Pajamas Media

47 Comments

1. njartist:

“pitch manure”
Is that code for having gone to college?

Aug 5, 2008 - 4:00 am 2. Marc:

This is going to turn into the “I’m more prepared than you” blog. Ugh.

Despite that, anyone who is worth their salt has considered an “oh sh!t” situation. I think that it boils down to either you are a survivor/ leader, or you’re a sheep. Sheep get slaughtered.

Aug 5, 2008 - 4:58 am 3. TomJW:

To paraphrase: Pray for normal, prepare for disaster.

If you have a family you must be able to take care of them. A week to ten days might be the the best to be prepared for before emergency responders can reach your area.

Some choose more.

Others don’t think about it. That’s wishful thinking.

Aug 5, 2008 - 5:50 am 4. Trey:

I guess in my family, my wife and I are first responders. So we have our camping stuff available and I keep a clean trashcan full of water on the back porch for my fish tanks, so we are set for water too.

I used to wonder what I would do if I knew a car was going to hit me. I mentally rehearsed jumping up to sit on the hood and slide up the windshield. The tricky part I figured would be landing!

Sure enough, decades later, I was walking out of a cigar store when a compact car started bearing down on me. When it got close, I jumped up, sat on the hood, and slid across. I even stuck the landing! (easy because I just slid across the hood) I did not recall my youthfull preparation until after the driver tried to fuss at me for denting his hood.

Preparation becomes paranoia when it loses perscpetive and becomes intrusive. When it works, it is A OK.

Trey

Aug 5, 2008 - 6:35 am 5. RE:

The Boy Scout motto is ‘Be prepared’. It has and always will be a prudent philosophy.

As far as people who dismiss self defense training are concerned, I tend to view them as people rationalizing their own laziness and complacency. It’s a bit difficult to respect people who offload responsibility for their own safety and welfare to others. The is no honor in choosing to be weak and choosing to be a burden on your fellow man for food, shelter, and
defense.

Aug 5, 2008 - 6:37 am 6. Terry:

There is an excellent book on the topic published this year titled, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, written by Amanda Ripley. She wrote it as a guide to preparing for disaster in the spirit of “The things survivors wish you knew”. It is broken down into three parts. Denial, as in denying the disaster is happening. Deliberation, as in ok it is happening but what can I do about it now. And the decisive moment, as in having the courage to do what you must do to survive and doing it.

It’s a great read for anyone interested in disaster preparedness. The story of Rick Rescorla who was the head of security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 (and 2/26/1993) is worth it alone.

Aug 5, 2008 - 7:22 am 7. Joanna:

I’ve been enrolled in a Krav Maga program for about a month, and one of the underlying tenets of the system is that if someone attacks you, they’re not going to be nice about it. If they were nice, they wouldn’t have their hands around your throat. The man who dragged you into an alley by your hair doesn’t care why you didn’t learn to crush his Adam’s apple – all he cares about is that he’s going to win.

Aug 5, 2008 - 7:43 am 8. Wellspring:

I agree. Disaster preparedness is important in and of itself, but I would also add that it replaces dependency with self-reliance. My leftie girlfriend used to be very uncomfortable when I raised basic preparedness measures. I’ve found that including things like organic gardening and solar power has increased her comfort level greatly.

Helen, if you keep up your Krav Maga training, please post a followup with your impressions! I’ve always been curious about it.

Aug 5, 2008 - 7:44 am 9. Chuck Simmins:

Having been in them, as victim and as firefighter/EMT, disasters are disasters. Plan, but don’t be surprised if the event outdoes all your plans.

9/11, WTC: It’s a two hour plus walk down the stairs from the 70th floor. Who would have ever thought that you might not have the time to walk out of the building?

I’m suggesting that a Katrina is plannable, a New Madrid quake is not.

Aug 5, 2008 - 7:48 am 10. Helen Smith:

Wellspring,

I will try and post a follow-up on my Krav Maga training on my blog at some point. So far, I really find it great for both mental and physical preparation and using leverage rather than strength with attackers seems to make sense. I took Taekwondo for several years and while the moves were good for conditioning, I do not think they compare to the moves in Krav Maga in teaching one how to get away from an attacker. I really do recommend it if you are on the fence about taking it.

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:13 am 11. notaclue:

Good post, Dr. Helen. Two comments:

(1) Balance is good. If we over-prepare for one threat, we might under-prepare for another. If you’re more than ready to take out a criminal but don’t know how to deal with a power failure, or vice versa, you lose.

(2) One can use an apocalyptic scenario as an excuse to learn skills. Remember Y2K? I didn’t believe the hype, but I used it as an excuse to learn how to grow heirloom vegetables (a failure) and load my own cartridges (a success).

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:28 am 12. Joel Rosenberg:

As usual, Heinlein had it right.

That said, I’m going to take strong exception to the notion that it even might be paranoid to spend a bit of time and a bit of money doing something innocuous has some chance of making a horrible situation less horrible.

Then again, I have fire insurance on my home, make it a habit to fasten my seatbelt when in a car, and routinely carry a firearm, so what would I know?

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:30 am 13. Michael McNeil:

I am not a psych(ologist/iatrist), one might note, but aren’t there two orthogonal issues here — that folks (as usual) are blithely lumping together? First, there is the psychological state or syndrome of paranoia — which Encyclopædia Britannica defines as “the central theme of a group of psychotic disorders characterized by systematic delusions” — and then there is the probability of the existence of objective dangers out in the world, including the possibility that another person or group of others might at some time take it into their heads to plot against one’s life or interests. Particular points along these perpendicular axes can exist in complete independence of one other.

It’s certainly possible to take objective cognizance of the presence of real (including human conspiratorial) dangers without simultaneously being under the grip of psychological paranoia — indeed if the dangers are real, and one’s consideration of them is realistic and not largely delusory, then one’s thoughts and acts in reaction to them are not “paranoia,” and ought not be regarded as such.

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:33 am 14. RE:

I’ve been in Krav for a little over a year now. I certainly would not want to be on the receiving end of it. It’s brutally effective. I also recommend it, though it’s intensity seems to be a bit more than many can handle. I’ve noticed a high dropout rate. You’ll want a good supply of Ibuprofen on hand.

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:56 am 15. Scott in CA:

I live in California, so we have had an “earthquake kit” around for years. It always has up to 10 days of food, water, pet food, sanitary essentials, and other things that will leave us able to eat and take of ourselves without cooking or running water. This also works if there is “urban unrest” that makes certain areas into no-go zones. We also keep a bit of cash in small bills on hand, as ATMs go down, electronic cash registers don’t work, and no one has change for large bills.

Aug 5, 2008 - 9:35 am 16. Talnik:

Over the years I have accumulated knowledge and material in case of a disaster; I have a good amount of storable food and other items that I rotate, I have a water purifier, I grow food. I also know which wild plants around the neighborhood are edible and at what time of year they can be harvested.
The average food supply in any major city would last less than a week if resupplies were halted.
But I also save for retirement and have emergency funds in case I lose my job. Add to that theft, auto and fire insurance. Wars, crimes and disasters (and layoffs) happen all the time. Does being prepared make one paranoid or prudent?

Aug 5, 2008 - 9:38 am 17. Survivor:

The more people that are not prepared, the better for me. Those are people I won’t have to compete with for resources.

Aug 5, 2008 - 10:06 am 18. "John Ross":

My definition of the difference between preparation and paranoia is the degree of disruption of your life in comparison to the likelihood of the threat.

Case in point: Seat belts. People with a million miles of experience that have never needed a seat belt still wear them every time they get in the car because they only take one second to put on. Why not have the protection if the inconvenience is only two seconds per trip?

Conversely, if you were to don a helmet, firesuit, and Nomex gloves EVERY time you drove somewhere, and you drove the same places I do, I would call that paranoid. If you drive in Formula One races, I’d call it the only sensible thing to do.

Aug 5, 2008 - 10:24 am 19. Joel Rosenberg:

Sure. But that’s only because you’re a sensible guy, John.

(I do have some sympathy for folks who use that analysis when deciding not to carry a handgun for personal protection; until you’ve actually done it for awhile, it’s hard to realize how little it interferes with your life.)

Aug 5, 2008 - 11:35 am 20. Bob:

>notaclue:
>…
>(2) One can use an apocalyptic scenario as an excuse to
>learn skills.

Which is part of the idea behind the ‘Zombie Squad’ (www.zombiehunters.org). They promote real preparedness using the ‘threat’ of a zombie attach (the notion that if prepared for such a thing, you’re prepared for most kinds of mundane disasters)

Aug 5, 2008 - 12:50 pm 21. Crafty Hunter:

Paranoia enters the picture when a man becomes obsessed with survivalism for its own sake, as opposed to being prepared to survive reasonable scenarios such as temporary electrical blackouts or fuel shortages, or the aftermath of a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, widespread fire or flood.

If survival comes up in routine conversation without a compelling and immediate reason for it, that’s obsession.

(BTW, I’m a man. Thus, I say “man” or “men”. Women naturally will say “woman” or “women”. So much for convulsive accusations of sexism).

Aug 5, 2008 - 12:52 pm 22. ddc:

living on coastal socal, we have a choice between earthquake, pacific ocean tsunami (highly unlikely but one never knows) but more recently, fires have been pretty devastating. fires travel all over california and may or may not re-occur in the same areas but the town we live in has been evacuated 2 times in the last 3 years. i am figuring on fire being the choice catastrophy for our area. that said we are prepared for Plan B = an RV.

In the event there’s a nuclear bomb dropped on us, party over man.

It isn’t so much the fear of being without shelter, food and water that worries me the most as it is the human hostilities towards one another that arise from disasters. Looting, rioting, murder and other crap all seems to rear their ugly heads when human beings are stressed out during a devastating societal crisis. Some fall apart, not all, but only some are needed to cause the most damage.

Cormac McCarthy’s book “The Road,” (soon to be out in film)is an amazing narrative about a post-apocalyptic earth. No food, burned farms, animals all dead, millions dead. no potable water and toxic oceans full of dead fish. Falling ash covering the lands. Pretty grim, and definitely ugly. In an event such as that, the next important thing on anyone’s list besides having water/canned, dry food/medicine/tools/supplies stored underground is a couple of firearms and plenty rounds of ammo.

Aug 5, 2008 - 1:15 pm 23. wGraves:

The difference between paranoia and preparedness is cost. If you can prepare without letting preparedness control your life, then you are rational. My emergency water supply is the indoor pool I built into my house. I can drink the 10k gallons, or pump it into the fire system, or swim in it, or share it with the neighbors. About 200 cans of preserved food are always on hand, we rotate and replace them. It’s a buffering problem, a one-time buy of stuff we use anyway. After the initial purchase, it doesn’t cost anything but some planning. My firearms training was Army. The weapons on hand have been comforting on the four occasions when I have had bears in my kitchen. I haven’t had to fire, but I knew my daughter’s life was safe. The kids were enrolled in Karate at ages 3, 4, and 5. They all have black belts. The boys, who are in college, are second degree. I know of one instance where one of the kids stopped an assault on a third party. They aren’t real big, but the continuing training has kept them in excellent physical condition, and a predator who tries something will be pretty surprised at what happens. We have radios available, FRS. They’re useful on the ski slopes or biking, but also work in an emergency. I own an airplane. The boys are learning to fly it. A useful skill all around. In an emergency, they will be able to help. The kids were (or are) in scouting. The skill set they acquire there isn’t taught anywhere else. One of them is now wilderness first response qualified. He leads camping trips at his university in his spare time. We grow some of our own vegetables. The tomatoes taste a lot better than the ones at Safeway, because you don’t have to be able to bounce our variety like a rubber ball. The kids all play a musical instrument. Although this doesn’t seem like a survival skill, I claim that it is. Take a group of strangers, and you can pull them together and start a conversation with a fiddle.

You can choose to prepare by picking interesting activities with a lot of transfer to survival situations.

Aug 5, 2008 - 1:34 pm 24. Francis W. Porretto:

Preparations of any sort are always conditioned upon two factors above all others:
1. A perception of risk or threat;
2. A sense that some imagined preparation to meet the risk or threat is “cost effective.”

This is a frankly economic assessment rather than a diagnosis of neurosis or psychosis. No one’s opinion about the riskiness of a given situation — whether expressed as a probability, a worst-case downside, or a mathematically computed expectation — is privileged over anyone else’s. Atop that, one can never know fully about the special risk factors another person might have to take into account. (Do you really think you know how much cash, jewelry, or precious metal your neighbor has in his house?)

That having been said, one of the yardsticks best applied to preparing for a bad turn of events is whether you can’t stop obsessing over the adequacy of your preparations. If nothing you can do, or think of doing, assuages your anxieties, you should ponder whether the problem originates inside you rather than emanating from the world around you.

“Don’t worry, be happy” might not be a comprehensive philosophy of existence, but there’s something to be said for it as an ideal to be striven towards.

Aug 5, 2008 - 2:27 pm 25. Mary Jackson:

A thoughtful, well-balanced article. As you say, it is important to strike a balance between prudence and paranoia.

Notaclue above, whose name is too modest, recalls the scaremongering about the “millennium bug”. I got a few extra cans of food in, then my brother, who works in computers, told me that can-openers wouldn’t work because of the bug.

He was taking the mick, of course, but I read on the internet that “hundreds of computer programmers [were] heading for the hills”.

Not all bad, then.

Aug 5, 2008 - 3:46 pm 26. Joshua:

Seems to me that merely preparing for the disaster is necessary but insufficient – one should also have some idea of how they will handle the aftermath. Such as, having just fended off an attack, what if the local liberal prosecutor decides to go UK on you.

Aug 5, 2008 - 4:10 pm 27. Joel Rosenberg:

Well, yeah; there’s a fair number of folks I know who carry a card with the phone numbers of three local-to-them-and-me, very good, criminal defense attorneys on it, and practice a mantra: “I need to speak to my attorney, and I do not consent to any search.”

Aug 5, 2008 - 4:31 pm 28. Mike:

Being prepared? Of course. Paranoia, particularly clinical paranoia, is not at all difficult to detect or diagnose, even for most laymen. I’ll address only the issue of criminality.

I was a police officer for nearly two decades, and I can tell you without doubt that there is evil in the world. Fortunately, not every criminal in the world is truly evil–most aren’t–but that won’t make you feel any better if one of them sticks a knife between your ribs out of panic during a robbery attempt. I can also tell you without doubt that while the police love to catch bad guys in the act and ride to the rescue in the nick of time, such things are relatively rare. The police just cannot protect you, nor can you sue them for their failure to do so. A call to 911, even if you have time to make it, will merely ensure the possibility that a police officer or officers will arrive in a minimum of 5 minutes (substantially more in much of America).

Regarding Krav Maga, karate, or any other martial art, they’re great for many reasons. They build situational awareness, strength, timing, humility, calm and confidence. But there is an old truism about the foolishness of bringing a gun to a knife fight. Movie stars can render five baddies unconsciousness in seconds in stunning style because it’s not fighting, it’s fight choreography and there is a huge difference. This difference is particularly true for women who tend to be smaller and weaker than men. Size and weight matter greatly in fights, to the extent that a skilled female martial artist might well be taken down by an unskilled male who is larger and stronger. Of course, if you’re one of those sensitive souls who could never harm a vicious criminal intent or rape and murder, you’re pretty much hopeless and your genes will likely be removed from the gene pool to the betterment of humanity sooner rather than later.

If you’re not one of those sensitive souls, if you believe your live is worth more to you and to those you love than that of a sociopathic parasite, study the martial arts because it’s good to do and fun. But buy a quality, concealable handgun, get a concealed carry license, and as with all combat arts, get quality training and practice regularly. Above all, prepare yourself mentally and then do all that you can to avoid confrontation, secure in the knowledge that if one day confrontation is unavoidable, you’ll emerge, alive on the other side. If the situation is such that your physical skills can win the day without excessive risk to you and yours, good for you. But firearms are like fire extinguishers: When you need one, you need it badly, right now, and nothing else will do.

Preparation, not paranoia.

Aug 5, 2008 - 5:25 pm 29. Jude:

One of the best books written is the scout book, “Explorer Handbook”, Look for it in the scouting section of a big book store. Go on Google and type in survival books and you’ll get some good direction. There are a lot of cd’s and videos available on the subject. It’s not rocket science but good old common sense and while your at it look for a book on editable plants with some good photos of the plants, sketches just don’t do the job.

Aug 5, 2008 - 5:26 pm 30. Jim C.:

One thing I heard: even the most basic preparations are better than doing nothing. In an emergency, a family with only 3 days of supplies is better off than a family with none.

So start with buying a few cans of food each week and saving empty liter soda bottles to refill with water. Then work up to fuller preparations.

Aug 5, 2008 - 6:30 pm 31. A Mere Voter:

My wife and I decided to take the decision to plan for the worst – two major disasters occurring at once, each one magnifying the other. In our location, this would be an earthquake coupled with a blizzard. As such, we planned for food and bottled water to last for two weeks, kept a large stock of other supplies on hand, got a safe propane heater and sufficient fuel, basic equipment to cover broken/cracked windows and structural damage (super-thick plastic and lots of duct tape), and everything else we would need to “shelter-in-place” for a full two weeks until help in earnest could arrive. I don’t own a gun or anything – I might one day, but for the time being they’re simply too expensive and I don’t have time or money to properly train. I think I may pick up a .22 in the next year or so, though.

If we have to split, we keep a small stock of gasoline on hand (about 12 gallons – almost enough to top off our car once if needed), all of the above gear in (relatively) easy to move boxes, and our GOOD (Get Out Of Dodge) bags containing all we’ll need for 72 hours on hand for quick deployment. The car has a big ammo box filled (no, not with ammo) various emergency necessities (food, water, tools, flashlights, batteries, emergency blankets, bungie cords, etc.) at all times. We also never let the tank get down below half – we figure that this way, if the worst happens, we’ll still have at least 6 gallons and probably 24 hours worth of supplies in the trunk ready to go wherever we are. Also, our car’s a piece of junk – we eat out of this box while we wait for tow trucks more often than I’d like to admit, I’m afraid. Such is grad student life.

This didn’t happen overnight – we made a New Year’s resolution a while back to get ready for an emergency. We bought a Sam’s Club membership and decided to put $100/month into it for a year, and after 12 months we were sitting pretty. Rotating the food and water costs money, but monthly maintenance of this “insurance policy” probably comes out to about 2 hours of time and maybe $20. I imagine most folks could do it for less – a propane heater with appropriate safety features was pretty pricy, but we considered it necessary. To be honest, we probably save money this way – rarely if ever do I find myself without basic items immediately on hand, and we don’t have to run to the store to pick up more toilet paper on an “emergency” basis any more – there are always a few dozen rolls up in the attic.

I grew up in hurricane country, so disaster preparedness wasn’t viewed as paranoid, just good sense. Disasters WILL happen, it’s as simple as that. One day, the complex system working around you will experience a problem and need a reboot. It probably won’t last long, and probably won’t be too big a problem, but you should make sure you’ve saved your files and made backups before that day happens, as it were.

Aug 5, 2008 - 8:50 pm 32. notutopia:

Effective Preparedness is a sensible long thought out state of mind and action working plan and evolving process that makes use of our innate characteristic of modern man to survive in this increasingly negatively behaviored and changing world we currently live in and with. Those that chose to live in a frozen state of fear or worse yet, a denial state in an attempt to cope with these changes have chosen to make themselves martyrs in the face of disasters.
I strongly suggest checking out the archived resources readily available from one who I consider to be “the healthy balance” in the world of comprehensive survival and preparedness information, James Wesley Rawles, found at his blogsite http://www.Survivalblog.com. Here you will find a compendium of resources covering any topic you wish to pursue on being truly prepared. You’ll find No paranoia here, just a lot of busily preparing people.

Aug 6, 2008 - 6:39 am 33. J David:

That the question even arises (”…Paranoia or Preparedness?”) demonstrates how far down the road even so-called “conservatives” seem to have gone toward paternalistic expectations of government( and unrealistic expectations to boot, as is demonstrated often by natural and social disasters beyond the immediate abilities of government to stop), when, in the not-too-far-distant- past “preparedness” went by the common name of “personal responsibility”.

Aug 6, 2008 - 9:05 am 34. Steynian 216 « Free Mark Steyn!:

[...] ASK DR. HELEN: Preparing for Disaster — Prudent or Paranoid? Oh sure.. laugh NOW, but you just wait until the [...]

Aug 6, 2008 - 1:33 pm 35. Concerned Citizen:

Here in California, it seems there is always a “Horseman of the Apocalypse” riding around the state. Two events made sure I understood the value of preparedness. The Northridge earthquake and the Rodney King riots. Anyone who has been through a major earthquake with the aftershocks knows you’ll be without power and water for up to a week and maybe longer. People tend to be orderly, you get to know your neighbors you never met and people generally help each other.

I think the riots were scarier. Knowing that if you were to call 911 that no one would answer, watching buildings set on fire and looted less than a mile from my apartment with a sliding glass front door and a civil insurrection with no end in sight. I’ll never forget the experience of going to the grocery store a day after things broke down and seeing lines of panicked people 20 deep at the cash registers with the shelves stripped bare. Don’t bother to try to buy a gun legally in this kind of situation, if you have any desire to protect yourself. We have a ten day waiting period in California to protect the criminals. The businesses that survived in the riot zone were Korean — they sat on the roof with their shotguns plainly visibly, while the looters ransacked and destroyed unprotected businesses just down the street, proving the value of deterrence and the Second Amendment.

After those experiences, we have a year’s supply of food, a safe with some cash (food and tools are far more valuable) and guns, ammo, water, a large garden and woodpile. A lot of Hollywood stars built safe rooms, bought guns and did some firearm training — they just don’t advertise it.

Someone wise said, you are always three days away from anarchy. Be prepared.

Aug 6, 2008 - 8:31 pm 36. jesse:

What ever you are preparing for, you better be ready soon.

Aug 6, 2008 - 9:11 pm 37. Bear:

Here are a few steps you can take to both give piece of mind and keep you from going off the deep end.
1. Make a list of ‘disasters’ likely to happen to you or your region. Put the most likely at the top, the least likely at to bottom.
2. Next to each disaster, describe how this will effect you.
3. Next to the effect, describe what reasonable steps you can take to mitigate the problem.
4. Next the the mitigation, make a schedule TO DO the preparation.
5. Follow through. Cross the problem off your list when you’ve completed the mitigation.

If you can’t define what you’re preparing for, you will never feel ‘done’ with the preparations.
Also, you’ll notice that preparing for the smaller, more common problems also makes progress
in preparing for the big ones. This can prevent the paralysis from feeling overwhelmed.

Bear

Aug 7, 2008 - 10:10 am 38. Omegaman:

I have spent years collecting stuff like geiger counters, full body biologocal suits, food for a year, portable water filters, first aid kits, books on everythng from butchering an animal to emergency surgery. I bought a 3 acre escape cabin back in the hills with its own well, solar and wind power. I keep a collection of food seeds for every year, five years back, Guns, reloading equipment, generators, tools and gadgets for survival and just about everything I can get my hands on to survive some great ill-defined disaster that will pit me against whatever comes along. I have spent THOUSANDS on gear for what now appears to be something that will most likely NEVER HAPPEN. The most useful item I have in my bag of tricks is a BIG FIRE EXTINGUISHER in my trunk. All this JUNK will most likely get sold in one big awesome garage sale after I just plain die from old age. Really I prepared for everything except just living a good life. I’m better now!

Aug 7, 2008 - 3:46 pm 39. Robert Neville:

One problem I have noted is that western culture kind of WANTS some major disaster to re-level the playing field so that the survivors can start afresh once again and this time DO IT RIGHT. Its sort of a collective neitzche nillistic view that is played out in many movies and books. It might cause civilization to not try as hard but just waste time hoping something comes along so that we dont have to pay off our CREDIT CARDS.

Aug 7, 2008 - 3:54 pm 40. Odds ‘n Sods: | Islamic Alert - Islamic Alert: Islam and Terrorism In The Daily News. Islamic Jihad, Islamic Terrorism, Islamic Blogs, The True Nature of Islam.:

[...] KAF suggested this piece over at Pajamas Media: Ask Dr. Helen: Preparing for Disaster — Prudent or Paranoid? It sounds like she might have been reading [...]

Aug 7, 2008 - 9:59 pm 41. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: Be Prepared

It would only be a crime if the government made it such. And, according to some things I’ve seen since 9/11, there are some aspects that would make it such.

Cases in point:

• A while back someone was complaining about people behaving like Mormons, i.e., keeping a two year stock of food in the house.

• In immediately post-Katrina New Orleans, the police were rounding up guns and/or abusing people who had guns. In the meantime, the same police were perpetrating crimes against people who—if they HAD guns—could defend themselves.

Still and all, I think it is better to be prepared than to be totally unprepared and therefore subject to being terminated by events, as opposed to being terminated by what passes for ‘Law’.

I suspect that the PC environs of larger metroplexes would be most likely to suffer from a natural disaster or national emergency. So many people depending on the government dole and being totally unprepared for coping with reality when the government dole is no longer there for them.

Oddly enough, I’m re-reading Niven and Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer at this time….

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur]

Aug 8, 2008 - 1:50 pm 42. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Dr. Helen, et al.
RE: Am I….

“A human being should be able to:

• change a diaper — Check [two daughters]
• plan an invasion — Check [US Army Command & General Staff College]
• butcher a hog — Check [Will you accept a snake?]
• conn a ship — Check [competitive sailing]
• design a building — Check [I have drafting tools and modify my own house]
• write a sonnet — Check [English Comp, anyone?]
• balance accounts — Check [Wrote my own duel-entry general ledger application]
• build a wall — Check [What material do you want used?]
• set a bone — Check [Battle Field First Aid,anyone?]
• comfort the dying — Check [don’t go there....my Mother-In-Law has an aggressive cancer]
• take orders — Check [Sergeant, US Army]
• give orders — Check [Lieutenant Colonel, US Army]
• cooperate — Check [Boy Scout]
• act alone — Check [Independent Thinker]
• solve equations — Check [Is that anythink like writing a computer application?]
• analyze a new problem — Check [Design an ad hoc database system]
• pitch manure — Check [Summer Job, U of N Animal Pathology Lab]
• program a computer — Check [See above, but I prefer REALbasic]
• cook a tasty meal — Check [My knickname is The Gourmet Grunt; Killer Cuisine]
• fight efficiently — Check [Airborne-Ranger-Infanty good enough?]
die gallantly — Check [Haven’t had to do that....yet....but not unwilling to try...if the cause is righteous]
“ — Heinlein’s Guideleins

….Heinlein’s version of the 21st Century Renaissance Man?

Gawaoon!

“Specialization is for insects.” — Heinlein

True.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. Sorry ladies. I’m already committed to a monogamous relationship, sworn to before God and witnesses.

Aug 8, 2008 - 2:09 pm 43. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: ERRATA

Where it reads….

• cooperate — Check [Boy Scout]
• act alone — Check [Independent Thinker]

It SHOULD READ….

• cooperate — Check [Boy Scout]
• act alone — Check [Boy Scout]

My apologies to that wonderful organization for not remembering how it taught me to do both.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Be prepared. -- Boy Scouts Credo]

Aug 8, 2008 - 2:18 pm 44. Chuck Pelto:

TO: notaclue
RE: The Y2K ‘[non]Happening’

“One can use an apocalyptic scenario as an excuse to learn skills. Remember Y2K? I didn’t believe the hype, but I used it as an excuse to learn how to grow heirloom vegetables (a failure) and load my own cartridges (a success).” — notaclue

The reason Y2K was not the disaster everyone was afraid it could be was because everyone, with more than a couple of synapse to rub together, decided they’d be prepared.

As a result, SanFran or LA, I can’t recall which, discovered their sewer system would back up with the roll-over, before it occurred. [Note: Something to do with an on-line test of their utility systems; untreated human waste welling up through the man-holes in some city park.....messy business that.]

In the meantime, when the actual event happened some court in Spain lost ALL of it’s records because the staff had NOT been ‘prepared’.

And despite Mary Jackson’s snide and stupid remark, you’ve a good point.

TO: Mary Jackson
RE: Your Brother

“Notaclue above, whose name is too modest, recalls the scaremongering about the “millennium bug”. I got a few extra cans of food in, then my brother, who works in computers, told me that can-openers wouldn’t work because of the bug.” — Mary Jackon

You go ahead thinking that way girlie-girl…..

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Look upon it as evolution in action.]

Aug 8, 2008 - 2:36 pm 45. Chuck Pelto:

TO: J David
RE: ‘Conservatives’?

“That the question even arises (”…Paranoia or Preparedness?”) demonstrates how far down the road even so-called “conservatives” seem to have gone toward paternalistic expectations of government… — J David

I doubt if any REAL ‘conservatives’ expect the government to come to their aid in a REAL disaster situation.

I’m a REAL conservative. And I’ve sat in on government agency plannings for a number of different scenarios; ranging from major earthquakes, through killer pandemics, to limited ‘cosmic-flashcubes-over-the-world’. And believe me….

….conservatives don’t expect much, if anything, from the government in any such scenario.

As I asked the local government reps during the bird-flu pandemic scenario….

“Do you expect the governor to come to your door and give you a fruit basket?”

“Will a county commissioner bring you a bottle of Perrier?”

“How about the mayor? Will he/she park an ambulance in your drive way?”

It ain’t gonna happen in a real-world situation. You’re pretty much on you own. And you won’t have anyone to count on unless your neighborhood is better organized than your city/county/state government is.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Men in combat do not fight for ideologies. They fight for their friends. -- SLA Marshall, Men Against Fire]

Aug 8, 2008 - 2:54 pm 46. Chuck Pelto:

TO: notaclue
RE: The Y2K ‘[non]Happening’, ADDENDUM

The big difference between Y2K and some ‘natural disaster’ is that we had some control over Y2K. It being a predominantly man-made ’situation’.

We might not have much control over some natural disaster event; errant comet/asteroid [think the Shewmaker-Levi/Dino-Killer, mega earthquake, ChristmasDayAfter Tsunami, 21st Century Thera, etc., etc., etc.

What to do then? Especially if you AND YOUR NEIGHBORS were not prepared in the first place. Would you trust your neighbors to act with restraint....

....if they were desparate and you had a 2-year supply of food?

It's a Twilight Zone scenario....

...unless your neighbors are as well prepared as you are.

Think about it....

...get better organized.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Aug 8, 2008 - 3:02 pm 47. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Dr. Helen
RE: [OT] More Blogger Problems?

I tried to post a reply at your Blogger site but was denied due to….

Blogger is currently unavailable

Blogger is unavailable right now. We apologize for this interruption in service.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Solving the problem, changes the problem. -- IT Axiom]

Aug 8, 2008 - 4:03 pm

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