LOVELIGHT

magazine

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March 2006***Vol. 3, no. 3

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SPECIAL ANIMAL RIGHTS

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Managing editors: Richard Shining Thunder Francis and Adamaria Francis. Other contributors to this issue: Pat Fields, Chris Finer, Mick Gallagher, Patti Goodman, Sandra Grubb, Karleen Sell, and Ty Scharrer

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CYBERMALFUNCTION: PLEASE RESEND ANYTHING MISSED!

We have experienced a significant cyberglitch here at Lovelight magazine. You might have sent in something via email, during February, for inclusion in the magazine, and it might have been lost. If you did send in anything, and we either did not acknowledge, or reprint, it, please do send it in again. Sorry for any inconvenience.

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ANIMALOVE: RAISING FUNDS FOR FARM-ANIMALS

On Sunday, February 26, at the Pneumarium Lightcenter, we held a party for the special purpose of raising funds for the Humane Society. We are very happy to report that the Party did indeed raise over two hundred dollars! Farm-animals, in corporate-farms, are hideously and nightmarishly abused on a regular basis. (See article at the end of this mag.) They are not even recognized as living creatures, but seen as "production-units." They are severely abused, neglected, and mistreated. Pigs are a good example. A pig is much smarter than the average dog; it can even watch tv with you. Pigs are stored in such tight cages that they actually break their legs from trying to turn around; then, they are not cared for. Conditions are atrocious, toxic, and filthy. Bacteria abounds in the filth. Yet this horrifically tortured animals later become "ham" and "bacon" for human beings, invested with all the chemical toxins, bacteria, and fear-energy felt by the creature every day of its miserable life. Some never even see sunlight, and never smell fresh air. They are never released from these ghastly iron cages in which there is so little room that some have suffocated. Their brains grow numb and dead with absence of stimulation, and this mind-deadening life affects the quality of the "food." Please do yourself the greatest favor of your life, and the greatest service possible to life: Avoid bacon, ham, and other forms of slaughtered pig and innocent cow.

Special thanks and acknowledgments to those who helped organize the "Animalove Party": (in alphorder): Pat Fields, Adamaria Francis, Richard Mattrella, Michael Shapiro, Gloria Shepherd, Margie Trauthwein, and Jeff Turner. Blessings upon all of you, and "good piggy karma" in your future!:)

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FENG SHUI CORNER, sent in by pat Fields

Plant lots of pine trees on your property. These trees symbolize longevity because they live for many years and contribute to good health by producing much oxygen.

Don't select bells that have been used inside temples or churches. They have absorbed the energy of those with sin, and you'll bring that negative energy into your home.

Don't leave too many things on kitchen surfaces in plain sight, as this will detract from a good flow of energy.

Place pairs of standing or kneeling elephant statues as guardians flanking the doors of your home, on either the outside or the inside.

Select the largest-size figure of Buddha that appeals to you, keeping him in proportion to the size of the room in which he is located.

Purify natural crystals before using them. Gently rinse them in rainwater, the ocean, or a solution of sea salt and cold water (mixed in a glass or ceramic container, not a metal or plastic one).

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REACH OUT AND TOUCH NO ONE, by

Maureen Dowd, sent in by Karleen Sell

Doing the math, you've got to figure that the 12 wise men [advisors] and one wise woman had about 30 seconds apiece to say their piece to the president about Iraq, where vicious assaults this week have killed almost 200 and raised U.S. troop fatalities to at least 2,189.

It must have been like a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which boils down the great plays and books to their essence. Proust is "I like cookies." Othello raps that he left Desdemona "all alona, didn't telephona." "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" condense into "The Idiodity." "Henry V" is "A king's gotta do what a king's gotta do," and "Antony and Cleopatra" is "Never get involved in Middle Eastern affairs."

Beyond taking a class picture ringed around Mr. Bush's bizarrely empty desk - a mesmerizing blend of "Sunset Boulevard," "The Last Supper" and a "Sopranos" ad - the former secretaries of state and defense had to make the most of their brief colloquy with dubya.

The spectral Robert McNamara might have enlightened on Vietnam: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the opposition. Didn't know when to get out." If he was a fast talker, he could have added: "It's the dominoes. If Iraq falls, then Syria falls, then Lebanon falls, and before you know it, all of Southeast Asia - I mean, the Middle East - will fall."

Melvin Laird only needed to add: "Ditto."

Al Haig's summation would have been a cinch: "I resign. I'm in charge here. I resign - again."

Instead of his good-soldier silence, Colin Powell could have redeemed himself with four words: "I should have resigned."

Madeleine Albright might have succinctly imparted some wisdom from Somalia and Rwanda: "Didn't understand the culture. Misjudged the threat. Didn't know when to get in."

James Baker, Svengali and Sphinx, must have been thinking: "I told your dad not to let you in here. I could tell you how to get [out] of Iraq in 10 minutes, but you're too under the sway of that nutcase Cheney to listen."

George Shultz only needed to say: "I have a tiger tattooed on my fanny," and Lawrence Eagleburger could have abridged his thoughts to "I need a smoke. Bad."

It might seem disturbing at first, that with several hundreds of years' worth of foreign policy at his elbows, and a bloody, thorny mess in Iraq, bush would devote mere moments to letting some fresh air into his House of Pain.

Sure, he has A.D.D. But he just spent six straight days mountain-biking and brush clearing in Crawford. He couldn't devote 60 minutes to getting our kids home rather than just a few for a "Message: I Care" photo-op faking sincerity?

"We all went into the bubble and came out," one of the wise men noted.

Mr. Eagleburger explained their role as props, saying it was hard to volubly express yourself with a president. "There was some criticism, but it was basically 'You haven't talked to the American people enough.'" Lighting a cigarette on the way out - he'd thrown one in the bushes; on the way in - he added the world-weary coda: "We're all has-beens anyway."

Mr. Eagleburger knows the truth. If dubya had wanted to really reach out, rather than just pretend to reach out so that his poll numbers would go up, he would have sought advice outside his warped inner circle long ago - including from his own father.

Because dubya's mind is so closed to anybody except yes-men who tell him his policies and wars are slam-dunks, uneasy seasoned mandarins are forced to make a noisy stink. Brent Scowcroft, one of bush senior's closest friends, had to resort to the pages of The New Yorker to voice his objections. He ominously said [that] Dick Cheney, his old colleague, was someone he no longer recognized.

You wonder whether the other contemporaries of Cheney and Rummy from Ford, Reagan and bush days were thinking the same thing at Thursday's meeting: Why have these guys gone so kooky?

Dubya is drunk on Cheney Kool-Aid. So he got testy when Ms. Albright pointed out that North Korea and Iran were going nuclear while the U.S. was bogged down in Baghdad. Then, after a quick photo in the Oval [office], he shooed the old-timers out, letting anyone who wanted to stay talk to the security factotum Stephen Hadley.

Still busy spreading fog over the war, Dubya, Cheney, Rummy and Condi had no time to hear McNamara expound on the fog of war. In the picture, as Ms. Albright cringes, Mr. McNamara looks haunted, unable to escape second-guessing over Vietnam.

The only thing that would have made the photo even more utterly phony was the presence of that vintage warmonger, Henry the K.

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THE UNIVERSE WITHIN: CALLING FORTH THE SIX DIRECTIONS

In native shamanism, the most popular of all the intercultural rites, rituals, or ceremonies among the tribes is the "Six Direction Ceremony." Amazingly, this versatile and profound Ceremony is not limited to native American tradition.

For the same ceremony is also represented as a foundational ceremony in European Hermetics [Mindmagic in the tradition of the ancient Greek Hermes]. In that tradition, it is traced to the prehistoric shamans who created Egyptian and, later, Greek mythology.

A comparison between the two ceremonies is enlightening, as it reveals much about the origins of both; each shines an analytical light upon the other. The native rite draws its Power from "nature." But the Hermetic goes even deeper, asking, What is the very source of nature?

And its answer is Mind. Nature, it says, is created—more literally, dreamed into being—by a great Mind. This is, of course, the Wakan Tanka of native tradition. So, says Hermetics, the Six Direction Ceremony is not a way to "reach out" too nature, but a way to "reach into" the deeper Mind. While the native, therefore, looks to nature, expecting the "Spirit" to be "out there," the Hermetic looks within; it draws the six powers from deep within the Mind. For the "outer, material" world, it teaches, is also Mind only. In this, it agrees with the deepest mystical and universal traditions of spirituality.

Symbolism differs. One of the first things noticed is that the directional colors are different. In native tradition, the east is red, the south yellow, the west black, and the north white—going clockwise. In Hermetics, bright primary colors were chosen to trigger "archetypal" (very profound) energies from the unconscious Mind. The colors used in the Hermetic ceremony also represent the four elements; each is further symbolized by a geometric form. And they are:

North—yellow—earth--square

East—blue—air-- circle

South—red—fire-- triangle

West—silver—water-- crescent

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I have combined the native and the Hermetic. In Hermetics, the Ceremony begins with the north, but in native practice, it begins with the east. Here is the native, by comparison:

East--red—enlightenment, awakening

South—yellow—healing, growth

West—black, the mysteries of Infinity and Spirit

north—white—purity, endurance, strength, honesty

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Implements. In the shamanic ritual, the pipe is the implement used for all four directions, and in all invocations. But in Hermetics, each direction has its own implement. The implement of the north, held in the left hand when invoking the power, is the crystal. In archaic times, a copper plate inscribed with a five-pointed star, called the "pentacle," often was also used. The implement of the east was the knife, for the south, the wand, and for the west, the chalice. Often, as with the shamanic costume, one doing the Six Direction Hermetic Ceremony wears a special garment used for nothing else. (Mine is saffron silk from India.)

Meanings. Each of the four directions represents a part or aspect of human psychology. The north represents tenacity, endurance, strength, cohesion, adhesion, stone, cement, concrete, the durable, determined, and great inertial force. (It also represents taurus, virgo, and capricorn.)

The east represents communication, cooperation, birdsong, animal-talk (communion with nature), intellect, science, nature-studies, and wisdom. (It is also gemini, libra, and aquarius.)

The south is heat, energy, force, passion, intensity, sunlight, fire, bio-energy, mental (emotional and spiritual) energy. (It is aries, leo, and sagittarius.)

The west symbolizes "flogoing," or cooperation with the cosmos, Tao, non-resistance, harmony, being "in synch" with nature, becoming a "vessel" for nature or for Mind. It is feeling, intuition, and psychic energy and parapsychological manifestations. It is dreams and visions. (It is cancer, scorpio, and pisces.)

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A Six Direction Ceremony might begin with a verbal, audible call to the directions. Also, there are two additional forces called forth in Ceremony in both native and Hermetic traditions: These are "Father Sky" (blue in native tradition, gold in Hermetic) and "Mother Earth" (green in both). In Hermetics, "Mother Earth" is contrasted with the northern element, "Sister Earth," and represents all the mysteries of life, and all bio-processes and bio-healing. "Father Sky" represents Mind and Love.

A Ceremony begins with a phrase such as, "Sister Earth, we call you forth now from the great Unconscious Mind (or, the Collective), as we fill this room with bright, vivid yellow energy to attract thy power. We call thee forth as elementals." These are pictured as spheres of vivid yellow light, ranging from baseball-size to beachball-size. They are then "programmed" to perform a specific task in the "astral" world (the world of Mind), and are programmed to "do no harm." Then, they are "sent forth" into the "world." A ceremony might include only a few, or it might involve hundreds (of smaller ones).

Sometimes, a Ceremony is not this specific. At marriages, for example, the qualities are all called forth from the great Mind, and the room is filled with the spectacular colors, but the forces are not "coalesced" as "elementals." Then, it is just formless energy that is called forth and sent into the marriage, or into the world, or into the future. These are just symbolic ways of doing the same thing: Breaking the powers away from the Mind, and giving them autonomy.

Natives use the "equilateral" cross to symbolize the four directions of the cosmos. This symbol is also found in many other cultures, and in Hermetics. There, it also represents cosmos; but, inside a circle – symbolic of Mind – it illustrates that the whole cosmos is the dream of the great Mind.

Six Direction Ceremonies are probably the most useful of all. They are used for only positive activity—blessing, never cursing, healing, never making ill. They can be tailored to accomplish any goal. Or, a general Ceremony might not have a specific goal; it occurs simply to remind you that you, as mind, are interconnected with a vast web, a network, of Mindforces throughout the universe. You are a part of nature, and it is a part of you. Deep in the Unconscious, "your" mind grows out of the great Mind of Wakan Tanka.

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GIGGLES AND CHUCKLES: MORE HUMORTHERAPY

ASKING TOO MUCH, sent in by Karleen Sell

Mr. Smith climbs to the top of the mountain to get close enough to talk to God. Looking up, he asks the Lord, "God, what does a million years mean to you?"

The Lord replies, "A minute."

Smith asks, "And what does a million dollars mean to you?"

The Lord replies, "A penny."

Smith asks, "Can I have a penny?"

The Lord replies, "In a minute."

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USED PEANUTS, sent in by Chris Finer

A tour bus driver is driving with a bus load of seniors down a highway when he is tapped on his shoulder by a little old lady. She offers him a handful of peanuts, which he gratefully munches.

After about 15 minutes, she taps him on his shoulder again and she hands him
another handful of peanuts. She repeats this gesture about five more times. When she is about to hand him another batch again he asks the little old lady why they don't eat the peanuts themselves.
"We can't chew them because we've no teeth", she replied. The puzzled driver asks, "Why do you buy them then?" The old lady replied, "We just love the chocolate around them!"

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HE'S A SAINT!, sent in by Sandra Grubb

The president, bush, wanted to use a local church for a photo op. Bush's advance person said to the pastor, "We will make a $10,000 contribution to your church if, during your introduction of the President, you say he is a saint." The pastor agreed to do so and accepted the $10,000 contribution.

When the pastor introduced the President before a nationally televised audience, the pastor said, "George Bush is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite and nitwit. He stole the 2000 election. He has polarized the country. He has politicized science. He lied about his military record. He invaded a country for oil and had the gall to land on an aircraft carrier and pose before a banner stating 'Mission Accomplished.' He continues to blur the line between church and state. Cronyism and corruption are rampant in his administration. He is the worst example of a Christian I've ever personally known. But, compared to Dick Cheney, George Bush is a saint."

Sent in by Chris Finer

Old Strange Laws:

Kentucky:
By law, anyone who has been drinking is "sober" until he or she "cannot hold onto the
ground."

It is illegal to transport an ice cream cone in your pocket.

Louisiana:
It is illegal to rob a bank and then shoot at the bank teller with a water pistol. I GUESS YOU'LL HAVE TO USE REAL BULLETS!

Biting someone with your natural teeth is "simple assault," while biting someone with your false teeth is "aggravated assault."

Massachusetts:
Mourners at a wake may not eat more than three sandwiches. SO LIKE, WHO'S COUNTING?

Snoring is prohibited unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked. GOOD IDEA!

Nebraska:
A parent can be arrested if his child cannot hold back a burp during a church service. WHO KNEW?

New Mexico:
Females are strictly forbidden to appear unshaven in public.

New York:
A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting. This old law specifically prohibits men from turning around on any city street and looking "at a woman in that way."

A second conviction for a crime of this magnitude calls for the violating
male to be forced to wear a "pair of horse- blinders" wherever and whenever he goes
outside for a stroll.

North Dakota:
Beer & pretzels can't be served at the same time in any bar or restaurant. THAT'S IT, THROW A BIG FIT!

Ohio:
Women are prohibited from wearing patent leather shoes in public. NO COMMENT!

Oklahoma:
Violators can be fined, arrested or jailed for making ugly faces at a dog. WHAT IF THE DOG STARTS IT?

Females are forbidden from doing their own hair without being licensed by the state. THIS IS THE LAND OF THE FREE?

Dogs must have a permit signed by the mayor in order to congregate in groups of three or more on private property. ALRIGHTY THEN, WHERE'S ACE VENTURA?

Pennsylvania:
A special cleaning ordinance bans housewives from hiding dirt and dust under a rug in a dwelling. ?

No man may purchase alcohol without written consent from his wife. THIS ONE I LIKE!

Texas:
A city ordinance states that a person cannot go barefoot without first obtaining a special five-dollar permit. ANYTHING TO MAKE OR GET MONEY, RIGHT?

It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. THEN MAKE IT ONE BIG GULP!

Vermont:
All lollipops are banned. DOES THIS GO FOR SUCKERS TOO?

A law to reduce crime states: "It is mandatory for a motorist with criminal intentions to stop at the city limits and telephone the chief of police as he is entering the town. YA RIGHT! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS GOING TO STOP AND LET AUTHORITIES KNOW THEIR EVERY MOVE?

West Virginia:
No children may attend school with their breath smelling of "wild onions."

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THE RULES OF CONDUCT, sent in by Ty Scharrer

New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com. There's a reason that you don't talk to people for 25 years. It's because you never particularly liked them. Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: He's mowing my lawn.

New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: Do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.

New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this at the supermarket: "Water, but without that watery taste." Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink.

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.

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DON'T FALL ASLEEP IN CHURCH! , sent in by Mick Gallaghar

A man approached the minister at his church. "Reverend," he said, "We have a problem. My wife keeps falling asleep during your sermons. It's very embarrassing, not to mention disrespectful. What can I do?"

"I've noticed this and have an idea if you're up to the task," said the minister. "Take this hat pin with you. I can see when Mrs. Jones is sleeping, and will motion to you. When I motion, you give her a good poke in the leg with the hat pin."

In church the following Sunday, Mrs. Jones dozed off. Noticing this, the preacher put his plan to work..
"And who made the ultimate sacrifice for you?" he said nodding to
Mr. Jones.

"Jesus!" Mrs. Jones cried out as her husband jabbed her in the leg
with the sharp hat pin.

"Yes! You are correct, Mrs. Jones!" came the minister's quick reply.

Mrs. Jones then turned and glared angrily at her husband. But soon, Mrs. Jones again had nodded off.

The minister noticed. "Who is your redeemer?" he asked the congregation, motioning toward Mr. Jones.

"My God!" Howled Mrs Jones as she was stuck again with the pin.

"Right again!" Bellowed the minister, a slight grin on his face.

Mrs. Jones again gave her husband a real hard threatening glare. Before long, though, she again nodded off. This time however, the minister did not notice. As he picked up the tempo of his sermon, he made a few hand gestures that Mr. Jones mistook as signals to sharply poke his wife with the hat pin again.

The minister asked, "And what did Eve say to Adam after she bore him
his 99th son?"

Mrs. Jones jumped up and shouted, "You stick that thing in me one
more time, I'll break it in half and shove it where the sun don't
shine!"

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"Amen!" replied all the women in the congregation.

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[This is a rerun from a previous issue, but we thought that it could be enjoyed all over again!]

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YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when..., sent in by Pat Goodman

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.***2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.***3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your

family of three.***4. You email the person who works at the desk next to you.***

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don' t have email addresses.***6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.***7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.***8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic; and you turn around to go and get it.***10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.***11. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.***12. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this

message.***13. You were too busy to notice that there was no #9 on this list.***14. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

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MEMORABLE, VALUABLE SAYINGS

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."-- Abraham Lincoln [Did he know bush?]

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"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."—U.S. president Harry Truman

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GOODNESS COMES BACK: INSTANT KARMA, sent in by Chris Finer

A motorcycle patrolman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well. But he kept feeling something pulling at the hairs on his chest.

Worried about a second surgery the doctors hadn't told him about, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown down enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable. Taped firmly across his hairy chest were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn't come off easily.

Written in large black letters was the sentence, "Get well quick-- from the nurse you gave a ticket to last week."

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FINE AND FUN FRAGRANCES, sent in by Pat Fields

[We are foreseeing this as a regular column, about essential oils and aromatherapy.]

Lavender's dreamy fragrance has made it a popular perfume for centuries. Originating in the Mediterranean mountains, it was brought to England by the Romans. It has a sweet scent with woody undertones.

The active ingredients include the alcohol called "linalool." It also includes ketones, aldehydes, and esters.

Linalol helps kill viruses and bacteria and helps heal sores, wounds, burns, and acne.

Ketones helps reduce inflation, build new skin tissue, and relieve pain. (Ketones can be toxic, so if lavender contains an amount above 35% it should be avoided. (Diabetics, pregnant women, and epileptics should avoid them completely.)

Esters prevent scarring and muscle spasms, fight fungal infections, and ease swelling and soreness. They help to regulate your moods, preventing hysteria and depression.

Lavender is perfect for the bathroom as an air-freshener. It is also ideal as a massage oil, relaxing muscles and relieving tensions. It can be mixed with almond oil.

Lavender is one of the few essential oils that can be directly applied, undiluted on sunburn or damaged skin. Lavender's strong aroma and soothing properties come from aldehydes. Drop lavender oil on your sheets, or put a small bag of flowers under your pillow. A few drops in your bathwater can help you sleep.

Ladies, ease your period pains with Lavender by massaging the lower back and stomach with diluted lavender oil. Avoid the emotional problems of pms. Here is a useful formula: Combine 3 drops of Lavender, 3 drops of Roman chamomile and 30 ml carrier oil [such as almond, grapeseed, canola, etc.] and put on pulse points on days leading up to your period. The soothing, calm smell of this combination should help regulate your hormonal system.

Lavender is the sacred scent of the Celtic month of the Willow Moon (April 15 to May 13). Picking lavender during the full moon enhances its powers. Romans burned lavender over hot coals to surround a new mother and child with the scent of compassion.

Sprigs of lavender were worn by medieval monks to banish evil spirits. [Pg 11, ln 8 ]

( Taken from "Healing with Lavender - Your Aromatherapy Course")

ODDBALL AND ECCENTRIC FACTS, sent in by Chris Finer

It is impossible to lick your elbow.*** A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.***A shrimp's heart is in its head.***In a study of 200,000 ostriches, over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.***It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.***A pregnant goldfish is called a "twit."***More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

***

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest

tongue twister in the English language.

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DARWIN AWARDS, sent in by Pat Goodman

Darwin Awards are bestowed to honor the least evolved
among us, and therefore provide hope for those of us who just might
adapt to the stress and struggles of our environment.

The winners:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder in us all. He peered down the barrel, and tried the trigger again. This time it worked ..

2. An American teenager was in the hospital, recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

3. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cashdrawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer was $15. (This may actually be a point of law for debate: If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

4. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block, and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

5. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID to be made, to which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

6. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down, because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

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SUNLESS, FILTHY, INFECTED HELL FOR BROTHER PIG!

Thanks to Matthew Scully, who wrote the original article on which the following was based.

Confronting the cruel facts of factory-farmed meat can change your life forever!

Is there absolutely nothing that people will not do to increase profits? Is there no evil to which they will not stoop to make bucks? Is there no behavior so grotesque and humiliating that they will not do it for their obscene master Greed?

Not at all surprisingly, the current immoral and greedy gov is supporting this monstrous nightmare. You can fall on your knees and thank Love if you are a vegetarian! For this ghastly treatment of animals fills human-consumed meat with some horrific chemicals! It also infects human-consumed meat with biotoxins.

Arizona voters will be asked this fall to weigh in on a ballot measure called the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act, which is now in the signature-gathering stage. True, it seems a bit of a yawn. But, by November, it is certain to be one of our most exciting and energizing debates!

The initiative would prohibit the factory-farming practice of confining pigs and veal calves in crates so small that the animals cannot even turn around or extend their limbs. It is the story of masses of creatures enduring lives of unrelieved confinement and deprivation.

Known in the trade as "intensive confinement" or "mass confinement," it

sounds like hell!

Just this month, the industry's allies in the Arizona Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment to bar the public from passing any laws promoting the humane treatment of farm animals, effective Jan. 1, 2006.

Basically, these evil criminals figured out some years ago that if they packed the maximum number of pigs into the minimum amount of space, if they pinned the creatures down into fit-to-size iron crates above slatted floors and carved out giant "lagoons" to contain the manure-- if they turned it in short, into a sunless hell of metal and concrete--

it made everything so much more efficient. From the industry's standpoint, that should settle the matter.

Veal, by definition, is the product of a sick, anemic, deliberately malnourished calf, a newborn dragged away from his mother in the first hours of life. Veal calves are dealt the harshest of punishments for the least essential of meats. And if you think people can get too sentimental about animals, try listening sometime to chefs and gourmands

going on about the "velvety smooth succulence" of their favorite fare.

For all of its "science-based" pretensions, factory farming is really just an evasion

from duties of honest animal husbandry. Man, the rationalizing creature, can justify just about anything when there is money in sight. Only it's easier when your victims are so completely unable to speak for themselves.

Over the years, one miserly deprivation led to another, ever harsher, one. In time, it became torture of the helpless and innocent. The animals ceased to be understood as living creatures at all. Pigs, for example, aren't even "raised" anymore. These days, in America's 395,000-kills-per-day pork industry, pigs are "grown." They are crowded together by the hundreds in the automated, scientifically based intensive-confinement facilities formerly known as barns.

To the factory farmer, the animals are "production units," and accorded all the sympathy that term suggests. As conservative commentator Fred Barnes put it in the Wall Street Journal, "On the old family farms, pigs and cattle and chickens were raised for food, but they were free for a time; they mated, raised piglets, calves and chicks

and were protected by the farmers.… They had a life. On industrial farms, they don't."

Their ceaseless, merciless confinement is the cause of the pigs'

aggression… It turns out that when you trap intelligent, 400- to 500-pound mammals in gestation crates 22 inches wide and 7 feet long, when their limbs are broken from trying

to turn or escape, and they are covered in sores, blood, tumors, "pus pockets," and their own urine and excrement, they tend to act up a bit.

Indeed, the most notable thing is how the appearance of any human being causes a violent panic. A mere opening of the door brings on a horrific wave of roars, squeals and cage-rattling from the sows. Another memorable sight is the "cull pen," wherein each and every day, the dead or dying bodies of the weak are placed, the ones who expired from the sheer, unrelenting agony of it.

This nightmare of factory farming is propped up by tens of billions of dollars in annual federal subsidies. The filth and sickening outrage, torture, and relentless pain could not continue unless our greedy gov supported it all. But for money, the gov will do absolutely anything, with no regard for compassion!

This is very definitely our business. Much as the immiserated animals are kept on four legs by hormones and antibiotics, the entire enterprise is sustained by those federal subsidies and billions more paid by government to repair industrial farming's immense

collateral damage to land, water and air.

The illusion of consumer savings depends not only on unscrupulous corporate farmers, but also on complaisant citizens and blithely indifferent consumers who don't ask too many questions - least of all moral questions. And the industry wants to keep it that way. Just buy the "cheap" meat, forget the damned animals, and keep the subsidies

coming!

Once the details are known, in short, it all becomes a very tough sell for factory farmers. And so far their quaint-sounding "Campaign for Arizona Farmers and Ranchers" (brought to you by the National Pork Producers Council and other agribusiness trade groups) is not going well.

When you want people to harden their hearts, it's probably not such a good idea to invite comparisons between farm animals and dogs or cats. How would your dog react if you stuffed her into a crate in which she could not even stretch or turn around, and never let her out? No human attention or companionship with other animals. No bedding, straw to lie on. No single moment outdoors, ever, to feel the breeze or the

warmth of the sun.

Your dog, a being of intelligence and emotional capacities entirely comparable to those of a pig, would beg and wail and whimper and finally fall silent into a state of complete brokenness. And anyone who inflicted such tortures on that animal, no matter what excuses might be offered, would be guilty of a felony. If the creatures are comparable, and the conditions identical, and the suffering equal, how can the one

be "standard practice" and the other a crime?

The problems of factory farming are becoming more apparent, and more

abhorrent, to people of every political stripe. When the conservative columnist George Will, for example, calls cruelty to animals "an intrinsic evil," citing the "pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations" of factory farming, you know it can no longer be

shrugged off as the concern of a faint-hearted few.

Another conservative writer, Andrew Ferguson of Bloomberg News, challenged the "hyper-efficient agricultural economy" and "the cruel innovations the modern industrial farm depends upon." And Father Richard John Neuhaus, writing in the conservative National Review, expressed his disgust at "the horrors perpetuated against pigs on industrial farms," a matter "that warrants public and governmental attention."

Protestant Christians could hear a similar message from Charles Colson, who cautions that "When it comes to animal welfare today, Christians have allowed the secular world

to set the agenda.... We need to get involved in shaping laws that determine animal treatment. But first we must make it our business to find out how … cattle are treated on factory farms." Christians especially "have a duty to prevent the needless torment of animals."

Utah [is] now home to a sprawling network of nightmarish "mega-farms," all of them built and run by giant corporations like Smithfield Foods, the real outsiders in all of this. The largest of these places, a sort of gulag for pigs, holds 1.3 million in confinement

and produces more waste every year than metropolitan Los Angeles.

Prepare yourself to hear, in the coming months, arguments and similar rubbish from industry lobbyists, their shill veterinarians, and anyone else they can trot out to make something pernicious and contemptible seem decent and praiseworthy. Then in the quiet of the voting booth, ask yourself why any creature of God, however humble, should be made to endure the dark, lonely, tortured existence of the factory farm, and what kind of people build their fortunes upon such misery. The answer will send an unequivocal message, to factory farmers and to all concerned, that unbridled arrogance, bad faith, rank cruelty, and obscene greed are not American or earthling values.

Matthew Scully worked for Arizona governors Mecham, Mofford, and Symington. A former special assistant and deputy director of speechwriting for President Bush, he is the author of "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy."