A Return to Adventure

Today, I helped to tame a forest. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration.  But it felt like I was taming a forest. Instead it was ten years of growth for a dogwood shrub.  As a note, a dogwood shrub does not look much like a shrub after ten years. It looks like a series of very young trees.  The fact that they look like very young trees and not trees that are at least ten is likely why it is a type of shrub.

To give you an idea of the difference, well. The internet tells me that this is what a dogwood bush is supposed to look like.  It looks like the right variety at least, so I’ll go with that.

Alas.  This is halfway through hacking my way to the wall of the house.  If you will note, there is a large difference, and not just in the fact that the dogwood shrubs here are not yet flowering.  They do have buds though.  Also, if you look very closely, you may or may not see the bush that had been planted there before the dogwoods attacked.  It’s just right of the middle.

As for an update for what I’ve been doing since I last updated, well…first let me see when I last updated! I’m sure I have loads of stories.  I apologize for not updating of course, but it turns out college is a lot of work.  It’s at last one and a half jobs worth of work and a good three jobs worth of stress.

I appear, it seems, to have accidentally gone nearly a year without a post. If I am ever short of stories, I shall attempt to recall some adventure that happened this past year to tell you! I can tell you that I have had some adventures, though the past year has not led itself to the near constant adventure that was, in fact, living in Germany!

It was however, college for a year. For the most part, it has been tame, though not without its troubles. My mother’s mom, my grandmother, passed this year after a fight with cancer. Unfortunately, she lost, but given her age, it was almost to be expected.

There had been high points as well, including the gain of a pet! He’s terribly sickly though, so it’s been a small adventure to nurse him to health.  You see, I can’t just give Ivar the Boneless a pill.  He happens to be a fish you see, one who has had fin rot since I bought him. Fin rot, it turns out, is tricky to treat entirely because it may not be fin rot, but something else, so you basically try a series of medicine and see what works best.  Or at least, that’s how I ended up doing it.

It could just be that I really should have asked a more experience owner because my diagnostic methods sound like something from an episode of House.  As I am ridiculously proud of my very playful and friendly fish, you may all now gaze upon his wonder.  Seriously, this fish plays with lasers. You get to see him in an older picture before the fin rot was too bad, because I won’t be embarrassing my fish that way.  He is very sensitive and it’s a little disturbing.

If you look closely you can see that he has the beginning stages off in rot in this picture. That clearish bit on his tail is fin rot.  This is a fact I did not know at the time, but I do now.

However, I can sense you are very curious now as to why I was trimming bushes in a house when I am a college student thus do not, in fact, have a house. This is because I am spending the first half of my summer helping out my Dear settle into a house on his grandparents property that has not been occupied in around ten years.  Ten years is a very long time for a house to not be occupied, you see, and it results in things like, say, dogwood bushes attempting to create their own forest.  If you are wondering who my Dear is, well, I mentioned him in an earlier blog…and I can tell you the rest later.

Half a summer is, perhaps, a bit too long to get this place up to snuff, given the sheer amount of work put into it before I came, but it means I’ll also have time to relax and unwind some from my college courses. This is just what the doctor didn’t order, but strongly recommended because ‘I can’t make you do anything.’ Or rather, she insisted I take a vacation sometime soon, but this is practically a vacation given that I am not currently studying.  I’m giving myself a good two weeks off of studying.

As for the second half of my summer, well, I never could resist a good adventure, and an adventure in the form of a scholarship opened itself up very widely for me, so I took the leap! The second half of summer, I will be a part of the Joint Space Weather Summer Camp. Being as how you don’t know what that is, unless you do of course, I shall endeavor to explain! Or rather, I shall copy-paste their description because that’s plenty good enough, don’t you think?

 The Joint Space Weather Summer Camp (JSWSC) is an opportunity to learn about space physics in the context of meeting a very practical need -- to understand the influence of the Sun on the space and upper atmosphere of the Earth and its related impact on the technological systems and needs of modern society. This is a new, exciting, and emerging discipline called Space Weather, that has attracted the attention of the White House and senior leaders in government because of the importance of ensuring that our technological investments are properly protected against severe Space Weather.

About twenty students from UAH and from a variety of universities and research centers across Germany participate in a multiple week series of lectures, hands-on projects and experiments and excursions as they learn both the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of Space Weather and solar and space physics.

It boils down to a scholarship for a single, specific, course and a trip to Germany for two weeks!  Hurrah! I will return to Germany! But only for two weeks, and much of the day I will be in class, as far as my understanding goes.  That doesn’t mean adventures will not occur.  I am one with adventure. Adventures are one with me!  Besides, if you look at it just so, anything is an adventure.

You all get told more next week!

One Final Byte: Adventures are more viewpoint than series of events.

An Unexpected (Rather Tame) Adventure

On Friday, I discovered that I was going on an adventure.  It was not meant to be an adventure, but halfway through it turned into one.  It was just supposed to be a visit to see my maternal Grandma, an extended family in Texas. Alas, this was not to be.  My quest was cut very short by a force we have yet to be able to do diddly squat about.

That is to say: My flight got canceled due to a thunderstorm. It was not a small flight either, being six seats across and completely full.  By the time I got to customer service, I had been in line waiting an hour.  It took a further hour and a half to get the ticket back to my home place, having discovered the next flight available…was still in danger of thunderstorms, and completely full besides.  That is to say, according to Mr. Meterologist, my one true chance was not this weekend at all, thank you very much, as thunderstorms and lightening were predicted for Dallas the entire time. Ergo, to preserve my sanity…I came back home.

You see, I didn’t have a direct flight. I had one of the lovely flights were you go in the complete opposite direction before you head the right way.  This, being a rule of travel, is not so surprising.  What was surprising was suddenly finding myself in Charlotte, North Carolina unable to contact my family to let them know, not sure what the right choice was, and with, get this, an ankle that is most certainly still sprained and it most certainly did not like going through the airport twice, thank you very much.

By the time I got to the gate my flight back home would go through, my ankle was roughly the size of a particularly fluffy cat’s head. Also, it hurt.  I was about 50 % sure I undid all the healing I had done, but only 50%.  Being as this is now Saturday, I can assure you that my ankle was just being a bit of a whiner, and it’s back to its mildly swollen, healing state.

I do not advise my form of health care, by the by. It leads to a startling number of adventures and an awful lot of sighing from your friends.

To give you all a run-down of the excitement, I must tell you I arrived at my local airport at rather very early, also known as 8:06. Armed with my firefly shirt (for the purpose of finding fellow nerds along the route), a backpack for the weekend, and my purse, I felt well prepared for travel.  Given I was two hours early, I was, in fact, a bit too early for an airport the size of my home airport. From there, everything went smoothly.  We took off a little late, but apparently were waiting for a member of the crew, and we more than made up the time in the air, arriving twenty minutes early.  Given that I had to go from terminal E to B, I didn’t look at the departures board, and instead rushed.

Clocking easily three times my usual speed, I near jogged to the other side of the airport, as They Have No Tram.  Really, Charlotte.  You are much too big to not have a tram from A to E, at the least.

This, I should note, was my first mistake, if you don’t count booking when there’s bad weather. Had I seen that, I would have seen my flight was mysteriously delayed by thirty minutes.  Hmm…

Seeing this, I despaired half a moment before trying to call my Grandma.  Given I don’t have a cell number for her (and suspect she has none) I tried her house phone.  This did not work. Well, maybe she was on the way. It would only be a little late, and easily make up thirty minutes in the air. Everything would be fine.  It was bothersome, but that’s all.

Right as the flight should have left, we received the announcement. The flight would be canceled due to lightening. The TSA could not approve it under the conditions.  One of the other passengers confided she was from a nine am flight that had suffered the same.  I checked the weather and said a foul word.  It was necessary.

And then began the mad chase. We went to customer service. This was not correct. We went to the East Check In desk, booking it as fast as I could limp. My ankle was mad, but I, while complaining to myself in the manner of writers everywhere (out loud, and to myself) was mostly calm.  And then I checked Dallas’s weather again.  The long wait for service and the weather reports I had at hand made up my mind.  I could not go, not this weekend.

Given how rarely I see her, this is the disappointment of the year, thus far, that I care to remember. Were their greater, I do not recognize them.  Still, all would be well, I decided as I waited about an hour after getting to the desk for the ticket back to my home airport.

After all, I am good at adventuring. It’s become nearly a specialty.

On the way to the opposite side of the airport once more, and really, wondering if I should flag a look you’re disabled cart down, I met a lovely New Yorker as my stomach growled, demanding sustenance.  I have adventures. Sustenance is needed for adventures. And so, I had a cheeseburger, and we talked and walked to her gate, as mine, of course, is the very last possible gate.

Arriving, I sat down to chronicle my adventure and right as I expected to begin boarding and had begun to put my things up, I receive, the news.  That is to say there was an announcement of a twenty minute delay due to something that I do not even know but sounded like Lal.  What Data’s daughter is doing delaying flights in the 21^st century, I do not know.

I have decided I don’t want to know. At this point, I sighed, and decided such was fate, then promptly wondered if I’d make it home today at all, or if I should find a particularly cushy spot of airport floor to sleep on.

However! The good news is that I have successfully made it back, thus ending my adventure.  It was quite the excitement.  I enjoyed it thoroughly, even if it did sadly cut short a trip I had been looking forward to happening.

One Final Byte: Adventures have their place, but not at airports.

Justice Corrections Corporation

The lights that hung two stories above did little to light the grey concrete hallway as a man in a suit led a group of five other men all in grey suits as he was, down the hallway, gesturing occasionally to one of the pods on either side, each filled with a single body, a screen on the door of the pod reading the vitals of the person held in stasis inside.

“I assure you all, despite the protesters this remains the most humane way of dealing with violent criminals on the planet.”  His voice was smooth as warm chocolate, his eyes lit from behind with greed.  A security guard passed by on the walkway that served as the floor above.  Up there, the pods were a part of the wall itself, each one sunk partially into the concrete the building was made of.

“I’m certain, but I also noticed they seem to be released earlier than their sentences would suggest.  That isn’t comforting to the voting public, Mr. Reynolds.”  One of the group spoke, and the other murmured agreement.  The views of the voting public were especially important around election time, and there was one around the corner.

“Oh, don’t worry Senator.  These men and women serve their sentences like all others, just in a different manner, a more humane one.”  Mr. Reynolds assured the politicians.  “We believe that our facilities offer a better chance at rehabilitation.  Our rate of return is significantly lower than that of other prison systems after all.”

Of course, they often returned to the world with a complete lack of knowledge of what had happened while they were serving their sentences, and the culture shock made finding jobs, among other things, even more difficult, but they never were returned for violent crimes. So long as that was true, who cared about the fate of a criminal?

“I will give you that Mr. Reynolds.  Your former prisoners are not eager to return.”  The Senator paused by one of the pods and peered inside.  Behind the lightly fogged glass lay a woman, looking for the entire world like she merely slept, at peace.  “Who is this one?”

“Ah, this is our most infamous tenant, serving four life sentences.  No need to worry however.  The intravenous drip that our prisoners receive their nutrients from keeps them in the cryogenic state, so long as their body temperatures remain below a certain level.”  He assured the politicians. “It even slows their aging so that they don’t lose out on too much of their life while serving their sentences.” 

Mr. Reynolds opened the door without fear, and leaned the dark haired woman inside forward.  Her short cropped hair did nothing to hide the diodes that ran down her dark skin along her spine.  “It’s easy enough to move the prisoners and keep them in shape enough that they are able to walk and move after their internment, though even with her age slowing, Ms. Adams will be not have too much time let by the time she has finished her sentence.”

He laid her back, hiding the diodes once more and closing the door.  “I’m sure you noticed the drip going into her wrist.  Ms. Adams is well and truly held here.”  He said.  “And will serve four lifetimes, as she was sentenced, all in the computer generated world where all of our inmates serve their times.  As you men know, they begin life again from birth.  We at Justice Corrections Corp believe that this allows them better to rehabilitate themselves, by truly giving them a second chance.”

The Senator nodded at that.  “Then is seems all is in order.  I believe it won’t be hard to convince the others to award the contract to JCC.  After all, this is a rather human facility.” He said and walked on.

In the pod, Ms. Adams eyes fluttered briefly before closing once more.

“Excellent.  Given the boom in populations, prison facilities like this are truly the best choice.  We can fit more prisoners per square foot, with less resources, than any other.”  The man boasted, pleased.  “Across the 12 worlds, Justice Corrections houses almost 7.2 billion criminals.  An extra facility is sure to help, given how quickly the population grows.”

“Of course.  Isn’t the program becoming rather crowded?”  The Senator asked, and Mr. Reynolds smiled.

“Oh yes, but no worries.  We’ll be branching out. In the computer world, the prisoners will have a breakthrough in space travel.  Though it will be just enough for them to colonize a second planet, and a second prison.  It will be called Mars.”  They had already named it, some of the prisoners from many decades ago, after all.  The planets and stars had only been designed so the prisoners would not panic over it.  Anything too unrealistic and they may break free somehow.

The programmers were already designing the new prison system, and the details that would be found there.  The contract of course, was Justice Corrections. It just took enough donations to enough senators, after all.

In Case Of Cell Phone, Break Glass:

Okay folks, I’m tired.  I am sick and tired.  I am so sick and tired, I am going to blog about it.  Also known as let’s have a talk, about your cell phone and you.

Allow me to demonstrate.  This is a typical, I repeat, typical, complaint between several a different friends of mine and me.  On average, I hear this complaint at least once week.

Friend: My boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/husband/wife is always on the phone. I can’t believe it.  Worse, s/he is too busy on the phone to talk/flirt/mate like a wild animal with me!

This is very much what I hear, all the time.  Allow me to tell you a series of solutions:

1. Make a Rule about cell phone use when together.

Healthy relationships have rules, spoken and unspoken.  We have unspoken ones like ‘do not say I look like an elephant, even if I do.’  Then we have spoken ones like ‘no you may not poke my friend’s with a stick when they bother you.’  And yes, that is a spoken rule in my relationship. Apparently, poking people is not encouraged.

Either way, rules make people happy, and will make your relationship happier.  If the cell phone use is bothering you so much, then it’s time to discuss rules with your special somebody. Just be aware. Everyone gets on everyone else’s nerves in some way especially with prolonged contact.  They will have rules for you too.

2. When on a date, don’t take your phone with you.

Oh no! The reader gasps in horror at the very idea of not having their cell phone with them.  What about in case of emergency!

Allow me to now stare at you in sheer horror. Unless you have dates that occur deep in the woods, or the desert, or the jungle, or the middle of the ocean, or some other suitably remote place, then you should probably be in public, and let me tell you about public. There are phones in every single business out there. 

They are call landlines, and operate via wires.  I know this comes as a shocker, but they exist.  And if you can’t find a semi-mythical landline, then just find the nearest teenager or other adult.  You really should have certain numbers memorized, like your parents, your significant others, your own, 911. Please tell me you have the last memorized.  That one’s the important one. 

Ah, but I see you aren’t so convinced.  Still need your phone on you? Face down in the table, all stacked on top, everybody’s. Then you don’t have it half so easy to fiddle with do you?  Everyone will be watching you in disappointment if you give in to the urge.  And if that doesn’t work, leave the gorram phone in the gorram glove compartment. Or, if you must…

3. Only take a single phone out.

This works on the guilt principle.  As in, ‘they don’t have one, so I shouldn’t use mine.’  Just make certain the one the feels guilty easier has the cell phone.

4. But what is someone needs to get a hold of me.

Allow me to tell you something super awesome amazing. It. Can. Wait.  When out on a date with the significant other, it can wait. When out with friends, it can wait. When out with family, it can wait.  In other words, when out in any capacity that renders you in a busy status:  It. Can. Wait. Even bad news waits, dudes.  Even horrible news can wait.  It isn’t good for you to be in always constant contact anyway.  It can wait.  They can wait until you are available.  If all else fails, you get a rousing game of phone tag out of it.

5. But what if plans change, or someone is late, or something happens that I need to know about right now!

Eh. You can’t handle a change of plans, or someone arriving late, or something happening?  Dudes, if it’s serious, someone will find you.  If not, just chill, relax, and have fun in the meantime.  I promise, except in extenuating circumstances, which you would hear about from those around you in public, you can have fun on your own for all of the fifteen minutes that you should have to wait before you can say adios to them and have fun on your own.  If you are very patient, you can make it all the way to thirty.  If there is a traffic jam, and they are stuck, then find out how back the traffic jam is, then find a good book store.  In other words: Just chill.  They’ll come find you to let you know, or just be running late. It’s not that big of a deal.  Very rarely, do you absolutely have to know right that very second.

One Final Byte: Dude, it’s just a phone. So Chill out.

Injustices

So this year, I think I'm going to try something a bit different than last time I did a year of blogs. I think I'm going to try and post either a short scene/story or a poem every Thursday all year long, starting today.  I haven't been writing half as often as I should like to, after all, and I think this will get me back into writing once more, and it will get the blog active again! Yay!  So, I suppose, welcome back!  I hope you all enjoy the new scenes and thoughts.

Injustices
I have seen a boy with low credit,

At age five,

Because in order to have a phone,

His mother put the bill in his name,

And could not pay.

I have seen two parents with degrees,

Two teachers,

Unable to send their only son,

To college because two college grads,

Are not paid well.

I have seen educated women,

Flipping meat,

College degrees in their back pockets,

Without connections for a good job,

In their learned field.

I have seen men, who risked their own lives,

Homeless now,

Who gave all their self, their minds and bodies,

And now live trapped, no purpose, alone,

Their support gone.

I have seen these immoral forced acts,

Choices gone,

People stuck in ways they did not choose,

Punished, for not being born with

Silver or gold spoons.

Messes

I have, I admit, a bit of a problem when it comes to inviting people over.  Though I hardly keep things military clean, in order to study, I have to have things tidy, or I simply can’t concentrate.  However, when I invite someone over, sometimes they tend to spread out, quite a bit, then make a mess, and then, when they leave, they simply don’t acknowledge the mess.

In other words, I’ve invited people into my house that have made a mess, and while, I wouldn't expect them to clean it all, or even most, I do hope that they will at least put their dishes in the sink.

Well, I’m not the only one.  The American people invited into our lives, these men and women of Congress.  Some have been there so long, that no amount of cleaning around them, seems to do the job.  They just make more mess.  Others are new, and make a stab at pretending to clean, but don’t do it either.

Luckily, this is an invitation we give, every few years, and like whenever you share a house, it is those in the majority, who get to decide who stays and goes.  And sometimes, right around the time, that we issue this invitation, we find our house tidy and neat, even around those long time mess-makers.

It is as neat as a clever child’s room.  They’ve simply hidden it all away. Unfortunately, this is enough to fool the majority of the people into saying ‘Look at this person, look how good they have done.  Let’s have them stay longer.’

And so, they do, and then you go to clean under the bed, and in the closets, and, well, you discover the truth.

I think it may be about time, that we do not forget how messy these long time guests have been, or how they don’t even put their dishes, in the sink.  When someone cannot do even that most basic of chores, well, sometimes something must be done.  And right now, I think that something is abundantly clear.

It is time to clean house:  to dust our shelves, to organize our closets, and to stop hiding things under the bed.  We should not re-invite these guests that we call congressmen, that we call senators.  We should not say ‘Look how good you’ve done.’

Perhaps, they’ve tidied one or two spots, in one room, maybe they've put up their clothes, but there are still legos on the floor.  But that doesn’t change the fact, that they didn’t put their dishes in the sink.  They’ve made a mess of things.  I think it may be time, to ask them to leave.

One Final Byte:  I can only hope the majority says out.

A Frightful Reflection and the Bill of Rights

TV, books, and entertainment media in all its forms has always been a reflection of the current society.  In some ways, that is superb, and astounding, and we can learn about the worries and the lives of the time based entirely on reading a book from another decade.  In others it is worrying and frightful, particularly when one looks at what is on TV today.  The monsters of today are still monsters.  Vampires still suck blood, werewolves still attack people (though no longer devour them, it seems) and monsters as a whole are still monstrous.  But it feels as if that monstrosity has in a way matured.

 

To my horror, people seem to flock to the beautiful monsters.  Whether it is a man who tortures others because of childhood bullying or it is a handsome vampire who still kills, and does so freely, but gets away with it because of his beauty.  I think that is my biggest problem with monsters on TV.  The vampires are only what I could call an Anne Rice Vampire.  They are more like an incubus who drinks blood than anything else.

 

Knowing what I know about media and the mirror it shows society all I can do is weep.  Our monsters are no longer in the shadows, hidden.  Or, at least, the faces of these monsters are not, though their true nature often is.  Instead, they are lauded, adored, because of superficial reasons.  The modern monster of man, the monster we see and acknowledge as monsters, are not those that dwell in shadows but those that stand in the spotlight, smiling, declaring their vegetarian nature, and how against hunting they are.

 

They are the monsters who claim that by spying on the bad guys, they are in fact good guys.  In order to spy on the bad guys though, well, they have to spy on the good too.  How else do they know who is bad or who is good?  There is no longer a presumption of innocence.  Instead, you are guilty, particularly if you lack the beauty of the heroes or the seductive nature of the monsters.

 

To me, I think, the monster on TV and in the books reflect the true nature of our society today, and it is a nature I want with all my heart to change.  The fact that you can buy an expensive sports car whenever you please should not be a get out of jail free card for burning down a dance studio.  Nor should being a spy for the ‘greater good’ excuse you from using the moral compass that you hopefully have.  It doesn’t have to match mine, but surely you believe in the one thing so many world religions espouse: Do No Harm.  

 

Or at least try?

 

It scares me that money or looks can get someone, anyone out of trouble.  Whether it is out of the trouble of bullying and harassing another, or out of the legal trouble that breaking the key laws that the US based its cultural identity around.

 

We are a cultural melting pot, and things change, from year to year, from decade to decade.  Change is not necessarily bad, and in many ways can be amazing.  But we have a unity, and it isn’t based on the laws that change so often in our nation, but in a single founding document that we all agree on.  But, I think, I may need to put it in modern words and modern terms so you can maybe see why these glittering monsters, these pretty littler liars and bloody rich killers concern me so.  They are, by virtue of money and media in powerful positions.  And lately, all of them have been ignoring what brings our culture together.

 

Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but this is how I have always read the opening of the Constitution:

We the People of the US, come together to life together, and ensure that justice is served on these lands that we claim are ours.  We come together to ensure that any man, woman, or child can have justice, that all of our people do not have worry about rioting, or warfare, or bullets being shot in the streets.  We are here, to provide a form of protection made of the people willing to protest, and here to ensure that it is possible to rise above poverty and into a life where you can provide for yourself.  We come together as a nation to secure the right of liberty, of freedom to be, for ourselves, and all who come after us.  We, the People of the United States do claim and proudly establish out support of this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

And maybe I just don’t speak legalese well, but this is our bill of rights, as I understand it, in the most plain terms I can think of to say it:

Amendment I:

Congress cannot force you to believe a certain way, or penalize you for believing whatever it is you believe.  No religion will be outlawed by them.  You may saw what you wish, and the press cannot be told what to share with the people.  Congress cannot tell people they can or cannot gather, nor can they deny them the right to create a petition, or the right to have their grievances heard.

 

Amendment II:

People, average, everyday people, will be able to protect themselves, and their nation, even from those who govern them, if necessary. And people, citizens, not necessarily members of the military, will form a militia ran by the common man will be encouraged as a necessity to ensure freedom.

 

Amendment III:

No soldier, no military personnel may take over your home and force you to host them, in tiems of peace or times of war.  If they must, for some reason, do so, they can only do so in a legal manner, following every last step of the law.

 

Amendment IV:

No one had to worry about the security of their private life, or private business.  Random searches cannot be conducted even with probable cause, because only a warrant with probable cause, an oath that only what is on the warrant will be search, and a in depth description of what is to be search can make a search legal.  All of your business, no matter in what form, is your own and cannot be rifled through without first a court issued warrant.  Any of your ‘effects’, that is, anything you own, that you regularly carry cannot be taken and looked through.

 

Amendment V:

No one, no matter what, will be punished for a capital crime unless they first have had a trial in front of a Grand Jury.  The only exceptions are in the military forces, or in the militia, and only then if the US is in a time of war.  No person, no man, no woman, no child will ever be tried twice for the same crime.  No person will be forced in any criminal case to act as a witness against their-self.  No person can be killed, be locked up, or lose their property without fair treatment through the judicial system first. Nobody’s private property can be taken for public use without being given something else, whether cash, other land, or what have you, that comes to the same value of what was taken.

 

Amendment VI:

If someone is accused of a crime, they won’t be forced to wait in the limbo of the justice system for any long amount of time at all before they are given a public trial, that anyone can attend, and they must be tried by a jury with no feelings of attachment to them or their victim.  The trial will take place in the state and district where the crime was committed.  The accused must be told, before the trial, of why it is believed they committed the crime, and of what crime it is believed they have committed.  They will have a chance to know the witnesses against them, and they will have, required by law, the chance to have witness’ on their side, and legal aid on their side.

 

Amendment VII:

If there is a non-criminal court case, involving a money related argument more than twenty dollars in value, then the right to an impartial jury is still reserved.

 

Amendment VIII:

No one will be required to pay a bail that they cannot afford.  In other words, if a loan is required for a person to post bail, than that bail is excessive.  No unaffordable fines will be imposed on anybody.  If they cannot afford the fine, then the fine is too large.  No one will be subject to any punishment that causes any mental, physical, or emotional damage, nor will any punishment be out of the ordinary in its nature.

 

Amendment IX:

No constitutional amendment gives anybody the right to deny anybody else their constitutional amendment. Nor can any amendment be used as an excuse to be insulting, cruel, or otherwise a jerk to another human being.

 

Amendment X:

Anything not explicitly in the US Constitution, is reserved for the states, or for the citizens themselves, to decide, so long as the constitution does not forbid it explicitly.

 

 

I hope you can see why I am worried based solely on those two parts of that full and total document.  I want more than just opened eyes.  I want you to ask yourself why.  I suppose, because I have often asked why in my life, that I want you to always ask the whys, and to ask them of the people who both know, and can change them.

 

One Final Byte: Stop and ask why for everything one time.