"The Modern Survivalist," by Aimee.

So, I should admit that I like to consider the future and possible economic or environmental outcomes, a lot. (I have created an "Apocalypse Betting Book" and survival and gear packing guides for wolf attacks, Supervolcano eruptions and the next Ice Age.  While they were created mostly in jest, they did include real research into the impact of the particular gear needed and provide information to further study survival, even I will admit that my guides fall short in event likelihood or gear investments, I do hope that people will consider how to protect themselves in the event of disaster. The more prepared I am, the safer I feel about the situation.)

Nicole forwarded me a link the other day called www.thesurvivalpodcast.com, (thank you Nicole: for providing me with this apocalypse/survival resource!) where survivalists can join and post and listen to the shows. I for one, don't have a lot of time to listen to podcasts on a daily basis generally, so I prefer written articles and research, but there is a lot of wisdom in this page that I would like to share some of it with you today in a review.

"The Survivalist Podcast: A Review by Aimee Nadow."

The site has some articles by Jack, the founder, who touts his website as "one man's opinion" like I do mine, and includes his general philosophy about the modern survivalist in a way we can all relate to, and  in some way apply to our own lives:

"The survivalist community is often perceived as a bunch of gloom and doom types sitting on a pile of MREs, ammunition and guns in some far out corner of the North West. Of course the survivalist is also typecast as expecting TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) to occur any day now, in fact he is actually hoping for it. Honestly it is time for this stereotype to die a deserving death. Modern survivalists are many things but very few are actually concerned about the infamous black helicopters or FEMA Camps. Most instead are simply realists who understand that sometimes things do go wrong and it is better to be prepared than to expect someone else to solve your problems. " (Source: Jack's Survival Tenet #1: from thesurvivalpodcast.com. )

He lays out his ten-point philosophy about Survival and how it should apply to us, but to summarize, here are the most encompassing:

"Plan for disaster in the following order of priority – Personal-Localized-Regional-State-National-Global. [This resonated with me the most.] Despite the real possibility of a true economic melt down or catastrophic terrorist attack or some other major global disaster the most probable “disaster” for any individual is personal. Loss of a job, loss of a family member, a fire or localized weather event are the most probable threats to impact any individual. So plan and prepare for those first, then continue to build going forward." (source)

Which makes me think that these should be our survival priorities:


PERSONAL: 
(1) A fire escape plane.
(2) Life insurance. (Will creation).

LOCALIZED:
(3) A hurricane/tornado/brief (1-3 week) disaster plan/kit.
(4) Flood/fire/house & car insurance.

REGIONAL/STATE:
(5) An evacuation plan/destination and emergency funds.

NATIONAL:
(6) Supervolcano eruption plan/gear.
(7) Viral/bacterial plan/gear.
(8) Emergency funds/food/first aid kit/gear.

GLOBAL:
(9) Environmental plan/gear.
(10) Ice Age survival plan/gear.
(11) Insert any other Apocalypse plans/survival gear here.

I guess I'm going to have to read more on the subject. Jack has a list of recommended books here.  I mostly like the Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants, (see left) but I vaguely remember the kid in Into the Wild dying of consuming the wrong (but similar poisonou one from his field guide. I also liked the The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live it. These look like great reads: although, I'm slightly partial to Survival books- ever since I read that first copy of The Worst Case Scenario Handbook...