a belief and it can put you in contact with some great resources to help you become an everyday hero.

http://www.mikedilbeck.com/about-mike/response-ability-project/

Finals Study Break!!!

Hello all! It's finals time for me and you know what that means???
YES!!!! ENDLESS PROCRASTINATION!!!!!!
So, to start our procrastination cycle that will end in self-destruction and panic attacks, I give you...
ADORABLE ANIMALS LOOKING ADORABLE!!!!
(Just...you know...I take no credit for any of these pictures, and all that jazz)

Good luck on finals everybody!

Malala Yousafzai

If you don't know her, you should.
She is an inspiration.  This girl, this wonderful and courageous girl, began blogging at age 11 for BBC's Urdu site.  She did what I am aspiring to do.
Malala took a good hard look at her narrow world to find out what was wrong with it and then she spoke.  And people listened.  And people understood.
This young Pakistani girl wrote about injustice and inspired a nation and made deadly enemies of the group she was criticizing, her oppressor, her nation's oppressor, the Taliban.
When she was 15, the world took her seriously enough that the Taliban considered her a major threat and shot her and, if I remember right, one of her friends while they were on the school bus on their way to school.  But she survived and you know what? That girl just kept on writing.  Damn...
She says that her book is a memoir to raise awareness about the millions of people, children among them, who are forced to abandon their potential under dictators after dictators who demand doublethink and unwavering loyalty and that violence is only dealt to those who deserve it, regardless of what you think you know...even if the violence is being dealt out to you.
If Malala Yousafzai is not an inspiration to you, if her message doesn't send you running towards your fears at full tilt while bellowing your most ghastly war cry, if her achievements do not leave you mouth dropped and your eyes burning, then it is already probably too late for you.  You have probably been overcome by apathy, commercial mind-washing, mind-washing from a dictator, or some other form of debilitating mental illness.  Because at 11 years old, Malala Yousafzai began to change the world by just combining and recombining scratches on paper and keys on a keyboard.  What can we do?

More information: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/malala-yousafzai/

http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/malala-yousafzai/