Oh Won't You Remedy My Posting-Malaise Ms. Kersten

I know I haven’t posted in a while. It’s not that I don’t have any useless ranting to do, only that the new job is taking up gobs of my precious time. I sit at a keyboard all day, most days, and I rarely have the desire to bang away on one when I’m at home. Plus it is waaaay more fun to play Guitar Hero than write blog posts. But enough with the excuses, and on with the ranting.

I’m not going to lie; the guilt from my long absence had been weighing on my mind. I had been trying to think of worthy post topics. I thought I could tell y’all about my recent debaucherous golf trip to Phoenix. But sharing the trip through a blog post would be a lot like showing people a slide show of a vacation. Nobody really cares, but most people would politely read it. I don’t want to be that guy.

Then I thought about the old stand-bys, Bush-bashing, YouTube video filler, or silly hypothetical questions. Nope, not feeling any of those. I needed just the right kind of topic to recharge my posting batteries. And then I saw it…

Like a bolt of lightning, on StarTribune.com, my old friend Katherine Kersten’s article “Forget football, U's SHADEy condom brings home the big prize” smacked me across the face. My posting vigor was restored. There is nothing that gets my blogging juices going like a Kersten collum.

As I read it, all I could think was ‘is she serious?’ Is Katherine really ripping the U of MN’s proactive efforts on sexual health? Is she really being that obtuse? I know she’s conservative, but give SHADE a break. They are doing their best to deal with the realities of college life, thereby directly reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies, and indirectly reducing abortions. Can’t a conservative like Katherine get on board with that?

I’m sure that Ms. Kersten thinks abstence is the only acceptable way to teach sex-ed. But let us be realistic for a moment. College aged kids will and do have sex. Even college aged kids at bible colleges do and will have sex. No amount of hoping and wishing will change that. Most logical people realise this. Those same logical people typically conclude that it is a good idea to make condoms widely available to protect students (and society) from the consequences of unprotected sex.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was in college. I can assure you, and Ms. Kersten, that I never had sex because I was given a free condom. It’s not like I was a pure innocent U of MN student that was suddenly turned into a sex-crazed animal when SHADEy handed me a package with 3 condoms and a tube of lube. No, I, like most college men, was already sex-crazed. Free condoms or not, most guys (and some ladies) are looking to hook-up any chance they get.

I find it laughable that Kathrine insinuates that SHADEy, or those brave students who seek to educate their peers, have the effect of increasing sexual activity on the U of MN campus. Conservatives often criticize liberals for being unrealistically utopian. But the fact is, if Ms. Kersten truly believes that the U of MN would be better off without SHADEy, she’s completely lost touch with reality.