Last Sunday, May 25, 2008, the Phoenix cleaved through the Martian atmosphere and landed successfully on the planet’s northern polar region. In what was obviously a very historic moment, the lander sent back crisp, clear pictures of the region’s polygon-cracked terrain. It sent shivers down my spine.
The Phoenix Mars lander is a robot spacecraft that was launched on August 4, 2007, which contains instruments that will search “for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there.” In short, it is an attempt to search for life outside Earth. Mars is the likely first stop.
The red planet has fascinated me, as it has to a lot of inquiring minds, ever since I was gifted by my mother with an astronomy book entitled “Secrets of Space” when I was about nine or ten years old. The book abruptly opened my mind to the unlimited wonders and possibilities that the universe, in all its greatness, could bring. Which brought out the big question, the possibility; as what has been, in the last century down to the present, the subject of countless films, books, articles, and all forms of literatures.
I never forget the words of Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, in the epilogue of the movie adaptation of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”—when she talked to a group of children about the SETI project and the infinite vastness of space: “So if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space, right?”
So the questions “Are we alone?” or “Is there life out there?” are becoming more and more familiarly conventional questions in this age of rapidly increasing, and enlightening, scientific discoveries; we’ve definitely come a long way from the time Galileo was disgraced by the Church for claiming that the Earth is not the center of the universe.
How big really is the universe? You’d probably say, it’s really, really big. But really, how big?
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News of the brutal killing hit me like a ton of bricks.
A lawyer was murdered in broad daylight. He died of multiple gunshot wounds. He was driving his pick-up truck alone, and while stopping at an intersection, he was gunned down by a stranger who, in all brazenness, did not even cover his face. I fear such ruthless murder reduces to a mere illusion the protective notion that lawyers are mere advocates, that they are only the mouthpieces of clients. I now dread the thought of people instinctively looking at a lawyer as complicit with whatever transgression his client is perceived to have committed. I don’t find any more humor in that Shakespearean line about killing all the lawyers.
The lawyer was Richard William Sison. (more…)
He is Atty. Alan F. Siu - a thirty-something practicing lawyer based in Cebu City, Philippines. He also teaches at a local law school. His practice includes litigation, as well as corporate and tax consultancy. He likes to write. He just found out about blogging and decided to make it his welcome diversion. As much as possible, he veers from writing about Philippine politics (and politicians) which he looks down with utter disapprobation but ...on second thought - he might be tempted to scrawl up some lampoonery on the matter after all.
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"When you are down and out, something always turns up—and it is usually the noses of your friends." - Orson Welles
