I can’t say I would have picked Houston as the location of a significant British ex-pat population, so Guy Fawkes is probably not mentioned.
The Canadians aren’t due until after Christmas, so there isn’t a big local celebration either.
]]>In Houston, he’d be arrested as he crossed the city line. HPD monitors fireworks stands on all incoming highways and follows potential violators to the city line. I don’t know if HPD knows anything about Guy Fawkes, though.
I recited part of the rhyme in the presence of a member of Stella’s family, stopping when they looked at me blankly. I think it enhanced my reputation among her family as an outright nutjob.
]]>I fully expect to hear fireworks tonight as the guys who work in the kitchen at the Oriental restaurant use every excuse to set off firecrackers in the back parking lot.
]]>You may have seen this, but just in case: Happy Counterterrorism Day by Scott Horton.
]]>Guy Fawkes was seized and taken to the Tower of London. There, by special warrant issued by the king, he was subjected to torture over the next four days… .
* * *
Torture was a weakness, not a strength of the Government. In twenty-three years, this would be the accepted wisdom of a society sickened and revolted by the official use of cruelty and of torture. In one hundred and seventy years, a nation would be born committed to suppressing it forever. . . or, as it turns out, until the arrival of George W. Bush.