[lit-ideas] p.s. Re: Re: p.s. Re: Re: Didn't I tell you so?

Btw, the rubber bullet thing appeals to me in that it temporarily disables  
someone w/out being life-threatening.  If someone were holding my kid  hostage 
I'd be too terrified that I'd hit the kid with the gun rather than the  perp. 
 
Julie Krueger.

========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: p.s. Re: Re: 
Didn't I tell you so?  Date: 5/31/06 2:20:10 P.M. Central Daylight Time  From: 
_carolkir@xxxxxxxxx (mailto:carolkir@xxxxxxxx)   To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
Julie wrote: 
>I'm not sure if I would be able  (psychologically) to shoot a gun at a 
person.  
 
ck: Oh, don't worry about that part.  Just think about a thug holding one of 
your kids hostage. See what I  mean?
 
You didn't respond to the rubber  bullet notion. 
 
ck: Because I don't know about it.  Sounds bouncy, though. I'm not in the 
know about tasers, either. I forgot to  mention a gun that's being touted for 
home safety (again, with proper training),  a thingie called a Mossberg. Love 
the 
name. It sounds like something you'd  climb.
 
> How would you compare Kray  Maga with Karate and Judo?
 
ck: It's Krav (v).  All I know  is what I read and believe because I don't 
know any better. Krav Maga is the  be-all, end-all of self-defense training 
'cause the Israelis do it and teach it,  or so the touters tout. Actually, I do 
know a bit more, since I've taken  lessons. KM incorporates aspects of Judo and 
many other moves. But KM is meant  as self-defense, not as exercise. It's also 
one of the few serious  self-defense courses that a small, frankly frail 
woman with lousy joints  can do. Do damage to another person, that is. A bigger 
person  than she. And that's why I went with it.
 
> I took a look in the city  phone book under Martial Arts -- the following 
are offered:    Taekwo-do, Kung Fu, Aikido, Judo, Kanjustsu. Tai Chi and Qi 
Gong (I've been  wanting to learn Tai Chi forever), Fencing, Pilates, Cardo 
KickBoxing (no thank  you).  No mention of Kray Maga.  
 
 ck: Well, maybe there'll be  mention of Krav Maga instead.  Possibly not. 
Ask at the YMCA, at a woman's  center, at your local Jewish Community Center 
(for a kick, if nothing else).  Look up "Self-defense" and "women." One of 
those 
other studios may offer a class  in KM, or if not, there's gotta be something 
specially contrived to help small  women defend themselves against strangers, 
boyfriends, ex-husbands,  etc.
 
Columbia has been a notoriously  relatively low-crime city for a long time -- 
pop roughly 80,000, large  percentages of Univ. students, Profs, Atty's, 
Docs.  But the unsavory  neighborhoods (where you can find crack or meth at any 
corner) have been  expanding at a fair rate.  Missouri has the unfortunate 
distinction of  being the Meth capital of the US.  While the city is nothing 
like 
KC or St.  Louis in crime level, the crime level has been increasing.  A couple 
cops  have been shot recently, lots of burglaries, some kidnappings of young 
children,  etc. 
 
ck: It's hard to gauge how safe a  city feels vs how safe it actually is, 
based on crime rate, without living  there. Then, too, how safe you feel 
depends 
on where in the city you live. The  mayor of Fresno, God bless his tiny, tinny 
heart, went on TV last week to tell  folks that despite daily killings of 
cops, kids, pedestrians, people driving to  Albertson's, etc., the city is not 
nearly as dangerous if you live in a good  neighborhood. 
 
Ok, I'll go for that. Like Mike G. in Memphis, I tend to live  in the center 
parts of Southern cities, where crack is considered an upscale  drug. But my 
neighborhood isn't nearly as unsafe, it feels, as a few blocks  south. 
Yet--this is a goodie--in a survey done by the Observer newspaper in  NY at the 
height 
of one of Manhattan's crime waves (circa 1990), almost  everyone claims that 
their own neighborhood is safer than others, even when  it's not, 
statistically. 
 
So what does it say if your own neighborhood feels LESS safe  than others? Is 
that  a matter of perception, too? (Psych journal  would say "More research 
is needed.") 
 
 >I STILL wanna move to New  Zealand!

ck: Sounds good to me. When do we leave?
 
Carol

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