Thursday is a big morning at The Farm. The Writer’s Section is responsible for showing up- in person- to defend past production, defer erroneous predictions, and justify ones not yet proven to be false. The meeting is right before lunch, not after, since Management knows what is likely to happen after that. Increasingly, it is difficult to get prepared with quick riposte to global events, since all media seems to have transitioned to a format composed entirely by people attempting to convict other people of improbable things. This morning, instead of coverage of the Russian buildup to invade Ukraine, or the Chinese threats to a large island with whom we used to be pals there was something else on all the channels. We felt a little, you know, inundated with information we didn’t need.

We watched some white male get grilled by a white female prosecutor about shooting somebody. It is a different white male than the one on the flat screen yesterday, and though we are no longer expected to notice the most obvious things about people- including their pronouns- we are fairly confident it was also a different prosecutor than the one on TV for hours yesterday. We are a little disappointed that the cameras did not follow the jurors into the jury room, since that would be appropriate after the Prosecution produced an entirely new video account not available to the defense in its summation. It is a new programming thing, apparently.

We are uncertain if other videos could be viewed at home during the actual deliberations.

Which is to say, our society is adapting to technology in ways the system that used to manage society has not. It depends on the personal impact of the event in question, of course. We took a poll to make sure this is a matter of semi-public record. The prosecution in a place called Kenosha was spectacular in its demonstration of the new system, having spent a week or so demonstrating that waving a firearm around is not legal by waving the same rifle around while pointing it, finger in the trigger guard, in the specific direction of the Jury. We had to assume it was part of a theatrical component of legal practice with which we were not aware. So this is great stuff and very helpful.

Also for the record, we have all served in sworn positions of authority with established guidelines for a bunch of stuff. One of them is the prevention of people irresponsibly wandering around waving firearms. Socotra House Publications is also fully compliant with all sections of the Uniform Code of Military Justice specifically naming the offices of the people we are supposed to respect. That assertion proved to be controversial, since we assume it is actually referring to the people in those offices, but is naturally open to some differing opinions. Splash, for example, asserts that he fully respects the offices, load-bearing walls, average quality government furnishings and permanent parking assignments. Even for those are actually “in” the offices.

We would go on, but there is a meeting to get to. After that the schedule is much more flexible, and we note that it includes training on the software we have to use to get to the meeting. After the meeting, of course. We are taking the liberty of running this response through both HR and Legal for compliance. Just in case.

But Splash had a good idea we are working on. We could have a channel that showed what happens in courtrooms all the time, 24×7. We could even come up with a name for it. We are working on that.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com