I've learned how to laugh and I've learned how to pray
I voted early (barely) this afternoon. I did not vote for any pro-life candidates. I didn’t do so because I’m not pro-life, I didn’t do so because there aren’t any pro-life candidates. You can’t call yourself pro-life if you have a placard in one hand that says you want to protect the unborn, but you have a gun in the other hand shooting anybody you don’t like. And that’s pretty much the state of the union.
I last mentioned Dune several years ago. It’s said history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme (like so many quotes, erroneously attributed to Twain), and here we are nine years later. Dune 3 is coming out later this fall, and that prompted me to reread Dune Messiah that I last read in college, which in turn led to Children of Dune, the next in the series, from where this comes.
A large population held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers—
One: When they find a leader.
Several years ago our pastor recommended a movie he and his wife had seen over the weekend. He told us it was a movie with a Christian theme, filmed by a Christian studio, that they had really enjoyed it, and we should go see it. So, being the compliant, obedient rule-followers that we are, my wife and I went to see it.
It was not great.
It was not good.
The school where our son-in-law works bought a 3D-printer so they could print various things around the school that they needed and couldn’t get elsewhere. While we were visiting them for Christmas, he asked my wife and I if there was anything small we would like printed for us. My wife chose a pencil cup that looks great in the multi-colored filament he used to print it. I chose something in black-and-white, for … reasons.