Stuck In Traffic #7 By Calvin Stacy Powers˙ =========== The Verdict I have to admit being more than a little cranky on the day that The Verdict was delivered by the jury. And while I'm still disturbed about the whole Simpson case, I've come to accept the jury's verdict. I haven't followed all the post Verdict interviews, but it seems that the jury believed that the bloody glove found behind Simpson's house was planted, primarily because it wasn't found until a couple of days after the initial crime scene investigation. And frankly it does sound a little suspicious. Furthermore, the jury apparently did not trust the blood evidence on the grounds that the "chain of custody" of the blood was questionable and that some of the blood was unaccounted for. And on top of it all, there's the indications of racism at work considering the past history of one of the key investigators. So I can see how the jury would conclude that there was enough of a possibility that the evidence had been planted to cast the "reasonable doubt." It appeared to me from the beginning that the whole case hinged on the blood evidence. My reasoning was that the blood absolutely identified O.J. Simpson. If O.J.'s blood was at the scene of the crime, mixed with the victims' blood, then one can reasonably conclude that O.J. was present at the scene of the crime when the murder happened. And if the police investigators do a sufficiently rigorous investigation of the crime scene and find no evidence of anyone else being present, then you can reasonably conclude that O.J. was the only other person besides the victims at the crime scene. Now, lack of evidence never proves a point. So the fact that no indications of other people were found does not absolutely prove that no one else was at the crime, so you have to pass judgement on how rigorous the investigation was and how trustworthy the investigators are. But assume that the investigation does pass muster, you have proof that O.J. was at the crime scene at the time of the murder and can reasonably infer that he was the only person at the scene, I think a jury would find him guilty in that case. But they didn't. And as much as I hate the thought of justice not being served and letting a double murder go unsolved, I've come to accept that the jury probably did the right thing. It seems to me that there was just to much doubt cast on the handling of the blood evidence. And if the jury had found O.J. guilty, it could serve as a dangerous precedent with regard to the admissibility of blood evidence in future cases. The thing we have to keep in mind is that we have just as much an interest in preventing innocent people from being framed for murder as we have in punishing the real murderer. If the police are going to take blood samples for the purpose of typing the defendants blood in the investigation, we want to make sure every single drop, every single molecule of the defendants blood to be accounted for, in order for there to be no question whatsoever of their being any planting of evidence. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the police, the people trying to prosecute the case, should not be the ones responsible for collecting the blood and keeping it. Such duties should be carried out by a third party who is neutral. And if blood evidence is to have any value whatsoever, it seems to me that it must be collected immediately, during the initial crime scene investigation. This business of finding blood evidence several days after the initial crime scene investigation again raises the possibility of evidence planting. But was the jury predisposed to finding O.J. Innocent? Was the jury looking for any excuse, no matter how tenuous, to justify letting O.J. off the hook? Many have made that claim. But I personally don't see any evidence of that being the case. If such factors were at work in this case, I find it difficult to believe that all 12 jurors would be affected and it would have taken only one person to hang the jury. ========== The Murder Accepting the fact that the handling of the case by the police was subpar to the point of casting reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case, who killed Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman? One would think that there are at least a few of the reporters camped out at "O.J." city with an iota of initiative that would engage in some investigation of the facts of the case instead of participating in media slumming at the court house. Can anyone doubt that O.J. Simpson is still the most likely suspect? While I accept the fact that O.J. Simpson has been found "Not Guilty," it is also true that he has not been found "innocent". ========= The Media I find the media coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial to be absolutely unforgiveable. I can't think of a single good thing to say about the media coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. First of all they devoted way too much time/print space on the coverage. By about a factor of 100 in my opinion. There simply was not enough "news" in the trial to justify it. When I think of all that effort that could have been spent on covering real news stories, it just sickens me. I keep thinking, "What have we missed this year that we should have heard about?" And given the fact that the press did cover the O.J. Trial as heavily as it did, I'm appalled at the shallowness of the coverage. The plain fact of the matter is that it was covered like a soap opera. It was sugarcoated entertainment disguised as news. Instead of investigative stories about what it takes to convict someone of a murder in California, we got stories on the prosecutor's hair styles. It appears that the press corps just sat around the courthouse waiting to get the latest sound bites from the lawyers and amused themselves the rest of the time by talking about how many press people were there. ==================== Mini-Drama at U.P.S. Life is full of mini-dramas, even during the most boring mundane parts. Last week I went to UPS to mail a package late in the afternoon. It was right about the time everyone was getting off work and the traffic was bad. Everyone was tired. It was Friday afternoon so everyone was in a hurry to get the weekend started. Tempers were short. At the UPS mailing center there was a long line of people waiting and only two ladies working behind the counter. One was a tall black woman, probably in her mid thirties and the other was an older white woman who looked awfully close to retirement age. They both looked tired. They both looked like they had been hauling boxes around all day, which I expect they had. Everyone in line looked tired, disheveled, and sullen. I hadn't been paying much attention to what was going on. I was more or less lost in my thoughts when all of a sudden this woman started yelling at the top of her lungs at the black lady behind the counter. "You're not helping me!" she screamed, "I've been waiting in this line for thirty minutes and now you're not helping me." Off she went on a tirade about how she had called the UPS 800 number and they had told her that the service center would help her fill out the right forms and son on and so forth and now the lady behind the counter refused to help her, etc. etc etc. It was really loud. I didn't see the events preceding this tirade, but the woman behind me in line told me later what had happened. The customer who had gotten upset had not filled out a shipping bill while in line. There are signs all over the place in there indicating that you have to fill out a shipping bill for every package you mail with UPS. But apparently the customer had some questions about the form and so had not filled it out. So when the customer got up to the employee had given her a shipping bill to fill out and told her to step aside and fill out the form while she helped the next person in line. Now, I've seen this happen all over the place, at the post office, at other stores. Most customers are willing to do this to help the employees service everyone a little faster. But apparently the woman working at the counter did not realize that the customer had not filled out the form because she didn't know how. The lady behind me in line told me that it appeared to her that the angry customer was trying to ship an international package. But international packages use a different shipping bill from domestic packages and the customer had apparently been given a domestic form, which did not have room for all the information needed to ship an international package. By the way, the lady behind me impressed me with the authority with which she spoke about UPS shipping bills. Her outward appearance belied her attitude. She looked like someone who didn't care about anything other than which Country-Western bar had the 25 cent beer on draft. But I was totally wrong about her. Serves me right for judging by appearances. She was quick to point out to me that she had been a secretary for 10 years and knew how to ship just about anything anywhere using any company you could name. After this minidrama was over, she proceeded to tell me about the trial and tribulations of working as a secretary. One thing was clear, this was a woman who took her job very seriously. And I thought to myself, "I'd hire this woman! She knows what she's talking about!" After the angry woman had yelled and screamed and otherwise carried on for about 5 minutes she finally stormed out of the place. I kept waiting for large, brusque, black woman behind the counter to lose her cool. But she didn't. She managed to raise her voice very loudly without sounding angry. She tried to find out what the angry lady's problems with the forms were but it was too late for that. By this time the angry lady was fixated on the fact that she had been set aside and "not helped." After the angry lady had left, the whole place was filled with an uncomfortable silence. And this is where it gets interesting. In that awkward pause after events like this, all the bystanders sit there and run the incident through their mind and pass judgement on what they just saw. I admit I was doing the same. The only fault I could find with the lady behind the counter was that she had failed to realize that the reason the angry woman had not filled out her shipping bill ahead of time was because she didn't know how to do so. But the lady behind the counter was just trying to be as efficient as possible. If she had just stood there idly while the angry woman had filled out her forms, everyone else in line would have had to wait that much longer. And the sentiments of the bystanders', mine included, were overwhelmingly in favor of the woman working the counter and against the angry woman. And this is where I learned a lesson worth remembering. Judging from the comments I heard other people in line make, they favored the woman behind the counter because she kept control and did not lose here cool. Everyone was turned off by the angry woman's tirade. And even though she may have started out with a legitimate complaint about not being helped, no one had any sympathy for her because she had pitched a tantrum about it. No matter what the injustice is, no matter how small or large, you aren't going to get it corrected unless you have the public's sentiment; and making a nuisance of yourself is sure fire way to lose favor with the public. Appearances are important. ============================= Get Ready For The Politicians Election season is just around the corner. There will be hundreds of candidates making stump speeches, kissing babies, doling out sound-bites. The press has long ago given up trying to dig beneath the surface of the candidate's made-for-TV persona. So it's up to us to keep the politicians on their toes. If you go to any candidate debates, or if you have a chance to ask a politician on a radio talk show, here's a great question to ask. I got it from the TV show Northern Exposure and I think it forces a candidate to real show his/her true colors: Do you see the stop sign as a Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian expression of democracy in action? =============================== The only hope in a world where there are men who will kill for a pack of cigarettes is for there to be men willing to die defending a pack of cigarettes. ================ Help For Smokers Reason magazine reports in its latest issue that the FDA now regulates cigarettes as a "drug delivery device," which means smokers are now officially classified as addicts who are therefore protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Go figure. ============== The State Fair The North Carolina State Fair opens this week, officially kicking of Fall. Normally I'm not one who's into crowds and noise, but I love going to the State Fair. There are just too many bizarre sights and sounds to pass up. One company that shows up every year sells Aloe based lipstick to ladies under the premise that it lasts all day without coming off. I always have this picture in my mind of little old ladies painting their lips a deep red with this stuff and then never being able to get it off again. There is also a man that shows up every year selling various unusual organic things. He has hundreds of little bottles of herbs and spices and other kinds of plants and he can tell you what each one is good for. He can tell you about various medicines you can concoct with them (Don't tell the FDA) and he can tell you how to use them in recipes. The NC State University Drama department and the NC Department of Agriculture team up each year to put on a show for little kids extolling the virtues of eating a balanced meal. The stage show is filled with normally serious drama students dressed up has carrots, tomatoes, grapes, bananas, sweet potatoes, and slices of bread (whole grain of course, not white) dancing and singing across a makeshift stage. Every radio station and TV station in town broadcasts live from the Fair during the week. And the various radio and TV personalities have to work really hard to appear excited to be there. I don't know why they have a hard time appearing sincere, but they do. Especially in person. If you walk up to them on person at the fair, you still get this feeling of separation, like they are still on TV or something. And inevitably, the TV/radio personality has to find some 8 year old kid, stick a microphone in his face and ask the kid what his name is. The kid _always_ takes a long few seconds to manage a reply, like he or she has had to think about the answer and then the TV/radio personality has to act like it's so amazing to be talking to a little kid. The State Fair is also a good place to go shopping for any Farm implements you might need. I always enjoy the John Deere exhibit. They line up the latest tractor models just like you would see cars on a show room floor, as if they were sleek sports cars or something. It's really bizarre, almost Kafka-esque. And I confess to still enjoying the petting zoo. Let's face it, there aren't too many opportunities to pet a goat during the year. So you might as well take advantage of it. I can take or leave the bunny rabbits and the pigs. But goats are cool. They have an attitude problem which I can respect. The horses are great too. There are usually several horse shows during the week and I try to make at least one of them. My favorite of the horse shows are the jumping competitions. It seems to me amazing that a horse can jump at all. Just looking at a horse, it's hard to imagine that they can actually jump. So every jump they make is a minidrama. And it's even harder for me to grasp the fact that they can land their entire weight on those spindly legs. I'm not into the rides at the State Fair as much as I used to be. Not because I'm worried that they are "unsafe" or anything like that. The whole point of carnival rides is to give you a feeling of "unsafe," so the unbiquitous rumors of this or that carnival ride breaking down at critical times just adds to the excitement. But the rides at the State Fair have just gotten to darn expensive for a tightwad like me. One of my favorite rides looks like the deck of a pirate's ship. You get into it and strap yourself down and it simply swings back and forth in this huge sweeping arc. It doesn't even go all the way around in a loop. It just goes back and forth. But the ride is very open. It doesn't have a lot of support machinery around you. So you get this feeling terrific feeling of air moving around you and the scenery swinging by. If you have an opportunity to attend a State Fair, go. It's worth the effort if you keep your eyes open. =========================== "The best trick the devil ever played was to convince the world he doesn't exist." -- from the movie "The Usual Suspects" ============================= "Miracles are so called because they excite wonder. In unphilosophical minds any rare or unexpected thing excites wonder, while in the philosophical mind the familiar excites wonder also." -- George Santayana ================================================================== Stuck In Traffic is a bi-monthly e-zine edited by, and mostly written by Calvin Stacy Powers. Copyrights of individual articles are held by their respective authors. All unsigned work is authored by Calvin Stacy Powers, who holds all copyrights. Permission is granted to redistribute Stuck In Traffic provided that it is redistributed in its entirety (including this copyright notice), and that no fee is charged. 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