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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
January 13, 2026 at 12:51pm January 13, 2026 at 12:51pm
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Because my schedule got disrupted with jury duty today, I'll talk about that instead of... you know, whatever the random number voices tell me I should talk about.
Given the responses to my notebook post this morning
"Note: A quick update for my adoring fans:
I'm ..."
I figured I might as well address them
(In reference to the gif I used, which includes "Justice will be served") Always Humble Poet PNG- 📓  : I'll have mine with neeps & tatties, please.
And the next comment, Jeremy  : nipps and tats for mine please 
To which I feel obliged to say: I'd rather have nips and tits. Preferably someone else's.
Cray Cray ☮  : I want to know more! We don't have jury duty here in Malaysia.
Okay, well, the short version is that the US Constitution entitles people accused of a crime to certain rights, among them being "presumed innocent until found guilty" and "trial by jury." The jury is made up of citizens selected basically at random from public records, such as voter registration lists. The theory behind it, as I understand it, is to have a suspect's fate determined by their peers: actual human beings and not lawyers. Partly this is because, most times, the law (and a thing a person does) is open to some interpretation; and sometimes, the law is utter bullshit.
The jury selection process, at least from my point of view this time, was: Go in, get assigned a number. Wait. Get called into the courtroom and listen to what the judge says. Get sworn in with questions like "Are you a US citizen and a resident of (whatever)?"
Then, out of the 40 people who showed, up, they selected 20 at random. I mean, like, they put numbers in a bag and pulled them out one at a time while joking about getting a bingo machine (I don't expect judges to have a sense of humor, but this one did). Those 20 (one of which was not me) go through a striking process, where attorneys for prosecution and defense can disqualify a juror, usually based on their answers to other questions. For example, an attorney in an illegal drug case might ask "do you have a family member or friend with a drug problem?" And if they say yes, that indicates they might have a bias.
This wasn't one of those cases, but that's the idea. Obviously it's not possible to eliminate all bias, but they do try to ensure fairness. In the US, the jury determines, based on the evidence provided by the prosecution (and possibly the defense), whether the defendant is guilty of the particular crime or not. I'm not sure about this part, but it's my understanding that a judge can overrule a jury's guilty verdict, but not their not-guilty verdict.
Anyway, striking reduces that 20 down to 12. Or maybe even less, so they might pull from the remaining 20, so we had to sit around and wait. Yeah, lots of sit around and wait happened.
Bottom line is I got through it without them calling me, so I didn't get to see the courtroom thing play out. On the plus side, I got sent home a lot earlier than the actual selected jurors. On the minus side, there's a superflu going around and I was one of like three people who bothered with a mask. So if I die in the next couple of weeks, that's why.
Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026  : You'd better be blogging about your wardrobe.
B here is referring to a post I made in her rant forum: "Jury Rigged"  , in which I sought fashion advice.
You'll be disappointed to know that all I did was put a nice warm shirt, the kind with a collar and buttons up the front, with a solid color, on over my T-shirt, and wore actual shoes with socks. Oh, and I did remember to wear jeans as well. The only people there who were dressed more formally were one young potential juror who wasn't old enough to stop giving shits, and the attorneys and defendant. And the judge, presumably, under the traditional black robe, though for all I know he had his dick hanging out under there.
🌝 HuntersMoon  : At least you're on the right side of the jury box... 
...for now.
John  : I've never been chosen for Jury Duty.
My wife says it is because I always suggest submerging the accused in a frigid stream. The innocent will float to the top.
Ot is it the guilty . . I get confused with that part.
And that is an example of why a juror might get struck off the list.
One final note: A lot of people complain about jury duty, and go to great lengths (including committing perjury) to get out of it. That ain't me. Maybe if I had to do it more than about once every decade, it would become burdensome, but as it is, it's an opportunity to learn something and contribute to one of the few remaining principles that we have as a country. |
© Copyright 2026 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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