August 11, 2004
Reviews: A Couple of Recent Books
Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey; Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes, by Peter Lamborn Wilson.
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Review: October Project
October Project. Joe’s Pub. August 10, 2004.
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August 10, 2004
But They Come Preprogrammed With Four Tunes
Apparently there are people who are cranky about the low quality of busking bagpipers at the Edinburgh Festival (via ArtsJournal). I agree that the sound of a sorry bagpiper is a terrible thing; I once threatened to leave a man if he took up the pipes because I had no desire to listen to him practice until he figured out what he was doing. On the other hand, though, when we were in San Antonio last year, Michael and I had the opportunity to listen to a piper who was busking on a bridge overlooking the Riverwalk. He wasn’t the greatest piper I’d ever heard, but I enjoyed it a lot, and after listening to him, I’d be sorry to see amateur pipers discouraged from busking.
And yes, I really want to go to Edinburgh for the Festival one of these years.
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August 09, 2004
Review: Not So Big Solutions for Your Home
Not So Big Solutions for Your Home, by Sarah Susanka. This is the third in a series of books on building and remodeling homes in a “not so big” fashion that uses existing space to best fit the needs of the homeowners. Susanka’s a big fan of unique, personal touches, useful details, and customization. This book builds on and gives further examples of the philosophy discussed in the first two books, with a section devoted to remodeling questions.
I’m a big fan of these books. Reading them and absorbing the philosophy was a big help to me in moving from an 1850 sq. ft. house to a 1400 sq. ft. apartment, and the discussions Michael and I had based on what I read in the first two books influenced his choice of the place we now live. Reading the new book has made me rethink some of the decisions we made in organizing the new place and how we might arrange things differently to better serve our current needs.
I may never build or remodel a home, but I feel like reading a not-so-big book is never wasted time.
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August 07, 2004
Crime and Punishment
So I ran across—by which I mean was spammed by TCS with—this opinion piece suggesting we free Lea Fastow because it does no good to have her and her husband’s cronies in jail when we’d all be better served by restitution for the victims of her crimes.
Personally, I’m all in favor of this restitution thing, but it’s a libertarian failing to think that the only way to deal with crime is to redress the victims’ financial loss. I’ve always thought jail was supposed to be about punishment and/or rehabilitation. I don’t know what, if anything, jail will do to rehabilitate the Fastows or any of the other Enron crooks, but depriving them of their freedom will certainly punish them.
And, call me an old-fashioned conservative, but I think a little punishment does a body politic good now and then. I hope it does something to deter other potentially crooked executives out there who might think about repeating the Enron fast track to riches.
Last, but not least, I think if Lea Fastow is going to make restitution, she ought to have to make it herself. Working at Enron is how she got into this fix. If she can find someone who’ll hire her, she ought to reimburse the Enron victims with her own toil—not sit at home while her husband pays her debt to society for her. Why am I not surprised a man wrote this piece?
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