BamaRefugee
BamaRefugee's JournalRisk my life or risk going to jail and losing my professional license?
Tomorrow, I'm scheduled to appear in Los Angeles Superior Court, Alhambra courthouse, to testify in a trial.
Testifying is a nuisance, but sometimes it's required in my profession. I always go.
BUT...could there be a worse place for a 68 y.o. man, diabetic (though reversed thank God), with a lifelong history of bronchitis, pleurisy, and 2 hospitalizations for pneumonia, to be in than a crowded, dank courtroom? For hours? Packed shoulder to shoulder with others and 12 sweltering jurors a few feet away? I can't wait in the hallway, because I need to listen to everything said in case I need to refute someone's testimony. So I'll just be sitting in that petri dish.
On of my colleagues showed me a notice Friday that the Superior Court has issued at 830am stating that witnesses WHO WERE NOT FEELING WELL should contact the court clerk and let them know they weren't coming in. But I feel fine right now. And in my line of work, I really can't lie to the court, especially since I would go on working as normal, outside, and alone all day in my car except for brief 1-2 minute interludes of interacting with defendants. And I am licensed, registered and bonded, along with getting investigated every 3 years by the FBI, The Dept. of Justice, and the State of California, to ensure that I am a totally trustworthy citizen, whose testimony can be accepted by the court above others. I HAVE TO protect my bona-fides.
So if I don't go, I could be charged with a failure to appear, possibly face jail time, and possibly ultimately lose my license if things progressed far enough. If I DO go, who the hell knows what might happen?
Seriously torn right now, I'm sure others are facing somewhat similar situations, what would you do?
TRUCK DRIVERS: when they begin to get sick and can't work it's OVER for everybody.
You think the stores are bad now.
When truck drivers aren’t rolling down the highways, our stores are going to look like the stores in Russia that we used to see on TV (if you’re a 1950s kid you’ll remember). 300 people in line for 10 loaves of bread.
Truckers bring us EVERYTHING that keeps us going, and there’s a chronic shortage of them, losing more will be devastating. Gas, food, medicine, and yes even TOILET PAPER.
So sending out a heartfelt thanks to them for what they do, and actual thoughts and prayers that they can stay safe.
What are the odds? Every person in line had body temps 4 degrees below normal.
I had to serve a summons today at a subacute residential nursing facility in Pasadena California. There was a line at the entry door because you had to sign in and state whether you’d been out of the country lately and a few other questions and then have your temperature taken. There were three people ahead of me. The first one was told her body temperature was 94.6. The second one was told that her body temperature was 95.1. The third, who I later found out was one of the principals in the ownership of the nursing home, supposedly showed a body temperature of 94.5. I was told that my body temperature was 94.2.
I told them I thought it was strange that every single person had a much lower than normal body temperature and that maybe they should re-calibrate their digital thermometer. They just shrugged and said we’re just doing what we were told.
So what are the odds that every single person,including me, is walking around with low temperatures? Unless, it’s a good thing for the nursing home to be reporting that absolutely no one entering the facility has a fever. Probably keeps the health department away.
By the way I was serving a summons for wrongful death on the facility. Things that make you go hmmmm.
I'm SELF EMPLOYED. There's no unemployment benefits for me. No "work from home". My job requires
Meeting total strangers, face to face, all day every day, 7 days a week.
No tax holiday will help me. There's no sick leave.
If I have to stop working (and I'm sure if testing ever actually begins, I'm living and working in a hotbed of positive testing people), I'll be facing an indefinite future with ZERO INCOME.
I'm sure others here are in a similar situation. What's your plan to cope?
BRING OUT YOUR DEAD! Uber and Lyft offering new hearse services.
Yes, it's sarcasm.
But it's capitalism, and somebody is already planning to make profits off of the panic.
Which Presidential candidate could also bring a Senate majority with them when they win?
I’m asking because I don’t believe a new Democratic POTUS can make ANYTHING they promised in the campaign come to fruition without having House and Senate majorities to make them happen. Just 4 years of spinning our wheels and watching the Senate refuse to allow a Democratic President to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, etc.
So for me, the most important question is which of our candidates has the best shot at making that a reality?
Which Presidential candidate could also bring a Senate majority for Dems with them?
I’m asking because I don’t believe a New Democratic POTUS can make ANYTHING they promised in the campaign come to fruition without having House and Senate majorities to make them happen.
So for me, the most important question is which of our candidates has the best shot at making that a reality?
The NUMBER ONE PRIORITY for Democrats should be VOTING RIGHTS
Not healthcare, not taxes, not climate...because ALL OF THOSE THINGS will flow once every American entitled to vote can do so.
We should create huge penalties, mandatory, and I'm talking PRISON, for anyone who somehow denies an eligible person the right to vote. No plea bargains, no nothing, the defendant will do time.
If we lose power at some point, we write 100 diferent laws on the way out, ensuring voting rights that will take 100 years in court for Republicans to overturn.
If every eligible voter CAN VOTE, not even if they ALL vote, Democrats will win every time in my opinion.
Everything we want done, and we need as a nation, can happen if voting rights are our first priority. After that we're on a shining path to true liberty.
Coronavirus in California...I guarantee trump will do NOTHING as it gets worse...
He'll enjoy every minute of it.
I was in Orange County, California all day yesterday, where they just reported a case of coronavirus. And I was in a city known for Vietnamese population, not Chinese. I've been expecting it but I think it may really explode where I live and work, in the San Gabriel Valley.
I work in the legal/justice field, I track down people for the Superior Court, US District Court, and Los Angeles County Sheriff. My territory includes at least SEVEN of the top 10 California cities with the largest Asian populations. I'm talking over 60% Asian in those cities, and by far the most people are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. Gotta be half a million people at least.
I know from many years of experience that there is a constant flow to and from China from here, it's part of life for them and a HUGE part of doing business. The number 1 response that I get when trying to find a defendant who isn't around is "he/she went to China, back in a month".
So there has to be a LOT of people in China right now who will be heading back. I'm not an epidemiologist but I don't think it's hard to guess that some/a lot of them are going to have the virus. Anecdotally, just in the last week in my territory, I have seen lots and lots of folks wearing masks on their faces, something that is actually very rare to see usually. Yesterday it seemed like every 3rd driver in traffic had a mask on.
My point? If an epidemic hits here, trump will NEVER send help, no extra medical personnel, no CDC teams, no emergency funding, NOTHING, he'll just consider every death a well-deserved revenge on a state that overwhelmingly rejects him. We're gonna be on our own.
And me? I'm about to go out and work right now (it's a 6 or 7 days a week job) and I just checked my suspect list and it's 75% Asian names. I served several summonses on Friday at a large hospital in the richest and almost largest Chinese community, and they had boxes of face masks everywhere, free, I'm not ashamed to say I grabbed a couple for myself. I have to go into these homes sometimes, touch doors and door bells and gates and sometimes shake hands, hold face to face conversations, etc. Am I just being paranoid?
And PLEASE, to those who love to report posts, this IS NOT A RACIST POST. It's just a factual account of where I live and work. I don't have any bias here, I just have a long simmering disgust with the Preznint, beginning long long ago when I lived in Manhattan and had to endure bullshit about him in the papers every day.
I turned down DU jury duty for the first time. I've done jury duty at least 100 times before but...
this time, I just couldn't.
I don't want to get in trouble for posting about forum rules, so I'll state outright that I don't disagree with them. I support them. And that's part of why I opted out.
We are not supposed to bash Democratic figures on the forum. Fine. But that's what the jury was being asked to rule on. And something I've been thinking about for a long time prevented me from clicking the "yes I'll do it" button.
Those thoughts are about a certain female Presidential candidate. She's not a Senator. She comes from a place surrounded by water. But she gets savaged all the time here on DU. I don't in any way support her, in fact as soon as I became aware of her and did research, I knew that no way was she someone I wanted to become President. I could go so far as to say that most of the attacks on her are pretty much right on.
BUT...she's a Democratic public figure, so why is it ok to attack her all over DU? Or are there hundreds of juries passing judgement on posts about her and I just don't know about them?
Bottom line, I just couldn't see myself doling out punishment to someone for a forum infraction that I see going apparently unpunished all the time. It would have made me feel,ugh, REPUBLICAN doing that!
Profile Information
Member since: Sat Aug 20, 2016, 08:24 PMNumber of posts: 3,487
