(Kiri channels on a day that two young men took a number of lives as well as their own in the Columbine massacre. Details were still a bit sketchy so we go over what causes could be found for anyone to do such a horrendous thing.) 

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Russ: hmm, well this brings me to a point of a news item that came about today which I don’t know if you’ve heard it was not there was a school shooting out in Colorado……

Kiri: uh-huh.

Russ: a couple fellows came in and took out a lot of their schoolmates. Now you have to ask yourself and this goes of course into last week’s discussion on what’s the bloody point and you have to realize that there must be a reason….

Kiri: uh-huh.

Russ: and if we even can’t see it, we can be shocked by the events and the acts that take place, perhaps that’s part of the reason? I think it’s incomprehensible at this point to know what is the reason and where is this leading to.

Skip: uh-huh.

Kiri: okay what is the emotional reaction to that event?

Russ: well it’s a lot like…..

Kiri: no, what was your emotional reaction to it?

Russ: oh, my emotional reaction to it?

Kiri: uh-huh.

Russ: mostly shock.

Kiri: define shock.

Russ: shock of seeing something of this nature taking place. What's the......why? I think that’s a good one.

Skip: uh-huh.

Russ: the question comes up, why?

Kiri: yeah, I’m just asking for curiosity’s sake, Tia is still working on…..poor Tia, that’s besides the point. Tia has a lot of work.

Skip: that is a good point, why? Why even consider such a thing?

Kiri: from what I see and I’m going to sound a little bit like Tia, it’s part of the moral degradation of society, they’re becoming more and more common that kind of incident. Not necessarily at educational facilities but that kind of relating, going in, shooting up a whole load of people and taking your own life, kind of like taking people with you. "I can’t have it so nobody else will. I’ll make sure that X number of people suffer just as bad as I am.” It’s part of the breakdown, what is to stop that from happening? Well, as Tia might say, instilling strong moral virtues is very, very important.

Skip: getting back our moral standards……

Kiri: uh-huh.

Skip: is one of the biggest things.

Kiri: yeah you can turn on your communication……your entertainment devices and see horror and you get numb to it. You see it in your entertainment, you see it in your news’, you see it portrayed as noble, you see it being portrayed right now going in and inflicting harm on people as being noble……..

Skip: uh-huh.

Kiri: and then in the next breath you see it as being bad and wrong. One moment they're telling you about the bombing and the losses in Kosovo and then the next moment they’re being shocked and stunned and horrified that people are killing other people at a schoolyard.

Russ: well is it the two events related as far as the kids who did this from seeing the events in Kosovo?

Skip: they were grown, they were grown men.

Russ: I thought they were students?

Skip: not according to the news report I seen.

Russ: really?

Skip: yeah.

Russ: oh.

Kiri: but you see the problem is that one moment it’s good and then the next moment it's bad. To take any life or destroy any property is bad regardless even if the cause is good it’s still bad. There is no right to go in and to destroy somebody else’s property to enforce your will. Just because they’re doing it to their own people doesn’t make it right to come in and do it to them because they’re doing it to their own people. And it isn’t right to go in and shoot up a whole load of schoolchildren, you see what I’m saying?

Russ: right.

Skip: uh-huh.

Kiri: and sorry I do sound very much like Tia didn’t I?

Russ: uh-huh.

Skip: two wrongs don’t make a right.

Kiri: correct.

Russ: hmm, kind of a little similar to the Sirian Chronicles as far as the breakdown of society?

Kiri: probably the early stages, the early symptoms.

Russ: right.

Skip: our whole world is going that way.

Kiri: uh-huh.

Skip: and that’s what I asked last week if we’re headed for the same end as Atlantis between our moral standards and our technology and everything else, we’re going down the tube.

Kiri: I wouldn't say just Atlantis, I mean you can look at some of your more recent historical groups, the Romans, the Greeks, they had fantastic technologies for the time.

Skip: yeah.

Kiri: the Incas.

Russ: the Egyptians.

Kiri: the Egyptians, the Persians.

Russ: the Mayans.

Kiri: the Mayans, you could sit there……

Skip: what I was trying to get across, it isn’t just one nation or one ethnic group, the whole world’s doing it.

Kiri: unfortunately this time it is.

Skip: and it’s getting worse.

Kiri: uh-huh.

Russ: isn’t this a step necessary for our growth for somehow or another and that’s part of it?

Kiri: possibly, possibly, I mean we could sit here and discuss it until we're green in the face.

Skip: yeah right and it won’t change anything.

Kiri: maybe it will, maybe it won’t, who knows? But the thing is that yes, I am a theologist amongst being a coercer and an engineer, I do like to debate philosophy. As I get older I get more like my grandmother believe it or not.

Skip: I think we all do that don’t we?

Kiri: uh-huh.

Skip: even in the 3-D because I've gotten to the point where I don’t let too many things bother me anymore.