Author: ssw15

Holding off on commenting on the “Friends” series finale, since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who taped it and haven’t watched it yet or else Tivo’d it. On one note though: the clip show that was on before the series finale was absolutely hilarious, showing all the Friends’ best (re: funniest) moments. I like a good clip show, and that was a pretty good one – couldn’t stop laughing.

The Iraqi prisoner abuse news: the whole thing disgusts me, it really does. Pictures say a thousand words, and these pictures about the prison guards – they certainly have more than words to interpret. One thought: I was watching a little bit of the PBS documentary on Asian Americans, “Searching for Asian America,” the other night and they had a segment on Gary Locke, the Chinese-American governor of Washington state. They made an interesting point: Locke is in a position of preserving our “face” as Asian Americans, particularly when “face” is a big deal for Asian Americans. And, then, I realize that I can’t help but correlate that idea of “face” with this situation with the prison in Iraq – the American face has something to deal with here.

There’s the sense in the op-eds that America’s enemies would do this kind of human rights violations – and certainly worse. But, the reality (to me, anyway) is that it isn’t exactly just about America’s enemies but about America itself – what about measuring up to our own moral/democratic standards? What do we stand for, and why is it so easy to cross that line of rendering others as “other”? Have we as a people crossed that line? There’s no question that this news development shouldn’t represent all American troops or all Americans – but it will be seen that way, because it’s our face that’s out there.

As a lawyer, I wonder what is next; what will be the remedies or the procedures? Where is the law in this? Is it in this context at all, in the midst of war? Anthony Lewis’ op-ed in the NY Times kind of hit it home for me.

These are just opinions on my part; I may be wrong; maybe things will work out. Maybe.

Tonight is the night – the end of “Friends.”

Last night:

“Star Trek: Enterprise” – gosh, the last three episodes have been decent. Last night continues the trend – I dreaded the latest time paradox, and kind of knew what the end was (Capt. Archer and Crew had to change the future, and did so – their descendants won’t exist – and yet those descendants helped them…), but in execution, the episode was good. The writing felt tighter, the acting smoother, and even the direction had direction. I agreed with the review on the Trek Nation website – lot of emotional impact and parallels to past good Star Trek episodes and even this past season on “Enterprise.” Moral questions: “I have to do what I have to do, I have no choice…” and yet there is always a choice, Captains – even if it means wiping out your own existence (assuming that that’s what the character Lorian intended – who knows; his life was all messed up, if I accept the suggestion of the storyline) so that your ancestors have a shot at saving the future, or as Archer realizes every single time, trying to save the world is real hard.

“The O.C.” – now that’s a season finale for a 1st year show. Reflecting on what has happened during the past year, the characters’ growth (or maybe even lack of) and possibly even regression. The adults had their moments and the teens did their usual thing. Not a bad show, even with the crazy plot twist turns.

I watched “Angel” on tape delay (well, my taping of it anyway) – nicely funny episode. Angel and Spike vie for Buffy, but she’s not exactly around, as she’s busy roaming around Rome. So, Angel and Spike reminisce and scramble out of a weird situation to get a decapitated head back to Los Angeles. Okay. Very light-weight episode for something short of the series finale. Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, Wesley faces an emotional crisis when Illyria, the amoral demi-goddess, develops a shapeshifting/personality-shifting power – she becomes Fred, but so obviously isn’t Fred. It’s so strange and worrisome to know what can happen next to Team Angel.

Oh, and back to “Friends”… (they may be about to be gone, but at least the reruns are always going to be on Channel 11 in NYC in perpetuity…)

Could today please be less “ugh”? Raining on/off (or, rather, torrentially/drizzily) and windchill biting winds – uh, Mother Nature, you do know it’s May, right? She must really want something nice on Mother’s Day.

I thought that yesterday’s Asian Heritage festival at Union Sq. was nice yesterday. Decent weather, despite the nasty morning. Kept collecting stuff – when will I ever learn not to keep amassing stuff?

“Alias” yesterday – well, Secret Agent Sydney is trying to figure it out with her half-sister; her half-sister perhaps loves her own evil dad after all (geez, could you please just don’t go all unconditionally loving on the Evil Sloane?); and the love of Sydney’s life, Vaughn – well, he’s slowly but surely going to lose his mind (you would too if you toiled so hard to fight the bad evil; the love of your life returns from the dead two years later; and your wife is a backstabbing traitor; and your ex-girlfriend’s father is trying way too hard to be empathetic with you because he too has a backstabbing wife. Hmmm…). The season finale is in… THREE weeks? Oh well. Just have to contain myself.

“The Practice” – The Return of Bobby Donnell (Dylan McDermott) – he had five minutes. Umm. Okay. Plus some typical David E. Kelley moments (in the Ally McBealesque style – I’m not trying to be praising here either). William Shatner made me wince way too often. James Spader – hmm. Deep inside his wacko of a character is a… wacko trying to come out anyway, no matter how much every woman who crosses his path says she’ll reform him. Uh huh.

Slate.com’s “Explainer” explains whether Supreme Court justices get protection and to what extent (especially in light of what recently happened to Justice Souter while he was jogging).

Plus, there’s the Slate Guide to Gurus – a silly game to help one decide who’s the best guru for one – and a nice funny spin on how worth it they all are (Re: Dr. Phil – ” You can’t keep your eyes off: His mustache.” So true. So funny. tee-hee). Scary part: that I actually thought that the Slate descriptions made it seem pretty obvious that I’m the sort who’d go for Bill Moyers (he’s a guru? Oh well) and Oprah Winfrey (well, who’d resist that whole empowerment thing?). Well, the others were too easy for satirical targets, but the Moyers description is so dead on accurate for a piece of satire; my remarks in brackets:

“You’re an earnest lefty [I am?]
“Your guru is: Bill Moyers
“You trust him because of: His thoughtful chin-grabbing. [hehe, yeah, he does that]
“His style: Smug piety.
“What he says: Is ” ‘we the people’ a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality—one nation, indivisible—or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others”? [yeah, he’d talk like that]
“What he means: Republicans are evil.
[while I have yet to hear the words “Republicans are evil” out of Moyers’ mouth (I’ve been skipping a bunch of “Now” anyway), the subtext is certainly there (I mean, come on, the man used to be in the LBJ administration).]
“You can’t keep your eyes off: His rimless glasses. [those are better looking frames than what he had for the filmed interviews that he did with Joseph Campbell, I can tell you that]
“Ideal devotee is: Watching PBS. [umm, yeah; where else would you catch Moyers?]
“If he wasn’t doing this he’d be: A celebrity psychotherapist.
“Your sneaking suspicion: He hates dogs. [hehehe…]
“Cost: Nothing. It’s public television, remember? [ooh, gut check; zing at PBS]
“You could get the same advice from: Salon, The Nation, Harper’s …” [yeah, but it’s not like I’d read those; too darn lazy and no forking the money for them anyway… (and no, I’m not that left)]

Just my thoughts on that latest Slate thing.

This week’s “Doonesbury” is apparently about the class reunion at Trudeau’s fictitious Walden University, where the class is divided among the George W. Bush supporters and the anti-Bush side. Funny idea. Personally, with my class reunion coming, I’m half-scared that that can happen to my reunion (on the other hand, coming from a left-leaning university means that the right wing types are the minority, so the whole class divided thing won’t be nearly so daunting, unless we’re talking about a pro-war/pro-Bush vocal minority – but that’s a thought for another day).

Have a good week…