{"id":11492,"date":"2018-11-19T20:18:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T01:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=11492"},"modified":"2018-11-19T20:18:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T01:18:05","slug":"day-one-in-the-belly-of-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=11492","title":{"rendered":"Day one in the belly of the beast"},"content":{"rendered":"

I completed my first day<\/strong> of jury duty, and have survived to tell you about it. It was a day of much adventure \u2013 not in the task itself, which was a yawner, but in a peripheral matter, transportation.<\/p>\n

Minneapolis has made a conscious decision to discourage automobiles. So I figured I\u2019d take the bus. There was a time when I rode buses a lot \u2013 but that was in another age. I found that today they\u2019re discouraging buses as much as cars \u2013 there are very few bus shelters with schedules posted downtown. What the Oligarchs want, I think, is for the masses to rise up and demand more light rail. They love light rail in Minneapolis \u2013 unsurpassed opportunities for graft.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long time since I stood at a bus stop on a chilly street in Minneapolis, watching for a bus that might come in a minute or an hour \u2013 who knows?<\/p>\n

But that was later. I had gone online and planned my trip into town. That trip went fine, except that I got off the bus too soon and had to walk a few blocks to get to the Hennepin County Government Center, which towers like a vertical peanut butter sandwich over downtown.<\/p>\n

My day in the juror pool is quickly described. Mostly nothing. We sat in the assembly room, a large carpeted room full of circular tables. After a while a judge gave us a greeting. Then we waited some more. Then the jury manager gave us an orientation talk and showed us a film. <\/p>\n

Then we waited some more. Some worked on laptops. Some (like me) read books, dead tree or electronic. Some spread out jigsaw puzzles (they keep them there in a cabinet) on their tables and worked on them as teams.<\/p>\n

We broke for lunch. An hour and a half.<\/p>\n

Then we waited some more.<\/p>\n

Around 2:00, about 25 people\u2019s names were called, and they left for voir dire<\/em>. I was not among them.<\/p>\n

About a quarter to four, they sent us home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where it gets interesting. I\u2019d planned my trip into town, but not my trip home. I figured how hard could it be? Just go back to where the bus lets people off, cross the street, and take the same bus home.<\/p>\n

I forgot that the streets downtown are all one-way. I had to guess which parallel street to wait on. I guessed wrong. The street I went to was full of trains, which don\u2019t run to Robbinsdale.<\/p>\n

Finally I called up Metro Transit\u2019s site on my smart phone and got directions to the corner of 7th and Nicollet. Where I waited.<\/p>\n

And waited.<\/p>\n

Lately I\u2019ve been worried that I don\u2019t spend much time out of doors. Well, I spent time out of doors tonight. Granted it was in the polluted atmosphere of an urban core, and not in God\u2019s Country. But still. I was outside. And cold. Cold counts for something, right?<\/p>\n

I think I waited about an hour before the bus I wanted arrived, and I took it home.<\/p>\n

I learned valuable lessons.<\/p>\n

Lessons I hope I\u2019ll never need again, after jury duty is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I completed my first day of jury duty, and have survived to tell you about it. It was a day of much adventure \u2013 not in the task itself, which was a yawner, but in a peripheral matter, transportation. Minneapolis has made a conscious decision to discourage automobiles. So I figured I\u2019d take the bus. … Continue reading Day one in the belly of the beast<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[426,1539],"class_list":["post-11492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-buses","tag-jury-duty"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}