Following Frank Herbert's lead, each chapter is headed with a portentous quotation from one of the holy books or instruction manuals of the day.
The group has three paid staff members, two part-time administrators and volunteers who lead 55 chapters in the United States and about 8 overseas.
Citing an outspoken predecessor, George S. Lewis, who led the chapter from 1969 to 1986, Mr. Bell said: "For the chapter not to be quiescent, it has to run the risk of alienating members.
Mr. Hall, who led a chapter of the group in Riverside, east of Los Angeles, had predicted that his political activities — in a world rife with hatred, suspicion and violence — would lead to his demise.
Greg Flannagan, a spokesman for the Montgomery County prosecutor, said the Rev. Raleigh Trammell was indicted by a grand jury in Dayton, where he also led a chapter of the civil rights group.
A hot-tempered figure, he had led a chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that the State Commission of Investigation found had operated like a paramilitary organization, with officers carrying guns and night-vision goggles.
Leading the Chapter 11 filing for MF Global's parent company is the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which was added to the brokerage firm's coterie of advisers in recent days.
Ken Stanton led the chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) at Virginia Tech, where, three years ago, student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people before committing suicide in what was the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in US history.
Advertisers like Coca-Cola "have to have some responsibility to humanity" and have to react to current events, said Ramneek Bhogal, an assistant professor at the Palmer College of Chiropractic, in Davenport, Iowa, who as a student, led a chapter of Students for a Free Tibet.
