Getting no respect

That's as good a way as any to bring together some unrelated topics.

First, there's "My name is Earl," who lost his sense of direction on the way to New England. I'm no fan of big hurricanes: I can remember some pretty scary moments as a child during Hurricane Carol. However, I'd like a modest return on the investment in storm preparations at a time of year when one doesn't have to remove the outcome with a snowblower. That storm had no respect.

Then there's the matter of Yosemite bears. Readers will quickly recall that this family unit spent seven days searching for bears with no results until the final hours of our visit. My daughter reports that during her three days of Labour Day hiking, climbing and camping in the Tuolomne back country, she saw five. The bears have no respect.

Finally--for the moment--this week I've started a job I've been working toward for five years. Today, at the end of my second day on the job, I come home to find, of course, a summons for jury duty.

I wouldn't find this as annoying if Massachusetts' celebrated "one day-one trial" jury system lived up to its claims of even-handedness. I can hardly count the people I know who have lived much or all of their adult lives under this system and have never been called. I've been called, with this one, eight or nine times and served on two juries. My wife, the jurisprudence junkie, was well behind my score but is catching up: she also got a summons today.

Fortunately, I'm going to a court where the odds are that I'll know at least one attorney, and it's not until December. Still, the Massachusetts court system has no respect.