There has not been much change since I posted yesterday, it continues to be very cold in the morning. The daily high temperatures are also way below what the Chamber of Commerce touts.
“Book four in Frank Herbert’s magnificent Dune Chronicles—one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction.
Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world’s savior, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, is still alive but far from human. This book got some rave customer reviews and also got some that I agreed with. The God in this book is Herbert. The book simple gave him a platform to pontificate his philosophical thoughts in the guise of The Stolen Journals.To preserve humanity’s future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years.
Leto’s rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot’s rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto’s vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted—or could possibly conceive.…
Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert — Book promo @ goodreads.com
These quotes are from The Stolen Journals or spoken by Leto II in conversations with other characters in God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert. Or perhaps I should say they are quotes by Frank Herbert put in the mouth of his Leto II character.
Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments.
Good administrators make immediate choices.” “Acceptable choices?” “They usually can be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand, hesitates, diddles around, asks for committees, for research and reports. Eventually, he acts in ways which create serious problems.” “But don’t they sometimes need more information to make. . . “A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record which he can display as an excuse for his errors.” “And good administrators?” “Oh, they depend on verbal orders. They never lie about what they’ve done if their verbal orders cause problems, and they surround themselves with people able to act wisely on the basis of verbal orders. Often, the most important piece of information is that something has gone wrong. Bad administrators hide their mistakes until it’s too late to make corrections.”
“Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!”
PCR has written a good post, I quote his closing.
People born in recent decades have no idea how off the wall this is to someone who lived in the real America in the past. When my generation passes, there will be no one alive who knows what America once was. How Troublesome Presidents Are Disposed Of, Paul Craig Roberts
