On Liberty, by Thomas Paine
I’ve had this on my quotes page for a while, but it bears repeating at the moment:
“He that would make his own liberty secure,
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty,
he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
I’ve always been fascinated by storms and water flow. I still enjoy playing in the rainy aftermath of showers by building little dams in the gutters and
removing them, watching the water wend its way around or over or through my efforts. This past summer, the terrible flooding in central Texas carved a new
canyon through the spillway of Canyon Dam. The Comal County Engineer’s Office has some incredible pictures of the Canyon Lake Spillway Canyon taken back in September. ‘Canyon Lake Spillway Canyon’…wonder if it’ll get shortened to ‘Canyon Canyon’?
My passion for dining out has become legendary. I keep meaning to put together a restaurant guide, especially now since Zagat has decided to stop publishing
their Houston version (their reviews were off the mark as often as not, but they did have name recognition). The Thursday Night Dining Club tried a few years
back to post our reviews online, but, sadly, we didn’t persist in our efforts, even though they were favorably received. We may revive the
project in the future, but for now I shall try to jot down a few notes about the new places I try.
After working at a client’s business yesterday for 6 hours (4.5 hours longer than planned, and no lunch, with just an hour before call at Opera in the Height). I
took my papers and stopped at Vung Thai Cafe (1714 West Loop N, (713) 868-3551), a little Thai place in a strip center I had seen when I had gone through the
adjacent Whataburger the previous Saturday. Had the Thom Ka Gai (coconut-milk-based chicken soup – very good flavor, just the right level of spiceiness, lots of
chicken and mushrooms), Ginger Chicken (also nice), and Thai Iced Tea (a cousin of Vietnamese Iced Coffee). A great meal on a day I hadn’t eaten at all, and for
$13 very fairly priced.
You can get your name on a DVD that is going to the Red Planet by clicking on the above link by November 15 at 11pm Central time….so hurry!
Where were the Florence protestors when Iraq invaded Kuwait? Where was their moral outrage when the Serbs overran Srebenicia? Where were their howls of
indignation at the slaughter in Rwanda?
As for their original reason for being in Firenze, might I suggest a book for reading between the hackey-sack playing and the pot-smoking (forgive me for
stereotyping, but this is what I saw of the anit-WEF folks who were camped out in the Heldnplatz in Vienna in July 2001 before they went to Salzburg): take a
look at The Choice by Professor Russell Roberts of Washington University in St. Louis. It’s
kind of a cross between international trade theory and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I highly recommend it.