RARA-AVIS: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Secret Noir Ambitions

From: Frederick Zackel (fzackel@wcnet.org)
Date: 15 Oct 2008

  • Next message: cptpipes2000: "Re: RARA-AVIS: Hardboiled financial?"

    Roberts wrote:

    "North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Undercover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three-dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He'd made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood.

    "Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn't buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy's pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office."

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101402818.html?nav=hcmodule

    No jive. The dude's got a secret yearning ...

    Fact is, being the Chief Justice ain't half as good as being noir-y.
    (Wonder when Roberts last had a three dollar steak. Hmmm. I heard those court cafeterias were good.)

    OTOH, in the early 19th Century Sir John Franklin, trying to get through to Alaska via the still-elusive Northwest Passage, famously got so hungry that he ate his boots, unadorned with any kind of spice.

    Now that's noir.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 15 Oct 2008 EDT