Category: Preparedness

Supertuberculosis

Posted on by char

Sadly, this isn’t a post about crime-fighting tuberculosis (even though that would be cool). Ann emailed us this link last week about totally drug-resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB).

There have been at least 12 patients who have contracted TDR-TB in India, though this first popped up in Iran in 2009. (Clearly I read the wrong magazines. That was, what, three years ago? Why are we just hearing about this now?!)

The drug-defeatable (yeah, that’s a word now) kind of TB is already a hard disease to kill, and is one of the biggest killers out there (well, out of the tiny, need-to-be-seen-with-a-microscope brand of killers, anyway). It’s also hard to treat. According to the article,

“At the best of times, TB treatment is difficult, requiring at least 6 months of pill combinations that have unpleasant side effects and must be taken long after the patient begins to feel well.”

Continue reading “Supertuberculosis”

What you should be afraid of.

Posted on by anninyn

Whole psychological theories have been based on what shows up in our horror films. I could go on and on about them, but as I only have an A level in Psychology, I’m sure I would be ill-informed.

But one theory that I do agree with is that fear of monsters – of zombies, vampires, demons, whatever – is simply a way of dealing with our awareness of our own capability to be monsters.

Continue reading “What you should be afraid of.”

Entertaining the kids

Posted on by char

Coming off the Christmas holidays, my older daughter’s school has a few random days off in January. My younger daughter gets to stay home those days, and I unfortunately get no work done. (Unless I want to work at midnight, which I usually have to do in order to meet my deadlines. Yay.)

Those are also the days when I have to come up with new and creative ways to entertain my daughters. Since Christmas wasn’t that long ago, I can’t just plunk them down in front of the craft box, because they’d just spent two weeks digging around in there to find random things with which to decorate the walls.

At some point during the day, I run out of things to do, they get bored with their toys, and everybody ends up watching “Yo Gabba Gabba.”

This, of course, leads me to wonder how the hell we’ll entertain the kidlets come the post apocalypse. I’m sure that in the immediate aftermath of the end of the world, nobody’s going to care that there are a bunch of kids running around whining about being bored, because there probably won’t be any kids running around whining about being bored.

And if there are, I’m sure you could just point them in the direction of a collapsing building and tell them to find things for you. If you present it like a game, it will be fun and exciting. And dangerous, which will make it even more fun and exciting.

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A Discussion of CROSSED

Posted on by tavia.

Crossed is a graphic novel written by Garth Ennis, drawn by Jacen Burrows, and published via Avatar Press. The story is set in a world where suddenly there are people who “stop being nice, and start being real.” Unfortunately, “real” in this scenario is bloodthirsty, rape-crazy, and straight up ultra-violent.

“Crossed” is how the infected in this universe are described because they develop a cross-like rash across their faces. The rash isn’t an issue. What is and issue is that fact that the infected, unlike other apocalyptic infected, want to rape you to death and mutilate you and destroy you as slowly and horrifically as possible. Because that’s fun now, and okay, because no one can or will stop them. Don’t get me wrong, the Crossed can and do feel pain — but they love it and it won’t slow them down. So, either kill them dead or don’t get caught.

One of the main themes in Crossed was not getting caught. Our protagonists pushed on and on in a constant effort to not get caught by the Crossed until eventually they realized that there are some serious flaws in a plan to live just so you won’t die.

anninyn and I both read volume one recently and needed to discuss it. So we did. Together. In detail. With spoilers, and swears, and graphic descriptions, and even some spoilers for the movie Serenity (which, if you haven’t seen you need to; so, go fix that ASAP).

Below is our discussion and we hope you join in on it if you’ve read the book too. Continue reading “A Discussion of CROSSED”

5 Reasons Earth Might be Invaded by Aliens

Posted on by tavia.

One of the many possible types of possible apocalypses is the vague and terrifying Invasion by Aliens.

Aliens might invade Earth for a number of reasons. These reasons might be tactical, commercial, political, evolutionary, or simply expansionary.

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Making yourself a target – with your Christmas Decorations.

Posted on by anninyn

There are people in the world who seem to delight in making themselves a target for painful death post apocalypse.

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Not necessarily at your hands, but the way they live pretty much screams out for zombies to start chowing down on their brains.

Among those people are the over-decorators. Those people whose houses are covered in lights and mechanical gewgaws, obnoxious ‘amusing’ christmas decorations.

Continue reading “Making yourself a target – with your Christmas Decorations.”

Pregnancy is Worse Than The Apocalypse

Posted on by tavia.

Sure, pregnancy is like the miracle of life or some nonsense (until the machines perfect their way of making more humans…) But unlike being pregnant, I kind of want an apocalypse. I wouldn’t have to go to work. I’m chubby so I don’t expect to be anybody’s sex slave. I could rough it if I had to – if I HAD to. I wouldn’t hate having to spend some quality time locked in a mall playing dress up and sniping zombies from the roof.

All these things sound perfectly acceptable to me—possibly awesome.

However, in a post-apocalyptic world my first stop would be CVS. Well, first a bookstore or library where I’d get a book about drugs, because fokklsncindine doesn’t mean shit to me. (Maybe I should just learn that mess in the present, just in case.) Then I head to the drug store to grab the basics like antibiotics and penicillin and THE PILL. Continue reading “Pregnancy is Worse Than The Apocalypse”

Personal choice: Why you don't have it post apocalypse.

Posted on by anninyn

Here’s the thing. I am pretty left wing. (yes. It’s possible to be an apocalypse prepper and left-wing. Who knew?) Along with that goes a belief I’ve had for a long time – that you have a right to your personal choices, as long as they don’t directly harm others.

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Even if I think your beliefs are nauseating, your choices are immoral and selfish, I still think you have a right to all those things. (You also have to take responsibility for those things, which means you don’t get to whine when you cheat on your partner with 20 people and your relationship collapses)

Post Apocalypse however? That stops dead.

Continue reading “Personal choice: Why you don't have it post apocalypse.”

Arming the children

Posted on by char

So last week, I talked about post-apocalypse gift ideas for children. Because, you know, Christmas is coming up, and I’m sure everyone has thought about buying gifts at some point in the last couple of weeks. Those who haven’t will think about it sometime soon, but probably not until Christmas Eve, because everybody knows that’s the best day to go Christmas shopping. Particularly at 4:57 p.m., but only if the store closes at 5:00. (Yes, I used to work retail. On Christmas Eve. And Boxing Day.)

Anyway. Torture of salespeople aside, let’s think about gift-giving in the post apocalypse. Well, let’s think about it again.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve given ideas about basic, and hopefully practical, gift ideas. What I haven’t really covered are the really important things. Like weapons (I’m not even going to touch food). I’d say you could give any of the weapons I’ll list here to your children. In fact, if you don’t want your kids to be hauling assault rifles around a post-apocalyptic landscape (I sure as hell don’t), these might be the great alternatives.

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What Are Women Worth at The End of The World?

Posted on by tavia.

Many of the depictions of apocalyptic life we see are over the top and hyper-fictionalized.  In the few more realistic versions, there is a disquieting, reoccurring theme: women are weak and they can be broken, owned, and kept.

We see forced prostitution, the normalization of rape and capture for fun and profit, and maybe worse yet, women who stand up and act like people–especially strong people– are considered anomalous. If a woman speaks up, hunts, protects the group, or displays any skill outside of making babies, tears or meals she’s wowing the audience or they’re rolling their eyes.

The fact that a strong woman or girl invested in her survival is a novelty should be a red flag. If the apocalypse happened tomorrow, would the women you value today be seen as valuable people or just usable commodities?

Part of survival training needs to be not only developing the ability to stay alive but also the fortitude to fight for that life and your right to live it well and freely. I’ve mentioned before that part of a successful apocalyptic life, especially for women, will likely involve killing some jackholes who think they’re maleness affords them privileges to you femaleness. Continue reading “What Are Women Worth at The End of The World?”