In response to a post I made about Theosophy, a friend of mine posted a quiz called:

"What's your Theological Worldview?" (http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=7095N) Take it yourself if you are interested. I took it and was not surprised to discover that my view was mostly "Post Modern and Classical Liberal". Here are the definitions of them:

The death of Benazir Bhutto saddens all who long for peace in this world. It was a needless and violent death, a death born of hate. A death born of intolerance. A death that is an affront to all religions, be they Jew, Christian or Muslim. It is a death that is an affront to God.

Benazir Bhutto is a Muslim. Islamic radicals claim that such killing is "God's Will". This is not so. Islam is a religion that bases its beliefs on the foundations of Monotheism. It builds upon the beliefs of both Judaism and Christianity. Its basic tenets are founded in the same laws as brought forth by Moses.

Strong language... but it says everything it needs to say. A short film by Nat Segaloff.

Next, if you want to be really scared:

"Some of the world's greatest artworks are turning into copyrighted properties...

While the world met in Bali these last few weeks to try to come to an agreement over what to do about what is now almost universally accepted as human made global climate change, our so called elected representatives let us all down, and significantly harmed our reputation as a moral leader world wide.

A friend of mine, a Practicing Christian, put forth a prayer for a speedy and safe end to the fires in SoCal this year. Noble as it was, it made me think a little about what that meant (to offer a prayer). After a day or so, I could only reply thusly(1):

---------

My name is John. I bear a message.

He will return as the Lion, not the Lamb.

Places some might call evil are the ones being destroyed:

New Orleans

lust, gluttony, sloth;

SoCal

greed, envy, pride.

Perhaps Wrath is now being met with Wrath.

I wonder if our wrath can stand up to God's?

As cyclers, my spouse and I have been watching the Tour de France with great interest over the last few years. She is more interested in the cycling, I am somewhat more interested in the sociology and politics of it.

To be blunt the Tour stinks. Not because of the race, but because of what the race has become... a marketing bonanza filled with cheaters.

Big money is involved, big money has a big appetite for more big money. That appetite is unthinking and wholly self-serving. It consumes and devours all it encounters.

There are now millions of cellphones, blackberries and Wireless laptops all loaded with dozens of ways to connect and exchange information. There are many millions of website servers, with millions of databases containing billions of pages of information. This site is but one of them. This page and the server it sits on are but one of countless others like it. In and of itself it is utterly unimportant. It has no real value outside the information contained on it. Or so it would seem.

But consider this...

Yesterdays was the "Native Day of Action". For most of the day, Aboriginal Canadians, the First Nations as they are properly called, took peaceful actions they hoped would raise awareness of their cause. The actions took the form or blockades to major highways and railways that passed through their treaty land. For nearly 11 hours they brought commercial traffic to a stand still in the major corridors, costing an estimated 100 million in commercial losses.

Why did they take this action?

Herbert's work is well known, I am sure many of you have read it, or seen one of the two filmed versions. Those familiar with the story may well have picked up the slightly Arab and Islamic undertone to the whole thing. What I did not realize is that Dune is actually a fictionalized history.

Here is why I think this.