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Tuesday
This was held at a park with lots of hiking trails, so they broke us up into five-person teams to digitally map it. Each team got four digital cameras, a ten-meter rope, a note pad, and a map of a trail segment; we were to photograph in each direction every ten meters, with the idea that this will be assembled later into a virtual walking tour. Cool idea; I hope they actually do it and that this wasn't just a pretext for an exercise.
Pretext? You see, each team was supposed to get one camera with insufficient memory. (The instructions were to have people stand backs in, facing the four directions, and be consistent. So, for example, my camera was all the forward-facing shots on our trail. The cameras were numbered so they can sort this out.)
Our team actually didn't have one grossly-deficient camera; two of the cameras ran out of space on the card at the same time, the other two doubled up (in a consistent order), and then at the next stop those cameras ran out. So we didn't finish our segment; almost no one did.
The responses to the problem were varied. I think at least one team debugged it, noticing that the problem camera had the resolution set higher than the others, and fixed it and went on. Most teams doubled up in some way to cover the missing camera. One team noticed that they were getting low on available memory and switched to photographing every twenty meters.
And one team contained someone who said "ha! not a problem!" and pulled a 256-meg card out of his pocket. :-)
So I hope they do assemble the virtual tour, but by pulling this camera trick they made assembly more difficult for themselves.
The drive there and back was not bad; it was orthogonal to (not really "against") rush-hour flow. This site is also much nicer than the previous one in other ways. I hope we keep using it.
After I got home I went out to vote (hadn't had time in the morning). A candidate introduced himself to me on my way into the building, and I was able to truthfully say "I don't normally vote for [his party] but I am planning to vote for you". I'm not sure how he took that. :-)
I'm not happy with most of the election results. The ballot initiative to allow county officials to run for (other) offices without first resigning failed, which is good news. But the initiatives to allow children to testify in court by video, rather than in person, passed, and I think that has "bad idea" written all over it. For one thing, it could interfere with the accused's right to cross-examine -- how long before we move from "video feed" to "taped statement"? Statements are fine, but they are evidence, not testimony. For another thing, why should kids be special? There are plenty of adults who can be intimidated in a courtroom, and some kids who can't be. We should all operate by the same rules.
And then there's the election itself. Roddey, the current county executive, lost to the challenger. I thought Roddey was doing an adequate job (which is high praise for most elected officials), and I liked the fact that the council dominated by one party had to at least consider the possibility of vetoes from the different-party executive. Now that tension is gone. (I live in an extremely lop-sided city politically, to the point where people actually elected the mayor who was clearly leading us into ruin for a third term because he's of the "correct" party. And it will probably happen again, unless the next primary replaces him.)
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The question on the ballot was ambiguous; I thought they said this was just video-fed for now, but the third ballot measure (which also passed :-( ) gives the legislature authority to change things in the future. So I think we're heading for videotape without cross-examination but calling it witness testimony. Sorry, but no cross-examination, no witness. And videotape is even worse because it can be edited. You need the actual person right there in the room on the stand.
Err, what's this soap-box doing under me? Sorry 'bout that.
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It's a shame, and a poor object lesson, that Roddey has been punished for making good but unpopular decisions. I'm cautiously optimistic about Onorato, however.
I think -- I hope -- you're wrong about Murphy's chances for reelection, however. Or maybe I just need to believe that even the Pittsburgh Democratic party lacks the breathtaking cynicism required to run him again.
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I agree on Roddey. There were problems with the property assessments, of course, but there would have been no matter who was sitting in his seat. Meanwhile, he demonstrated some clues about fiscal responsibility and showed that he was willing to stand up to the council when needed. I hope Onorato turns out to be reasonable, but I fear that he will be more likely to make popular-but-wrong decisions.
I think -- I hope -- you're wrong about Murphy's chances for reelection, however.
I truly hope you're right about this. That they ran him last time (when there were already clear signs of trouble) concerns me, but perhaps they have learned their lesson. We'll see.
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Although I fear how this could be poorly implemented, I disagree with you. Children are not adults. They are at very different levels of emotional development, are more likely to be intimidated by threatening individuals, and their testimony is often less reliable than adults because (added to the reasons above) they often key into a different set of details than adults would.
I hardly think a five-year old testifying is the same as a 40 year old testifying, and I'd be really interested to hear solid evidence to the contrary.
Properly instituted, this would not affect the defendant's right to cross-examine. The point is to allow the examination and cross-examination to take place in a less-threatening environment for the child. In that respect, you are more likely to get more accurate testimony from the child. Any judge who would allow a taped statement with no rebuttal from the defense shouldn't be allowed in the court room, in my [humble] opinion.
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The real problem is that courtrooms are intimidating to some -- (some) children, adults with mental limitations, adults who are over-timid because they've been abused in the past, adults who are just timid in general, etc. The 40-year-old abuse victim testifying at the assault trial is likely to be just as shaken as the five-year-old testifying about the robbery he saw. Rather than singling out some groups for special handling, perhaps we should be looking at systemic changes.
In my ideal world, judges and jurors would examine witnesses but the lawyers would not. (This is not a new idea.) Have the closer-to-neutral parties do the asking and a lot of the intimidation factors go right out the window. When you create a better environment, it seems like reliability of the testimony should improve.
I don't have any evidence that this would be better, but I'd sure be thrilled to see it tried.
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The jokes and ballad I could have probably skipped.
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The game of telephone demonstrated, as I suspected it would, not only accidental but deliberate corruption of the message being passed. (For anyone else reading this: the person sent the same messages in both directions around the circle; the messages were rather different when they met.)