[lit-ideas] Re: p.s. Re: Re: Didn't I tell you so?
- From: Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 12:19:09 -0700
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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