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In the strictest sense we don't actually have any direct evidence that Justinian ever ordered the closure of the Academy; no surviving source actually says he did it in so many words. I've added a short roundup of the source material at the end of the answer, but if you really want to go deep there's a far more complete resume of the various proposed interpretations here.Since our reconstructions of what actually happened are pretty conjectural, it makes sense to be cautious in ascribing motives to the actors in a drama that may never have played out.That said, before continuing: even if Justinian didn't actually target the Academy, there's no question that this part of his reign was totalitarian. It was a tough time for many kinds of dissenters. He’s not a model of tolerance, even by the standards of Late Antiquity.*ContextIn 529 (the traditional date for the closure), Justinian was theoretically all-powerful -- but he was not particularly popular. He was not yet the dominating presence he would become over the next four decades.The early 6th century was a particularly "byzantine" period in East Roman history, where court politics was particularly bare-knuckled and society was fractured along a number of lines. Justinian and his predecessor, Justin I were outsiders, deeply at odds with the traditional elites of the empire. They were not related to the previous emperor, Anastasius, whose family remained in the wings as potential claimants to the throne. During Justin’s reign, Justinian was widely believed (rightly or not, we don’t know) to have connived at the murder of his chief rival. Vitalian.Politics aside, Justinian was also notorious for flouting the social mores of the Senatorial elite. His patron, Justin, was caricatured as an illiterate former peasant married to a superstitious kitchen servant. Justinian caused a huge scandal by his marriage to the former dancing-girl Theodora; in fact he had to browbeat Justin into revising the marriage laws to legitimize the union. which shocked both the morals and the class prejudices of his contemporaries. Justinian patronized the Blue faction in the chariot races — which many of his enemies, at least, thought he used as paid thugs.In short, Justinian was a late example of a familiar Roman type: the rough-edged Balkan soldier-emperors who held the empire together militarily but were never at home with its civilian upper classes.Aristocratic conservatives didn’t like his style or his key supporters, who he picked for ability (and ruthlessness) rather than connections. Justinian preferred men like John the Cappadocian hard-driving administrators not known for delicacy or culture. Procopius, on the other hand, never fails to point out when a general or prefect is "uneducated", or speaks Greek with an accent. John Lydus is a more nuanced and reluctant critic of Justinian than Procopius, but he's clearly a nostalgic adherent of an aristocratic, classicizing upper class which — even though it was predominantly Christian -- had deep roots in the urban literary culture of earlier times. It's probably no accident that the contemporary chronicler most supportive of Justinian, John Malalas, wrote in a simplified conversational style far removed from the more complex, old-fashioned language of Procopius or Lydus.Depending on your bent, you might be able to describe Justinian as a populist. He made a point of promoting able commoners, disdaining traditional centers of power, and advancing the welfare of the poor and marginalized. Or, less favorably, you could see him as a classical Greek tyrant, relying on the dubious elements among the masses to de-fang the educated professional classes and enrich himself without regard to justice or legal precedent.Either way, though, it's tough to see him as a representative of the familiar aristocratic order.The AcademyThe Academy, on the other hand, is a symbol for precisely that polished, old-world order. The upper class was, in training and education, deeply tied to traditional Hellenic literary culture. Christians or not, the upper classes were fiercely devoted to the traditions of Greek Greek literary culture. A smattering of Homer was as much a class marker in 6th century Byzantium as it was to be in 19th century Europe.In 529 Justinian could not count on his famous conquests to overawe his critics. At this point, only two years into his reign, he was trapped in a losing war against Persia, which would end three years later with the payment of a humiliating indemnity of 11,000 pounds of gold**. Financing the war -- and eventually, the peace -- required digging deep into the national purse and the imposition of a bewildering array of new taxes.Some of this financial retrenchment targeted the institutions of elite culture. Justinian protected public food subsidies, charities and welfare institutions -- but he cut back on funding for legal education, medical schools, and public schools of rhetoric -- the traditional preserves of the upper classes. Procopius complained that he left the rhetoricians, the lawyers, and the best people "despondent" by "destroying the marks of distinction and all the things which confer honour and beauty both in Byzantium and in every other city." (Anecdota, 26) . Justinian, a native Latin speaker and a poor orator (his efforts to pronounce his own edicts in front of a crowd led to mockery from his Senators) tolerated the rhetorical and literary pretensions of the aristocrats only grudgingly.On the other hand Agapetus the Deacon, whose Ekthesis was a kind of “inaugural address to Justinian”, might have found the policies which expanded hospitals and grain doles at the expense of law schools and declamation contests as an example of his advice:In order that both [the rich and the poor] may recover health, the remedy of subtraction and addition must be applied: equality must be substituted for inequalityIn other words, "take from the rich, give to the poor."*** Justinian was not an egalitarian socialist, by any means — but the ideological commitment to support the poor against the rich is a key part of Justinian's self-presentation and a major theme of his reign.So, if Justinian really did close the Academy in 529, I think the underlying dynamic had as much to do with his attitude towards the conservative upper classes as it did with matters of faith. Certainly the surviving works of the Academicians are pretty tame by the standards of 6th century debate. They don't seem to have been particularly outspoken critics of Christianity (at least, in public): the only recorded theological controversy from this period is an debate between Simplicius, the head of the academy, and John Philoponus over the eternity of the world, a topic which was pursued on both sides with scholarly decorum and traditional philosophical referents.You can get an idea of how “subversive” the Academy was from the fact that Simplicius's commentaries on Aristotle (in Latin translation) eventually became very popular and influential among thirteenth and fourteenth century Catholic theologians. ****Source issuesThe nominal date for the closure of the Academy comes from a line in the [Chronicle of John Malalas:During the consulship of Decius [= 529] the emperor issued a decree and sent it to Athens, ordering that no one should teach philosophy nor [either 'legal matters' or 'astronomy'], nor should gambling be allowed in any city, for some gamblers who had been discovered in Byzantium had been indulging themselves in dreadful blasphemiesXVIII.47That sentence is as close as we get to an explicit "closure" of the Academy in first-hand sources. Malalas tends to restate official sources, so this may be his version of one of two laws regarding teachers in Justinian's codex from around this time. JC 1.5.18 forbids pagans (or Samaritans) for being paid to teach out of public funds; JC 1.11.10 forbids pagans to teach teach any subject whatsoever. We know that both of these were not enforced uniformly, since Olympiodorus, for example was a well known Neo-Platonist active throughout Justinian's reign with no evident legal troubles; but selective application of the law has been a favorite tactic of totalitarians down the ages so that doesn’t prove that the Academy was not specifically singled out.It's probably worth pointing out that the laws in question don't actually forbid the teaching of pagan content -- only of teaching by pagan individuals. Byzantine education remained heavily focused on the Greek philosophical and literary tradition down to the end: Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, and the Neo-Platonic authors most in fashion in the Athens of 529 remained (along with the classics of Athenian literature) the core of the Byzantine educational system down to 1453. The last decades of the empire, nearly a thousand years after Justinian, were marked by a full-blown philosophical throw-down between Byzantine Aristotelians and Byzantine Platonists which was largely responsible for the revival of Platonic studies in the west.The other piece of evidence is a picturesque story from about 50 years later, in the writings of Agathias, who tells the story of seven philosophers who left Athens and fled to the court of emperor Khosrow I of Persia.Not long before Damascius of Syria, Simplicius of Cilicia, Eulamius of Phrygia, Priscian of Lydia, Hermes and Diogenes of Phoenicia and Isidore of Gaza, all of them, to use a poetic turn of phrase, the quintessential flower of the philosophers of our age, had come to the conclusion, since the official religion of the Roman empire was not to their liking, that the Persian state was much superior.... forbidden by law to take part in public life with impunity owing to the fact that they did not conform to the established religion, they left immediately and set off for a strange land whose ways were completely foreign to their own.II.30Unfortunately, the story goes, the philosophers discovered that Khosrow's reputation for philosophy and tolerance was overblown, and decide to return to Roman territory. The Persian emperor does, however, evidently insert a clause into his treaty with the Romans (historically, 532) obliging the Romans to guarantee the safety of the philosophers.Although the seven exiled sages are a staple of accounts of the closure of the Academy, this is questionable material. The story seems to be cited only to proved that Khosrow's reputation as a 'philosopher king' was overdrawn, because Agathias wants to score points off the Byzantine philosopher Uranias who seems to have made much of his connections with the well-read Khosrow. Agathias was a failed poet, fond of classical allusions and tropes -- such as the famous 'Seven Sages of Greece'. Given that only three of the seven in Agathias' story are mentioned elsewhere and -- and the fact that the story seems to play off of Plato's own dubious experience with the "philosophical king" Dionysius of Syracuse — it's not clear how much weight one should give it. The story also makes no explanation of how philosophers crossed the front lines of an active war zone.It's not a entirely impossible story, at least in its bare essentials, but it's not the highest quality source material. And, it should be mentioned, it never actually says that the Academy was closed: only that the philosophers "could not take part in public life" and left on their own initiative.*The real victims of Justinian’s reign were the Samaritans, Manichees and Montanists. It may not be a coincidence that all of these groups were concentrated close to Persia; the Samaritans definitely received active military support from the Persians during their two revolts against Justinian. Justinian was more lenient than most of his predecessors and successors towards the largest dissident group of his day, the Monophysites: though this probably relates to the fact that his wife Theodora was an adherent of that sect.Justinian’s instincts were essentially totalitarian: he may have believed sincerely in upholding to poor against the rich but he believed with absolute conviction in his right to tell everyone how to live: he even felt competent to tell the Jews of the empire which translations of the Torah they could use.** In modern money, about $200,000,000***Agapetus work had a long afterlife and spawned a whole host of stuffy, moralizing advice to monarchs: the genre of the "Mirror of Princes" which Machiavelli undermined so thoroughly in The Prince. Very few of them, however, were as committed to redistribution of wealth.**** The argument between Simplicius and Philoponus throws a particularly ironic sidelight on the traditional interpretation of the events of 529. Simplicius and Philoponus were, for one thing, former classmates. But, more interestingly, Philoponus argued the novel idea that Aristotle was wrong about the physics of movement -- anathema to the Academicians, who insisted that Aristotle was essentially infallible. Philoponus remarked:[Aristotle's explanation] is completely erroneous, and our view may be completely corroborated by actual observation more effectively than by any sort of verbal argument. For if you let fall from the same height two weights, one many times heavier than the other you will see that the ratio of the times required for the motion does not depend [solely] on the weights, but that the difference in time is very small.This is the first time this correction of Aristotle's mistake ever appeared on paper. The experiment was finally picked up by Galileo a millennium later.

I have the same problem. The Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse are the best to me.You can do research online and investigate each charity if you want.We need money and volunteers for animal rescue too.But I have found that Samaritan’s Purse is the best for donating money, food, water, diapers, good clothes etc.The worse disaster relief agency for immediate help is FEMA. So much red tape.When the F-5 tornado hit Tuscaloosa and Holt Al a group of us loaded up water, canned food, can openers (vital n the #1 tool every home needs) diapers, etc for folks.FEMA was there but required people to come to the FEMA command post, fill out applications to be approved for aid.That was great for the people within walking distance but in Holt they were trapped and could not get out of their houses and yards.Lot of small wood houses- tons of mobile homes. Used to be a company town and when steel mill and foundry closed became a poor community.Because Tuscaloosa is a larger city no one cared about Holt. We walked supplies three miles into the area - that was as close as you could get.My heart belongs to pet rescue. But for humans I recommend Samaritan or Red Cross.

As with most questions relating to defending one’s self or others, the answer is “it depends”.In this case, it depends on:The statute and case law in the jurisdiction - They vary wildly - especially case law (the precedents set at trial that define how the statute is actually applied in practice). Each state has its own statutes, and each state’s courts’ case law affects the application of those statutes differently.Your behavior - If you are in such a situation, how your carried out the action, and what you say to the cops (hint: wait until you lawyer up) about it, will have a lot to do with the next bullet…:The discretion of the prosecutor - this is huge. Within the range of a particular statute, a prosecutor’s attitude toward the subject, the circumstances, and to be honest to you, will have a lot to do with whether you are charged.There was an example in Minneapolis a few years back; a “good samaritan” saw a couple pistol-whipping a woman in a parking lot, taking her purse, and running behind a store. He followed them, and when the pistol-whipper pointed his gun at the samaritan, the samaritan drew his own permitted handgun and fired first, killing the attacker. The county attorney was (and remains) very anti-gun - but the samaritan did literally everything right, and was not charged. He was in fact hailed (anonymously) as a hero by the anti-gun county attorney (who also reminded people not to “take the law into their own hands”).But any mistake at any step of the process could have gotten the samaritan arrested and charged - as happens all over the place.As a very general rule, your best approach is the one Mr. Everett suggests elsewhere in this thread; be a good witness, and call the cops ASAP.