Monday, October 08, 2007

jury duty

Today is Columbus Day, the ultimate sham holiday. I especially like how the Wikipedia entry states that it is "generally observed today by schools." That's funny. I don't recall Columbus Day ever being a school holiday. However, it is enough of a holiday to get me out of jury duty today. I received my original summons back in May, but deferred until now because I knew I would be traveling a bit each month until this one. I have to go every Monday (except today) this month. Yes, that does mean I went last week. And what a fantastic experience it was. Out of a pool of 44 potential jurors, I was thankfully not asked to pass judgment in what looked like a very riveting case involving larceny under $100. It was made more compelling by the defendant's decision to represent his self, but that wasn't the best part. This was such a high profile case, that the district attorney's office wasn't even there. Instead, the DA was represented by two police officers. Awesome. I'm almost weepy that I wasn't selected. Maybe next week.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's how they spend your tax $$$ very effectively.

Anonymous said...

We got school off for Columbus Day at Almond, until ~5th grade when they decided it was politically incorrect to celebrate Columbus.

C(A)CC or just triple-C said...

Schools can take a certain number of holidays without expanding the school year. Schools on the peninsula choose to lump them into ski-weeks and having the Wednesday off before Thanksgiving.

Brian said...

If that's the case, then we probably did get it off at Loyola too. Nonetheless, it's a sham holiday.

My concern for the education system in New Mexico is that there aren't enough school days.