Victory all around

The New York Times article on the Supreme Court justices' effective moratorium on the administration of lethal injections to death penalty inmates takes a multi-faceted view even though it is based on hypothesis. The lede acknowledges its claim about the importance of a recent decision delaying a lethal injection in Mississippi is "a nearly indisputable indication" of a larger application of the decision, but it never attributes this to any Supreme Court justice, nor can it receive comments from the justices on the Kentucky case they are deciding that is influencing other cases. Still, the article clearly explains the issue at hand--that some particular forms of lethal injection are cruel and unusual punishment--in terms of its constitutionality. In generalizing the story of Berry, the inmate spared in Mississippi, there is less focus on his individual situation than on what it means for others. Because of this, I was not convinced that all the details mentioned about his last day ought to have been included. While I found myself wondering what it would be like to be told you weren't going to die just 19 minutes before you had prepared to do so, including details that said Berry spent the day crying seemed too intimate a detail to appear so shortly after this general discussion of constitutional issues.

This will be my last comment on the Red Sox and the World Series, but I can't resist pointing out The Boston Globe's article on yesterday's parade festivities. The article is a joy to read and helps dull the pain that I missed out on the actual event. Paragraphs like this captured the tone right away:

"All right, Papelbon didn't need a lot of prodding, not in his sunglasses and kilt, not as he
played the air guitar, did a jig, and used a broom over the side of his flatbed truck to pretend
he was rowing down the street."

The article continues to show a range of reactions from different generations, from retired custodians in their seventies who used to pay 50 cents to get into Fenway Park to a three-year-old whose mother will make sure she doesn't grow up "spoiled" and always expecting her team to win.