All long weekends must come to an end, unless you're Madonna.

Earlier this week, the crisp reds, whites, and blues of American flags popped a little more brightly against her amber waves of grain as actor Tom Hanks proudly reported to a Los Angeles courthouse to perform his civic duty.

I'm reporting for my first jury duty summons at 500 Indiana Avenue. Though I have lived and worked in Washington, D.C. for over a decade, I have never been called to court for my civic duty to "serve."

Elena Kagan's act of civic responsibility last week has been overshadowed already: Joe Biden is showing up for local jury selection, too, in Delaware today. Hopefully he makes the jury and shouts "That guy is SO guilty!" throughout the trial.

Washingtonians were amazed to hear that one of its actual royals, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, bothered to show up for local jury duty today. Isn't that pain-in-the-ass civic duty for commoners and cats to perform? Fortunately, she wasn't selected.

A lady in Boston listed her cat on her Census form, and now the cat has been summoned for jury duty.

For the past two days, Steve Martin has been amusing the masses with Twitter dispatches from jury duty. Didn't Al Roker get in trouble for the same thing last year? Guess Steve gets points for being funny. Sample tweets inside.

The alternate juror in the death-penalty trial of the man convicting of slaughtering a family in Connecticut may have spoiled the proceedings by passing a note to the bailiff: "Sunday 5 p.m. Side Street Grille." She was asking him out.

California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman reported for jury duty, and made it into the pool for a trial. Asked whether anyone had scheduling conflicts, the eBay billionaire said she was busy running for governor. She was neither selected nor excused.

A tipster says Marc Jacobs wore a red plaid kilt to jury duty on Monday and Tuesday. (His boyfriend is known to hate kilts—does that mean they're off again?) Well, at least he's not skirting his civic duties!

Summoned for jury duty in suburban Chicago, Barack Obama reportedly sent notice that he could not make it. They say the deliberation room was too small for his teleprompter. OR: The prospect of building a twelve-person consensus intimidated him. [AP]

Not everyone is looking to get out of jury duty. Thanks to the recession and the $40-a-day stipend provided to people who take part, people are now calling up and requesting to serve, apparently. [NYP]

The Way We Live Now: Just trying to do what seemed right at the time, Your Honor. We had to rob that bank, to supplement our police salary. We had to skip jury duty. It's expensive. Crime is money!

The best way to get out of jury duty? Use the recession as an excuse! Kindly explain to the judge that you're already having difficulty making ends meet and if you're forced to take off any additional time, you may very well lose your home. (Mentioning you also happen to be a single parent and you take care of your…

Jury duty for the Brooke Astor trial is hell: since April, they've had to stare at her thieving son's face and endure testimony from Graydon Carter and Henry Kissinger. Now random subway crazies are attacking the jury, with knives.

Al Roker headed downtown to do jury duty today, as the friendly folks from the Today show explained on TV this morning. Unfortunately, Al decided to document the experience by taking pictures and tweeting from inside the courthouse, which, at least according to TMZ, constitutes a crime of some sort. Al quickly fired…