Now opening a can of worms...

Scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 21, 1999

Answers

Why are we not surprised? Don't bother reading it, folks. It's the usual Mr. M sensationalism and it HEAVILY links the two Columbine shooters to Y2K: ". . . undeniably kooks. . .white supremacists, Goths, outcasts and loners. . . Y2K devotees." They "sounded doomsday warnings about the year 2000 and the end of the millennium."

Then Mr. M switches to Y2K nuts and guns: ". . . Y2Kers are pretty sensitive about some topics. Specifically: Guns and restrictions on their ownership. (The conventional wisdom, such as it is, stresses that a happy Y2Ker is a well-armed Y2Ker. Have you bought your AR-15 yet?) So linking the shooters to Y2K touched a nerve."

And don't you love his description of this forum: "On Y2K tub-thumper Ed Yourdon's discussion forum, the threads filled quickly with breaking-news posts. 'Did anybody else hear that, and did you think, "Oh no, the news is going to go crazy talking about 'Y2K dangerous lunatics.'"' Other participants complained about liberal politicians talking about passing anti-gun laws."

-- Disgusted But Not Surprised Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 21, 1999.

PS - Please don't go to the site; it'll make it look popular and you might not want to popularize such a person.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 21, 1999.

Predictable ranting response.

I support the right to keep and bear arms, and have gone shooting a number of times at the NRA range. To head off the inevitable NRA-are-sellouts argument: I have quoted GOA and JPFO folks in my articles on guns, as I believe they are more principled.

But when the Washington Post is talking about the Y2K link in a front-page story, I don't think it's wise to ignore it.

-- Declan McCullagh (declan@y2kculture.com), April 21, 1999.

Wait a sec, 'fore we rake Declan 'cross the coals again, wasn't his last paragraph a model of insight, sympathy for y2ker's, and clarity ? I thought it was good:

The reality, of course, is that they have good reason to be spooked. At the risk of sounding heartless, it's clear that disasters like the Denver shootings receive disproportionate media coverage while everyday inner-city violence goes underreported. Well-publicized events like this offer politicians the perfect campaign platform -- though they probably won't get far in the 254 days left 'til 1-1-00.

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), April 21, 1999.

Anyone with any sense can see what has happened. As I wrote in a letter to the editor opposing capital punishment in the early 80's, we have become desensitized to violence. We sit quietly in front of our TV sets, eagerly watching hour after hour of rehashed scenarios depicting man's inhumanity to man. It is now almost impossible to watch a night of television without the sight of blood. And we now have a whole generation that has been steeped in this programming. No more ABC After School Specials or cartoons for this group. Its Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and Monika Lewinsky. Its the Me generation's kid's that have grown up being fed what their adult parents liked to consume, because the parents were to lazy and unfit to either control their own perverse desire for carnage, or to prevent exposing their children.

What is the answer? There is no answer, because there is no way to "back out" the brainwashing the latest generation of Americans have received. We are a nation that is fascinated by gore and mesmerized by our own gun culture. This is our bed. We shall lie in it until Y2K and the ensuing depression pull the covers off and crudely, or perhaps kindly, boot us onto the floor.

-- a (a@a.a), April 21, 1999.

Thanks Scott, for opening the can.

We had enough little "whiffs" of the Y2K connection yesterday.

Last night I watched Ted Koppel's Nightline as he interviewed some of the students. One who had been in the library, talked about how the shooters had been very computer smart and sometimes when there were problems with the equipment in the computer labs, the teacher would call on these kids to help solve the problems.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 21, 1999.

...my standard answer for the day; they can all go to hell.

-- Daniel Buchner (buchner@excite.com), April 21, 1999.

Well said, all ... (well, nearly all...)

In the tug-of-war between intelligence and fearful stupidity, I'm not sure that intelligence can immediately overcome AR-15-like cliche stupidities -- but it's such a relief to hear intelligent comments from average people like yourselves.

To be among good company at such a sad time.... Thank you.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.com), April 21, 1999.

I understand what you mean about

>don't go to the site; it'll make it look popular and you might not want to popularize such a person.<

but, on the other hand, I don't want my view to be based on just a few people's opinions, either. We each have to make up our own opinions.

Not that I don't appreciate other folks views, on the contrary, they help me in ways that may not have been intended originally.

I noticed a couple of things that were 'interesting' to me, and I would like to share them with you all and invite comments:

[They were also reportedly Y2K devotees.]

This line was all by itself, so as to stand out from the main story.

[Well-publicized events like this...]

This line causes me to wonder. Do they mean that they did a good job of publicizing the incident? Or, more likely to me, just that it was instantly all over the 'net and TV?

And this factoid wasn't even in the story: There was mention [quotes from students on TV] about the boys being gay, and web postings by one gunman [I am unclear which one it was] in a chat room [message board?] referring to persecution of them for being thus.

Why was this left out? Is is more chique[sp?] to be linked to y2k than being gay?

I don't know for certain, and may never, but I feel that it was the persecution of their being gay that set them off, and y2k was a side issue, or means to an end. No pun intended.

Of course, I could be wrong. No matter. Diverse views, you know.

But if I am right, could this be a sign that perhaps we should watch out for the next generation of gays?

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), April 21, 1999.

Declan has a point - the violence was covered because it was graphic, and would draw viewer 'points' to the news coverage.

bread and circuses.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 21, 1999.

Too me the shocker is thqt Declan sounds more and more like a GI. This is at leasttwice in the last two weeks he has sounded this way. Hmmnnnn! Why the turn around, Declan??????

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), April 21, 1999.

Declan,

Would you please provide us a link to the Washington Post article that shows a Y2K connection? All I've been able to find is this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/daily/april99/suspects21.htm

[snip]

"They're basically outcasts, Gothic people," said Peter Maher, a junior who had a confrontation last July 4 with the shooters and several of their fellow members of the "Trench Coat Mafia," the black- clad teenagers' name for their clique. "They're into anarchy. They're white supremacists and they're into Nostradamus stuff and Doomsday."

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 21, 1999.

I don't feel like nosing around the Post site and looking for one. But it's on the frong page story that jumped to p10. We locals read it on something called newsprint...

-- Declan McCullagh (declan@y2kculture.com), April 21, 1999.

I have heard very little mention of either the so-called "Y2K" connection nor the "gay" issue in the Littleton tragedy. What I have heard, over and over, on both radio and television coverage are these:

"Goth", "outcast", "loner", "racist", and "Marilyn Manson".

These are far and away the dominant themes used when describing the two shooters. Bitter, quiet, brooding, and by all accounts bright teenage boys, who dressed like bizarre characters from some violent action film, celebrated Nazism and Hitler, and ended up wanting nothing more than to kill their so-called "tormenters" and then themselves.

I wept yesterday when I first heard the news, and then again this morning as I read about parents wandering through some of the evacuation areas, frantically calling their children's names. One article ended with the words:

"Some of their children replied."

Excuse me. I need to go find someplace private and compose myself. Later...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 21, 1999.

Taz,

Declan "got it" a long time ago.

However, how he chooses to express his views in the media is a mystery to me.

~C~

-- Critt Jarvis (middleground@critt.com), April 21, 1999.

Yesterday one of the Denver TV reporters mentioned having spoken with a father who had been told (by survivors, I suppose -- no more was said) that his twin daughters at Columbine were both dead.

For some understanding of the berserker violence seen again now in Colorado, once more I recommend Evolution's End : Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence, by Joseph Chilton Pearce.

From the book jacket:

Human beings are now in grave biological jeopardy due to five common practices that have given rise to rampant violence, child suicide, and deteriorating family and social structures.

Hospital Childbirth interferes with the natural bonding process between infant and mother, which in turn impedes the potential for all future bonds: with parents, friends, spouse, and society.

Daycare takes the child even further from the mother, increasing the inability to bond and implanting a lifelong sense of alienation and isolation.

Television damages the brain, not because of its content, but because its mechanical effect cripples a child's ability to learn.

Premature Attempts At Formal Education prevent development of the imagination -- children without such development tend towards violence and are often uneducable.

Synthetic Growth Hormones used in meat, dairy. and poultry products accumulate in children and accelerate physical and sexual development, while psychological and intellectual maturation is radically impaired.

From the Introduction:

"Our opening to a fuller humanity closes before we even discover it really exists, leaving us with an empty longing projected onto myths and dreams. Yet, as you will see, we can, with a bit of effort, confound this neural deadlock and open to this highest development. And though its inception is designed by nature for mid-adolescence, we can make this turn at any age. . . . Once we are in line with evolution's intent, we have that intent's power behind us, access to other modalities opens within us, fear and anger disappear from our life and nothing is the same. . . .

"Intellect, on the one hand, looks through its tunnel vision and asks only "Is it possible?," and creates disaster. Intelligence, on the other hand, that mysterious "forward movement from above" asks "Is it appropriate?," and will, if developed, use intellect to complete the movement from the "concrete to the abstract" as evolution intends.

"Each of us, male and female, embody both intellect and intelligence, of course, and the complementary nature of these two polarities is the creative tension between mind and heart, the very spark of life. Disaster befalls us, however, when we develop intellect but not intelligence, as we have done for generations now. The fundamental complementarity then goes awry, and the principle polarity of life falls into petty but deadly struggles between ego positions -- personal, social, and eventually global. The dying social body we see today is the outer display of just such an inner civil war. [My emphasis -- TEC]

"A breakdown in male-female relations, epidemic among us, is a biological anomaly that has grown out of and is symbolic of the split between mind and heart in each of us. Intellect, trying to usurp nature and the wisdom of the heart for its own ends, has cut itself off from that heart. And like a child cut off from its mother, its entire development is at risk.

"Indeed, the mother figure is disappearing today, and an orphaned generation falls upon us. We humans do poorly without her. Matrix and guardian of our species, nurturer, source of strength and guidance for untold cycles of millennia, the mother has become the target of male intellect, swallowed up as a dollar commodity, leaving all of us, male and female, motherless, bereft, and lost.

"All around us we see the breaking of the bond of heart and mind. From that of mother and infant, child and family, child and earth, young person and society, to the male-female bond upon which life itself rests, we tear at our living earth -- our greater mother and life-giver -- in an outward projection of our inner anxiety and rage.

"Should intellect win its battle with heart's intelligence, the war will be lost for all of us. We will be just an experiment that failed, evolution's end on a negative note. This book explains how this is so, why it need not be so, and how we might open to those dimensions within us as intended for us all along."

Pearce writes:

"This book shows how a vague longing, which begins in our midteens, and our mounting personal and social problems are connected. Both result from a failure to develop our neocortex, or "new brain", the latest evolutionary achievement, lying largely dormant within us. [...]

"On the one hand we have divinized our potential, projecting who we are designed to be onto an abstracted cloud nine rather than fulfilling our evolutionary potential, and falling victim to the politics of that projection. On the other hand, and far more destructively, we have denied our evolutionary nature, grounding ourselves in the more primitive, physically bound modes of our brain/mind, and subjecting ourselves to the magician-priests who can best manipulate that physical realm."

From a reader's review of this book, on the Amazon.com site:

"The Kirkus reviewer of this book has missed the real issues. If he had read carefully he would have seen that Pearce condemns all aspects of modern, man controlled birthing methods, which cause trauma to the baby and prevent deep bonding with the mother, both for blacks and whites. I see no racism in this book.

"Pearce estimates that 70 percent of white children are uneducable due to the modern developments that he discusses. About two thirds of the population have grown up with these factors that prevent full human development. Most of the people concerned would not be aware of their arrested development.

"A very disturbing fact that Pearce discusses is the way television prevents the higher brain from developing in children. Television engages only the lower or reptilian brain, not allowing the higher brain to develop. At age 11 the brain destroys many unused neurons, so that arrested development is permanent."

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 21, 1999.

How was this determined? >>>>>

At age 11 the brain destroys many unused neurons, so that arrested development is permanent."

<<<<<<<<<<

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), April 21, 1999.

Declan,

It would be very topical to the discussion here if you could type in the relevant paragraph from that article on the students.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 21, 1999.

Declan,

Leska found the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-04/21/058r-042199- idx.html

Thanks anyway, though.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 21, 1999.

It is above my post:

At age 11 the brain destroys many unused neurons, so that arrested development is permanent."

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 21, 1999.

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), April 21, 1999.

Tom, thanks for suggesting the book. It sounds like something I'd really like to read. I also agree on all the points it list for the violence, decline of the family, and alienation. I read Theo Coburn's "Stolen Future," about endocrine disrupters, and what they are doing to our minds and bodies, and it itsn't a very pleasant future to contemplate.

I recall when I was about 4, WWII was in full swing, and my mother had taken a job in a defense plant. I was devastated. She came home one day and I was crying and begged her not to go back to work, and she didn't. She didn't give notice, she just quit. I still remember after all these years how much that meant to me.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), April 21, 1999.

Oh. My apologies. I thought you were referring to what I said.

Sorry.

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), April 21, 1999.

Another pertinent book to read, although I cannot remember the author is Lost Boys. It is new, and about the epidemic depression/aggression problem for adolescent and preadolescent boys raised on "planet patriarchy", and what to do about it.

By the way, referencing an above post,..."trench coat mafia" is the name given the "outcast" boys by the OTHER students at the high school, it is not a title they gave themselves.

I'm feeling as if I'd like to sit next to Mac on the bench, (with thanks to Arlo Guthrie for the place to sit). What I am hearing and reading is the same old reactive, non-comprehending BS from every quarter. Hard to keep my eyes from welling up. Hard to keep from ranting when so-called "leaders" counsel teaching teens to resolve problems non-violently, when the same so-called leaders fail to understand the example they set when blockading and bombing. "Negotiation? Doesn't sound manly to me, good buddy!" Arrrrgggghhh! I am daily amazed and grateful that my son is almost 27 years old,...loving, bright, gentle and loved; and I remember well when he came home from high school worrying that he was a "wimp",...breaking my heart, breaking ribs while playing "touch football" with the neanderthals at school to prove he wasn't.

She in a sheet, upon her hill,...Hushing up now, and continuing to seek a separate peace.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 21, 1999.

Leska, thanks for finding the link. Kevin, I read the article and it did mention the Year 2000 and Millennium but seemingly in the context of a *religious* end-of-the-world, which is probably why the later edition of the article used the quote talking about Nostradamus and Doomsday. Does anyone else read it this way?

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 21, 1999.

The book I mentioned above, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent And How We Can Save Them, is by James Garbarino, a PhD, from Cornell University. Below is the Amazon.com page on it...with synopsis.

Lost Boys

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 21, 1999.

Re the Wash. Post article...the slant seems to me, "well we don't know why, but they were wacky, fringey millennialists,..."

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 21, 1999.

Tom: Thanks for the post. It is becoming increasingly apparent just how dysfunctional society has become.

KILL YOUR TELEVISION.

-- a (a@a.a), April 21, 1999.

From Drudge:

LITTLETON SCHOOL MASSACRE NOT WORST IN U.S. HISTORY

A massive error is circulating in the media about Tuesday's Colorado school tragedy: It was not, repeat, not the worst attack on a school in United States history.

[REUTERS: "The country's worst school massacre, in Littleton, Colo." UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL: "The worst school massacre in U.S. history."]

On May 18, 1927, 45 people were killed, including 38 elementary students, by a series of dynamite explosions at the Bath Michigan School.

After detonating explosives he planted under the school, "maniac bomber" Andrew Kehoe, a school board member and treasurer and farmer, blew up his pickup truck, killing himself and the Bath School superintendent.

"I don't remember hearing any noise, but I remember flying in the air and seeing things fly between me and the sun," remembers AdaBelle McGonigal, then 11 and in the fifth grade. "But I don't ever remember falling."

AdaBelle's ear was nearly torn off in the blast that killed 38 of her classmates. Seven adults also died that day.

Because this happened so long ago, it is something that most reporters don't know about and have failed to reference in the coverage of the Littleton, Colorado nightmare.

-- a (a@a.a), April 21, 1999.

J asks, How was this determined? referring to this sentence, part of a reader's review of Evolution's End, included in my post: "At age 11 the brain destroys many unused neurons, so that arrested development is permanent."

Pearce's study makes extensive use of current physiological and neurological research, and is thoroughly documented. Citations to relevant professional literature are given throughout. The subject is by no means simple, and I don't think Pearce's argument can be thumbnailed in a sentence or two. The sentence in question was written by someone else commenting on the book on the amazon.com site. I do recommend reading this book. It's often found on remainder shelves, but Amazon lists it as available.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 21, 1999.

That's IT!! I'm killing my TV set and that foolish Nintendo game too!! I knew about most of the items listed, hospital births; i give birth and try to get home within 8 hours, daycare...i call it legalized child abuse...absent mother...I thank God every day I'm with mine...but Growth hormones!!! Makes sense. Girls seem to be maturing much earlier then they used to. Used to be mensus started around 13 or so. Now they start as young as 9 or 10.

Time to look for dairy substitutes and bring back the chicken coop.

Gonna find both of those books and do some reading.

....I only let the kids watch Jeopardy on school nights...think that counts? ;)

pamela

-- pamela (pamela4@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

and one more thing...homeschooling allows children the chance to learn at their own pace without feeling inferior or superior to their peers. Except for the Calif Education Code, I wouldn't start formal education until 8 years of age. But the state requires them to begin at 6.

pamela ;)

-- pamela (pamela4@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

Pamela, there are those, mostly women, who divorced abusive and deadbeat spouses or who are widows/widowers sans life insurance benefits or are simply single parents who cannot home school their children. Well, they COULD but then they'd be criticized for being able-bodied welfare cheats. There are lots of kids who are raised in "broken" homes who watched TV and played video games who DON'T get in trouble--how about we study them and find out why they stayed out of trouble? We have more than enough studies saying why kids go wrong but they haven't done any good. Let's find out why kids go right.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 22, 1999.

The Denver Post April 21 acounts of the shootings make no mention of Y2K and only a slight reference to the German aspect. Following is the Electronic Telegraph take on the tragedy--you'll notice only a passing reference to "apocalypse" and heavy emphasis on Nazism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000154642417163&rtmo=pQM4NMle&atmo =99999999&pg=/et/99/4/22/wden22.html

From the Electronic Telegraph, Thursday, 21 April 1999

Bloody revenge of misfits obsessed with Satan and Nazis, By John Hiscock in Littleton, Colorado

AMERICA was in mourning last night for the 15 people killed in the Denver school massacre carried out by two teenagers obsessed with satanism and the Nazis.

. . . Survivors telling their tales of horror yesterday described the gunmen as Nazi-obsessed members of a group calling themselves the Trenchcoat Mafia. Police say they might have picked Tuesday for the slaughter because it was the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

. . . Neighbours described Harris as a quiet, unassuming teenager but his schoolmates saw a different side of him and his fellow Trenchcoat Mafia members.

Students who knew them said Harris and Klebold often wore German swastikas on their clothes, were devoted to violent computer games and were fans of the "shock rocker" Marilyn Manson and of German techno music. "They sang Marilyn Manson songs and joked about killing people," said one student who described them as brooding outsiders and misfits. "They were into Nazism and took pride in Hitler. They were really creepy."

Several students said the two youths had shown interest in the occult and had talked of mutilations and decapitations. Websites the group had set up contained poems called "The written works of the Trenchcoats" and had themes of "isolation, rage and apocalypse". Greg Barnes, a school basketball player, said. . .

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 22, 1999.

Pamela -- some school systems, such as the Carden school system, actually have the same approach. When most kids are wading through endless repetitions of letters and numbers at age 6, Carden kids are having tons of fun on other stuff. They read later than most children. But when they start reading, wow! They REALLY start reading! I'm not super-familiar with the system but a couple of friends have had their kids in the program and it's pretty impressive.

OldGit: Now this reminds me of something I don't understand. There are probably a good million (likely far more) women in this country who are single mothers, struggling with children, with job, wishing they had a personal life, more education, more time with their children, a better place to live, etc. etc. There is NO REASON why the women's groups (who are generally too busy bashing men and promoting lesbianism to actually work toward anything constructive for MY personal world) could not function as a community center.

In other words, WHY CAN'T women join together and raise the children as a community and have some women who would rather work do that, and others who would rather home-school and so forth do that? We have plenty of people, of skills, and of need.

The biggest problem would be finding communal housing but I think the world may move toward building that -- multi-family homes where there's basically 3-4 homes with kitchenette, and in the middle is a big kitchen and a big central room. If you really think about the land and materials available, and the time-needs for families that nobody in the modern both-parents-working family has, this really would be an ideal solution for our culture.

And yet it doesn't seem like women have ever took the trouble to bond together. They go it alone, struggle alone, like women have for eons in that situation. Maybe it's our culture. It's not knowing the people next door. It's not trusting others. It's knowing so many people are dysfunctional, or bad to kids. It's so many different religions in one place that philosophical differences are constant crisis.

I don't know. I just know that there is an obvious need for an organized, loose assembly of groups that could let women work together to arrange for all of them to eventually have education, job training, family training, time with children, get their children a decent home life, etc. by "pooling" all the resources they have.

Would work just as well for married couples of course. In short I guess I'm suggesting a cross between individual families and yet a type of communal living. Not no-privacy living. Just CLOSE living.

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 22, 1999.

Oh PJ, you've just touched on one of my Opinion pieces! Has to do with women (generally speaking but especially Southern women) being raised not to be cooperative, rather to compete with each other for the men. Not as bad as it used to be, but still more than vestiges left! 'Swhy we tend to stab each other in the back! Must go, Hungarian due any minute and she's more Austro than Hungarian--VERY punctual! Back later.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 22, 1999.

PJ- what you're referring to is called "co-housing". It 's found mostly inEurope but there are some communities in the US. The basic idea is that a community of small homes close by is built with a community center. The center has a dining hall. there are small kitchens in the homes but most meals are shared together in the diniing hall. Most other things such as laundry, power equipment, etc is used on a community basis. There is generally a kids center as well. There are books on this subject.

The problem with many of the US ones is that they tend to become too expensive for all but upper income families and are not diverse. I was involved in start-up groups for several in the US but it was not an option for me as a single parent then. It does seem like it could be done in a way that would work well for many if zoning, banks etc would understand it and be flexible enough. that is a major problem in this country for co-housing planning.

-- anita (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), April 22, 1999.

PJ and all...

I first saw an article on co-housing a few years ago and thought to myself...oh what a wonderful idea!

Let me make it quite clear that I understand fully that many people cannot homeschool their children for various reasons. I will say this, however; there are many, many, resources which are specifically designed to help parent/teachers who may be in a variety of living arrangements.

And we all know, that depending on how badly we want something, where there is a will, there is a way. Once I get to the bottom of a conversation, I usually find out that they really don't want to home school. Unfortunately, society has brainwashed us into thinking our children need to be educated by the government and that children as young as 5 or 6 should be under the influence of people we really don't know.

Believe me, I'm not looking for a debate here, but just offering another perspective.

pamela ;)

-- pamela (pamela4@hotmail.com), April 22, 1999.

Quoting one of my favorites: "Not as bad as it used to be, but still more than vestiges left! 'Swhy we tend to stab each other in the back!"

Yes ma'am... If women keep listening to "what can't be done" or is "impractical" in "conventional wisdom," then truly things will keep on keeping on...Actually I think it's as bad as it used to be...just the PR has changed, better advertising....the "conventional wisdom" is more slick. If women are still thinking they have to do things the way they've always been done, or the way the 'grey beards' think it should be done, there is not much hope. Wise Women, crones,...you got a plan for a co-op?...DO IT! Love, and educate your children and grandchildren...Be brave. Change the world.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 22, 1999.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/colo/colo35.htm

[for educational uses only]

Feud may have spawned shootings

By Kevin Johnson and Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

LITTLETON, Colo. - They wore black.

They sometimes spoke German. They traveled in a relatively small group - no more than 15. They idolized Adolf Hitler. They were so different from their peers, who ridiculed them for wearing black trench coats even in the summer, that they proudly adopted what was initially a moniker of ridicule: the Trench Coat Mafia.

Eric David Harris, 18, and Dylan Bennett Klebold, 17 - the two students who embarked on a suicide mission that resulted in the nation's deadliest school shooting - were the Trench Coat Mafia's most prominent members.

What is emerging here, however, is more than a story about how these young outcasts were simply different in their taste in apparel.

Students are beginning to describe how a long-simmering rivalry between the sullen members of their clique and the school's athletes escalated and ultimately exploded in this week's deadly violence that left more than a dozen dead and 22 wounded at Columbine High School.

The tension between the two groups began more than a year ago as seemingly harmless name-calling, according to students interviewed Wednesday. The feud gradually escalated to pushing and shoving.

Then it got worse.

"They hated it when we called them gay or inbreeds," says Mike Smith, a Columbine track athlete. "We pushed them around. They fought back."

Smith and others say tensions reached a breaking point a year ago. During the last two weeks of the 1998 school year, the groups were at constant odds. In fact, says Smith, the two groups squared off nearly every afternoon.

"It was just basically fighting," he says. "But we didn't want nobody to die. I can't help but think now that they never forgot."

Almost to a person, students and teachers interviewed seemed to be well aware of this existing tension.

"They tended to be on the anti-social side," says Leland Andres, 59, a choir teacher who knew Dylan and other associates in the group. "They especially disliked athletes. You would see him (Dylan Klebold) in verbal encounters with athletes in the hall where you knew he was angry."

They also expressed a dislike of minority students, possibly related to their reported admiration of Hitler.

Indeed, what students have told police is that when Harris and Klebold burst into the school shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, they appeared to have targeted both student-athletes and minorities.

Others recall the Trench Coat Mafia's unusual celebrations after bowling strikes in the school league. While others gave high fives, they gave the Nazi salute.

Who were these alienated youths whose anger resulted in such a rampage?

Klebold lived with his parents in an exclusive neighborhood built into the spectacular rock formations of Deer Creek Canyon in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The gray and green A-frame sits on several acres behind a barbed wire fence in a neighborhood where house prices range up to $1 million.

"It kind of isolates us from town and you kind of think it isolates you from all that happens in the city," says Nick Miltner, 44, who lives just over a ridge from the Klebold home.

Klebold would often drive his black BMW from his subdivision to Harris' house, located in a more modest cluster of homes a few miles away. There, the houses start at about $180,000.

The youths became friends about two years ago when the Harrises moved into the area, neighbors say. They shared a deep enthusiasm for computers and enjoyed testing each other's skills in violent computer games.

Harris and Klebold also shared juvenile criminal records. They were charged in connection with a 1998 theft from a car, authorities say. Instead of jail, they were sentenced to a diversion program.

One acquaintance says that Klebold was a very smart, quiet youth whose demeanor changed in Harris' presence. "Dylan was a follower, who was constantly looking for someone to lead," says Nick Baumgard, 17, a senior.

Harris himself had found rare acceptance from the Trench Coat Mafia when he moved to the area with his family about two years ago.

"Eric didn't know too many people," says Karen Good, who lives next- door to the Harrises. "He just clung to this group because they accepted him. He had a hard time making friends, because he was so shy. This group accepted him."

Harris, described by police as the mastermind of the attack, rarely ventured outdoors unless he was arriving or leaving in his Honda, neighbors say. They often saw Klebold's BMW parked in the cul de sac outside Harris' home, a two-story, cream-colored brick house with a shingled roof. Usually, they say, the car was there for two or three hours while the teens remained indoors.

Last weekend, that pattern changed. They say Klebold's car was parked outside the Harris home for more than 36 hours. Neighbors noticed the change, but had no reason to question it.

Then, on Monday morning, Bill Konen, one of the Harris' other neighbors, noticed something even more unusual.

"I was in back quietly painting a fence," says Konen, 41. "I heard them pull up. One of them asked the other for a metal baseball bat. Then, I heard glass breaking in the garage for about 15 minutes. One of the detectives told me that's probably what they used for shrapnel in their pipe bombs."

Konen says the teens did not try to hide what they were doing. They left the garage open, he says.

If they were making shrapnel for the pipe bombs they used to booby- trap at least two cars - including Klebold's - it was perhaps the only instance when they were not highly secretive in planning the rampage.

Because of the sheer number of explosives and arms involved in the attack, a cache estimated at about 30 explosive devices and at least five weapons, police have not yet ruled out the possibility that the two were assisted by other members of their group.

Columbine students say both Klebold and Harris were computer enthusiasts. And, authorities say, their time was not spent benignly.

An Internet page Harris apparently created contained a violent description of how to build pipe bombs, a song lyric threatening violence and plenty of angry imagery. The first-person account of bomb construction, which was obtained late Tuesday before America Online took down the site, included information on what type of pipe to buy, how to obtain gunpowder and how to make the device deadlier by adding shrapnel.

"Shrapnel is very important if you want to kill and injure a lot of people," the document says. "Almost anything small and metal will work. From paper clips cut into pieces to 2-inch nails.

The author discussed what type of gunpowder to buy if the bomb maker is over 18 and offered advice on using explosives from fireworks. The author also issued a warning to anyone trying this method:

"If you are doing it inside your room be sure you have plenty of newspaper down because accidents do happen and if you have a big black stain on yer carpet, mom and dad might ask questions."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.