My wife was teaching a valuable life lesson to a lovely little granddaughter a couple years ago when she was about 7 years old.

"What would you do if a man pulled up to the curb in his car and asked you to get in so you could help him find his lost puppy?" she asked.

"I'd go help him find his puppy," replied the granddaughter.

"No, no, no!" said my wife. "That's a trick that bad men use to kidnap little children. You should start screaming and run as fast as you can."

Sweet little granddaughters do not understand the dangers of the world because they have never been exposed to them. They are oblivious to the dangers.

We all have heard or read the news about the college coeds who have been kidnapped, raped, robbed, or shot lately. The list of names falls too easily off the tip of tongue or typing fingertips:

Lauren Burk, Eve Marie Carson (no, there's nothing sinister about the use of the middle name), and Brianna Denison are three of the newer names, but one might recall Julie Popovich, Taylor Biehl, and others from prior years. These young women did not understand the dangers of the world because they had never been exposed to them. They had lived the usual American sheltered life, protected by parents, seemingly safe among other college students, oblivious to the dangerous and violent people around them. They even object when someone suggests that they exercise caution. We've all heard the excuses: Yeah, yeah, I'll be all right. My friends will keep an eye on me. I've walked home from the bar dozens of times already. Somebody will give me a ride. I can handle myself. That feminist lawyer on Fox News says I should be perfectly safe turning cartwheels naked down the middle of the street. (Perhaps you missed that last one, but indeed a theoretically sane lawyer actually said it.)

And then we have the people who are currently oblivious to the dangers of Muslim extremist jihad. They deny the danger is even there or claim it is exaggerated. They probably don't know anyone who was on Flight 93 or in the Twin Towers when they burned and fell. They are possibly too busy posting all the extremely important trivia about their lives on MySpace. Sometimes I want to raise my voice just a little and say "When someone pulls up to the curb in an automobile and tells you that they want to cancel the Patriot Act, don't get in that car!"