From: radner@cray.com (Lauren Radner)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: The rat, MA, and others
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:42:31 GMT
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.

In article <1992Aug19.112909.16441@relay.nswc.navy.mil> snorthc@nswc.navy.mil (Stephen Northcutt) writes:
>>   Why is your instinctive reaction to kill one of God's creatures?
>This is one of the things I was trying to show with my post.
>Instinctive reaction.  My post conveyed something that happened
>unexpectedly and the time duration was probably about two seconds.
>
>Lauren, you can sit at your keyboard and judge me, my God, rats and
>cockroaches, but you would be wise to realize that in your nice warm
>office it is so easy expound on the virtues of rats, but when you run into
>a *SURPRISE* city rat, you won't think; your gonna react: fear and flight,
>attack, or freeze in your boots pretending you are calm.  You are going
>to feel a visceral reaction.  
>

Wrong again. I have, in fact, had a wild rat jump on my bare thigh
in the middle of the night. I was not afraid, I did not run, I did
not attack, and I did not freeze.

I used to live in a pretty bad neighbourhood way in South Dallas.
The rat probably got in through one of the holes in my ceiling or
my walls. I was paying $75.00 a month for rent and that was the best
I could afford. I had been given a kitten, wasn't too sure how my 
dog would react to the idea, and in the middle of the kitten's first  
night heard a terrible ruckus. I leaped to my feet shouting "NO!"
flipped on the light and felt something land on my leg. I looked
left and right at the dog and the kitten and didn't see any blood.
They were both looking at me. I looked at my right thigh. There
was a rat. It was looking at me. I looked at it. Everybody seemed
to be waiting for me to make the first move. When it seemed
like none of the four of us were going to do anything to any of
the rest of us, I scooped the rat up in my right hand and took
a good look at it. It was a young rat, about half grown. And yes,
a wild rat. It was a bad neighbourhood. I kept the rat as a pet
and named him "Ratatouille". I intended to get two more rats and
call them "Ratatat" and "Rattatan", but never did get around to 
it. He was very sweet-tempered. 

So, I *have* "run into a surprise city rat", and ya know what?
It was not my first instinct to kill him, strike him, run from him, 
or fear him. I was simply curious. Some of us *like* animals. 
ALL animals. You have some prejudices I don't share. You can think 
what you like but I object when your prejudices cause injury to other 
living things.
    
>Well none can say the rat wasn't attacking.  And this leads to my
>second point, the rat was in no danger from me.  
>.  Even if I was as sadistic and cruel as you would have
>people believe, I couldn't have caught that rat.

Whether or not you were successful in your attempt to kill or
injure some creature is not the issue. The issue is that you 
either had the intention to kill or injure without provocation, or
you reacted in such a way as to kill or injure without thinking or 
evaluating the situation.  

The former offends my notion of morality. The latter offends my 
notion of a properly trained martial artist.

>
>The third point that came to me, follows from the first two, in terms
>of out an out survival the rat is clearly better equipped than man, he
>trains all day (or should I say night) every day.  

Whether you attacked something able to defend itself is not at issue.

>Now the other
>interesting observation, was that all the other people standing around,
>missed the whole thing.  After the rat was back in the stormdrain.
>The other people started
>saying, what was that?  What happended?  What did I see?  Was that a
>rat.... Ooooooh.   They don't train at all and it shows.
>
Have to agree with you on that one.

And now, I'm off to Japan.

-Lauren