Sorry for my outburst - here comes another one

Normally, I don't tend to reflect back on comments posted to my blog. It tends to diminish the spur of the moment nature of what's on my mind. This one, however, stuck with me: "If you sweat this, then don't EVER whine or wax in a bitchy tone about the death penalty." As per this comment, "this" was my jury summons. I was relating (a day ago) the ambivalence I felt at what is considered almost universally as a Murphy's Law kind of moment. It was, admittedly, a little self-absorbed "why me" kind of sentiment that occurs when stuff like that comes out of the mailbox after a long day. The very nature of what I am writing, for the most part, is just that kind of rumination.
Now, as for the connection between jury duty and the death penalty, I can only imagine what the person that left the comment meant. The "whining or waxing' will be inherent in whatever I write, since I suppose that (at least from this person's point of view) I am prone to just exactly that kind of drivel. I guess that would include the "bitchy tone" as well. It might be a direct physical response to the pain that I get from sitting on top of my ACLU card. It might be that I am taking that whole freedom of speech thing way too literally. It might be better if malcontents such as myself would just shut up and get in line with the rest of the country and support our - well, whatever it is that I'm bad-mouthing at this particular moment.
As for the whole jury duty business, here is a link to an editorial from the Detroit Free Press (again, damn that whole free speech thing!) Out in Yuma, they're cracking down on those jury scofflaws. How about out in Allegheny? I've been taking some comfort in the assurance I get that I will receive my fifteen dollars a day to do my duty. I confess, all this talk about "duty" makes me snicker just a little, and still I'm trying to figure out the connection between jury duty and the death penalty. Unless it has something to do with that whiny part of me that would like to object to taking the life of another human being. That bitchy, whining waxing part of me that has never gotten past the notion that killing to avenge killing hasn't worked for recorded history. All that good old testament stuff about "an eye for an eye" is slapped up there on a scale with new testament ideals like "turn the other cheek." I'm still making my mind up about that, I confess. I'm also thinking that helping to decide something as profound as the life or death of a human being would be worth anybody's time and effort, but deciding the outcome of a civil dispute that could have been cleared up by Judge Wapner before the first commercial break isn't the stirring patriotic experience that I had been hoping for.
Or maybe the comment was simply to suggest that all people who whine about jury duty in a bitchy tone should be strapped to a table and given a lethal injection of Pancuronium bromide. That ought to shut us up.