Justice and such...

After watching way too many Law & Order’s over the years, I have little faith in our justice system. Not that I could think of a better way for our system to work, but I just find it so disappointing that the system has so many flaws. The wrong people get punished meanwhile the right people may walk free. There is just no good way to obtain justice.

During our mock trial in class on Friday, I think that there lacked passion for the argument at hand maybe with exception of a few people. The question was a little too obvious for all of us that it was difficult to argue about it… Cortes was definitely in violation of human rights. Besides this factor, class on Friday sparked some thoughts about the effectiveness of justice so I think the point came across in the end.

We had this back and forth trial with strict guidelines (not necessarily followed in class as I’m sure they would be in court) and it almost seemed comical. How could this process possibly bring about justice? Is this how we define justice – a convoluted process all to persuade a jury? If this system is justice then how do people get wrongfully punished? How do others get away with crime through legal loopholes? It just doesn’t seem fair… or just.


I wonder what Nicolaus Copernicus would think about justice? I bet our justice system would be very strange to this scholar back in the 15th and 16th centuries. Back then, though, there probably were fewer discussions of justice than of science. If you all remember correctly from your high school astronomy class, Copernicus was the dude who realized that the earth was not in fact at the center of the universe, but instead the sun was. Why do I bring up Copernicus though? Well, I don’t know if any of you heard about this, but Polish researchers found the remains of this well-known fellow. The search has been going on for years. Through reconstruction and extensive DNA testing scientists were able to confirm that the remains actually belonged to the mastermind, Copernicus. Yes, that’s right, they matched HAIR found in one of Copernicus’ books to the hair found at the gravesite in a Polish cathedral! Unbelievable, this man died in 1543, I was shocked to read the article and I thought you all might appreciate it… here it is:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081120/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_copernicus

As for the Native American museum, I think there was an overall consensus of disappointment in the museum, at least that’s the impression that I got. For me, the biggest problem was the flow of the exhibits. There was an overwhelming amount of artifacts but they lacked sufficient explanation. It was frustrating to see an entire wall of mysterious figures that had no descriptions. My favorite part of the museum was the special exhibit with the abstract Native American artist’s work on display. He had some pretty awesome paintings – some intense, others flat-out beautiful. I was really trying to “read” the museum like PTJ suggested but I had a hard time finding examples of a colonialist view or any biases in general. I thought it did an accurate job portraying the life of a Native American, at least from what I know. It was cool how the many tribes were able to construct their own displays too and I think this helped to avoid any sort of colonialist view. Overall, I liked the museum of the Native American but I wasn’t thrilled like I was when Rachel and I visited the National Portrait Gallery afterward on Wednesday. I would suggest going just to see the modern woman’s exhibit, and of course the U.S. Presidents portraits were pretty cool too.