I reported for jury duty last week to the Santa Clara County Superior Courthouse on Hedding Street in San Jose. Once I checked in I was asked to report to Department 38. As I walked into the courtroom, I was brought back to a time when my job included monitoring a middle school dress code.
I sat there rather surprised by some of the attire worn to court by fellow prospective jurors. I felt similarly many times as a principal, when I had to reprimand students for inappropriate attire and ask them to change into something appropriate for class.
In Department 38 last Tuesday, jeans, shorts, baseball caps and T-shirts were the dominant dress for the men. Three men continued to wear their baseball caps while inside the courtroom, only to be admonished by the bailiff, once all of us were seated, to remove them.
It seems like the last time I was asked to report for jury duty the dress was infinitely more appropriate for a courtroom. My business casual attire seemed out of place this time; not so the last time. Am I just getting older and less attuned to the new etiquette?
While seated in the courtroom contemplating the richness of our judicial system, my mind wandered to the line in the sand I drew about the importance of school uniforms more than a decade ago while principal of Rogers Middle School in the Moreland School District. I was advocating for Board approbation to allow Rogers to become a uniform school in the midst of the new Education Code language just established by the California legislature.
I also wondered seated in court why we don’t mandate a respectful norm for dress within our courthouses. On the surface it seems like a good idea, that way jurists would be judged on their words in response to the preliminary inquiry rather than their dress prior to peremptory challenges. This is a good thing for students in our schools, too. Too often students are judged by teachers adversely due to their dress rather than the smarts in their heads.
Long Beach Unified was leading the national effort to mandate all public school students wear uniforms in 1994-95. During the first year of implementation there, uniform dress led to a significant reduction of suspensions and behavioral referrals. I also knew about the success Willow Glen Middle School in San Jose Unified was having with its school uniform plan, therefore I thought it was a natural for Rogers to give it a go. The Moreland Board approved our plan and so did a majority of Rogers parents.
There has not been much written about school uniforms since 2005, which leads me to believe they are no longer in vogue. Perhaps we can begin a new national dialogue about the importance of dressing for success in school, in courtrooms, and in life. After all the judge still wears a black robe, the bailiff is dressed in uniform, and when I started teaching in 1974 the male teacher always wore a tie.
Yeah, Joe, my Mom lives in the San Diego area, and she often tells me how inappropriately people dress in church these days. She particularly dislikes women in short shorts and halter tops in church. There’s no such thing as “Sunday Best” any longer.
By the way, Joe, you and your fellows were jurors, not jurists. Jurists are the judges, Joe. And its a PERemptory challenge, not a PREemptory challenge.
#1 JMO: Mr. DiSalvo’s editor let him down. Fixes have been made. I appreciate your bringing the keen eye of an attorney to these pages.
Joseph,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I think uniforms are a great idea but they cost money. Money folks don’t have these days. I went to Catholic School. We wore uniforms and survived.
As to your experience in court, it is mind-boggling isn’t it? It is all about lack of respect and bad up bringing. JMO is right. I am always amazed at what folks wear to church.
I went to a formal wedding and many people wore things that just blew my mind. Tight, short, low cut dresses, or jeans, or shorts. I guess it is the new dress code we are stuck with in today’s world brought on by bad parenting and the fashion world.
And forget about women wearing age appropriate clothing. I see 40-50-60 year olds wearing the same kinds of things their 18-22 year old daughters wear. I get wanting to look attractive but I think this goes too far the other way.
Eric#2—SO, is SJI Joe’s editor? Who else who contribtes to SJI gets an editor? Why does Joe get an editor? Why should Joe, an career educator, NEED an editor? No, Eric, don’t fix Joe’s errors for him. Let everyone see Joe as he really is, OK? It could influence an election. Rehabilitation of Joe’s (or anyone else’s)errors is just the other side of censorship.
How does SJI choose whose errors get corrected to make them look better, versus the rest of us whose errors don’t get corrected by “The Editor”?
The peremptory vs. preemptory error I can understand, kinda; but not really for an alleged educator. But how someone gets to be a trustee on any board of education who does not know the difference between a juror and a jurist just astounds me. It is not an arcane concept, Eric. And he was a teacher. What did he teach his students in political science/history/social studies, etc. about our judicial system? Joe needs to stop worrying about how people dress and go back to school.
Kathleen #3: do uniforms cost THAT much more than the stuff the kids would wear to school otherwise? I doubt it. Hell, a pair of Air Jordans, or whatever the kids wear these days, has to cost WAY more than the entire uniform.
Of course, if people stopped having more kids than they could EVER POSSIBLY support, we wouldn’t have this problem of catering to the poverty lobby on these cost issues for the poor folk.
A while back, Joe D. blogged about sex ed. for kids in school. Make their parents attend, as well, and maybe they’ll stop pumping out babies that the rest of us end up supporting.
JMO-You make a very good point about the cost of clothing verses uniforms. I agree, if parents can afford $80.00 jeans, or $200.00 sneakers a uniform wouldn’t be a wallet buster.
As to the topic of Joseph’s column, I disagree with you. By having kids wear uniforms you can prevent a lot of difficulties all the way around for everyone. I think this topic is a good one, right down to the point of inappropriate dress in courts, churches, and schools.
Creating a dress code will only turn more people away from jury duty. Not everyone owns a suit or has the money to buy one.
And many kids do not wear $200 shoes or $80 jeans.
# 4 JMO: Every post on SJI gets edited. That’s the way it’s always been—Jack did it before I showed up. Editing has always been part of the journalistic process, and the practice continues on most serious blog sites.
Your comment that it’s “just the other side of censorship” seems bizarre, but I won’t judge you for it: You’re a lawyer, not a journalist, and you can’t be expected to know everything. You could give Joe the same benefit of the doubt.
BTW: “Contribtes” is not a word. At SJI we generally don’t edit comments—perhaps we need to?
#8 Kathleen: Thank you for helping me clarify: I do exactly what Johnmichael accuses me of doing—I correct grammatical errors (when I catch them). I also do whatever’s necessary to make the piece as clear as possible. That’s definitely what Jack did as well.
With opinion pieces, such as those on SJI, that’s all we editors generally do. JMO is correct in this regard: It’s not my job as editor to “fix” anyone’s opinion to make it more palatable.
When we’re working with reporters on news stories, the editor is often much more involved, even to the point of rewriting stuff. That’s not happening here.
#6-East Sider in East Side,
“And many kids do not wear $200 shoes or $80 jeans.” Yes they do. Even the poorest kids I’ve dealt with find a way to buy them. Ortheir parents do.
As to your comment that some folks can’t afford to buy a suit, not true either. Have you been to thrift stores lately?
Eric,
Jack didn’t edit the column he had me write in the sense JMO is speaking of. Jack simply put it in a certain format and checked for spelling errors, which is what I think you are doing with your writers. To truly edit something you’d be changing the context, rewriting the story etc. You’re not doing that right?
Eric #7—typos are different from editing content, such as incorrect words or grammar. If your blog had spell check, we could avoid typos better.
You say every post gets edited. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. Does that editing go beyond merely checking for violations of your policies? Are all posters’ comments edited for “correctness” of langauge, usage, grammar, syntax, etc?
I have seen non-public figures posts with incorrect usage left untouched. Do public figures get special editing?
If everyone gets the same editing treatment,fine. If some people are “more equal than others” when it comes to editing, not fine.
12: JMO: Sorry about dinging you for the typo. Just playin’, I’m sure you know. As for the editing policy, “Posts,” which are the bylined pieces, get edited, and “Comments” as a rule do not. When a Comment is edited (which happens rarely) I make a note of it in the copy.
And I agree with you 100 percent about applying the same rules across the board.
Looks like some folks need to look up the definition of editor. Come on people, you can’t really be this thick can you?
10 – You can’t possibly be as foolish as you pretend to be. There are probably abuses of virtually every system. Your answer seems to be that everyone abuses the system, therefore get rid of the system.
A recent OpEd piece in the LA Times referenced an Urban Institute estimate that in 2006, more than 22,000 Americans died because they lacked medical insurance, and 137,000 died between 2000 and 2006. Thousands more have struggled on with a reduced quality of life. Do you think these dead folks were buried in $200 shoes? The article when onto state that for those who don’t die, medical debt is the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy filings. Gee, do you think they file bankruptcy before or after buying their $200 shoes?
You can choose to focus on the few who might buy shoes instead of health insurance, but for most the decision is much more critical—do I buy food, pay rent, etc. or do I get health insurance.
Your callous view of this situation is most disheartening. I hope you are just playing “devils advocate” and don’t really believe the nonsense you post here.
#10-John Galt,
Come on John. You know perfectly well that medical insurance companies screw you one way or the other. I have so many friends that pay a lot of money for health care and have a horrible time getting things covered when they need it. To imply that insured folks get what they pay for is just plain BS John. And to say that your income level or your immigration status should determine whether or not you should get quality health care is just as dumb and inhumane!
Just Wondering is 100% correct, people are dying across this country every dam day because insurance companies are refusing to pay for care. If you want a good look into health care system go rent Michael Moore’s “Sicko.” It will make you sick all right! Our system is based solely on profit period John, and I think you know it.
Doctors and hospitals all over this country are fed up with the way insurance companies limit their abilities to care for their patients. They are so fed up that even they are willing to see a huge revamp of the system. Guess who owns large shares in corporations buying up hospitals John!
My beautiful friend just died of cancer. She went through hell trying to get things approved. My belief is that had she been given the proper testing and medical care she needed from the start, she might just still be here. In fact, I know several beautiful people who had the added stress of battling with health insurance companies while DYING John. It makes me want to scream at the injustice of it all.
Wake up and smell the coffee John. I know you have a beautiful, compassionate heart under that gruff exterior!
JMO,
I deserved the verbal reprimand for my two grammatical errors I made that were not initially edited. One error was a typo and one a mistaken use of jurists instead of juror. I do know the difference, but did not execute it in my final copy prior to submitting it to the editor. I will continue to learn from the mistakes that I make in writing, governance, friendship, speaking, and sport. I hope I can avoid making the same mistake twice, although that does not seem to happen in golf.
I wanted my weekly educational column to be an opportunity for all of us to have a conversation about one of the most important issues in our lifetime and 40% of California’s annual budget.
I strongly feel the personal attacks significantly diminish the quality of the dialogue. Yes, I know I am an elected school board member and take a very public stand on a variety of educational issues, and a thick skin must be a prerequisite. I needed to develop a thick skin with serving 20 years as a school administrator. I hope the discourse can be civil and less personal. Staying on topic is important. Disagreement is good, debate is good, but what I consider below the belt attacks are not fruitful to a continuing quality exchange on important issues to all of us.
I thank Eric Johnson for his editing of any errors I might make during my writing of this weekly column and for keeping 99.99% of the words and grammar I use.
#10, Kathleen, I empathize with your loss of loved ones to cancer. I have suffered the same fate. But one cannot state with certainty that “proper testing and medical care” would have prolonged their lives. Certainly, the added stress of dealing with getting the proper tests and care are an incremental burden, I have to agree with you there.
Regarding the choice to insure or not, are you aware that over 17 million of the uninsured earn over $50,000 per year? Many young adults would rather save for their first house than pay for largely unneeded (for them) medical insurance. These are the folks that will be subsidizing health insurance for those that can prove that they can’t afford it.
Kathleen (and Just Wondering too if you’re still “wondering”),
So are these “less fortunate folks” who buy their kids $200 shoes the same “less fortunate folks” who can’t afford health insurance?
JMO is right on with his observations. DiSalvo is one of these guys who believe grammar is unimportant, and that he can slip and slide as an educator with a world of belly and nose ring students. To claim to be so educated, but to have so little knowledge of the legal system shows DiSalvo to be a public school bureaucrat, and JMO got him cornered and now DiSalvo is whining
DISALVO C for content
D for discourse and rhetoric
JMO A for content
A for discourse and rhetoric
oh, grades.
Joe is about to get wprried about the stress.
Joseph,
It occurs to me that this discussion about healthcare is not the topic of your post. I think that was due to a comment that I made. I jumped the topic over from Rants & Raves where it would more properly belong. (Especially from such an inveterate ranter like me)
Sorry about that. But I tend to look at the big picture and I see that all the separate “issues” that we discuss are inextricably related to one another. To pretend that we can discuss isues in isolation is, I believe, the main reason that special interest groups have wrested power out of the hands of “The People”.
Anyway, for the record, I agree with you (for once!) about the properness of dressing more formally- respectfully- in a court of law. And, I congratulate and thank you for serving as a juror.
Pat,
Thank you for your kind words about my friend. I’m sorry for your loss.
As to medical tests assisting in early diagnoses not assuring a higher survival rate, I respectfully disagree. Too many times insurance companies won’t allow doctors to conduct tests because they cite costs. I find that to be a real shame.
My fiancé has Kaiser and has a bad back. He went through hell just trying to get any kind of care outside of pain medication from them. People pay into insurance for decades and barely use it. It isn’t until they actually need it do they find out that they aren’t going to get the help they’ve paid for.
If you know any one in the health care field, they will tell you the same thing. Kaiser for example was exposed for giving financial bonuses to doctors who CUT medical costs. Sickening.
If people earning $50K, which sure isn’t much after taxes, want to gamble with a huge medical bill if they get ill or injured, well then that is really irresponsible. They don’t get Medical to help pay the bill because they earn too much to qualify. And if they are saving for a house, well they’ll just end up paying the bill any way because debtors can put a lien on your assets and do one hell of a job of ruining your credit rating. You can’t file bankruptcy either if you have assets.
The bottom line is that a revamp of health care needs to happen. If you are rich and can afford the finest, well good for you. If you are an average Joe just trying to make ends meet, you shouldn’t have to go without food and housing to pay outrageous insurance premiums “just in case.”
Go rent “Sicko,” and tell me what you think. Everything Moore claims in the movie is easily researchable. I know, I did.
Joseph,
Just to let you know I agree with you when it comes to personal attacks. We all do it once in awhile and need to better about understanding the difference between debate, and cruelty.
If you don’t get picked on SJI no one is reading your stuff!
Joseph; you are now an honorary member of the SJI dysfunctional family! Welcome aboard our new wayward son.
Pat,
FYI:
“Middle-class, insured Americans filed 75% of personal bankruptcies due to healthcare costs.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-15753-SF-Wellness-Examiner~y2009m7d15-Middleclass-insured-Americans-filed-75-of-personal-bankruptcies-due-to-healthcare-costs
Pat, you really are out of touch on health care. Here’s what you said:
“Regarding the choice to insure or not, are you aware that over 17 million of the uninsured earn over $50,000 per year? Many young adults would rather save for their first house than pay for largely unneeded (for them) medical insurance. These are the folks that will be subsidizing health insurance for those that can prove that they can’t afford it.”
Even if you say screw ‘em to the 17 million (your number, I didn’t check it, but I suspect that is higher than reality), you conveniently ignore the other 25 million uninsured. So because some fraction choose not to be insured, we shouldn’t worry about those who can’t afford it?
And we already subsidize health care for those first 17 million anyway. When something unforseen happens to them, they are covered in emergency rooms, increasing our insurance premiums. We would save money by making sure that everyone has coverage and gets preventive care.
Joseph,
I think this was one of your better columns. Not once did you beg for taxpayers to toss yet more money at our schools. Keep up the good work!
ABC’s “20/20” co-anchor John Stossel.
“Health care ‘reformers’ keep talking about getting us more health insurance. Then they talk about cutting costs. This is contradictory nonsense. Insurance, whether private or a government Ponzi scheme like Medicare, means third parties pay the bills. When someone else pays, costs always go up. Imagine if you had grocery insurance. You wouldn’t care how much food cost. Why shop around? If someone else were paying 80 percent, you’d buy the most expensive cuts of meat. Prices would skyrocket. That’s what health insurance does to medical care. Patients rarely even ask what anything costs. Doctors often don’t know. … Patients rarely ask, ‘Is that MRI really necessary? Is there a cheaper place?’ We consume without thinking. By contrast, in areas of medicine where most patients pay their own way, service gets better, while prices fall. … This shouldn’t be a surprise. What holds costs down is patients acting like consumers, looking out for themselves in a competitive market. Providers fight to win business by keeping costs down and quality up. Yet politicians keep telling us the solution is more insurance. And they mean insurance not just for catastrophic diseases that could bankrupt us but also for routine treatments. The politicians are so oblivious to reality that they are on course to make things worse.”
Kathleen, JW, et al,
If the healthcare in this country is as bad as you say, (personally, I’ve been satisfied with Kaiser)then it has gotten that way BECAUSE of overburdensome regulation and interference by the government.
My main concern with Congress’ plan is the overall effect it will have on our society. Yet another program that subsidizes one group of Americans at the expense of another will further divide this country into the haves and the have nots. It will make it easier for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to simply stay there. At the same time, due to higher taxes, it will make it more difficult for those who want something more out of life than an existence that is dependent on the State, to find a way to better themselves and move up.
The overall effect of this plan will be to further entrench the conditions that have led us to this point.
Try to understand. There IS another side to this argument. People opposed to socialized medicine may genuinely want what’s best for the people of this country. Just like you. If anybody’s being unreasonable in this debate, it just might be the side that won’t even acknowledge that an additional $1.5 trillion of federal spending might have an effect on the country that should be considered. It might be the bullying majority that wants to ram this thing down our throat whether we like it or not.
#19 Kathleen,
I have put “Sicko” at the top of my queue.
I’ll watch it and get back to you.
Just so you know. I also watched another of your recommendations- The Visitor- and I’m still anti-illegal alien.
#22: Bob Sillen (former VMC director) told me two decades ago that a $5.00 increase in the co-pay resulted in an immediate 20%-25% drop in the number of folks using the walk in clinics. You’re right in that virtually free health care results in usage that is unwarranted and unnecessary—soccer Mom’s bringing in Johnny or Janie whenever they get the sniffles. This reduces the time doctors can spend on patients with real health problems, and drives up the cost.
However, most folks can’t afford a major illness or catastophic injury. Health insurance should cover those huge/unexpected costs and people should pay as they go for small medical issues, regular checkups, etc. Annual deductibles should be significant, as well.
Insurance is a means to spread the risk. So, the more people that have it, the cost per person tends to go down. If more people bought earthquake insurance in CA, the premium per $1k of coverage would go down. The same is true of health insurance. As it stands now, insured folks get gouged in order to pay for the uninsured.
Kathleen,
So I’ve already made up my mind. Well it seems that you have too. And so has my President. Tough luck for me I guess.
The incompetence, apathy, and greed that you lament that plagues the current system will not magically go away just because we adopt this national health plan. Instead of horror stories about private HMOs we’ll be hearing horror stories about Obamacare- and a lot more of them.
John,
You can fact check everything Moore said in the movie. I could give you a hundred stories of people with insurance who have suffered and a few who have died because insurance companies either denied or delayed health care to its PAID customers, but I don’t think it would matter much to you because you have your mind made up.
Having said that, I am surprised that you could find the way our country treated these brave 911 workers acceptable. Instead you commented on him taking sick people over to a country that DID help them and give them some relief for little to no cost, while ignoring their message about how they were treated in the very country that made them ill in the first place. Go figure~
I’m sad to say that I am seeing classism and selfishness in this country pit us against one another. It seems that everywhere I look people have lost their compassion for others, and have chosen to walk around the planet blind to the suffering and injustice perpetrated on our fellow human beings. Man, I really hope I’m wrong about this but I have a really bad feeling it is only going to get worse as time goes on, and the unemployment rate increases. I only hope people wake up before it is too late.
John,
Yes, I have made up my mind about how corrupt insurance carriers are. If our government had any real balls they’d appoint a citizen oversight committee and start holding their thieving butts accountable. Having said that, this may shock you but I agree. A national health plan that is not well thought out is like dumping a bucket of water into an empty lake in an effort to try and fill it. Everyone deserves proper health care coverage, regardless of financial status. I agree that everyone needs to pay a fair share too, but how do we go about reigning in the insurance companies and the fraud by some medical groups, and doctors? Don’t you think that kind of fraud has contributed to the outrageous cost of health care?
Kathleen,
As promised, I rented “Sicko” and I watched it. Through the miracle of arm and leg restraints my TV is still in one piece. I’m happy to report that I survived the ordeal and I’m currently working with a psychiatrist to help me work through any lingering effects of PTSD.
I found the movie very disturbing. It’s disturbing to me that so many Americans lack the critical ability to recognize this movie as the partisan propoganda that it is.
Michael Moore made a concerted effort to collect negative experiences of the American health care system and to collect positive experiences of the French, Canadian, and Cuban health care systems.
Did he go looking for negative Canadian experiences? Did he look for people who were very happy with their own coverage here in America? No. And no.
He never interviewed me. If he had, he might have learned of my own very positive experiences with Kaiser here in the U.S. and about my father-in-law’s nightmare of waiting for heart bypass surgery in New Zealand where he finally quit waiting for the government system to act and paid out of pocket to have the procedure done before he died.
Also, I was very disturbed to see Michael Moore put all those sick people on the deck of a small boat about to embark on a 90 mile open ocean voyage to Cuba and not one of them was wearing a PFD.
Not an even-handed film, Kathleen. I’m worried that so many people formulate their opinion on complex matters based on such shallow, one-sided fluff.
Kathleen,
I appreciate your earnestness on this subject. We each have our opinions but that does not render either of us deaf to other points of view.
Yes, I do think that insurance company fraud has contributed to the outrageous cost of health care. It has also contributed to crappy care and customer service. I don’t pretend to have the answers. Eliminating choice and giving the job to the federal government, though, does not seem to me to be a move in the right direction.
I’m not sure why so many people are willing to place the responsibility for their own healthcare in the hands of their employer. It’s really a crazy concept. I happen to be my own boss and to me, Kaiser makes sense because they ARE the doctors, the nurses, and the hospital. There’s no middle man. Americans accepting personal responsibility for their own healthcare would go a long way toward making the institutions more accountable. That means telling the boss to “shove it. I’ll buy my own health insurance.”
I might be less hostile in principle to the concept of nationalized health care if I had any confidence that Obama was serious about controlling costs. But I think if he had his druthers he’d provide amnesty for illegal aliens thus adding tens of millions of poor people to the healthcare pool and driving up costs that would ultimately be borne by you and me. I don’t trust HIM and I don’t trust the Democrat Congress to act in the best interest of the American people. The entire healthcare system of the United States is too big and too important to hand over to someone you don’t trust.
I thought this was a blog about court room attire!
#33-John Galt,
I think having a health care system modeled after Kaiser wouldn’t be a bad idea. Christian has Kaiser and I really like the way they have prevention programs, classes on everything from diet to anger management, Acupuncture, and pain management. I must admit I’m a bit envious!
I have to say that I don’t trust government period. Our electeds have too many donors/campaign contributors to answer to when deciding on how to handle things. I don’t see anything but corruption. What beats the crap out of me is why do people keep voting them back in? Like you, I’m not sure what the answer to fixing this whole problem is. I’m not an expert, but sometimes common sense is enough to find a solution that works for everyone. And as you know, common sense is a valuable thing many in high places lack!
#34-Doc,
If you go to court, wear something appropriate.