– NY Times Quotation of the Day – “Doesn’t the court have some business intervening at some point if it’s the Hundred Years’ War or something?” – Justice Stephen Breyer, on the open-ended detention of Americans as enemy combatants.
Yeah, so, justices of the Supreme Court, what will happen with civil justice in an era of a never-ending (open-ended?) war? See Linda Greenhouse’s article in Thursday’s NY Times or consider Dahlia Lithwick’s coverage in Slate.com (as she ponders whether we’re heading into the dangerous territory of repeating the sins of past destructions of civil justice).
– “Star Trek: Enterprise” this week – quite an episode. Capt. Archer (Scott Bakula) continues full-steam ahead to remake the future; Chief Engineer Trip Tucker is trying to grapple with death and moving on with life. If this season had been more consistent and more in-depth with its storylines in the first place, this would have been a much stronger season – and this episode only reminded me of that.
– “Angel” – change, and more change. Gunn returns; Illyria loses her powers (but is still a question mark, because she still has the mentality of an annoying and arrogant ex-deity); and has Angel – again – lost his mind? Hmm.
– Fascinating NY Times’ article profiling the stories of the 9/11 Commission’s staff – which includes a former NYS deputy attorney general (who was at the attorney general’s downtown office on 9/11/01 and had previously prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers in fed court).
– The problem of parking in NYC’s Chinatown, which is right next to the NY Police Dept.’s hq – and where cops and other NYC officials have taken up the parking and other space issues – NY Times’ article makes one feel the stress of the situation.
– Finished reading “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold – Sebold is an amazingly talented writer. But, I still thought it was curious that her narrator is a murdered 14-year old girl watching over her family from heaven, as she and her family deal with life, death, and life after death (or afterlife or what have you). It was very unsettling as a story, but lovely writing. It reminded me of the unsettling feeling I had when I read Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” – which also considered life, death, and life after death. What does it mean, where are we going, and maybe all we can settle for is that we’re going at all? But, is that enough? Is that the secret of life? There was that line in the “Dawson’s Creek” series finale (yeah, I know – I’m sick enough to make a reference to that) where Dawson said that the opposite of death was birth; life was that thing in between. Is that it then – not the end or beginning – the journey itself? (which is an idea that even the series’ finale of “Star Trek: Voyager” tried to push). Hmm. Maybe I’m making too many tv references; but, one still wonders if there is such a thing as the secret of life…
TGIF tomorrow….