The risk taking Gene

A lot of people commented about the lacksidasical way that two Fox reporters "converted" and the shrugs by the MSM about their compliance.

There is a time and place for everything, and God can use every trait for his own purpose. So "behala na" means everyone smile in the Philippines, but it also means (how should I say this) a lower standard of cleanliness, and unreliability of water and electricity, and lots of delays.

Yet there is a "flip" side to this: Physical courage and honor (something, ironically, that is common in the Philippines).
In the USA, James Webb (a Vietnam Vet against the Iraq war) wrote a book about the ScotsIrish who are rarely seen as an ethnic group (usually lumped together with the Anglo Saxon ruling class) yet who have a long tradition of fighting and honor.
Similarly, some American Indian tribes were warriors (ah, you think, they all were great warriors...well, go see the movie Smoke Signals..."All Americans see us as "dancing with wolves" says one character. His buddy reminds him:"But our ancestors were fishermen...dancing with Salmon"...and they laugh)...and the group with the highes medal of honor? Hispanics.

Some heroes are troublemakers and get into fights...yet in the right time and place they can do valuable deeds. Indeed, this is the irony of Schindler's List: Where a con man saved Jews probably because he had the skill to "bull shit", lie, and bribe...

So Austin Baey asks: did Steve Irwin take too many risks?
You know I watch a lot of documentaries, and it's not just Irwin...also those who climb mountains etc. So dumb...yet in earlier times, these people were warriors who protected others. I often remind my mothers with ADD boys that they can't sit still in school, but as a hunter or warrior they'd be fine. (I am talking about ADD as a trait, who we oversedate to make them sit in long classes, not children with brain damage whose ADD is so bad that they need treatment...)

So Irwin, in other times and places, would be the hunter and teacher of young hunters...Dale Earnhart would be a sailor, a warrior, or a moonshine smuggler...and in many Andrew Greeley novels, he points out the traits that would make men pirates or profiteers in previous centuries now work fine for those in the stock market.

We have a need for physical courage in the world. And when we use our God Given traits to do good, we are doing what he wants us to do.

Even a bad temper and stubborness can be given for a reason.

One of Madeline L'Engles books has Meg and her brother captured...her brother, out of pride, has his mind captured by them, but Meg does not: Because she is stubborn...

As for myself, it was my stubborness that kept me from "going along" when I was scheduled to do abortions in medical school, and I refused.
Sometims being a bad tempered stubborn old lady does come in handy.