Book Review: The Test, by Sylvain Neuvel

Tags

Book, Book Review, Fiction, Politics, Reading, Sylvain Neuvel

And here we go with my first book review of 2020!  Checking in at 254 pages, this February 2019 release is also my first foray into focusing shorter works this year.

Set in near-future England, we meet a man named Idir who who is preparing to take a citizenship exam.  In the first chapter we experience the test from his point of view, reading along with the questions and learning through his internal monologue about how he and his wife Tidir came to the country some years prior from Iran after no longer feeling safe there.  Things are going great after the first few questions until suddenly armed men storm the room and Idir finds himself tested in an entirely different manner; for every fifteen minutes that go by without their demands being met, the terrorist leader will force him to assess two hostages and determine which will die.

Talk about starting the year off strong!  This was an intense read that I could not put down.  The author did an excellent job making Idir an immensely likeable and sympathetic character before the absolutely jarring introduction of the terrorists.  To say he inspired in the reader some of Idir’s feelings of shock and helplessness is perhaps an understatement. Moving beyond the raw emotion and the abrupt surprise, there was a lot to unpack with this one.  It raised a lot of questions, not just about immigration policy, but also about professional ethics and how certain forces within a society (de)humanize some individuals at the expense of others.

There were a few other twists and turns to this story that I won’t mention here, but suffice to say I really enjoyed this work.  It was smart, it was gripping, and it was powerful. My relatively short amount of time in this world was an intense, emotional roller coaster so I am calling this book an incredible success for the author.  It is most definitely a read that I recommend checking out.

Book Review: New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Tags

Book, Book Review, Climate Change, Democratic Party, Kim Stanley Robinson, New York, Politics, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

It with great pleasure (and a small bit of relief) that I am finally able to get this review posted!  Originally published back in March 2017, I had been eagerly anticipating this read not only because it looked to cover some really interesting subject matter, but also on account of Kim Stanley Robinson having emerged as one of my favorite authors.

The book is set in New York City and spans the years 2140 through 2143.  In this future, sea levels have risen upwards of fifty feet world wide on account of climate change and the accelerated melting of the Earth’s polar ice caps.  Coastal cities across the globe have been ravaged and we find that in New York, all of lower Manhattan, the Meadowlands, Brooklyn, Queens, and the south Bronx are now shallow seas.  The local population, however, has, with much struggle, successfully adapted the partially submerged buildings into livable spaces, creating a “SuperVenice” that is once again becoming fashionable and drawing the eye of capital investment.  The story revolves around various residents of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower and opens with the introduction of two rogue coders named Jeff and Mutt who are abducted by unknown forces moments after releasing a hack that exposes evidence of widespread illicit trading practices to the SEC.  As the investigation of their disappearance unfolds, a diverse grouping of their former neighbors find their lives increasingly caught up in the incident. Among the key players are Vlade Marovich, the building’s friendly yet grim superintendent; Gen Octaviasdottir, a tough NYPD inspector from the poor side of town; Charlotte Armstrong, a passionate legal advocate of displaced people and leading figure in the influential Householders Union; Frank Garr, a high powered hedge fund manager; Amelia Black, reality star and environmental activist; and, finally, Stefan and Roberto, a pair of adventurous orphans.  As their lives entwine, they find themselves caught up in a corporate conspiracy that threatens the very essence of their community and way of life. Fortunately for them, a chance discovery may just provide them the means to fight back.

Let me open the review by saying that this was an absolute monster of a book.  It was dense, it was detailed, and it was a hefty 860+ pages. And for the most part I absolutely loved it!  To get them out of the way upfront, the book did have some flaws regarding certain aspects of the overall pacing and storytelling.  The author had a tendency to spend a lot of time on things that ultimately didn’t add much to the story as a whole and this had a pretty significant impact on the length and pacing of the main plot.  As much as I liked Amelia, her early chapters felt a bit extraneous and likewise Frank’s extended courtship of JoJo took up a lot of early page time for things that by the end weren’t central to the plot.  While these items certainly added color to the story, they did add considerably to an already verbose tale.

That said, I nonetheless found the experience of this novel extremely satisfying.  The world created was absolutely fascinating, well developed, and full of brilliant and innovative ideas and technologies a near-future society may have at its disposal.  The author certainly did his homework about New York’s history and geography and brought the city to life as a vibrant, living part of a complicated world. The characters were all wonderfully engaging as well, with my particular favorites being Charlotte for her fiery activism, Gen for her realism and dedication to both police work and social justice, and the wonderful duo of Jeff and Mutt.  These last two felt like the result of fusing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Waiting for Godot in to the worlds of coding and finance with all the requisite knowledge and banter.  They themselves even comment upon on this shortly after I started thinking it!

It was the novel’s political message, though, that really made me love this book so much.  The joint environmental and economic oppressions of this world were a constant source of tangible tension throughout the story and really grabbed me as a reader  It was also through this that the author delivered an explicit (and rather on point) critique of capitalism in general and large financial institutions in particular as not only enemies of a free and open society, but also major factors in the willful ignorance that led previous generations to ignore the realities of climate change.  Charlotte’s eventual notion of unleashing a mass campaign of financial disobedience in the form of a debtor’s strike (in which the participants stop paying all mortgage, rent, and credit debts) to cripple the banks and open them up to seizure by a progressive government was brilliant and something that just felt right to me. There were a number of passages along these lines scattered throughout the story that felt like a rallying cry for the near future.  A couple of my favorites were:

But that lack on my part is now an advantage, because that career track is what made the Democratic Party so weak.  But I’m a Democrat for lack of anything better, and I intend to speak out of the people’s side of our party’s two-sided mouth and shut the other… I’m not taking money from anyone and I don’t have any of my own…Vote for me if you want, and if not, you get what you deserve.

• Excerpt from one of Charlotte’s campaign speeches

At this point, justice and revenge are the same thing!  Justice for the people would be revenge on the oligarchs.  So yeah, I want both. Justice is the feather in the arrow, revenge is the tip…look once you’re cutting [the rentier class] apart, you tell them they each get to keep five million.  Not more, but not less…Most of them will do a cost-benefit analysis and realize that dying for a bigger number is not worth it.

• Jeff on how to make a better world

Well, there you have it.  As alluded to above, I loved the righteous political message of this story and really enjoyed the characters and world building that went along with it.  The one thing that stops me just short of declaring this an absolute must read for everyone is the length and density of the novel, especially given some of its pacing issues.  I got enough of political rush out the story’s message to overlook these things, whether another reader does as well may (or not) be decisive factor in how much they enjoy this.

Halloween Double Feature: The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham, by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene

Tags

Blogoween, Blogtober, Book, Book Review, Brian Keene, Cthulhu, Fear and Loathing, H.P. Lovecraft, Halloween, Horror, Hunter S. Thompson, Nick Mamatas, Politics, Reading

Welcome to my second annual BeerRantsAndBooks Halloween Double Feature!  I had so much fun with this last year that I decided to do it again. Just like last time, my first post of the day is a book review and later on this evening I’ll share a beer with you.  I don’t recall exactly how I came across this title, but once I saw it I knew I found my Halloween book. Written by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene, described in-world as an “avowed communist” and “vicious libertarian,” respectively, the story is an occult homage to Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that drops everyone’s favorite Doctor of Journalism into the universe of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Set in the early months of 1972, the book opens with our fictional Hunter Thompson holed up in his Colorado compound furiously typing away into the night and cursing the fame and attention drawn to him by that “Las Vegas book” and “comic strip” (Doonesbury) that borrowed his likeness.  Inspired by strange noises outside his door and the realization that the American Dream has died, he assumes the alias Uncle Lono and sets off on a new journey in search of the great American Nightmare.  Among the forces standing in his way are nothing less the the cults of Moloch and Cthulhu, the Nixon youth, mutant townies, J. Edgar Hoover, the Deep Ones themselves, and some really powerful hallucinogenic mushrooms from Yuggoth.  And then things get weird.

I had a fantastic time reading this!  A big part of this experience was surely based on the authors doing an excellent job channeling Hunter’s voice and running monologue.  They were clearly familiar with his works and heavily referenced a wide range of things he had written by the time the story takes place.  My one criticism here is that they were maybe a bit over reliant on a few of his sayings throughout the book, but on the whole I’d say they nailed it.  The book was packed full of amazing quotes and rants, almost all of which were unfortunately too long to suitably excerpt here. Another highlight of this story for me was seeing Lono’s infamous attorney burst into the scene right as the Lovecraftian references started to really pick up.  He brought with him an entirely other level of energy and intensity to a book that, despite some really dark and bizarre moments, was a hilariously wild ride that more successfully merged these two worlds than one might think possible.

Again, I can’t say enough just what an incredibly entertaining read this was and don’t think I could have asked for a better book to review on Halloween!  I would definitely recommend it to any Hunter Thompson fan looking for a bit of a twist.

Book Review: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, by Jill Twiss and Marlon Bundo (Illustrated by E.G. Keller)

Tags

Book, Book Review, BOTUS, Childrens Book, Jill Twiss, LGBTQ, Marlon Bundo, Politics, Reading

As the father of a soon to be two-year old, I read a whole lot of children’s books on a daily basis.  While I have never felt the compelling need to review any of these, this one was different and as soon as I found out that it was making the rounds at my son’s playgroup I knew what I had to do.  I’m guessing most of you are aware that this story was written in response to a children’s book published by members of Michael Pence’s family about their pet bunny.  Looking to call out the Vice President on his homophobic beliefs, the creators of this particular story have imagined said pet falling in love with another male bunny.  This book has been featured prominently on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and all proceeds from it benefit AIDS United and the Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth.

This is the story of an exceptional day in the life BOTUS (Bunny of the United States) Marlon Bundo, beloved family pet of Vice President Pence.  Marlon’s day starts out like any other by watching the morning news with Bunderson Cooper, ignoring his boring grandfather, and hopping about the White House premises.  Everything changes, however, when he spots a dashingly handsome boy bunny named Wesley and the two fall in love at first sight.  Standing in the way of their happiness is President Stink Bug, an abrasive, boorish creature with a bad toupee that does not approve of their relationship.  Fortunately, with the help of their animal friends and a timely civics lesson, Marlon and Wesley learn that it is okay to be different and are able to live happily ever after.

I thought this was a cute, fun read that delivered an important and positive age appropriate message to children about embracing each other’s differences and the importance of our right to vote.  Given the specific nature in which it parodies both Donald Trump and Michael Pence I don’t think this will age well enough to go down as an all-time classic children’s story, but it will put a smile on your face and I highly encourage giving it a read.  So long as you’re predisposed to its political leanings you’ll enjoy it whether you have kids to read it with or not.

 

 

 

Fear and Loathing in the NFL

Tags

Donald Trump, Fear and Loathing, Football, gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, NFL, Politics

Although I am not much of a football fan, it would have been pretty hard to miss coverage of the displays of protest and solidarity that swept the league this Sunday.  Since I don’t have much time tonight to really dig into this topic (and I’m sure the internet is already flooded with hot takes from people way more invested in the league than myself), I’ll keep my own commentary brief.  First and foremost, congratulations to the players for their courage and solidarity in using their position to make a statement.  Secondly, shame on Donald Trump and anyone who continues to either support him or enable his dangerously petty ignorance, penchant for child-like tantrums, and overall boorish behaviour.  Having said all that, I am reminded today of a section in Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail that didn’t make the final cut in my post last year.  As with so many things from that book, it seemed rather relevant today so, without further ado, here’s an extended cut:

This happened to me on the last Sunday of the regular NFL season when two slobbering drunk sportswriters got me thrown out of the press box at the Robert F. Kennedy stadium in Washington.  I was there as a guest of David Burgin, sports editor at the Washington Star…

…We were halfway down the ramp to the parking lot before I understood what had happened.  “That gin-soaked little Nazi from the Gazette got pissed when you didn’t doff your hat for the national anthem,” Burgin explained.  “He kept bitching about you to the guy in charge of the press box, then he got that asshole who works for him all cranked up and they started talking about having you arrested.”

“Jesus creeping shit,” I muttered.  “Now I know why I got out of sportswriting…I barely even remember the national anthem.  Usually I don’t even stand up…(54)”

Random Dune Quotes, or What Would Muad’dib Do?

Tags

Book, Dune, Frank Herbert, Politics, Reading

I feel another re-read of the Dune novels coming up soon.  I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately, particularly in light of our current political situation.  Some of my favorites:

Some bad news for the “alternative facts” crowd:

I give you Muad’Dib’s words! He said, ‘I’m going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don’t find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you.  How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity?  How else do we define cowardice?’  That’s what Muad’Dib told you! – Children of Dune

Ditto for those trying to recreate an imagined past:

By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, even the movement of evolution!  While you cause a granular universe to persist in your awareness, you are blind to movement.  When things change, your absolute vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting perceptions.  The universe has moved beyond you. – Heretics of Dune

And perhaps there’s even hope for those of us resisting the ignorant pettiness and hatred:

There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. – Dune:Messiah

Muad’dib must always be that inner outrage against the complacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics.  It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad’dib taught us one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of social justice. – Children of Dune

Book Review: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Tags

Book Review, Books, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Fear and Loathing, George McGovern, gonzo, Hillary Clinton, Hunter S. Thompson, Politics, presidential election, Reading, Republican Party, Richard Nixon

This book ranks among my all time favorites and has been an election year tradition ever since I found my copy at a San Francisco antique store back in 2003.  Told through a series of articles, field notes, diatribes, and ultimately taped conversations with his editor (following a nervous breakdown in November), Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 is a narrative of Thompson’s experiences and impressions covering the 1972 Democratic primaries and Presidential election for Rolling Stone magazine.  True to the author’s style, it contains a lot of colorful language, strong opinions, and several misadventures.  Frank Mankiewicz, campaign director of eventual Democratic nominee George McGovern, once called the book “the least factual, most accurate account” of the process; which given Hunter’s huge emotional investment, not to mention penchant for wild tangents and exaggeration, sounds about right.  If you’re at all interested in American politics or government this book is a must read.

For a general overview, the story begins in December 1971 and follows the path of South Dakota Senator George McGovern en route to winning the hotly contested 1972 Democratic Presidential nomination.  By appealing to the more liberal wing of the party and mobilizing an enthusiastic following among young voters, his campaign’s superior grassroots network allowed him to defeat a pair of old-guard establishment favorites while fending off a surprise challenge posed by a far-right demagogue.  After surviving an “Anyone But McGovern” challenge at the party convention, he seemed poised to deny Richard Nixon a second term in office.  Shortly following the nomination, however, the wheels began to fall off the campaign.  A scandal over an unpopular Vice Presidential selection with a history of shock therapy and lukewarm support from the defeated party establishment killed enthusiasm among new-found supporters and traditional Democratic voting blocs alike.  As a result McGovern suffered a crushing defeat, winning only in Massachusetts and Washington, DC, as Nixon cruised to reelection following a historically low voter turnout percentage.

Reading this again made me wish that Hunter was still alive to give his thoughts on our current political situation.  Having boasted of writing “some of the most brutal and hateful caricatures of Richard Nixon ever committed to print, in this country or any other (399),” what would he have to say about this year’s crop of Republicans?  Would he have felt the Bern despite his misgivings about the Democratic Party?  With these thoughts in mind, I will close with a few quotes that struck me as particularly relevant this year.

Speaking to my own Fear and Loathing about the candidates we’ve been offered for this November, the specifics might be different, but the sentiments are eerily similar:

How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions?  And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?  (55-6)

How long, O Lord. . .How long?  Where will it end?  The only possible good that can come of this wretched campaign is the ever-increasingly likelihood that it will cause the Democratic Party to self-destruct.  A lot of people are seriously worried about this, but I am not one of them.  I have never been much of a Party Man myself. . . and the more I learn about the realities of national politics, the more I’m convinced that the Democratic Party is an atavistic endeavor – more an Obstacle than a Vehicle – and that there is really no hope of accomplishing anything genuinely new or different in American politics until the Democratic Party is done away with. (125)

As for Donald Trump, these next few lines instantly made me think of the Republican nominee.  Again, the names may be different, but the personality disorders are apparently nothing new:

…it is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.  Our Barbie doll President, with his Barbie doll wife and his box-full of Barbie doll children is also America’s answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.  He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts, on nights when the moon comes too close… (416-7)

The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy-then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.  (127)

The root of the Wallace magic was a cynical, showbiz instinct for knowing exactly which issues would whip a hall full of beer-drinking factory workers into a frenzy – and then doing exactly that, by howling down to them from the podium that he had an instant, overnight cure for all their worst afflictions…The ugly truth is that Wallace had never even bothered to understand the problems – much less come up with any honest solutions…(275)

Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? (414)

The Epic Dune Re-Read: 2015 Edition

Tags

Book Review, Dune, Frank Herbert, Language, Linguistics, Muad'dib, Politics, Sci-Fi

It has been awhile since I’ve checked in on the books portion of this site.  That’s because I took a break from reading new (to me at least) books in favor of revisiting the six books of Frank Herbert’s Dune Series.  This is something I do about every year or so, whenever the mood strikes me.  Rereading these is always an enjoyable experience since it is an interesting mix of revisiting old friends and finding new perspectives and ideas within familiar settings and finding new ways they apply to the time in which I am reading the books.

The series has been reviewed so many times before that I don’t feel like I can say anything novel at this point. Obviously, I love the books, but more importantly I love how different passages stay with me at different times depending on what’s going on in my life and the world. With this in mind, I just wanted to share some of the quotes and ideas that really stood out for me during this reading.  So sit back, grab a spice beer, and enjoy my collection of largely spoiler free quotations from the series.

First, a few quotes that have stuck with me through the years.  Starting with Dune: Messiah:

The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other.  Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree.  You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.  Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: “I feed on your energy.” – Messiah; 237

Some awesome person even set this to an old Calvin & Hobbes cartoon on their Tumlbr page.  I don’t know this person, and I hope they don’t mind the link; I just think their idea is fantastic.  I find myself thinking of this one most frequently at work when dealing with someone who is particularly difficult or demanding.

Next, a pair of thoughts from the God Emperor of Dune:

There’s a lesson in that, too. What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking – there’s the real danger. – God Emperor; 346

He has learned that it is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. – God Emperor; 390

As someone who often finds himself relying on machines to do a lot of thinking for him and has occasional problems focusing on the present situation, I like keeping this in mind from time to time.  Doesn’t always help me, of course, but I usually find the idea relevant.

Last, from Chapterhouse: Dune:

Beware jargon.  It usually hides ignorance and carries little knowledge. – Chapterhouse; 314

I think anyone who has ever been at least partially awake while working an office job can appreciate this one.

Finding new things to focus on is also part of the fun of reading the series for me.  As an example, during the earlier parts of my reading my wife was working on a paper about language for her linguistics class.  As a result of this, I think I noticed more thoughts about language than in any of my previous readings.  Here are three of my favorites:

Again, starting with Dune: Messiah:

I don’t speak…I operate a machine called language.  It creaks and groans, but is mine own. – Messiah; 232

This is more whimsical quote that happens to occur just before a very important scene in the early part of the series.  Paul Muad’dib has taken custody of Bijaz (who was a ton of great lines in his short amount of page time) who speaks entirely in nimble riddles and word tricks.  Bijaz’s weapons are his words and Paul is quick to realize that the dwarf is far more than he appears.  This particular quote is a great representation of the character and was the particular one that stood out.

As the series transitions more into an analysis of governance and power, we’re given a passage more in line with my opening thought.  From Children of Dune:

In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain and maintain power through the use of words.  From witch doctor to priest to bureaucrat it is all the same.  A governed populace must be conditioned to accept power words as actual things, to confuse the symbolized system with the tangible universe.  In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain symbols are kept out of the reach of common understanding – symbols such as those dealing with economic manipulation or those which define the local definition of sanity. – Children of Dune; 201

This excerpt from Princess Irulan appropriately heads a chapter in which Farad’n Corrino is being indoctrinated into Bene Gesserit thought.  I like how it touches upon the ways in which language can be used to subjugate and control certain groups or people.

Lastly, from God Emperor of Dune, a novel in which Leto II certainly has a lot to say about a variety of topics, language included:

Word images begin to distort in the instant of utterance.  Ideas embedded in a language require that particular language for expression.  This is the very essence of the meaning within the word exotic.  See how it begins to distort?  Translation squirms in the presence of the exotic.  The Galach which I speak here imposes itself.  It is an outside frame of reference, a particular system.  Dangers lurk in all systems.  Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators.  Adopt a system, accept the beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change. – God Emperor; 342

I chose this passage because despite being among the easiest to pull out into a single quote, it also is both interesting and extremely relevant as the story transitions into the later books.  For the real world, it raises questions about how language influences and prejudices how we experience ideas and reality.  For the books, it shows part of the God Emperor’s shaping of humanity to question reality and the universe around them, and primes them to explode outside the boundaries of the known universe.

The series also has no shortage of quotable thoughts on politics as well, and, seeing how an election cycle is ramping up, I can’t help but think about how some of these apply.

For those pandering to special interests and looking to appeal to traditional party bases:

Power bases are very dangerous because they attract people who are truly insane, people who seek power only for the sake of power. – God Emperor; 118

To those who seek constant warfare while undercutting social services for returning veterans:

The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this, it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency in susceptible types.  Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors back into an innocent population that is incapable of even imagining what such returned soldiers might do. – Heretics; 64

To those conservatives desperately clinging to an idealized past:

By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, even the movement of evolution!  While you cause a granular universe to persist in your awareness, you are blind to movement.  When things change, your absolute vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting perceptions.  The universe has moved beyond you. – Heretics; 261

As the number of candidates and corporate money pouring into the elections machine climbs steadily higher.

You seldom learn the names of the truly wealthy and powerful.  You see only their spokesmen.  The political arena makes a few exceptions to this but does not reveal the full power structure. – Heretics; 468

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted. – Chapterhouse; 59

After all these things, remember well the lesson of Muad’dib:

Muad’dib must always be that inner outrage against the complacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics.  It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad’dib taught us one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of social justice. – Children of Dune; 324

Until next time, cheers and Long live the fighters of Muad’dib!