Life Modestly Imitates Poulenc

Today's news is not quite the stuff of Dialogues of the Carmelites, but it is close enough to deserve mention. Megan Rice, an 83-year-old nun, was sentenced to three years in prison. Her crime involved breaking into a high-security nuclear complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She and two accomplices cut through three fences to get on the grounds. Once inside, they painted messages of protest, hung banners, and threw blood on the bunker wall. The facility they penetrated is sometimes called "the Fort Knox of uranium," since it holds our country's primary supply of weapons-grade uranium. At least she will not have to listen to the sound of the guillotine while serving her sentence.