courage or foolishness?

I'm not sure whether I'm more insulted as a male, or as a human, but Caitlin Flanagan's book-review-cum-op-ed on abortion works on both counts in the April 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly. But her piece actually spends more words insulting women. A particular quote sticks in my brain as an epic oxymoronic fallacy: "how they [women] got the courage to have sex." Calling it courageous to have unprotected/out-of-wedlock sex strikes me about as bizarre as would praise of street-drug users or graffitti "artists." And oddly, now that I ponder it, perhaps it resonates the same animalistic/naturalistic view of humanity in which we are described as merely a set of uncontrollable urges with "needs" that "must" be met.

Completely missing in the article is any sense of right or wrong. Her world is one without a moral compass, so no wonder her sense of "courage" is meaningless. Without morality to inform risky choices, I see only lucky or unlucky. A moral vacuum leaves no way to describe courage or heroism. Perhaps the class of people most insulted by Flanagan's article is those totally un-mentioned: the chaste. As a person who consciously decided to exercise self-control before marriage, I find it demeaning to be accused of being a mere "bicycle-ride away" from hapless humping.

just call me..."the exterminator"

I had a rare opportunity to fight off the forces of evil last week. My friend stealthily informed me he'd found a mouse in the Church kitchen, and had cornered it in the broom closet. My sense of trespass aggravated, I grabbed broom and swaggered towards the door. He grabbed dustpan, and we flushed it. My first swipes missed, and the rat ran under the stove. He could have stayed there forever, but he unwisely chose to run out. This time I made contact, but barely, and he escaped out into the dining room. Like a good rat, he kept to the outer perimeter of the room, so I stationed myself by the door like a hockey goalie and waited for him to come back around while Luke chased him around the room. Third time was the charm, and the force was with me as I handily pinned him to the ground mere inches from escaping through the double doors. Luke then held him down with the dust pan as I finished him humanely with the skull-crusher. Rar.