June 2

 Cloudy for now though we should see some sun later today. Nice trip to the seasonal market yesterday. We saw fewer people selling seedlings. That may pick up later in the month. However I did find a nice pot of chives and a basil variety I hadn't seen before (Blue Spice). I will plant them tomorrow after things dry out a bit. Our favorite vegetable vendor was there so we picked up some tomatoes and a couple of ears of corn. A new vendor is selling their locally grown mushrooms. I think I will need to look for new recipes.

A few thoughts on Dune movies and books. The books are complex far more so than I thought when I read the first time. When I first read them I was struck economics of world which wouldn't have had any outside interest except for being the single source of spice, the most valuable substance in the universe. Dune and its inhabitants were vulnerable to outside exploitation on the same scale of savagery as what was the Belgian Congo endured. However, the empire that tried to control Dune and the spice was also vulnerable as its was dependent on the constant production of spice. As several characters said "The spice must flow." The first Dune movie was long an "atmosphere" and really very short on almost anything else. Dune is an excellent description of resource limits: both water and spice. The miniseries and the latest adaptation does a far better job. What I missed forty or so years ago on my first reading of the books and the first movie also missed (or barely glanced over) was the role of religion and government were interwoven. Those are a different topics for another day.

We have even more evidence that the U.S. no longer has the influence it once had. President Biden held a press conference to announce a proposal for a pause in Israel's operations in Gaza while hostages are released by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners by Israel along with a massive surge of humanitarian aid for trapped Gaza residents. Hamas seemed amenable but yesterday Israel objected because they demand Hamas be destroyed. I have wondered over the last several months what exactly constituted "destroyed." My suspicion is that only the obliteration of the Palestinian population (men, women, and children) in Gaza would meet their definition of "destroyed."