TEOTWAWKI rant

Usually a few of the blogs I keep an eye on are pessimistic, but today, even the usually thoughtful ones are pessimistic on the fate of the world.

Oh well: Look at the bright side: That "Haloween asteroid" that looked like a skull missed the earth so we're still here.

Much of the zombie/walking dead etc. stuff seems to be young folks shooting things, so I don't tend to watch them, but it does make you wonder if it is mirroring what is going on.

on the other hand, the Martian was a hit (and it must be a hit somewhere because it hasn't reached Manila yet).

and the latest Vatican scandal is actually old news: They've been trying to clean up the Vatican bank since they put a hit out on JPI (which is why JP2 avoided the bureacracy who undermined him and kept him from doing things). One conspiracy theory behind Benedict's resignation was so that the next pope could clean up the mess easier, since the new guy had permission to accept every one's resignation.

Wolves in sheep's clothing and whited sepulchres are old news: Even Jesus protested the kickbacks by the Temple's merchants, Amos and other prophets were always complaining about corruption, and one conspiracy theory behind Ikhnaton was that he wasn't really a crazy monotheist: he was trying to break the monopoly of the priests of Amon who held much of the land in Egypt so it couldn't be taxed.

Nor is today's corruption limited to the Vatican, as the InC scandal in the Philippines shows, or the latest televangelist scandal shows, or the well known corruption of the mullahs who run Iran shows.

Nor is such corruption limited to churches, as the kleptocracies of socialist states like Venezuela, Cuba or Zimbabwe show.

Oh well.

the big thing now is new age ideas that "we" are evolving to a bright new world, where we can fulfill our dreams. This might be called the church of Oprah.

in the meanwhile, ignore the social destructiveness of the media and the Obama administration, who push inclusiveness by saying right is wrong, morality is hateful, and that gender is whatever you say it is, never mind the guy having erections when he shares your daughter's locker room.

As for TEOTWAWKI: Most of the blogs seem to be about weapons, not really about survival.

If you are to survive, you need a community, not live as a hermit. That is the lesson of the LDS settlers in Utah: cooperation and helping each other (and polygamy because there are more women than men). But only OSCard has post apocalyptic novels that posit life in Deseret might be an alternative to the usual violent dog eat dog world of sci fi.

Here in the Philippines, we also have this: Reliance on extended families. So when the war started, Lolo and his mom went to their farm to hide until the battle was over. Even those in Manila usually would flee home if there was a mega earthquake (and the bad news is that we are close enough to the city to be affected by both the earthquake and the post earthquake refugee exodus).

So how do you survive? Drugs are the real problem: I always worried that without his blood pressure medicine, Lolo would die quickly of a stroke or heart attack. Me, I only rely on Motrin and anti histamines so can live (albeit uncomfortably) without them.

However, I ran across this really important list that people don't  usually put on their emergency stash list: It will come in handy in case you get hit by a typhoon etc and have to survive. Hairpins and diapers and safetypins and portable blackboards. Sounds about right.

luckily for us, when we have been shut down by typhoons, we have a generator, and more importantly there was gasoline available to run them. We also live in the country, and have a good supply of rice parked on a hill on the farm (a lot of local folks were borrowing rice when the flood hit last month because although the water level went down quickly, their rice was stored on the first floor). And usually within a day or two, the deliveries of veggies and meat to the Palenke resumed. (In the US, usually I shopped in bulk, but here everything is fresh and has to be bought daily. We don't store, and rarely use canned or frozen veggies or food...Which is why we have a full time cook).

Theoretically we could run the diesel generator/car on biofuel.. no, we don't have wind power or solar generator due to the cost. So if the roads/distribution ability went down, we eventually would be in trouble.

and if worse came to worse, we still have a waterbuffalo.

Hmm...I wonder if George the killer lab would be able to pull a dog cart?