Ebola is running rampant in Liberia, they say. 2300 patients have already been infected and the World Health Organization expects ‘exponential’ growth in more cases over the next little while. “It is out of control!”
It must be a horror show for those people living there – especially the ones they have trapped in some locked off urban ghetto called West Point. Trapped in so many ways by life and now trapped by the guns of their government and the threat of Ebola, these people are truly victims waiting to happen.
Could this be the start of a worldwide pandemic?
Could this be what the doomsday preppers prepare for?
ISIS is a violence-prone fundamentalist Islamic state-in-the-making. Another Hamas. Another Taliban. Al Queda gone more nasty and effective. They seem to want some large portion of the Middle East starting with the old Iraq. By all accounts, they are not nice people and don’t like anyone not into Islamic fanaticism. Obama reckons they are a force to be reckoned with. Mind you, the other fanatical groups from Lebanon to Palestine, from Afghanistan to Somalia, from Pakistan to the-next-nuthouse aren’t all that pleasant either.
Russia is getting a bit ballsy these days, too. Invading Crimea and all. You’d think they would be content to sell oil and gas for awhile after having lost the empire but they are definitely bullying Ukraine. That’s a bit closer to home for Europeans, anyway. So soon after Bosnia and all…………sheesh. Peace is alright but kind of dull and war isn’t boring at all, I guess. By that measure, Syria must be having the time of it’s life. So is Iraq.
No point in going into climate change. That is some kind of massive but insidious threat we can’t really know until it’s here and what has been seen and felt so far isn’t making anyone happy. California farmers immediately come to mind but almost all equatorial sections of the world are getting too hot and causing massive starvations and migrations. It is getting too hot to live near the equator it seems.
Anyone notice how much older Obama looks these days? The guy has aged twenty years in the last eight. I don’t think that is indicative of anything but massive concern, an incredible sense of responsibility and an even larger sense of impotence. I feel sorry for him. Harper, on the other hand, is getting into it, rattling sabers at Russia and Syria and ISIS. Lucky we got a tough guy, eh?
I am not a doomsdayer. I am not. I am enjoying my life. Hell, I even like to see the new cars, the new technologies and the new cheap B flicks. But maybe I am in denial. Maybe there are enough signs worldwide to warrant a bit of extra preparation, anyway.
And, I am naturally doing some of that. Some. A bit, anyway. But I think I am doing that mostly to save the tedium of going to town, I am doing that to become more independent and skilled in my new ‘world’. I am doing that because I am interested in learning. But, in doing so, I may also endure somewhat better. Sal certainly will. She’s getting good at all this. So we hope for the best. But you have to call ’em as you see ’em and I see us ‘prepping’ a bit. Hard not to. We kinda feel that there is a handbasket full of hell out there. And we are the semi-reluctant survivalists, I guess.
Our Off the Grid Home 
Conservatives have been rejecting change in many parts of the world but not without consequences. Youth are aware of the materialism of the west but mostly have had little improvement in their personal circumstances. Poverty is on the move in much of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The west seems content to remove the dictators and create power vacuums that are filled with gangsters armed with America weapons. It turns out that the dictator of Syria, as bad as he has been might be better than IsIs. Currently “Animal Farm” like revolutions are toppling the world orders but little changes for the average folks. All forms of rule do not help the have not. You have little to fear from any of this unrest.
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I agree. No one is going to target me. Wadda they gonna get? A small shed full of beans and rice and workshop full of small, cheap tools…? Not worth the gas to get here. But it is not me I am particularly worried about. I just think that some kinda shift is happening and it is obviously a climate-cum-economic-cum-political thing that may include Ebola or something else apocalyptic. I duuno…something scary… Plenty of bogeymen out there and bogey viruses of all sorts. Just sayin’…
And, because I tend to think that way, I find myself ‘prepping’ a smidge. Can’t help it. If one can of beans is good then a case of beans has to be better…..that kinda thing. A little weird, I admit but, on the paranoid spectrum, pretty mild. Now, some of those THOSE ten-cases-of-beans paranoid guys are crazy!
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“Dumb All Over”
Whoever we are
Wherever we’re from
We shoulda noticed by now
Our behavior is dumb
And if our chances
Expect to improve
It’s gonna take a lot more
Than tryin’ to remove
The other race
Or the other whatever
From the face
Of the planet altogether…
(I mean it won’t blow up
‘N disappear
It’ll just look ugly
For a thousand years…)
You can’t run a country
By a book of religion
Not by a heap
Or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules
Of ancient date
Designed to make
You all feel great
While you fold, spindle
And mutilate
Those unbelievers
From a neighboring state
TO ARMS! TO ARMS!
Hooray! That’s great
Two legs ain’t bad
Unless there’s a crate
They ship the parts
To mama in…
“REVENGE THE CRUSADES. . .
With whips ‘n chains
‘N hand grenades. . .”
TWO ARMS? TWO ARMS?
Have another and another
Our God says:
“There ain’t no other!”
Our God says
“It’s all okay!”
Our God says “This is the way!”
It says in the book:
“Burn ‘n destroy. ..
‘N repent, ‘n redeem
‘N revenge, ‘n deploy
‘N rumble thee forth
To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side
‘Cause they don’t go for what’s in the book
‘N that makes ’em BAD
So verily we must choppeth them up
And stompeth them down
Or rent a nice French bomb
To poof them out of existence
While leaving their real estate just where we need it
To use again…”
Frank Zappa
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Only Sid quotes Zappa…………..anonymous my platypus!
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heh heh heh… “handbasket full of hell”
You ought copyright that one, pure poesy.
Still planning to move north at least semi-permanently in the Spring.
“There’s gotta be some way out of this place!”
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“You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.”
Now those lyrics have come home to haunt me more and more over the years.
Along with ‘Resistance is futile’.
Funny how song lyrics stick around, eh?
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“…you can never leave…” (Eagles)
“Chop that wood Carry water
What’s the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment,…”
“It says it’s non attachment…”
Van Morrison
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Well since it seems everyone will be eating beans after the apocalypse………Stock up on toilet paper…….the new ‘paper currency” after armageddon 🙂
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And here I was thinking it was going to be beans an’ buckshot………..but you are probably right. A roll of Charmin’ will be much sought after. Frankly, I doubt that we’ll have an Armageddon now. China just took control of Canada by way of the new trade deal. Don’t worry about beans. Invest in rice and learn mandarin. We gweilos are a bit behind the curve on that one.
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Ahahahahaahah, I almost snorted beer out my nose at that reply!
My “armageddon fantasy” goes somewhat like this……
This gweilo will learn enough mandarin to entice middle class chinese tourists to stay at his “traditional wilderness canadian log cabin experience”.
Where (hopefully) they will pay me vast amounts of American dollars to cut my wood, hew my water and milk my cows…….
Aiiiiiiii yaaaaa, it was a wonderful holiday for all !
Am I delusional?
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Kinda…..our experience is that plenty of Chinese tourists LOVE our Canadian wilderness and would LOVE to chop wood. But they can’t. Not effectively. Not until they beef up some or cut rounds from really small trees. They are willing, they are game, they are stronger pound for pound than I am……but some of our guests weighed 1/3 what I do! They simply cannot do the heavy power work if they are just tourists. Older worker-guys can. NOT tourists. Mind you, they would gather food from the forest all day long so you just have to put them on the path of most productivity. One thing is fer sure…….harmony is big for them and they will be nice to have around. But, they are kinda like potato chips…you can’t have just one…they come in packages of six or more.
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Potato chips and beer. My Kryptonite.
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