Ah, For A Voice Masking An Ultrasonic Sound Wave!

Such is the premise of the 1980s space opera Dreadstar character Maxilon who, under the protection of the title character (an extragalactic refugee, farmer, and revolutionary leader named Vanth Dreadstar) and his allies, presents an alternative to the reigning power of the Holy Church of the Instrumentality. Maxilon speaks on every world Dreadstar and Company bring him to and through the titular sound wave plays on his listeners' nerve endings, giving them the impression that they're experiencing a gut reaction to whatever he's saying. Simply: you feel whatever Maxilon is saying, that a less violent galaxy under the aegis of less capricious gods would be a good thing, is right.


AND he's a robot.


I'm quite sure my new niece Avery Marie is a flesh-and-blood human. I went to see her last night after making my night deposit and saw Breanna smiling bigger than she has in weeks -- of course, I bet a big part of that is from relief at having Avery out. She was born four minutes to three yesterday and emerged weighing six pounds, nine ounces, and was nineteen and three-quarters of an inch long. (By the numbers: 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 19.75" long.) And I got to hold her for a little bit, see today's picture. We heard later when Martha was home with me that when the nurses tried to give Avery a bath that the straight hair she was born with turned curly and stayed for quite a while that way!


And now, on the subject of Klingons.


More accurately, the subjects (re: subject races) of Star Trek's Klingon Empire, formally called jeghpu'wI' ... you're on your own pronouncing that, just remember the apostrophes are the high marks, say it from your gut, and spit a lot. The lion's share of Keith R. A. DeCandido's Star Trek novel Diplomatic Implausibility (ISBN 0671785540) is set among Klingons themselves with then-Federation Ambassador Worf seeking out a solution that satisfies everybody when a rebel insurgency rises among the natives on a Klingon-conquered planet. How it's solved without resorting to the Klingon tradition of breaking heads or killing incompetents in the chain of command ...


that and DeCandido's writing on Star Trek makes this worth reading! It did to me.


Sarah and Jeffrey got to Totten Trail (I was wrong yesterday, it's only about an hour away) well and good, but after she gets off work Martha has to bring Sarah part of her inhaler that we forgot in the  box we sent with her. I'm surprised it wasn't there myself, but my bride gets off work earlier than I do, and the plan when I get home is we'll see Avery and Breanna together in the hospital with whoever's there. And it occurs to me as I finish this post and I'm hungry for lunch that every one of my topics has something to do with your gut. Maybe I should change the title to "Gut Feelings", I don't know ...

Oh I do know, I like my first titles!

David