QUES: Enter the Shoguns: Japan's austere, ruthless, but statesmanlike new ruler, Yoritomo Minamoto, set up his government in Kamakura (just south of modern Tokyo), well away from the "softening" influence of court life that had been the undoing of his predecessor, Kiyomori. First of the national rulers to take the title of sei-i tai-shogun ("barbarian-subduing great general"), Minamoto expanded and consolidated his power by confiscating lands from some of the defeated Taira and redistributing them to his samurai vassals. Minamoto died in 1199, and the feudal structure passed intact to the tutelage of his widow's family, the Hojo, who were content to play regent to a figurehead shogun, in much the same way as the Fujiwara had done with the emperor. The fiction of Japanese imperial power had become infinitely extendable. The emperor at Kyotostill seconded by a Fujiwara regent at courtlegitimized a Minamoto who was himself a military dictator controlled by a Hojo regent. In a country where form and substance were inextricably interrelated, two things counted in politics: symbolic authority and real power. Neither could exist without the other. A thwarted Mongol invasion in 1274 weakened the Kamakura regime. The fighting brought none of the usual spoils of war that provincial warlords and samurai had come to expect as payment. And the treasury was empty after earthquake, famine, and plague had crippled the economy. Buddhist monasteries were using their private armies to support imperial ambitions to bring power back to Kyoto. Worst of all, the Kamakura warriors, resenting the way the Kyoto court referred to them as "Eastern barbarians," sought refinement in a ruinous taste for luxury: extravagant feasts, rich costumes, and opulent homes. Kamakura was falling apart.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What are Eastern barbarians?

QUES: The Creed family moves into a new home , close to a road where truckers often drive unsafely . They befriend their neighbor , Jud Crandall , who tells them about a nearby pet cemetery which was built on Indian burial grounds and is rumored to be haunted . Later , Louis Creed , working at the University of Maine at Orono health center , treats Victor Pascow , who has been hit by a truck and incurred massive head injuries . Pascow dies after grabbing Louis , addressing him by name , and uttering a cryptic message . He also promises to '' come to '' him . That night , in what is seemingly a dream , Victor visits Louis , warning him about the burial ground beyond the pet cemetery . Louis wakes up to find his feet covered in dirt . Church , a cat owned by Louis ' daughter Ellie , is killed by a truck on the road in front of their house while Rachel , Ellie and Gage are in Chicago . Jud takes Louis to an ancient Micmac Indian burial ground beyond the pet cemetery they visited earlier and buries the cat . Church is brought back to life , but is an evil shell of himself . He attacks Louis and reeks of decomposition . Louis asks if a person was ever buried in the grounds . Jud replies , '' Christ on His throne , no. . And whoever would? '' Sometime later , Louis ' young son Gage is killed by a truck on the same road . Louis considers burying Gage in the burial grounds . Jud tries to dissuade him from doing so , telling him about a young man from town , Timmy Baterman , who died in service during World War II .
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Where was Gage killed by a truck?

QUES: He repeatedly calls on his followers to embrace martyrdom since "The walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets." For those yearning for a lost sense of order in an older, more tranquil world, he offers his "Caliphate" as an imagined alternative to today's uncertainty. For others, he offers simplistic conspiracies to explain their world. Bin Laden also relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood executed in 1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, Qutb mixed Islamic scholarship with a very superficial acquaintance with Western history and thought. Sent by the Egyptian government to study in the United States in the late 1940s, Qutb returned with an enormous loathing of Western society and history. He dismissed Western achievements as entirely material, arguing that Western society possesses "nothing that will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence." Three basic themes emerge from Qutb's writings. First, he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam. Third, no middle ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and Satan. All Muslims-as he defined them-therefore must take up arms in this fight. Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction. Bin Laden shares Qutb's stark view, permitting him and his followers to rationalize even unprovoked mass murder as righteous defense of an embattled faith. Many Americans have wondered, "Why do 'they' hate us?" Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?" Bin Laden and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
How did Sayyid Qutb view Western society?