BE WARNED - THIS PAGE IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH 8-21-01 - DREAM - I was in a house and looked in the closet for something to wear. There were nice clothes in there, but not much of it. I finally chose a skirt suit, but didn't plan to wear the jacket, just the skirt. It was pleated and was yellow and black checked. It was obviously way too small for me. I then went down to the kitchen to help get dinner ready for a large group of people. The cook, who was a short, chubby woman , was at the sink, preparing two turkey carcasses for the oven. She as washing them in soap and water. I as going to help put on a honey barbecue sauce on the turkeys for the oven, but they weren't quite ready. The cook was busy washing off an entire cow carcass for a barbecue as well, which she had a sink large enough to fit the whole cow into. It had already been butchered and skinned. I then went outside where there was a race going on which I relate to the TV show Fear Factor. A series of men were riding bicycles down to the ocean shore, they had to strip naked, have all their fingers cut off, the crawl over some barriers, do a back flip off a big flat rock into the ocean and swim to another location. I was watching from the perspective of being in or on the ocean myself. One of the contestants, jumped off his bike, pulled off his clothes, had his fingers cut off and did the back flip into the ocean and started to swim. Then the next guy came, jumped off his bike, pulled off his clothes, had his fingers cut off, then got down on the flat rock, ready to do his back flip into the ocean, when he started to cry. He said, "Michael! Now I'm really scared. I could handle the worms, but this I can't handle." I looked at him closer and saw that he had no eyes. If you annagram 'Osama bin Laden' you get.... "A blind Man O sea".... 'Man o sea' is spanish for..."a man that is" If you say it...'A Man o sea blind' it means... 'A man that is blind' If you put in "a man o sea blind" into a language translator it gives you back... ' to the man that is blind' Since Osama bin Laden means 'A man that is blind' you have 'the blind man leading the blind' Cover of Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero Web site: http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/index.shtml See: An American Tragedy  - A Symbolic Event It has also been noted that Terry Nichols involved in the Oklahoma Bombing of the Murrah Building spent some time in Mindanao. Kelly Patricia O'Meara, among others, of Insight Magazine, reported that Terry Nichols was witnessed attending a meeting on that island and that also present in that meeting were Ramzi Yosef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah. Ramzi Yosef was the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, , while Murad and Shah, also involved in the 1993 bombing, were convicted in 1996, for conspiring to blow up 12 airline jets. It was reported that the subject of the meeting centered around bombing activities and building bombs. Shaykh Omar, the blind cleric who was mullah to the Egyptian revolutionary organizations, and OBLaden first met in Pakistan in the mid-1980s during the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Their paths crossed many times after that and they had many mutual friends. OBL's men helped support Omar, and in the USA the blind shaykh was, among other things, involved in the collection of funds for Islamist movements, including Al Qaida. The New 'Great Game' by LUTZ KLEVEMAN - The most tyrannical of Washington's new allies is Islom Karimov, the ex-Communist dictator of Uzbekistan, who allowed US troops to set up a large and permanent military base on Uzbek soil during the Afghan campaign in late 2001. Ever since, the Bush Administration has turned a blind eye to the Karimov regime's brutal suppression of opposition and Islamic groups. "Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov once famously told his rubber-stamp Parliament.  [Meet the new Saddam Hussein. -ed.]

The dream above has no basic in fact, obviously, but what things do we really fear these days?  Following is a more recent dream I had about fear in America which followed watching a video movie by Michael Moore titled, "Bowling for Columbine", which is an anti-gun film. Michael Moore stated that American had 11,700+ gun murders during the same period of time that Canada and Great Britain only had 65.  (I have not corroborated those numbers as yet)

2-7-05 - DREAM - Two boys were in my dream, who supposedly were Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold from Littleton, Colorado who killed their fellow classmates and then killed themselves as well. The two boys came to my house to hang out with my sons who were teenagers. I didn't like their attitudes and told them to get out of my house. The boys left and walked down the driveway towards the mailbox by the road. I went outside to pick up broken tree branches that had been broken off the trees from a windstorm. The two boys came back and asked if they could work for me picking up tree branches. I told them I couldn't afford to pay them, but they volunteered to work for free just to get the experience. So they joined me in gathering up the branches and taking them to the barn and helped separate the rough hewn boards from the finished wood sticks. One tree was too heavy for any of us to carry. We had to leave that one for someone else to handle. After that the boys showed me that more than two boys had been involved in their little gun toting gang. They told me that at least 5 people were involved. Then they told me that the whole thing had been a setup and that everyone should know that.  The event was part of a big plot to create fear in the people of America. They showed me a web page about it where the viewers were supposed to click on a time calculator labeled 'EXPERIENCE and then click on a little square next to it labeled 'GO'. The time calculator was supposed to calculate when the next horrible event would happen again. I refused to click on the 'EXPERIENCE' and 'GO' tabs, but I said I could accept that what they did was a setup to create fear in America. I knew I was going to do a web page about this, but I was not going to create the 'EXPERIENCE' and 'GO' tabs to predict for people when another horrible shooting event would occur.

THE FOLLOWING CHARTS WERE PREPARED BY JOE MASON IN 1990 AFTER HE HAD AN EXPERIENCE WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES WHO WERE NOT DOING THEIR JOB FOR THE GOOD GUYS NOTE: IF YOU USE NETSCAPE OR EXPLORER, YOU CAN USE THE EXPAND ICON TO MAKE THE CHARTS FULL SIZE ORWELLIAN FEAR THE BALL OF STRING FEAR CHOOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS FEAR FOUNDING FATHERS VS CURRENT  POLITICS FEAR DEMOCRATS VS REPUBLICAN FEARS

One of man's greatest fears, of course, is death.  This was my own greatest fear all my life until I studied metaphysics and reincarnation.  That fear hangs on it seems, for one reason, that we are taught that we aren't perfect beings, born with original sin, and unless we follow certain specific rules perfectly we are doomed to hell.  When I searched our own site for pages where I wrote about death, I discovered that there were 690 of them.  That is way too many to reference at the end of this page. But here are four where I mentioned Harris and Klebold specifically:  PADUKAH REMEMBERED ... Countless children die via abortions and abandonment all the time, too ... have collectively influenced the already-poisoned minds of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. ... www.greatdreams.com/death/padukah.htm - DEATHSTAR - A PROPHECY - 1999 ... Harris and Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 people before ... Despite the death of a teenager in custody there last spring, Bridge City is ... www.greatdreams.com/death/deathstr.htm -  JABBERWOCKY & THE LORD OF THE FLIES - A DREAM ... after Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad was recommended for the death penalty by a ... and telephone since teen gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 ... www.greatdreams.com/death/Jabberwocky.htm  NEW YORK EARTHQUAKES ... there is ample evidence to indicate that teenage gunmen Harris and Klebold were victims ... THE PLANES COMING OUT OF PLATTSBURGH, NY WERE CALLED 'WHISPERING DEATH'. ... www.greatdreams.com/ny/newyork_quakes.htm

Court TV goes into great length to try to explain why Harris and Klebold committed their horror upon the high school they attended:  As the police investigation progressed, the background of the two boys gradually unfolded. Initially it seemed that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were just two average teenagers -- intelligent, well-mannered kids who had come from good homes. However, it would not take long before a contrasting picture began to emerge. A picture of two young men, angry at the world they thought had wronged them, who had sought, for some time, a way to accomplish their revenge. Eric Harris was born on April 9, 1981 in Wichita, Kansas. His parents Wayne, and Kathy Harris had both been born in Colorado but Wayne's career as an Air Force transport pilot had meant that the family had moved often. They had lived in Ohio, Michigan and New York. When Wayne Harris retired, he and Kathy chose to settle in Littleton in 1996. There Wayne worked at the Flight Safety Services Corporation in Englewood. Kathy worked at a catering company in the same area. Friends, neighbors and associates of the Harrises in all of the areas in which they had lived described Wayne and Kathy as good people, supportive and considerate of both of their sons. During his childhood, Eric Harris had played Little League and was a Boy Scout. Eric and Dylan became firm friends soon after the Harrises moved to Littleton. Before long they had linked their home computers and would spend many hours playing video games. Eric had hoped to be accepted into the Marine Corps but had been informed, several days before the massacre, that his application had been rejected. The reason given was that Eric had been taking the anti-depressant Luvox, which was often used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. Luvox is a commonly prescribed drug, which normally does not cause any physical or psychological side effects unless taken with other drugs or alcohol. No evidence of drugs or alcohol had been found in Harris's body after his death. Dylan Klebold, like Eric Harris, came from a stable middle-class family which was held in high regard by friends, neighbors and associates. Dylan was born on September 9, 1981 in Lakewood, Colorado. He had lived in Littleton for many years with his parents Sue and Tom Klebold and older brother Byron. Tom Klebold, a former geophysicist, operated a mortgage management business from their family home while Sue worked at the State Consortium of Community Colleges providing accessibility for disabled students. Close friends felt that Dylan began to change after he befriended Eric Harris during 1996. As far as anyone knew there had only been one incident of criminal behavior in the past. In March the previous year, the boys had been arrested on felony charges of criminal trespass and theft for breaking into a car and stealing some tools. Klebold and Harris had made such a good impression on the juvenile officers involved in the case that they were offered to have their records cleared if they promised to stay out of trouble and participate in a diversionary program. Harris was required to attend anger management classes. Again, he had made a good impression on authorities. As the investigation progressed, however, another picture of the two boys began to emerge. This picture was in stark contrast to that known to their parents and close friends. It was soon discovered that Eric Harris had a website posted which openly expressed his anger toward the people of Littleton, especially teachers and students at Columbine High School. On this site, Harris had begun to express his desire for revenge against everyone that had irritated or annoyed him. The words "God, I can't wait until I can kill you people," and "I'll just go to some downtown area in some big (expletive) city and blow up and shoot everything I can" were posted as early as March 1998. It was also around this time that both Harris and Klebold began experimenting with pipe bombs, posting the results of their tests on the site. A number of students told of incidents where Harris and Klebold had bragged that they would one day seek revenge on the "jocks" at the school, whom they felt had ridiculed them and treated them as outcasts. A video made as a school project by the pair showed them walking through the corridors of the school wielding guns, killing all who stood in their way. They had been disappointed when their teacher had not allowed the video to be viewed by the rest of the school because of its violence. Harris was also known for his violent themes in creative writing projects. Many of their teachers described the youths as being depressed, angry, and admirers of Nazism. In the minds of some teachers, Harris and Klebold had shown many disturbing signs of their violent tendencies; these same teachers had reported their concerns. Unfortunately, no action could be taken against the boys, as they had in fact done nothing to warrant it. Although, one of the boys had been suspended the year before for hacking into the school's computer system. Despite the growing concern of many of their teachers, the Klebolds and Harrises claim that they had never been informed of their sons' behavioral problems. The lack of communication between the juvenile authorities, school officials and their parents enabled Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to maintain the appearance of normalcy to those closest to them, while secretly planning the fulfillment of their angry, violent fantasies.   1. CHAPTERS Hidden Rage 2. A Town In Mourning 3. Secret Lives 4. Well Laid Plans and Accomplices 5. The Finger of Blame 6. A Growing Problem 7. Epilogue 8. Recent Developments & Discoveries 9. Bibliography 10. The Author

But what could be the cause of a 6 year old boy to go to school and shoot his little 6 year old classmate?  WSWS : News & Analysis : North America Six-year-old Michigan girl shot and killed in classroom By David Walsh 1 March 2000 A six-year-old girl was shot and killed, apparently by a fellow first grade student, a six-year-old boy, in a classroom at Buell Elementary School in Mt. Morris Township, outside of Flint, Michigan. Flint is a center of General Motors' auto production empire, located sixty miles north of Detroit. The fatal shooting occurred Tuesday morning. Whether the shooting was intentional or accidental is not known for certain. There are reports that the two children had a quarrel prior to the incident. Authorities identified the weapon as a .32 caliber handgun stolen in December. According to one account, the shooting took place around 10 AM as students were filing out of a classroom. Allegedly, the boy pulled out the gun and fired one shot at the girl, hitting her in the neck. The boy reportedly then ran into a lavatory where he hid the gun in a trash can. The girl, Kayla Rolland, was taken to Hurley Medical Center. She died at approximately 10:30 AM. School officials held the boy until police arrived. He is currently in the custody of the state child welfare agency, the so-called Family Independence Agency. No sooner had the first news reports of the tragic incident emerged than the question was posed as to whether Genesee County authorities might prosecute the alleged “gunman.” As absurd as this might seem, there was good reason for the issue to be raised. The shooting follows by a few months the conviction in nearby Pontiac of Nathaniel Abraham, who was only 11 at the time of his alleged crime. Abraham was the first youth to be charged with murder under a 1997 Michigan statute that allows children of any age to be prosecuted as adults for serious crimes. Oakland county authorities pursued the case against Abraham in order to establish a precedent and legitimize the 1997 law. These officials and the Michigan state legislators who framed the law have, in essence, attempted to efface any legal or moral distinction between children and adults. According to this line of reasoning, human beings reach the “age of reason” in elementary school. Supporters of the law have made clear they would be prepared to prosecute children of kindergarten or first-grade age. The first response of Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur A. Busch was to downplay the likelihood of bringing charges against the boy. “There is a presumption in law that a child ... is not criminally responsible and can't form an intent to kill,” Busch told reporters. “Obviously, he has done a very terrible thing, but legally, he can't be held criminally responsible.” Whether Busch is more enlightened than Oakland County officials or has simply been chastened by the unfavorable publicity the Abraham case attracted is not clear. Nor can it be ruled out that he might come under pressure to change his mind. Nonetheless, it is telling that every television and print journalist felt obliged to discuss the possibility of charges being laid. That in itself reveals the barbaric state of the American justice system. Whether the little boy is prosecuted or not, it is safe to assume that the authorities will turn the tragic death of Kayla Rolland into a pure police matter. Busch suggested that the individual responsible for allowing the gun to fall into the boy's hands might face charges. Bill Clinton, fundraising in Florida, deplored the incident and noted, as he had in his State of the Union address, that the “accidental gun death rate of children in America is nine times higher than that in the other 25 biggest countries combined.” In the same speech Clinton sounded a familiar theme, insisting that Americans had never had it so good. “What are we to do with this enormous amount of prosperity...?” he asked. These comments ignore an obvious point: if the population were universally enjoying prosperity and happiness, such incidents as the Mt. Morris shooting would either not occur, or they would merely be isolated episodes. In fact, this latest tragedy is the most recent in a series of school shootings in the US. Since the mass killings at Columbine High School in Colorado last May, in which 14 students (including the two teenage gunmen) and a teacher were killed, there have been numerous other incidents: on May 20, 1999, a 15-year-old boy opened fire at a high school in Conyers, Ga., wounding six students; on November 19, a 13-year-old girl was fatally shot in the head in a school in Deming, New Mexico, allegedly killed by a 12-year-old boy; on December 6, a 13-year-old student fired at least 15 rounds at a middle school in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, wounding four classmates. The epidemic of shootings cannot simply be ascribed to individual weaknesses. The deep alienation felt by many of the younger generation, the debased social atmosphere in which backwardness and violence breed, the availability of fire-arms in massive numbers—these are symptoms of a crisis of American society for which the ruling elite has no solutions. Its only response is to lock more people up. Kip Kinkel, the 17-year-old, who opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Oregon, has been sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison; Andrew Wurst, 15, responsible for the death of a teacher in Edinboro, Pennsylvania has been imprisoned for 30 to 60 years; a 14-year-old student pleaded guilty but mentally ill for a shooting in West Paducah, Kentucky and received a life sentence; Evan Ramsey, 16, who shot and killed a school principal and a fellow student in Bethel, Alaska, is serving a 210-year sentence. See:  DEATHSTAR FOR MORE EXAMPLES OF THIS TYPE OF VIOLENCE

The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found.     The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000. The study used 1994 statistics supplied by the 36 countries. Of the 88,649 gun deaths reported by all the countries, the United States accounted for 45 percent Here are gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994:  United States 14.24;  Brazil 12.95;  Mexico 12.69;  Estonia 12.26;  Argentina 8.93;   Northern Ireland 6.63;  Finland 6.46;  Switzerland 5.31;  France 5.15;  Canada 4.31;  Norway 3.82;  Austria 3.70;  Portugal 3.20;  Israel 2.91;  Belgium 2.90;  Australia 2.65;  Slovenia 2.60;  Italy 2.44;  New Zealand 2.38;  Denmark 2.09;  Sweden 1.92;  Kuwait 1.84;  Greece 1.29;  Germany 1.24;  Hungary 1.11;  Republic of Ireland 0.97;  Spain 0.78;  Netherlands 0.70;  Scotland 0.54;  England and Wales 0.41;  Taiwan 0.37;  Singapore 0.21;  Mauritius 0.19;  Hong Kong 0.14;  South Korea 0.12;  Japan 0.05.  « In Australia, where the people were forced to give up their instruments of self-defense, sexual crimes have increased, armed robbery is up 44% and murders up 300%. »

GUN OWNERSHIP AND MYTHS Another view commonly disseminated is that « The most likely killers are friends or relatives. » This ingredient of current mythology rests on two claims. One being that  53% of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances and that anyone could be a murderer. Using the definition of « acquaintance » as used in the Uniform Crime Reports, published by the FBI,  most victims are classified as knowing their killer. But what is not made clear is that « acquaintance murder » includes mainly drug buyers killing pushers, taxi-drivers killed by their customers, gang members killing gang members, prostitutes slain by their clients and so on. There is one U.S. city, Chicago, which reports a more precise breakdown on the nature of such killings. Their statistics provide a very different impression for the five years between 1990 and 1995. They reported that, under 20% of murder victims were either family members, friends, neighbors or roommates of those who killed them.              About 90% of adult murderers already have an adult criminal record, they are not your average citizen. The profile of the majority of murderers in the USA is a young male with a low IQ who has a long history of difficulty getting along with other people.    Statistical mythology              Again and again we hear that, « The USA has a high murder rate because the citizens own more guns. » This is the most simplistic of the arguments heard, often from many who ought to know better. Other countries have gun ownership rates as high or higher than the USA. Three, Switzerland, New Zealand and Finland have similar ownership rates and yet, in 1995, New Zealand's murder rate was lower than Australia's. Switzerland had a murder rate 40% lower than that of Germany. Sweden and Finland have different gun ownership rates but similar murder rates. Israel, which has an even higher gun ownership rate than the USA, has a murder rate which is 40% below ours in Canada. In fact, studies have shown that where gun ownership increases violent crime decreases.              « A family member of a gun owning household is more likely to be shot and killed than an intruder is to be killed in self-defense. » The study upon which this myth is founded appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993, but it never actually looked into whose gun did the killing. If a household owned a gun and if someone in that house, or someone he or she knew, was shot in that house, then that household's gun was blamed. Later examination of the study's data showed that almost all the killings (96%) were committed with guns owned by the intruder. The remaining 4% attributable to the householder's gun is somewhat insignificant. Often unreported, or forgotten, is that 98% of the time simply brandishing a gun is enough to deter an aggressor. The gun is actually fired at the attacker in less than 1% of reported cases.              It is well known that criminals rarely attack armed men, they much prefer the weak and unarmed. The simple fact that a person could be carrying a gun is often sufficient to deter the aggressor. This is why so many tourists have been attacked in Florida, the criminal knows that his victim will definitely not be carrying a gun.              In Australia, where the people were forced to give up their instruments of self-defense, sexual crimes have increased, armed robbery is up 44% and murders up 300%. Oddly enough, unarmed robbery has shown a decrease. In Britain, where handguns are banned absolutely, more policemen are being armed in order to deal with the rising crime rate. Assaults with firearms and attempted murders have risen and the crime rate is expected to increase even more in the next two years. Excluding murder, rates of violent crime in England and Wales are higher than in any other European country or even in the USA. Further evidence, if it were needed, that criminals much prefer their victims to be unarmed.  From: http://www.quebecoislibre.org/990828-6.htm

REASONS WHY GUNS ARE USED TO MURDER Feasibility The third component of murder is feasibility. A person might have both the desire and the weapon needed to kill, but if the circumstances don't offer a feasible opportunity to carry it out, then a person will probably decide against it. With weapons like knives or clubs, a would-be murderer faces enormous personal risk. Here's why: Getting physically close to the victim might be impossible under a wide variety of circumstances. Getting closer to the victim reduces the odds of surprise, secrecy or anonymity. The intended victim might be taller or stronger. The intended victim might be surrounded by friends, family, or bodyguards. The victim might shout out for help. A crowd might come to the victim's rescue. In the ensuing struggle, the murderer might be seriously wounded or even killed. The struggle will probably leave tell-tale signs of blood, skin or hair-follicles on the murderer. The intended victim might survive and testify against him. A gun, however, dramatically reduces all these risks. In order of the above, guns allow people to: Kill victims from afar. Maintain a much greater element of surprise, secrecy and anonymity. Kill larger and stronger people. Kill crowds. Frighten away people who might otherwise help. Assume almost no risk of injury from personal struggle. Leave no tell-tale blood or other physical evidence on the murderer. Leave the victim less likely to survive or see him to testify against him. What guns do, then, is make it more feasible for a would-be killer to act out his murderous impulses. Gun possession thus allows a crime to occur that wouldn't have otherwise. A good analogy is robbery. In medieval times, wealth was usually stolen only when it was in transit, by highway brigands who outnumbered the drivers. But in modern times, a lone individual with a gun can walk into a bank and rob the entire establishment. Bank robbery became a widespread phenomenon only after the invention of guns. Certain types of guns enhance feasibility more than others. Long-barreled guns like rifles and shotguns are difficult to hide and bulkier to carry; therefore, easily concealed handguns are the weapon of choice among murderers. One exception to this rule is the long-barreled gun which is super-efficient, namely, machine guns or assault weapons. These enhance feasibility in other ways that might be preferred by a would-be killer. For these reasons, gun-control advocates especially focus on handguns and assault weapons when it comes to regulation. Let's imagine now two countries, both of which have populations of 250 million. Suppose 50,000 people in each of these countries are going to experience murderous impulses over the course of a year. One nation has a complete ban on guns. The other has universal gun ownership. Which nation will see the higher murder rate? Common sense would dictate that the nation with guns will realize its enhanced ability and feasibility to commit murder. However, we should never underestimate the gun advocates' powers of rationalization! A common counter-argument is Robert Heinlein's: "An armed society is a polite society." This is hardly true, as the statistics below demonstrate; you could not get a more polite and murder-free society than Japan, which bans virtually all guns, or a more violent society than America, which owns the most guns in the world. But let's treat this counter-argument on a philosophical level. If we were to arm everyone in society, then the ability to commit murder would become universal. This is a serious step in the wrong direction; to rescue their point, gun advocates must rely even more heavily on arguments of defeasibility. The fear of getting shot back, they argue, will deter most murderers. And there is a degree of truth behind this argument -- police, for example, wear sidearms precisely for their deterrence effect and protective benefits. Surveys of criminals show that they tend to avoid targets they feel might be armed. But ultimately this argument fails, even in principle. A central tenet of game theory is that attackers have the advantage over defenders. A defender must defend against all possibilities of attack, and in doing so defends none of them very well. An attacker has to choose only one line of attack, and therefore can do it extremely well. Attackers have the advantage of surprise, planning and initiative. An example is a careful, well-considered plan to shoot someone in the back, even if the person is openly carrying a sidearm. Another example is bank robbery. The fact that banks are extremely well-protected hasn't stopped their robbery even today -- criminals simply arm themselves more heavily and take advantage of the fact that they are the attackers. Or, in the face of heavily armed targets, attackers may simply alter their line of attack, selecting weaker targets: the old, the disabled, or children. A useful analogy here is war. The fact that the entire world out-armed Hitler did not stop him from attacking it. And he nearly succeeded -- because, as the attacker, he had the initiative. Furthermore, even the certain threat of retaliatory force will not stop someone whose senses are impaired by drugs, alcohol, jealousy, anger, insanity, pathology, self-destruction or deception. Although we can identify some groups at risk for these behaviors, we can hardly predict them all -- jealous husbands, for instance. And the "failure to defease" is a tremendously costly one, now that the ability to commit murder is universal. Thus, many people suggest gun control as a solution to high murder rates. We should note there is a spectrum of gun control, ranging from licensing laws to the total banning of all guns. Comparing different societies for gun availability alone is insufficient, since we must also consider their different gun control laws. We should also note that gun control only reduces the ability and feasibility to commit murder -- it does not limit desire. That's something for other social policies to address. The interplay between these three components is where the debate becomes complex. Desire may sometimes counter ability and feasibility, which only confounds the issue. Suppose two nations have the same population size, although nation A sees 50,000 people a year with the murderous impulse, but only 25,000 in nation B. If nation A has gun control, and nation B has high gun ownership, then nation A might still see a higher murder rate. Gun advocates might then claim that this "proves" their case -- although gun control advocates would still claim that reducing gun ownership would reduce murder rates in both nations. Many people debating these issues often fail to take these considerations into account. FROM: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gunownership.htm

AGAINST GUN CONTROL Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1) Those who fear and distrust the people . . . . 2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe . . . depository of the public interest. -- Thomas Jefferson Real-world experiences validate the sociologists' findings. In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by embarking on a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Not one of the 2,500 women actually ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed. Five years later Orlando's rape rate was still 13 percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase. During a 1974 police strike in Albuquerque armed citizens patrolled their neighborhoods and shop owners publicly armed themselves; felonies dropped significantly. In March 1982 Kennesaw, Georgia, enacted a law requiring householders to keep a gun at home; house burglaries fell from 65 per year to 26, and to 11 the following year. Similar publicized training programs for gun-toting merchants sharply reduced robberies in stores in Highland Park, Michigan, and in New Orleans; a grocers organization's gun clinics produced the same result in Detroit. Even simple registration laws meet with massive resistance. In Illinois, for example, a 1977 study showed that compliance with handgun registration was only about 25 percent.[13] A 1979 survey of Illinois gun owners indicated that 73 percent would not comply with a gun prohibition.[14] It is evident that New York City's almost complete prohibition is not voluntarily obeyed; estimates of the number of illegal handguns in the city range from one million to two million.[15] With more widespread American gun control, the number of new outlaws would certainly be huge. Prohibition would label as criminal the millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens who believe they must possess the means to defend themselves, regardless of what legislation dictates. In addition, strict enforcement of gun prohibition--like our current marijuana prohibition and our past alcohol prohibition--would divert enormous police and judicial resources to ferreting out and prosecuting the commission of private, consensual possessory offenses. The diversion of resources to the prosecution of such offenses would mean fewer resources available to fight other crime. Do Gun Laws Disarm Criminals? Although gun control advocates devote much attention to the alleged evils of guns and gun owners, they devote little attention to the particulars of devising a workable, enforceable law. Disarming criminals would be nearly impossible. There are between 100 and 140 million guns in the United States, a third of them handguns. The ratio of people who commit handgun crimes each year to handguns is 1:400, that of handgun homicides to handguns is 1:3,600. Because the ratio of handguns to handgun criminals is so high, the criminal supply would continue with barely an interruption. Even if 90 percent of American handguns disappeared, there would still be 40 left for every handgun criminal. In no state in the union can people with recent violent felony convictions purchase firearms. Yet the National Institute of Justice survey of prisoners, many of whom were repeat offenders, showed that 90 percent were able to obtain their last firearm within a few days. Most obtained it within a few hours. Three-quarters of the men agreed that they would have "no trouble" or "only a little trouble" obtaining a gun upon release, despite the legal barriers to such a purchase. Even if the entire American gun stock magically vanished, resupply for criminals would be easy. If small handguns were imported in the same physical volume as marijuana, 20 million would enter the country annually. (Current legal demand for new handguns is about 2.5 million a year). Bootleg gun manufacture requires no more than the tools that most Americans have in their garages. A zip gun can be made from tubing, tape, a pin, a key, whittle wood, and rubber bands. In fact, using wood fires and tools inferior to those in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue, Pakistani and Afghan peasants have been making firearms capable of firing the Russian AK-47 cartridge. Bootleg ammunition is no harder to make than bootleg liquor. Although modern smokeless gunpowder is too complex for backyard production, conventional black powder is simple to manufacture. Apparently, illegal gun production is already common. A 1986 federal government study found that one-fifth of the guns seized by the police in Washington, D.C., were homemade. Of course, homemade guns cannot win target-shooting contests, but they suffice for robbery purposes. Furthermore, the price of bootleg guns may even be lower than the price of the quality guns available now (just as, in prohibition days, bootleg gin often cost less than legal alcohol had). Most police officers concur that gun control laws are ineffective. A 1986 questionnaire sent to every major police official in the country produced the following results: 97 percent believed that a firearms ownership ban would not reduce crime or keep criminals from using guns; 89 percent believed that gun control laws such as those in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City had no effect on criminals; and 90 percent believed that if firearms ownership was banned, ordinary citizens would be more likely to be targets of armed violence. Excerpted from: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.html NRA.org - Home Page ... Win My Quigley Rifle! ... The Last Nail in Gun Control. Gay Group Defends Right to Arms in San Francisco; Joins NRA Efforts to Defeat Handgun Ban. ... www.nra.org/ - The New American - The NRA’s Gun Control Schizophrenia - June 5 ... ... of venom and ink hurled at the National Rifle Association by ... Clinton, Sarah Brady, and the anti-gun fanatics of the Establishment press that the NRA is the ... www.thenewamerican.com/ tna/2000/06-05-2000/vo16no12_nra.htm -  The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ... Rights of Gun Violence Victims The National Rifle Association and ... 2004, AMERICANS URGED TO LEAVE THE GUNS LOCKED UP ... WITH SIX HUNTERS DEAD, WILL THE NRA TELL THE ... www.handguncontrol.org/ -  Gun Control vs. Gun Rights: The Issue ... 2003, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence spent ... The National Rifle Association has an additional advantage ... As a membership organization, the NRA can spend ... www.opensecrets.org/news/guns/

WHERE DOES VIOLENCE COME FROM? Violence on television affects children negatively, according to psychological research. The three major effects of seeing violence on television are: Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Children may be more fearful of the world around them. Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways toward others FACT: The average American child will have watched 100,000 acts of televised violence, including 8000 depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes sixth grade (approximately 13 years old). Studies by George Gerbner, at the University of Pennsylvania, have shown that children's television shows contain about 20 violent acts each hour. They also showed that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place. Children often behave differently after they've been watching violent programmes on television. In one study done at Pennsylvania State University, about 100 pre-school children were observed both before and after watching television. Some watched cartoons that had many aggressive and violent acts; others watched shows that didn't have any kind of violence. The researchers noticed real differences between the children who watched the violent shows and those who watched non-violent ones. Children who watched the violent shows were more likely to strike out at playmates, argue, disobey authority and were less willing to wait for things than those children who watched non-violent programmes. For most of television's early years, it was difficult to find role models that would inspire young girls in the viewing audience. In the mid-1970s, a new genre of programmes such as Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman entered the scene. Now, there were females on television who were in control, aggressive and were not dependent upon males for their success. Conventional wisdom might suggest this phenomenon would have a positive impact on younger female viewers. Huesmann's research states that young girls who often watched shows featuring aggressive heroines in the 1970s, have grown up to be more aggressive adults involved in more confrontations, shoving matches, choking and knife fights than women who had watched few or none of these shows. One example cited by Huesmann is that 59 percent of those who watched an above-average amount of violence on television as children, were involved in more than the average number of such aggressive incidents later inlife. Huesmann says that ages six to eight are very delicate and critical years in the development of children. Youngsters are learning social behaviour that will last them throughout their life. Some of the most compelling studies have investigated children's behaviour in areas before and after the introduction of television. In the early seventies, Tannis Macbeth Williams and other researchers from the University of British Columbia compared the levels of aggression in first and second graders from two Canadian towns, one with access to TV and one, due to a mountain range, with no TV access. When the mountain town finally received television, the hitting, biting, and shoving levels of the children increased by 160 percent. Not Everyone Agrees With These Statistics

An Alternative To Raising Non-violent Children One aspect is to see that there is no sense of shame or guilt involved with crime today. Instead, a sense of pride is attached to acts of violence. This was absent a few decades back. Violence then was associated not so much with pride, but with shame. A student used to feel ashamed to do a violent act. But today, due largely to the influence of the media, aggression has become a source of pride. The aggressive students in the classroom get more attention, and they feel proud being aggressive and angry. When I was a student, if someone was aggressive in the classroom, others would look down on them. That student would feel very apologetic afterwards, and they would have to make it up—by being kinder and doing service in the classroom. But today, we see that aggression seems to be a way of living, a way of moving forward, a way of success, and a source of pride in children. This, in a very subtle way, encourages violence. When aggression and violence are promoted in society, human values diminish. Today, certain movies and modern music glorify frustration, anger and revenge, and make these status symbols and role models for children. We need to counteract this influence. A sense of shame has to be connected with anger and violence. We need to promote human values, especially love, compassion and a sense of belonging, loud and clear. From: http://www.newconnexion.net/article/09-01/shankar.html

VIOLENCE IN MUSIC VIOLENT MUSIC LYRICS INCREASE AGGRESSIVE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY Even Humorous Violent Songs Increase Hostile Feelings WASHINGTON - Songs with violent lyrics increase aggression related thoughts and emotions and this effect is directly related to the violence in the lyrics, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association (APA). The findings, appearing in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, contradicts popular notions of positive catharsis or venting effects of listening to angry, violent music on violent thoughts and feelings. In a series of five experiments involving over 500 college students, researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists. The students listened to the songs and were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings. One such task involved participants classifying words that can have both aggressive and nonaggressive meanings, such as rock and stick. To control for factors not related to the content of the lyrics, the violent and nonviolent songs were sung by the same artists and were in the same musical style in three of the experiments. In the two other experiments, the researchers tested the arousal properties of the songs to make sure the violent-lyric effects were not due to differences in arousal. Also, individual personality differences related to hostility were assessed and controlled. The study also included songs with humorous lyrics to see how humor interacted with violent song lyrics and aggressive thoughts. Results of the five experiments show that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. nonaggressive words, and increased the proportion of word fragments (such as h_t) that were filled in to make aggressive words (such as hit). The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the authors, and this effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs. Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts. The violent-song increases in aggressive thoughts and feelings have implications for real world violence, according to lead researcher Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D. of Iowa State University. "Aggressive thoughts can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions, coloring them with an aggressive tint. Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response -verbal or physical - than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalatory spiral of antisocial exchanges," said Dr. Anderson. The study investigated precursors to aggression rather than aggressive behavior itself. More research is needed, say the authors, to identify the short-term and long-term effects of violent song lyrics. Repeated exposure to violent lyrics may contribute to the development of an aggressive personality and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, although the authors say it is possible that the effects of violent songs may last only a fairly short time. "One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters," said Dr. Anderson. "This message is important for all consumers, but especially for parents of children and adolescents." From: http://www.apa.org/releases/violentsongs.html

If there is one subject on which the parents of America passionately agree, it is that contemporary adolescent popular music, especially the subgenres of heavy metal and hip-hop/rap, is uniquely degraded — and degrading — by the standards of previous generations. At first blush this seems slightly ironic. After all, most of today’s baby-boom parents were themselves molded by rock and roll, bumping and grinding their way through adolescence and adulthood with legendary abandon. Even so, the parents are correct: Much of today’s music is darker and coarser than yesterday’s rock. Misogyny, violence, suicide, sexual exploitation, child abuse — these and other themes, formerly rare and illicit, are now as common as the surfboards, drive-ins, and sock hops of yesteryear. In a nutshell, the ongoing adult preoccupation with current music goes something like this: What is the overall influence of this deafening, foul, and often vicious-sounding stuff on children and teenagers? This is a genuinely important question, and serious studies and articles, some concerned particularly with current music’s possible link to violence, have lately been devoted to it. In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry all weighed in against contemporary lyrics and other forms of violent entertainment before Congress with a first-ever “Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children.” What is it about today’s music, violent and disgusting though it may be, that resonates with so many American kids? As the reader can see, this is a very different way of inquiring about the relationship between today’s teenagers and their music. The first question asks what the music does to adolescents; the second asks what it tells us about them. To answer that second question is necessarily to enter the roiling emotional waters in which that music is created and consumed — in other words, actually to listen to some of it and read the lyrics. Eminem’s most shocking lyrics about women are not randomly dispersed; they are largely reserved for his mother and ex-wife, and the narrative pose is one of despising them for not being better women — in particular, better mothers. The worst rap directed at his own mother is indeed gut-wrenching: “But how dare you try to take what you didn’t help me to get? /  You selfish bitch, I hope you f— burn in hell for this shit!” It is no defense of the gutter to observe the obvious: This is not the expression of random misogyny but, rather, of primal rage over alleged maternal abdication and abuse. This same theme of awol parenting is rapped at greater length in another award-nominated 2003 song called “Sing for the Moment,” whose lyrics and video would be recognized in an instant by most teenagers in America. That song spells out Eminem’s own idea of what connects him to his millions of fans — a connection that parents, in his view, just don’t (or is that won’t?) understand. It details the case of one more “problem child” created by “His f— dad walkin’ out.” “Sing for the Moment,” like many other songs of Eminem’s, is also a popular video. The “visuals” show clearly what the lyrics depict — hordes of disaffected kids, with flashbacks to bad home lives, screaming for the singer who feels their pain. It concludes by rhetorically turning away from the music itself and toward the emotionally desperate teenagers who turn out for this music by the millions. If the demand of all those empty kids wasn’t out there, the narrator says pointedly, then rappers wouldn’t be supplying it the way they do. If some parents still don’t get it — even as their teenagers elbow up for every new Eminem cd and memorize his lyrics with psalmist devotion — at least some critics observing the music scene have thought to comment on the ironies of all this. In discussing The Marshall Mathers lp in 2001 for Music Box, a daily online newsletter about music, reviewer John Metzger argued, “Instead of spewing the hate that he is so often criticized of doing, Eminem offers a cautionary tale that speaks to our civilization’s growing depravity. Ironically, it’s his teenage fans who understand this, and their all-knowing parents that miss the point.” Metzger further specified “the utter lack of parenting due to the spendthrift necessity of the two-income family.” Entertainers, Eminem most prominently, blame the absent, absentee, and generally inattentive adults whose deprived and furious children (as they see it) have catapulted today’s singers to fame. (As he puts the point in one more in-your-face response to parents: “Don’t blame me when lil’ Eric jumps off of the terrace / You shoulda been watchin him — apparently you ain’t parents.”) The spectacle of a foul-mouthed bad-example rock icon instructing the hardworking parents of America in the art of child-rearing is indeed a peculiar one, not to say ridiculous. The single mother who is working frantically because she must and worrying all the while about what her 14-year-old is listening to in the headphones is entitled to a certain fury over lyrics like those. In fact, to read through most rap lyrics is to wonder which adults or political constituencies wouldn’t take offense. Even so, the music idols who point the finger away from themselves and toward the emptied-out homes of America are telling a truth that some adults would rather not hear. In this limited sense at least, Eminem is right. Excerpted from:  http://www.policyreview.org/dec04/eberstadt.html MORE ABOUT EMINEM BILDERBERGS AND MUSIC ... http://corporatedirt.0catch.com/artists.html for a lowdown on the alleged controlled activities of artists like Metallica, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, and Eminem ... www.greatdreams.com/bilderbergs.htm

VIOLENCE IN VIDEOS In some of these games, players earn points for burning and urinating on African American police officers, having sex with prostitutes and beating them to death to get their money back, decapitating women with shovels, and shooting and brutally murdering almost anyone in the player’s path. On Martin Luther King Day, Resistance Records, a distributor of racist, anti-Semitic "White Power" music began to advertise Ethnic Cleansing, a CD-ROM based computer game whose object is to kill "sub-humans" — i.e. Blacks and Latinos — and their "masters," the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil. Resistance Records is owned by the National Alliance, the largest and most active neo-Nazi organization in the United States Patterned after popular mainstream video games such as Quake and Doom, the game turns racially motivated violence in "entertainment." Racists and anti-Semites are clearly trying to spread their hate-filled vision to a wider, computer-savvy, younger audience through the violent body-strewn world of shoot-em-up computer games while hoping to make some money along the way. The premise of Ethnic Cleansing is that a city — clearly New York — has been destroyed by gangs of "sub-humans" controlled by Jews who are lead by the "end boss" lurking in the subterranean "Lair of the Beast." Plans for world domination are seen in the subway, along with a map of "problem" areas in the U.S. and a sign reading "Diversity, It's Good for Jews." The National Alliance is advertising Ethnic Cleansing as the first in a series of games to be produced by Resistance Records. The next release will be Turner Diaries: The Game based on The Turner Diaries, by William Pierce, the long time leader of the National Alliance. The Turner Diaries describes a world wide race war in which white "Aryans" destroy all non-whites and Jews with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. One of the most widely read and cited books on the far-right, it has explicitly influenced, among others, The Order, the Aryan Republican Army, The New Order and Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. From: http://www.adl.org/videogames/default.asp Real Life Videos:  Videos Amplify Picture of Violence By Josh White, Christian Davenport and Scott Higham Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01 The video begins with three soldiers huddled around a naked detainee, his thin frame backed against a wall. With a snap of his wrist, one of the soldiers slaps the man across his left cheek so hard that the prisoner's knees buckle. Another detainee, handcuffed and on his back, is dragged across the prison floor. Then, the human pyramid begins to take shape. Soldiers force hooded and naked prisoners into crouches on the floor, one by one, side by side, a soldier pointing to where the next ones should go. The video stops. But there is more. Who wrote the instructions on how to do the violence in the prison in Iraq? Before a Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 6, Alberto Gonzalez, President Bush's nominee to be the nation's next attorney general, repeatedly evaded questions about his involvement in writing memos that appear to authorize abuse and torture of prisoners held by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo U.S. Naval base in Cuba. While denying that he or the White House approve of the torture of prisoners, Gonzalez in his role as counsel to President Bush signed off on a very narrow definition of torture, which many observers say opened the door to the widely publicized abuses at the U.S.- run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A January 2002 memo signed by Gonzales described some provisions of the Geneva Conventions as "quaint and obsolete." At the Senate hearing, Gonzalez refused to renounce claims by the White House that the president has the authority to ignore anti-torture treaties -- and went on to say that the administration was considering amending the Geneva Conventions Gonzalez has since been approved to be our Attorney General. Violence comes right from the top! ~~~~~~~~ A Father disagrees with the psychologists and thinks violent video games are great:  I've noticed this with my own kids: despite a "no guns" rule in our house, my boys (and girl!) find ways to make weapons out of everyday objects. Today, that little decorative hunk of plastic is a wand from Harry Potter, with Elijah pointing it upwards shouting "Expecto Patronum!" Tomorrow, I discover Zach sheepishly changing that same hunk of plastic from a "gun-position", making "bam bam bam!" noises, to a "musical conductor position" when he sees me glance at him questioningly. Sara smashes that same hunk of plastic against that of a playmate the next day in a sword battle, with occasional epithets shouted in make-believe language. I have no doubt that young Joshua, when he is of an age to begin acting out make-believe, will join in the fun. I keep hearing in the media how video games are "corrupting our youth". News outlets make sure to emphasize how youthful killers were involved in Dungeons & Dragons, violent video games, or other forms of roleplay. And every time I hear of these correlations, I find myself thinking "they just don't get it." For me, as a kid, violent video games were the catharsis that I needed to avoid taking out my aggressions in real-life on other people. It's make-believe. It's pixels on a screen. Pundits against video-game violence, however, say it's "desensitizing" to real violence. I don't believe that for a heartbeat. I watched a man try to shoot another man to death on an East Los Angeles street. I was shocked and horrified, running for cover, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I had no idea what to do. Yet I'd seen that same scene many times in movies and video games. I stared, aghast, at video footage of an F-16 bombing a group of insurgents in Iraq the other day. It was hard to believe I was seeing what I was seeing, yet it was real life, not make-believe. I was physically ill at the thought of just having watched several dozen Iraqis die, even though I knew they were armed and running to join a fight against U.S. soldiers. The audio of Nick Berg being executed played on the radio several months ago, left me speechless and teary. I had to shut it off because I couldn't take the stress of hearing it, or hearing anything more about it. The way I see it, violent video games provide a way for children to feel powerful in a safe environment. They allow them to explore and master their "darker side", preventing it from becoming the dominant force in their personalities. Even as an adult, being able to blow away the bad guys late at night allows me to be more gentle and tolerant with my own family during the day. A powerless child needs some way to feel powerful and dominant, even if it's only make-believe. From: http://barnson.org/node/view/513

WHERE DOES THE VIOLENCE REALLY COME FROM?  FROM THE BEGINNING! (This list is not meant to be all-enclusive) The Book of Genesis, tells us that Cain became a husbandman while his brother Abel tended flocks. They both offered to the Lord a sacrifice, acknowledging, in a manner analogous to that later prescribed in the law, the sovereign power of the Creator. Cain offered of the fruits of the earth; Abel of the "firstlings of his flock and of their fat". By some means not indicated in the sacred text, perhaps, as has been thought, by some such sign as the fire which consumed the offering of Gideon (Judges, vi, 21) or that of Elias (III, Kings, xviii, 38), God manifested to the brothers that Abel and his sacrifice were acceptable to Him; that, on the contrary, he rejected Cain and his offering. We are not told the reason of this preference. Among the conjectures on the subject one that has found most favour among commentators is that which is incorporated in the Septuagent version of the words of God to Cain in verse vii: "If thou didst offer well but divide badly, hast thou not committed sin?" This implies that Cain committed the fault of presenting to God imperfect gifts, reserving to himself the better part of the produce of the land. However, St. Augustine, who was under the influence of the Septuagint, understood the division in another way. Cain, he tells us, gave God a part of his goods, but he did not give Him his heart (De Civitate Dei, XV, vii). This is in keeping with the cause more generally assigned for God's preference. The sequel of the story shows us the evil disposition of Cain's heart. St. John says that Cain slew Abel because his works were evil, while those of his brother were just (I John, iii, 12), and we read in Hebrews that "by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain" (Heb., xi, 4). Cain The first-born of Adam and Eve. His name is derived, according to Genesis 4:1, from the root kanah, to possess, being given to him in consequence of the words of his mother at his birth: "I have possessed a man by the favour of the Lord". No very serious objection can be urged against this derivation. The Book of Genesis, interested in this section in the origin of the different occupations of men, tells us that Cain became a husbandman while his brother Abel tended flocks. They both offered to the Lord a sacrifice, acknowledging, in a manner analogous to that later prescribed in the law, the sovereign power of the Creator. Cain offered of the fruits of the earth; Abel of the "firstlings of his flock and of their fat". By some means not indicated in the sacred text, perhaps, as has been thought, by some such sign as the fire which consumed the offering of Gideon (Judges, vi, 21) or that of Elias (III, Kings, xviii, 38), God manifested to the brothers that Abel and his sacrifice were acceptable to Him; that, on the contrary, he rejected Cain and his offering. We are not told the reason of this preference. Among the conjectures on the subject one that has found most favour among commentators is that which is incorporated in the Septuagent version of the words of God to Cain in verse vii: "If thou didst offer well but divide badly, hast thou not committed sin?" This implies that Cain committed the fault of presenting to God imperfect gifts, reserving to himself the better part of the produce of the land. However, St. Augustine, who was under the influence of the Septuagint, understood the division in another way. Cain, he tells us, gave God a part of his goods, but he did not give Him his heart (De Civitate Dei, XV, vii). This is in keeping with the cause more generally assigned for God's preference. The sequel of the story shows us the evil disposition of Cain's heart. St. John says that Cain slew Abel because his works were evil, while those of his brother were just (I John, iii, 12), and we read in Hebrews that "by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain" (Heb., xi, 4). Cain is angered by the Divine rejection. In verses 6 and 7 of chapter iv of Genesis we have God's rebuke and warning: "Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou dost well, is not thy countenance raised up? If thou dost not well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is towards thee, but thou rule over it." Sin here is represented under the figure of a wild beast crouching at the door of the heart ready to pounce upon its victim. Cain is able to resist temptation. But he does not, and the Bible story goes on to relate the terrible crime born of his anger and jealousy. He slays Abel. Questioned by the Lord as to the whereabouts of his brother, he answers defiantly that he knows not. To avenge the blood of Abel, God pronounces a curse against the first homicide. The Hebrew text of the curse may be translated either: "Cursed be thou by the earth which has opened its mouth and drunk the blood of thy brother" etc., or "Cursed be thou from the earth" etc. The former translation refers the sentence to the words which follow: "When thou shalt till it, it shall not give thee its strength" i.e. its produce; the latter, to the banishment related afterwards. This banishment from the country where his parents lived and where, as we learn from such passages from the present one, God continued to manifest his presence in some special way, is spoken of as "going out from the face of Jehovah" (verse 16). The country of Cain's banishment, where he was to lead a wandering, vagrant life, is called, in the Hebrew, the land of Nod, and is said to be east of Eden. As we do not know where Eden was, the location of Nod cannot be determined. The punishment seemed to Cain greater than he could bear; in answer to his words expressing fear that he might be killed, God gave him a promise of special protection for his life, and put upon him a sign. No indication as regards the nature of this sign is given us. From: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03142b.htm Gen 4: 8 After that Cain said to Abel his brother: [“Let us go over into the field.”] So it came about that while they were in the field Cain proceeded to assault Abel his brother and kill him.

Genesis 18: 16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. 17 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. 22 And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that [are] therein? 25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which [am but] dust and ashes: 28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for [lack of] five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy [it]. 29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do [it] for forty's sake. 30 And he said [unto him], Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do [it], if I find thirty there. 31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy [it] for twenty's sake. 32 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy [it] for ten's sake. 33 And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place. From: http://www.allstarz.org/bible/genesis18_sbs.htm It was "Jehovah" that Abraham bargained with to save any righteous people found in Sodom, and it was "Jehovah" that destroyed Sodom:   "And the men [i.e. the two angels] turned from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt Thou consume the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city: wilt Thou consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? ... And the two angels came to Sodom at even ... The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar. Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." (Genesis 18:22-24, 19:1,23-25 ASV)

Exodus 4: 21And Jehovah said unto Moses, When thou goest back into Egypt, see that thou do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go. 22And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, my first-born: 23and I have said unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me; and thou hast refused to let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy first-born. 24And it came to pass on the way at the lodging-place, that Jehovah met him, and sought to kill him. http://www.crievehall.org/BellBible/Exodus_4.htm

Numbers 22: 1 And the children of Israel journeyed, and encamped in the plains of Moab on the other side of the Jordan from Jericho. 2 And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. 3 And Moab was much afraid of the people, because they were many; and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. 4 And Moab said to the elders of Midian, Now will this company lick up all that is round about us, as an ox licks up the green herb of the field. Now Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time. 5 And he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is on the river in the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, a people is come out from Egypt; behold, they cover the face of the land, and they abide over against me. 6 And now come, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are mightier than I: perhaps I may be able to smite them, and drive them out of the land; for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. 7 And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed, having the rewards of divination in their hand. And they came to Balaam, and spoke to him the words of Balak. 8 And he said to them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, according as Jehovah shall speak unto me. And the princes of Moab abode with Balaam. 9 And God came to Balaam, and said, Who are these men with thee? 10 And Balaam said to God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, 11 Behold, a people is come out of Egypt, and it covers the face of the land. Now come, curse me them: perhaps I may be able to fight against them, and drive them out. 12 And God said to Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people; for they are blessed. 13 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said to the princes of Balak, Go into your land; for Jehovah refuses to give me leave to go with you. 14 And the princes of Moab rose up; and they went to Balak, and said, Balaam has refused to come with us. 15 Then sent Balak yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they. 16 And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor: Suffer not thyself, I pray thee, to be restrained from coming to me; 17 for very highly will I honour thee, and whatever thou shalt say to me will I do; come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. 18 And Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, If Balak give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the commandment of Jehovah my God, to do less or more. 19 And now, I pray you, abide ye also here this night, and I shall know what Jehovah will say to me further. 20 Then God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, If the men have come to call thee, rise up, [and] go with them; but only what I shall say unto thee shalt thou do. 21 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. 22 And God's anger was kindled because he went; and the Angel of Jehovah set himself in the way to withstand him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two young men were with him. 23 And the ass saw the Angel of Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field, and Balaam smote the ass to turn her into the way. 24 And the Angel of Jehovah stood in a hollow of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side. 25 And the ass saw the Angel of Jehovah, and she pressed herself against the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall; and he smote her again. 26 Then the Angel of Jehovah went still further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. 27 And the ass saw the Angel of Jehovah, and lay down under Balaam; and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with his staff. 28 And Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam, What have I done to thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? 29 And Balaam said to the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in my hand, for now would I kill thee! 30 And the ass said to Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine to this day? was I ever wont to do so to thee? And he said, No. 31 Then Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Angel of Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed and prostrated himself on his face. 32 And the Angel of Jehovah said to him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, it was I who came forth to withstand thee, for the way [thou walkest in] is for ruin before me. 33 And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times; had she not turned from me, I had now certainly slain thee, and saved her alive. 34 And Balaam said to the Angel of Jehovah, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me; and now, if it be evil in thine eyes, I will get me back again. From: http://www.ccel.org/bible/jnd/Numbers/22.html   Number 25:4 And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. KJV http://bible.cc/numbers/25-4.htm

Deuteronomy 2: 2And Jehovah spake unto me, saying, 3Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward. 4And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass through the border of your brethren the children of Esau, that dwell in Seir; and they will be afraid of you: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore; 5contend not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession. 6Ye shall purchase food of them for money, that ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may drink. 7For Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee in all the work of thy hand; he hath known thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years Jehovah thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing. 8So we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, that dwell in Seir, from the way of the Arabah from Elath and from Ezion-geber. And we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab. 9And Jehovah said unto me, Vex not Moab, neither contend with them in battle; for I will not give thee of his land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession. 10(The Emim dwelt therein aforetime, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim: 11these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. 12The Horites also dwelt in Seir aforetime, but the children of Esau succeeded them; and they destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which Jehovah gave unto them.) 13Now rise up, and get you over the brook Zered. And we went over the brook Zered. 14And the days in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, were thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the midst of the camp, as Jehovah sware unto them. 15Moreover the hand of Jehovah was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp, until they were consumed. 16So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people, 17that Jehovah spake unto me, saying, 18Thou art this day to pass over Ar, the border of Moab: 19and when thou comest nigh over against the children of Ammon, vex them not, nor contend with them; for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon for a possession; because I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession. 20(That also is accounted a land of Rephaim: Rephaim dwelt therein aforetime; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, 21a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim; but Jehovah destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead; 22as he did for the children of Esau, that dwell in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day: 23and the Avvim, that dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, that came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.) 24Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the valley of the Arnon: behold, I have given into thy hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. 25This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the peoples that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee. 26And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, 27Let me pass through thy land: I will go along by the highway, I will turn neither unto the right hand nor to the left. 28Thou shalt sell me food for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only let me pass through on my feet, 29as the children of Esau that dwell in Seir, and the Moabites that dwell in Ar, did unto me; until I shall pass over the Jordan into the land which Jehovah our God giveth us. 30But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Jehovah thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as at this day. 31And Jehovah said unto me, Behold, I have begun to deliver up Sihon and his land before thee: begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land. 32Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, unto battle at Jahaz. 33And Jehovah our God delivered him up before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. 34And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones; we left none remaining: 35only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we had taken. 36From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, even unto Gilead, there was not a city too high for us; Jehovah our God delivered up all before us: 37only to the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not near; all the side of the river Jabbok, and the cities of the hill-country, and wheresoever Jehovah our God forbade us. From: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/asv.Deut.2.html

Judges: 20:1 Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was assembled as one man, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, with the land of Gilead, unto Jehovah at Mizpah. 20:2 And the chiefs of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen that drew sword. 20:3 (Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel were gone up to Mizpah.) And the children of Israel said, Tell us, how was this wickedness brought to pass? 20:4 And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was murdered, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge. 20:5 And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about me by night; me they thought to have slain, and my concubine they forced, and she is dead. 20:6 And I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel. 20:7 Behold, ye children of Israel, all of you, give here your advice and counsel. 20:8 And all the people arose as one man, saying, We will not any of us go to his tent, neither will we any of us turn unto his house. 20:9 But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah: `we will go up' against it by lot; 20:10 and we will take ten men of a hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to fetch victuals for the people, that they may do, when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, according to all the folly that they have wrought in Israel. 20:11 So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man. 20:12 And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What wickedness is this that is come to pass among you? 20:13 Now therefore deliver up the men, the base fellows, that are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put away evil from Israel. But Benjamin would not hearken to the voice of their brethren the children of Israel. 20:14 And the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together out of the cities unto Gibeah, to go out to battle against the children of Israel. 20:15 And the children of Benjamin were numbered on that day out of the cities twenty and six thousand men that drew sword, besides the inhabitants of Gibeah, who were numbered seven hundred chosen men. 20:16 Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at a hair-breadth, and not miss. 20:17 And the men of Israel, besides Benjamin, were numbered four hundred thousand men that drew sword: all these were men of war. 20:18 And the children of Israel arose, and went up to Beth-el, and asked counsel of God; and they said, Who shall go up for us first to battle against the children of Benjamin? And Jehovah said, Judah `shall go up' first. 20:19 And the children of Israel rose up in the morning, and encamped against Gibeah. 20:20 And the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin; and the men of Israel set the battle in array against them at Gibeah. 20:21 And the children of Benjamin came forth out of Gibeah, and destroyed down to the ground of the Israelites on that day twenty and two thousand men. 20:22 And the people, the men of Israel, encouraged themselves, and set the battle again in array in the place where they set themselves in array the first day. 20:23 And the children of Israel went up and wept before Jehovah until even; and they asked of Jehovah, saying, Shall I again draw nigh to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother? And Jehovah said, Go up against him. 20:24 And the children of Israel came near against the children of Benjamin the second day. 20:25 And Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men; all these drew the sword. 20:26 Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came unto Beth-el, and wept, and sat there before Jehovah, and fasted that day until even; and they offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before Jehovah. 20:27 And the children of Israel asked of Jehovah (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, 20:28 and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And Jehovah said, Go up; for to-morrow I will deliver him into thy hand. 20:29 And Israel set liers-in-wait against Gibeah round about. 20:30 And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and set themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times. 20:31 And the children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to smite and kill of the people, as at other times, in the highways, of which one goeth up to Beth-el, and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel. 20:32 And the children of Benjamin said, They are smitten down before us, as at the first. But the children of Israel said, Let us flee, and draw them away from the city unto the highways. 20:33 And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Baal-tamar: and the liers-in-wait of Israel brake forth out of their place, even out of Maareh-geba. 20:34 And there came over against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was sore; but they knew not that evil was close upon them. 20:35 And Jehovah smote Benjamin before Israel; and the children of Israel destroyed of Benjamin that day twenty and five thousand and a hundred men: all these drew the sword. 20:36 So the children of Benjamin saw that they were smitten; for the men of Israel gave place to Benjamin, because they trusted unto the liers-in-wait whom they had set against Gibeah. 20:37 And the liers-in-wait hasted, and rushed upon Gibeah; and the liers-in-wait drew themselves along, and smote all the city with the edge of the sword. 20:38 Now the appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liers-in-wait was, that they should make a great cloud of smoke rise up out of the city. 20:39 And the men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to smite and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, Surely they are smitten down before us, as in the first battle. 20:40 But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and, behold, the whole of the city went up `in smoke' to heaven. 20:41 And the men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that evil was come upon them. 20:42 Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness; but the battle followed hard after them; and they that came out of the cities destroyed them in the midst thereof. 20:43 They inclosed the Benjamites round about, `and' chased them, `and' trod them down at `their' resting-place, as far as over against Gibeah toward the sunrising. 20:44 And there fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men; all these `were' men of valor. 20:45 And they turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the rock of Rimmon: and they gleaned of them in the highways five thousand men, and followed hard after them unto Gidom, and smote of them two thousand men. 20:46 So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty and five thousand men that drew the sword; all these `were' men of valor. 20:47 But six hundred men turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the rock of Rimmon, and abode in the rock of Rimmon four months. 20:48 And the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword, both the entire city, and the cattle, and all that they found: moreover all the cities which they found they set on fire. From: http://www.fridaystudy.org/bible/07_020.htm

1 Kings 11: 34 Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand; but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David my servant's sake whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes; 35but I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. 36And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a lamp alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. 37And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and