February 2005 Archives

Just thought this was a bit interesting:

• 1,916 unique visitors this month--highest yet
• 3,148 unique visitors in 2005
• average of 120.71 visits a day in February
• 18,946 pages hit in February
• highest volume around 7:00 PM
• 76.7% Windows users now
• 87 search hits for Trevi Fountain
• 426 Google search hits
• 323 MSN search hits
• 210 Yqahoo search hits
• 217 Google Image search hits
• 36 Ask Jeeves search hits
• 41% of my traffic comes from people who have bookmarked my site

I hope folks enjoy their little visits.  :o)

Tim goes to sleep...

Boy killed by 'giant snowball'

The UK has seen heavy snow in recent days. and a 10-year-old boy has been crushed to death by a giant snowball, police say.  He had been playing with a friend when the snowball rolled down a hill and engulfed him.

Source:  BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Boy killed by 'giant snowball'

Pope John Paul II has made a surprise appearance at the window of his Rome hospital to wave to people expecting his traditional Sunday blessing. Sitting in a wheelchair, the Pope made the sign of the cross to bless the faithful even though he did not speak. In a message read out by an aide in St Peter's Square, the Pope asked believers “to continue to accompany me... with your prayers”.

Source:  BBC NEWS | Europe | Pope waves from hospital window

Good grief, the article has a really bad picture of him!

Concluding a yearlong study on the effectiveness of President Bush's sweeping education law, No Child Left Behind, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers drawn from many states yesterday pronounced it a flawed, convoluted and unconstitutional education reform initiative that had usurped state and local control of public schools.

The report, based on hearings in six cities, praised the law's goal of ending the gap in scholastic achievement between white and minority students. But most of the 77-page report, which the Education Department rebutted yesterday, was devoted to a detailed inventory and discussion of its flaws.

Read the entire article at: Source:  The New York Times > Education > Report Faults Bush Initiative on Education

Amazing!  Confluence of technology and information: Wiki and the concept of the living encyclopedia, the Wikipedia, a free content encyclopedia that anyone can edit now has nearly a half million articles in the English version in the following categories:  Culture, Geography, History, Life, Mathematics, Science, Society, and Technology.

On February 9, 2005, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, gave a 40-minute talk to Howard Rheingold's Stanford University class on “Toward a Literacy of Cooperation.”  You can read a complete transcript of his talk at this link in the Wikimedia Commons.

For education, this is huge!

Bill Gates' take on US High Schools. He says 'America's high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't just mean that they're broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools even when they're working as designed cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.'“

Source:  Slashdot | Bill Gates Proclaims US High Schools Obsolete

“Jef Raskin, GUI pioneer, interface expert, Apple employee #31, and the man most credited with the creation of the Apple Macintosh, died of cancer on Saturday February 26, 2005. It was Raskin who named it after his favorite fruit, the McIntosh apple, although he said that he changed the spelling to ”Macintosh“ to avoid potential copyright conflicts with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer.”

Source:  Slashdot | GUI Pioneer Jef Raskin Has Passed Away

He invented the concept of click-and-drag selection and the term and concept of “information appliances.”  Oh, and GUI means Graphic User Interface.  His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and wrote the score for a movie, “Smog Patterns,” shown on PBS. He has a patent for a “Construction Technique for an Airplane Wing,” and was a noted model airplane designer, an accomplished archer, and an occasional race car driver.

For an interesting article about Jef, read MacMinute.

We went to Everybody's Pizza by Emory University and ordered a pizza with 9 ingredients.  The waiter told us he could talk the cook into 8, but that he would never agree to 9.  Thus, we left off the pepperoni.  So we ended up with sausage, mushrooms, roasted chicken and 5 kinds of cheese.  It was divinity.

I was starving!

Seldom have a sat for almost 2.5 hours feeling my life force wither away while suffering through a wretched movie with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Tonight, I did just that.

Avoid Nobody Knows.  This movie is in the top 3 worst movies I've ever seen!

How does one hold the news media accountable?

I was disgusted once again with the Marietta Daily Journal's slanted, biased article today on the meeting held at my school last night.  When you compare the article printed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution to the MDJ's you would think they were covering 2 completely different events.  The Atlanta Journal Constitution's article was an accurate portrayal of the event.

The MDJ didn't even get some of the names of the people they quoted correct.  If I were to do such sorry quality work, I would lose my job.  The same should apply to them!

I suppose the only thing they really understand is circulation.  Well, I know of one less account they will now have!  Maybe others will do the same.

Sometimes I am caught off guard by how fundamentally uniformed some folks are about what a quality educational setting looks like in the public schools, about how today's children learn best.  I am saddened and burdened when this level of ignorance is so deeply held as truth as to become the invisible wall that holds a person back from being able to attain and flourish!  I am outraged when this level of ignorance holds children back from being all that they can be.

Tonight, once again, I was reminded about how deeply grateful I am to work with a group of people who are skilled, knowledgeable, and profoundly committed to empowering children to find academic success.

Thank you God, for the privilege to work with these extraordinary, gifted people, who get it, who see what it's all about, who care!  Blessed are the teachers at my school for they truly empower children to flourish!

Missy, probably my mother's favorite family pet, pictured below on the left, unexpectedly died Sunday, February 20, 2005, at home. She had been at the vet's office and hospital recuperating from eye surgery. The vet was going to be out of town for the weekend and didn't want her left alone. Mother brought her home for the weekend, and she died of congestive heart failure on Sunday. She lived with diabetes and Cushings diseases for several years but appeared to be a very happy little dog, despite her difficult ailments.

Mother, Missy, and Lucky, January 1, 2000
(Click to enlarge)

Missy was a very loving, sweet-tempered little dog that wanted to constantly lick on those she loved. She brought my mother a lot of love and happiness. She, like all of our family pets, was a good pet and will be terribly missed. Mother has been so upset by this she waited until today to call me. My mother loved that little dog, and that little dog loved my mother!

Every time I use this suite of products, I discover at least one more cool thing.  In this most recent project, I did several new cool things:

• Used Compressor to burn a watermarked bug into the web files for the finished project.  I didn't know it would do this.  It's tucked away in the filters settings.
• Used Soundtrack to pull together a couple quick sound effects and some fun intro music under the LiveType main title sequence
• Used the Compressor preview window to actually tweak the Compression settings
• Used the new LaCie DVD d2 burner to produce the finished products considerably faster than my internal DVD burner--about 4 minutes per burn!--admittedly this was a very short project!!
• Exported the DVD cover art right out of the FCPHD project file as a still image which I then placed in the label making software.  By the way, I love my Epson Stylus Photo R200!  It does an awesome job on the DVD surface prints.  I even adjusted the printing layout 3mm to have it perfectly centered.  It's a shame I didn't learn I could do that until the last of the 17 DVDs was to be printed!
• Tweaked my project folder structure so that every single file involved in the making of a project is contained in one logically structured and organized folder.  I got this idea from Kevin Monahan.  His Project X folder structure, while comprehensive, didn't cover all the bases for me.  I added several things, including a Documents folder in the project for the DVD SP 3 document file, the LiveType document files (not the .mov files, but the document files themselves)--you know, all of those pesky little document files that produce other files.  By the way, his book, Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro is the best I've seen yet.  I highly recommend it.

At any rate, another project is completed, and I've learned some new things.  One thing that still makes me distraught:  when we use the green screen, I can't get all of the green out no matter what I do.  Well, if I'm willing to sacrifice some body parts (ears most often) I can rid the green from the screen.

I read once that DV does not have sufficient visual information to use green screen.  I've about decided this is a fact.  Anyone have any ideas?  tricks?  suggestions?

I have lived long enough and known enough people to have witnessed first-hand the unprecedented destructive, consuming power of alcohol and drugs.  I can say assuredly that nothing has more power to steal and destroy the hope, joy, and peace of a soul.  Nothing is more difficult to overcome--well, maybe my chocolate addiction would be.  :o)

So tonight I want to acknowledge a significant milestone.  A dear friend of mine is receiving the 10 year sobriety chip.  Congratulations!  I'm sorry I'm too sick to be there to applaud your accomplishment, so I'm putting your 25 year sobriety chip celebration on my calendar now!

I was doing so well on Friday.  I felt so much better and worked all day (desk work).  About 10:00 PM the fever returned!  I'm sick as a dog again.  God, I hate this!

A friend of mine told me last Monday to be careful, in Alabama people are getting it 2 - 3 times in a row.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I thought he was a little alarmist.

I should have listened I guess.  I've been in bed all day.  Heading back there now.

I am feeling much better but still sound like an alien life form.  I decided to venture out for a late breakfast this morning.  The weather outside is gorgeous:  a cloudless blue sky with a brightly light world of brisk winter starkness.  So I bundled up tight and, naturally, went to my favorite little restaurant, Evans.

Margaret, my favorite breakfast time waitress, said she was wondering where I had been.  I was seated across from a table of 4 ladies I had never seen before.  While I was eating and working (I took my computer), they were talking with such excitement.  There could be no question:  they were all deeply involved in the PTSAs of their childrens' schools.

When they got up to leave, I told them who I was.  O my!  They all sat back down, and we talked for a good 20 minutes.  I told them how I appreciated their enthusiastic support of what they described as “urban schools facing some significant challenges.”

One lady stayed back as the others left.  She told me she thought that her sister might have children, who she described as “very at risk students,” at my school and asked if I knew them.  In fact, I do know these children well.  I think her initial surprise at this fact turned into almost horror as she then appeared to want to quickly distance herself from her sister, saying, “Well, you know we are just very different people.  I spend all of my time working at the school.  I don't think she has ever been in her kids schools.”  I tried to reassure her, telling her how I and my sister were both good people but as different as night and day. 

What she doesn't know, and I couldn't say, is that I almost always root for the underdog.  I like these kids and want the best for them.  What are the odds?

Today I finally felt well enough to make contact with other earthlings.  Since I hadn't heard from mother in a couple of weeks I thought I would give her a call.  The last time I talked with her she had this horrible flu mess.

Well, heavens.  She still has it!  --and much worse than I did.  She has had it almost a month now!

Missy, one of her white tiny toy poodles, has had eye surgery and will be in the hospital for 10 days.  Everyone will be relieved to hear that she is doing well. 

Despite being seriously ill with the flu, mother dutifully goes to the animal hospital every day to let Missy lick on her.  Missy would probably die if she couldn't lick on her family members.  (I personally find it annoying, but...) 

Missy really is a very sweet little dog and has earned special favor with her doctors--a husband and wife team I think.  They actually take Missy home with them at night instead of leaving her in the hospital.  She has many serious ailments but appears to be a happy little critter.  So, mother tends to her medical conditions.*

Now, in a fever-induced state of delirium, mother has this very day taken ownership of yet another little poodle!  A lady that works at the house knew an 80+ year old widow who just died.  She loved her little dog, and the extended family was very upset they wouldn't find a good home for it.  Well, 2 + 2 = 4.  Cindy now lives with Missy and Lucky.  I guess I can get used to the idea of another dog at the Florida homestead, but that name has got to go!

Mother says Cindy has taken to her as if she were her former owner.  Lucky is bitter about the whole thing.  And this may send poor Missy 6 feet under when she finds out.  Stay tuned...

*I tell everyone that almost everyone in my entire family is (or was when they were living) a diabetic--including Missy, the dog!  Mother has to give her shots every day!

Well, on the flu front, yesterday I had 2 twenty-minute outings!  --to the kitchen.  This of course was cause for great celebration and the immediate need for more sleep.

Last night a delightful soul unexpectedly brought me 3 huge Sunkist navel oranges and 2 big cans of soup.  Sad to say, I hadn't peeled an orange in many, many years--maybe over 20!  They were divine!

Today I feel like a human being again.  I'm still horrifically congested but the fever is gone.  I was up piddling around the house most of the day.  So, barring a relapse, I think the worst is behind.

I'll take it easy tomorrow, continue funneling water into myself, and do some school work at the house.

President Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.  I was a kid. To commemorate this historic event, I started calling our siamese cat, who was officially named Sassy, her new nickname: Mao Tse-tung.  It stuck.  Eventually everyone was calling her Mao Tse-tung.

Sassy was one of my family's favorite pets.  She lived to be almost 20 years old!  She really was much more like a dog than a cat.  She would do many crazy things:

• retrieve paper wads when you threw them
• meet me and my sister at the front door everyday when we got home from school.  Come to think of it, she would meet my father when he got home from work as well.
• leap out of nowhere and grab on to your ankles with her paws forcing you to stop and pick her up or drag her along as you continued to walk
• leap out of nowhere and grab on to your ankles with her paws and start gnawing on the back of your ankle as if bringing down her prey in the wilderness
• unexpectedly leap from the floor up to your shoulders so she could ride around the house on your shoulders
• the above appeared to bring her much joy in life as it seemed to be her daily ritual.  You would find Sassy on someone's shoulder as often as you would see her walking on the floor.
• always jump up and sit in your lap the minute you sat down
• sit in very high places: on top of the refrigerator, on top of  the curtain rods (OMG), on the back of the sofa
• if you put your opened hand up over her face (the same gesture one makes when reaching to pet a cat's head) she would put her ears back, show her teeth with quivering lips, hiss viciously, and then attack you.  The closer the open hand to her face the more vigorous and dramatic her display.  You really thought she was going to take your hand off!
• the above “attack” was always in good fun as she never was trying to hurt anyone.  However, unsuspecting house guests were duly terrified.  She, like a dog, loved a good tussle with a human.
• She would “gallop” as heavily as a horse around the house when she got in some bizarre mood.

Sassy had several names throughout her lifetime.  Daddy called her “Fraz” a derivative of “Sassafras”--a take off on Sassy, which she was!  She would carry on lengthy conversations with you.  All you had to do was meow back, and she was ready to talk.  Mother called her “Fuss Box.”  I also called her “The Beast of the Ungodly”--who knows why.  And then there was the period of time I called her Ozimandious, for the obvious reasons.

I learned later in life that Sassy was not your typical siamese cat.  She was so incredibly personable and sociable, always wanting to be with people.  She died of old age curled up in my mothers lap with mom petting her.

Sassy sitting up high
(Click to enlarge)

And all of this came to mind because Richard Nixon went off to China in 1972.

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, gave his blessing on Wednesday to the creation of individual investment accounts in Social Security but expressed unease that the change could lead to trillions of dollars in additional government borrowing in the next few decades.

Source:  The New York Times > Business

In other words, nothing is solved.  Bush's plan would, in my opinion, at some inevitable time in the future, create a huge number of Americans who have to drop dead at work--or go hungry... 

“I remember, many, many years ago now, when my grandfather had this really cool thing called 'retirement'.”
“Really grandpaw?  What's a 'retirement?'”
“The two of you shut up and get back to work!”

Today has been nothing short of a near death experience.  I seriously contemplated running to the light!

When I first awoke, around 11:00 AM, my throat was so sore, I couldn't swallow or speak.  My throat is now better, but my lungs are still white fire.  Coughing is excruciating!

Barring a miracle on a par with “Lazarus come forth” I will probably be home all week.  I know everyone is delighted to read the details of my flu symptoms, but, since I am in bed all day long, there's nothing else really to talk about. 

Although, oddly, I've had the Erndies on my mind all day today.  I don't know what that's about.  They lived across the street from us when I was a little child and have remained good friends of my family all of these years.  I hope everything is OK with them.

Chills, fever, aching from head to toe...what a way to spend Valentines Day.

Yesterday I sneezed 13 times in a row without the previous sneeze finishing before the next one started.  Today I sneezed 15 times in a row.  Good god almighty!  I thought I was going to have a heart attack!

My father and his mother would sneeze 20 - 30 times in a “spell.”  However, unlike me yesterday and today, they would complete the one sneeze before moving on the the next one.  Odd indeed.

Last week I went to lunch with a couple of colleagues from work.  When our waiter came up to the table to take our drink order, we were immediately aware of our being in store for something out of the ordinary.  When I told him I wanted an unsweet tea, he said, “Alrighty then, we're ready to rock and roll.”

He was so perky and energetic every time he came up to the table.  Finally, one of the ladies eating with me asked him if he was always this happy and effusive.  He said in ernest, “Oh yes, always!”  When she asked the followup question, “Why?”  He replied with a huge smile and without missing a heartbeat, “Because that's just how God wires it up in the morning!”

Here I sit, sick as a dog with the flu, half a week later, still finding delight in that little bit of positive energy he was willing to share with those he touched that day.

“The last time we mixed
politics and religion,
people got burned at the stake.”

I'm actually learning a lot about cascading style sheets--the little bit of code that makes my blog containers look the way they do.

Well, OK, it was past time...way past time.

I was tired of all the clutter, but I didn't want to forget all of the javacript and “stuff” that made the clutter possible--for future reference.

A colleague at work recently started a blog and was talking about setting up their “About” page.  The light bulb went on.  I need to move all of the clutter off of the main page and onto an “About” page.  I hope to get to that little project this weekend.

I'm still trying to keep a Winter theme.  So what do you think about the new look?

Unlike Iraq, I heard that North Korea actually is bragging they really have weapons of mass destruction. 

Oh boy!  Are we going to invade them next?  Huh, huh, huh?!  This will be so much fun!!  Come on George!  Let's do it.  Pulllllllleaze!

When he takes to these fits of babbling??

THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

And let's see.  He said his drug benefit program for seniors would cost $400 billion when the republicans passed it last year.  Now, oops, got the math wrong.  Looks more like $1.2 trillion.

Am I really supposed to believe him when he says Social Security is in trouble?  He can't seem to talk.  He can't seem to add.  Um, how did he keep this job?

I'm frustrated with my computer.  Got it back from the repair shop.  They charged me $75 and found nothing wrong.  It booted up fine last night.  When I got home today from work and woke it up, it had crashed:  that strange grey screen with chinese on it. 

They said it ran all weekend without any problems in the shop.  I don't believe them.  Since my 108º incident, my computer has never run more than 4 - 5 hours without a major problem of some sort.

I took a picture of the screen and will continue to document everything that freaks out.  Eventually.......

54º -- Is this winter or what? 

Nothing much on my mind right now. 

Wrote a script tonight. 

[Yawn]  Time to go read.

I'm so excited I'm just about to pop!!  The county in which I work is visionary.  The superintendent wants every teacher in grades K - 12 and every child grades 6 - 12 to have his/her own laptop!  How powerful is that?! 

Having easy access to such powerful tools (63,000 laptops) will transform the education of children by providing equal access to information for all children, making the educational environment substantially more interactive, providing access to increasingly rapid assessment feedback, making dramatic increases in lesson creativity possible, and expanding educational opportunities for all children.

A small number of nay-sayers always express their negative energy.  But the way I see it:  sure, we could walk every where we need to go.  But we don't.  We buy cars, even though they are outrageously expensive, may be stolen, wrecked, even cause the death of the user or innocent passers by.  Why do we run this risk?  Because we can reach our destinations exponentially faster using the automobile.

With the computer, children's classrooms expand beyond walls and reach out to the entire world.  Children can reach farther faster.  They can manipulate information with unprecedented speed and facility. 

My school's mission is to maximize student academic achievement.  I can think of no tool that would be more empowering than laptops for every child and teacher in my building!  The power workspace is a digital workspace, and we would be irresponsible not to prepare our students today for their digital futures.

What is even more exciting is that, after carefully articulating every aspect of the detailed plan in the RFP, and carefully reviewing all of the vendors' responses to the RFP, the superintendent has recommended that Apple Computer be the vendor! 

I can't breath!  I feel tingling in my extremities!  I'm feeling dizzy!  Quick, someone fetch the smellin' salts!!

This is brilliant!  This is transformational!  Apple understands education and provides a superior product in every respect!

I can't wait for students and teachers to get their hands on these powerful tools!

Click this link to watch the movie!

I just made a quick run to grab a sandwich, Arby's Turkey and Swiss Market Fresh. I thought I was being healthy until I looked it up on their web site. That thing has 74 carbs! Good grief! But I should have known since it was delicious!

At any rate, that's not why I'm writing. I thought I was in some parallel dimension or something. I could have counted on both hands the number of people on the roads. This is Atlanta. It's supposed to be clogged with traffic--but not on Super Bowl night!

But that's still not why I'm writing this. I was reminded of what one of my professors said in the doctoral program at University of Illinois. New York City had a huge problem back in the 70's during the Super Bowl. Apparently the game was particularly riveting in that particular year. No one left the living rooms until commercial time. The whole city flushed their toilets at the same time and overloaded the water and sewer system. Created quite the problem to hear him tell of it.

I must admit: the plot is absurd. The concept is just completely crazy. I mean really...who would ever even think up such a luny thing?! But the production at the Fox this afternoon was so much fun--lots of color, great sets, and terrific lighting design.

When I was in the business of producing such things (many moons ago now), I always wanted to do Little Shop, but I could never figure out how in the world to create Audrey 2, the plant, without spending a large fortune. With this production, budget was not as big a concern. Jim Henson's puppet company designed Audrey 2. The puppeteers did a great job.

Unfortunately for my taste, the volume was a little loud, but this music is fantastic. The singing was well done as was the choreography. But the two things I enjoyed the most were the main actors (Seymour and Audrey). They were top flight and utterly fantastic, on the money in every respect. Highly recommended!

(Click to enlarge)

I have had my eye on a particular sports coat for a couple of years now. The store never has it in stock. I was in Jos. A. Bank's tonight. I asked about the jacket, which they still picture in their catalog. Two years ago it was "on sale" for $699. Now it is "on sale" for $999.99. They still do not stock the one pictured in the catalog--which is not the one in the link. Nor can they order it for some reason.

However, I am glad to report that the lady helping me said she had one she thought I would like. When I saw the $1,595.00 price tag I recoiled in horror! Apparently this one was not on sale. I didn't even like the color of it at all. I know these are fine cashmere sports coats, but good god almighty! Do they come with a butler too?

What are you doing personally
to help prevent war?

I thought this bumper sticker was telling. I had never considered my having any personal responsibility to do anything to prevent war. The more I reflected on the idea, the more I have realized we all share in this responsibility!

Tonight I am blogging from Jekyll Island on the south eastern Atlantic coast of Georgia. The seventh grade class from my school has been attending a science field trip here this week. The weather has not been very cooperative, but the kids have had a great time regardless. They actually attend a series of classes in the ecology and ecosystems of the native environment during their stay.

I have never been here before and wanted to stop in and see what this experience is like for our students--fantastic and very educational! The students are highly engaged and learning a tremendous amount, or ... they are throwing up. About 2% of middle school kids always get sick to their stomach when they go on a field trip. I just don't know why--perhaps excitement combined with unsupervised access to tons of sweets and other junk food? Maybe it's the running around barefoot in shorts without a jacket in the cold and rain?

One of our teachers created a blog just for the trip. He is posting video and still pictures daily. As of day 3 of the trip he has already had over 1,800 hits! Too cool! High speed internet access at the 4-H Center chaperones' rooms! How cool is that?!

New bridge over to the island

Historic home on the island
(Click to enlarge)

While I was on jury duty, one of the judges came to speak to the jury pool. He said something I found interesting. The county has to spend $50.17 to house an inmate in the county jail for one day. The county can spend the same amount of money to have the person spend one week at a treatment facility!

This was the first time I've ever actually been picked for a jury. We heard a case in which the defendant was charged with 3 counts of family violence--discipline gone too far against a 16 year old child (at the time of the incident) who was (and still is) completely out of control. As a jury, we had to come to unanimous agreement on each of the 3 counts. This was no small task.

Who served on the jury: 6 people.

• 1 Bishop
• 1 School Principal
• 1 County level Middle School Curriculum Director
• 1 Video Editor at CNN
• 1 Mechanical Engineer
• 1 Biotech Engineer

Another view of our little group, that really became rather close:

• 4 Black people
• 2 White people

Yet another look:

• 1 Woman
• 5 Men

One final look:

• 1 senior citizen
• 3 middle aged adults
• 2 young adults

Now, why am I telling you all of this? Because I made 2 important observations about everyone in the room, regardless of race, financial standing, professional affiliations, age, or sex.

First Observation
No one in the room trusted the judicial system to work fairly for the person on trial if found guilty--how very, very sad. Several people expressed strong opinions against mandatory sentencing and feared that if we found the defendent guilty, he would be subjected to an unreasonable sentence that would only make a very bad situation much worse.

Everyone's distrust was exacerbated by the feeling, expressed by several jurors, that the 3 charges were all really only 1 charge, as they were all the exact same statute with 3 little twists. We all believed that the prosecution had filed 3 charges in the hopes of getting at least 1 conviction: rack and stack, shoot a shotgun in the hole and see what you hit.

All of us felt like we needed more information than we were given to make the decision. All of us felt the police had done an unsatisfactory and incomplete job, failing to provide appropriate written documentation of the facts in the police report at the time of the incident.

Second Observation
Everyone in the room wanted to do the right thing, to make a fair and appropriate decision, to sincerely help a family that was in tremendous distress. No one was interested in "punishing" an evil-doer. No one thought there were any simple solutions in this case, like "throw his ass in jail." Everyone recognized that the issues surrounding all of the problems involved in the case were profoundly complex and the solutions would be time intensive and just as complex.

Outcome
We found the defendant guilty on 1 count. He made several foolish choices that could not be ignored. He needs help.

The prosecutor and the judge were much more wise than any of us, the jurors, had anticipated. Rather than sentencing the defendant to jail, the prosecutor suggested, and the judge agreed, to probation for a year with no violent contact with the now 17 year old out of control child, mandatory unannounced drug testing during the time of probation, family counseling, and completion of a course in the impact of family violence.

My only regret was that the 17 year old child was not also charged and did not also receive a similar sentence. She was astoundingly rude and disrespectful even in the court as she gave testimony. I can imagine nothing more difficult, divisive, and hurtful than "putting a family on trial."

I was pleased that this judge was more interested in helping than in just punishing. Decatur is a good place to live.