THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 8. your underpants.

In these days of everyday laundering, one’s undergarments are optional. Presently underwear is largely worn for aesthetic or recreation reasons. It is often forgotten that this was not always the case. Pants, shirts, coats, and dresses were made of different stuff in the olden days. Old-fashion fabrics would not stand up to being washed every day no matter how much All-Temperature Cheer you used. Clothes took too long to dry and houses were too drafty to be hanging out in damp clothes if you wanted to live to be an elderly 40 year old. Indoor plumbing and washing machines did not exist, anyway. Another thing that did not exist was toilet paper. That’s right. We have forgotten that the original function of our unmentionables was to keep our privates from funking up our public--clothes that is.
Those days are coming again. The number of normal number twos is numbered. Toilet paper supplies will not last long. Indoor plumbing will cease well before then, and outerwear will become too precious a commodity to be pooping up regularly. Oh. What’s that? You’ll just be careful? I think you are forgetting about the very real possibility of UNPLANNED DEFECATION.
Sure, you might be a couple decades too old to poop your pants and a couple decades too young to start again, but the end of the world is going to mess up that time table as sure as you’re going to mess up your Fruit of the Looms. Face it, when you kill your first zombie or have a mutant jump out of your going to be scared like you never have been before. Unless you’re Bruce Campbell incarnate--you’re dropping a deuce. Now, this is not the end of the end of the world if this happens. You just have to prepare.
You need underpants. I’m here to help. You could simply stock up on underpants, but that idea has three drawbacks. (1) They don’t make underpants like they used to. The fabric is too week to stand up to the rigors of the survivalist lifestyle and they are not very absorbent. (2) The comfort level of modern underpants is not suitable for extended wear. The waistband is constrictive or saggy and the leg-holes chaff considerably. (3) You can’t make anything out of underpants but underpants. The garment that you need to focus on is tough, absorbent, versatile, and abundant. I’m talking about the ordinary, everyday, 100% cotton T-shirt my friends.
The T-shirt is a wonder! You can obviously wear it as a shirt--but few people know of it’s other uses. If you cut carefully starting at the bottom and cut keep the cut 2 inches wide, you can make a strip of fabric that is over 25 feet long out of just the torso part of the shirt. This can be used for boot laces, braided for rope, or woven into a blanket. The sleeves make great headbands or hand-warmers. And, of course, if you put your legs through the arm holes and tie the bottom of the shirt around your waist--you have comfortable, homemade underpants.
You can save the same shirts and always use them for underpants, or alternate tops and bottoms for more wardrobe options. Either way, they’re great! The arm holes fit snug around the thigh, but they don’t chaff the sensitive regions. The neck-hole can be pinned shut, or just left open for easy access. They also make great shorts in the summer (assuming you don’t do lots of cartwheels) or swim trunks.
Using them as swim trunks is also a fun way to wash them.
The possibilities are as endless as the world isn’t!

THE FEMINIST CHRONICLES part II. the rapist.

I have studied quite a bit about sexual abuse and rape. I have come across statistics time and again that state that one in three women have been raped or sexually abused. I am not inclined to argue with this statistic. I have know many women that have been sexually abused and it seems to (if I were to count) be very close to 33% of the women that I have known. Rape and sexual abuse is, and I can’t imagine anyone arguing it, a serious problem in our culture.
The problem of rape and sexual abuse exists, but the focus is largely on the victim--not the perpetrator. I’m not even referring to punishment, though important, but to those who would become rapists and abusers. Think about the statistic I mentioned earlier that 1 in 3 women will have been raped or sexually abused. If this is the case, then why are there no statistics on how many men ARE actually rapists and abusers?
Is the question not a valid one? Doesn’t it raise one’s awareness of the scope of rape and sexual abuse to look around and realize that one of every three women that you see has been a victim of rape or sexual abuse? Would it not raise awareness more still to be able to look around and realize that 1 out of(x) men is a rapist or abuser? There must be a way to determine this number.
I am not a statistician, but I have noticed that they seem to have a way of accounting for abuse victims that do not report the abuse. Can't they account for abusers and rapists that have not been caught yet? Doesn’t anyone else feel that this number is important? I think that if the number was known, those men that weren’t abusers would darn well want everyone to know it.
It would be a refreshing turn-around if men had to take special pains to make certain that everyone knew that they were definitely not rapists or abusers. Men would be on the defensive for a change if they knew what portion of their number were rapists. Wouldn’t they?
Why should all of the onus, after all, be on the victim?

THE FEMINIST CHRONICLES part I. the intro.

I don't see a problem with being a male and writing feminist commentary. It might not endear me to the male population at large, but I could really care less. The fact is that there are a lot of problems with our sexist culture that are deeply ingrained and the problems were created and perpetuated by who?…. you guessed it…. men.
Women did not create the sexist climate that we all live in. Contrary to the Bible--women are not the root of all evil. I’m sure the story of Eve & Adam would be different if women were allowed to write when the Bible was in the pre-publishing stage.
Most of the problems with sexism is our culture is blazingly obvious. Women are not on equal footing with men in the workplace. Women are portrayed poorly in the media. Women are under-represented in our government. Women bear an unfairly large burden of the childcare in our culture.
Other problems with sexism in our culture are seemingly innocent yet insidiously ever-present. Men’s names are nearly always written first when a letter is addressed to a heterosexual couple. Men almost always drive when going somewhere in a vehicle. Men ALWAYS ride in front on a tandem bicycle. The phrase he/she or his/hers is used instead of she/he or hers/his. Some professions add an 'ess' when the professional is female as in actress and seamstress. People say “Hi boys and girls” rather than the other way around. These are all ingrained signs that men should come before women and that women are considered diminutive to men. Why else would our language be like this? It is certainly not random.
Little things like the way we speak may not seem as important as other problems that women face in our culture, but I believe it to be important none-the-less. If the way that women are thought of was changed on such a subtle and unconscious level, then maybe it would become easier to change the big problems.

THE LOST CONSCIENCE. chapter 3 of the america actually kinda sucks sometimes series.

It was common thought, just a few hundred years ago, that Native Americans were intellectually and morally inferior to people of Western European descent aka white folk. It has been a trend of behavior by said white folk since the beginning of white folk history. It is noted in the historical white folk attitude towards any culture that is not predominantly white. But I digress--this post is not actually about racism.
This post is about conscience, or lack thereof in the white folk culture. This is not just an American problem. It is evidenced in Russia, Europe, The Middle East, Asia, and--wait--oh yes, everywhere on the face of the Earth now. It exists now in countries that are not predominantly white folked---and in the idea of fairness to white folk, the concept actually pre-dates the white folk world franchise. It goes way back to a cautionary tale from the best-selling book ever. A little tale called The Story of Adam and Eve. Besides being a story that kicked-off the trend of blaming women for our downfall(which is a story for an upcoming post) It is a tale of lost innocence. Or, as I see it--Lost Conscience.
It is not surprising that the Abrahamic traditions are peppered with this same theme. The garden of eden, sinning, forgiveness, accepting that we are not perfect, etc. These are all ways to justify the harm that we have done due to our lack of conscience--to justify continuing to do said harm. The religious would argue that we do this because we are imperfect and seek forgiveness. The non-religious have modified this and seek to reduce our impact--not eliminate it, mind you, but reduce it. By accept this model we must believe that we cannot change things for the better--only make them not as bad as quickly. This is a convenient excuse for NOT WANTING TO CHANGE. Because we have no conscience. If we had a conscience, we would not be able to continue. Need some examples?
Our ancestors destroyed an entire race of people so that we could have a place to live. Our ancestors then enslaved another race of people so that we could have cheap labor. Our ancestors then invented horrible weapons so that we could scare the rest of the world into letting us run things. We then began ruining the environment with toxic chemicals because we needed the energy for our cars, homes, and businesses. We then began systematically destroying our food supply and that of the world with chemicals and preservatives and genetic modification. We abused animals so that we could test new medicines and skin-care products. We abused more animals for low-cost meat, milk, and eggs. It is actually hard to think of a bad thing that our culture has NOT done in the last four hundred years or so.
There is a class of criminal that psychologists will label as having no conscience. Psychologists even think that this may be a physical disorder--that a part of the brain is damaged--the part that contains our conscience. These people feel no guilt for their actions and therefor repeat them. Serial killers often fall into this category--And before you get mad at me for comparing our entire culture to serial killers, just try to think about it for a minute.
While we don’t all have a family in our freezer--many of us do have the remains of abused animals--we just call them dinner.(Sorry, I don’t get to be an angry vegetarian in the real world much!) Most of us drive cars--which continually spit out poison--regardless of their efficiency rating. Most of us use electricity--made in part by nuclear reactors that create tons of toxic waste. Most of use use paper, and cardboard, and wood for our houses, even though we know that the world needs more trees. Many people litter--there’s too much trash for it to be an isolated incident. Most of us waste water every day by flushing the toilet, brushing teeth, showering, laundering, etc. We tell ourselves that we need to do all these things--but we actually just WANT to do all these things. That’s the actions of a people with no conscience.
It's what held back the Native Americans from becoming are major world power during the 50,000 years they were here. They had a conscience. They actually felt bad about killing animals for food. They asked the animal’s spirit to forgive them. They never took more from the world than they needed. They actually CARED about how they lived. If it were not for the Native American’s conscience, our ancestors would have landed on the heavily defended shores of a land that was already barren and polluted. We would have been turned away from a land that we would not have wanted anyway.
Aren’t we lucky that was not the case?

THE AMERICAN WHAT? chapter 2 of the america actually kinda sucks sometimes series

America is often referred to as the best country on Earth. We are all reminded of this every Memorial Day when everyone gets drunk and pigs out on barbecue. We are reminded of it again every Independence Day when everyone gets drunk and pigs out on barbecue again. And I am oddly in agreement with all the fat, drunk, flag wavers out there--America is the best country in the world.
The problem that I have is that, while I have great respect for our veterans, I don’t think they are the entire reason. I certainly don’t think our government is the reason that America is so great. America was not made great by our “inventive nature” or our “free spirit”. Considering our country’s history the question should not be “Why is our country so great?” but “How could our country NOT be so great?”.
When the first Western European colonists came to what would someday be America, there was little to stand in the way of them doing whatever they wanted. Sure, occasionally the natives would destroy our settlements (and, in retrospect, it kinda looks like self-defense now, doesn’t it?) but soon many of them were dead from being infected by European diseases which they had no immunity to and also we called in troops to kill the rest. After that we rounded up the survivors, cut their hair, taught about Jesus, and forbid them to speak their native language. We then tuned them into alcoholics so that we could steal the rest of the land that they lived on.
Next, we cut down as many trees as we could on what was then the largest unspoiled piece of real estate on the planet. We created huge fields in the southern portions that could be planted with a variety of crops. Then, due to our creative spirit, we figured out a great way to work these fields without machinery(because machines hadn’t been invented yet). We bought and sold millions of Africans because we didn’t consider them real humans and used them as slave labor for a couple hundred years.
Next, when slavery became unfashionable, we made it illegal and instead started sweatshop textile mills that made massive wealth by exploiting women and children for nearly free labor in dangerous work environments where many actually died from accident or exhaustion. When sweatshops became unfashionable in the U.S., we opened them in third-world countries instead.
After that we would invent nuclear weapons and become the only country in the world to kill tens of thousands of innocent people in a split second in order to end a horrible war a little bit early. After that, we would spend the next 60 years invading countries for no good reason.
America is a steroid-laden baseball player--breaking all the rules and winning all the games. So I ask you--How could we lose? How could we NOT be great?

THE PREFACE. chapter 1 of the america actually kinda sucks sometimes series

The idea for this series started with the post that follows this preface. As I began to compose it, I realized that there was a lot about the world today and it’s people that I did not like and that I would likely lose most of my readers if I were to write it all in one post--hence, the series.
I do not hate America, per se, in the sense that I want to bring down the infrastructure from within. I do not hate our country’s veterans except for the ones that I hate for reasons besides their being veterans. I respect all veterans for what they have been through. I even fly an American flag on a couple national holidays and all. So--to reiterate--no veteran hating here.
I also do not hate the government. I think it could work pretty well with the help of a massive overhaul. I even like some politicians. I still like Obama pretty well, though it’s early yet. He had me sold with the speech that he made when he won that senate race but I don’t care for his views on nuclear power. Oh well--we'll see. Strike two, don’t hate the government.
I also do not want to leave this country. Conservatives always say the same thing, "If you don't like it here then why don't you leave?" For one thing, I don’t have the money to leave. I was born into a working class family, and as a rule we working-class types don’t usually ever make enough dough to be world travelers. The Madonnas and Johnny Depps of the world can do stuff like that--we can't. I don’t dislike America all of the time--but face it, this country is not a 24/7 jump-castle.
I am not an America hater, but nor am I a flag waving, hand over the heart, hat removing, red, white, and blue CAR RIBBON STICKER APPLYING PATRIOT. There’s a lot of crap around here to fix. If I can’t do it, I’m at least going to point it out.

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 7.wardrobe.

There are those that will consider the choice of one’s wardrobe to be a frivolous concept when it concerns the end of the world. After all, billion of lives have abruptly ended and those of us who survive are faced which unspeakable horrors on a daily basis. You may have just buried the family next door so that the smell of their rotting bodies does not attract mutant vermin. You may have just decapitated the animated corpse of your 8th grade English teacher because she tried to eat your brain. Marauders may have enslaved your Mom and Dad. Does it really matter what you are wearing?

OF COURSE IT DOES!

End of the world attire must be the perfect blend of rugged functionality and bad-ass intimidation. You don’t want to risk fighting if you don’t have to, and though a set of Carhardt coveralls might be strong, warm, and waterproof--they do not scream Don’t MESS WITH ME. That’s why I recommend the classic black leather biker jacket. Leather never goes out of style and that’s true for the end of the world, too. The jacket was designed to protect the human torso from hitting asphalt at high velocity so it also protects against claws, teeth, sticks, rocks, and knives. Plus, it is warm, windproof, and waterproof. The many zippered pockets allow you to carry multiple small objects like keys, poison darts, or detonators without losing them. It also looks bitchin’!

Ponchos are waterproof, but often flammable, brightly colored, and you look about as intimidating as a golf tournament spectator. I recommend a 1940s Dutch military issue motorcycle trench coat. It is completely waterproof, olive drab, has leg straps to keep it from billowing in the wind, and slits in the side for reaching hip-holstered shotguns and such. You may also choose a hooded wool cloak for colder climates.

For footwear there is no substitute for the Doc Marten boot. The leather is supple, and the air cushion soles will make you feet indefatigable on long scavenging runs. Also great for kicking heads in.

A many-pocketed rucksack or messenger bag is a useful and attractive accessory. Levi Strauss jeans (either blue or black) are tough enough to take a lot of abuse and still make a fashion statement.

It’s the end of the world--not the end of fashion. Whether you are overthrowing an alien caretaker government or leading the last non-mutant group of school children to safety, you have to think about your appearance. Even if it comes to the point where someone is later stumbling across your mutilated remains, you want to hope that they look down and say, “That dude looks AWESOME!”

THE WAGE GAP

In these economic hard times you will heAR a lot of talk about the unemployed. The unemployment rate in the United States is now at 10%, after all. Much more infrequently you will heAR some politician mention the under-employed. This group includes people who work full-time but do not make enough money. Same said politician will then state that the key to helping the under-employed is to train them to allow them to get better, higher-paying jobs with benefits and such. You will then here nothing more about the under-employed for quite a while after that. It is as if trusted advisors slapped the politician silly after the speech was done. They might have done so to get this politician to see that the idea of getting the under-employed better paying jobs is ridiculous.

How is it that every worker in our country is going to have a high-paid technical job? Is every worker in our country going to be a doctor, lawyer, politician, or administrator? Is everyone else going to run their own business? Are all of the rest going to be professors, teachers, and technicians? What a wonderful country that would be.

Now what do you do at the end of the week in this new utopia where everyone has a high-paid technical career? Do you take the family and go shopping at the mall? Who's going to ring up your purchases? Do you go to the movies? Who’s going to clean up after the last crowd so you have a clean seat? Who’s going to sell you your ticket? Who’s going to pop your corn? Do you go out for a pizza after? Who’s going to wash the dishes, make your food, bring it to you, clean the bathroom, and bus your table? Who’s going to monitor the parking garage where you left your car? Who’s going to watch your kids, for that matter, while your out making lots of money at your fancy new job?

These positions that I just mentioned are where the under-employed are. They are working at jobs that no one respects enough to pay a decent wage for. They are working at child-care centers, old folks homes, and restaurants where the climate is so competitive that the owners have to keep prices(and therefor wages) low. These workers work as hard every day as doctors and lawyers yet they make a tiny fraction of a doctor’s or lawyer’s salary.

People need a living wage, but they’re never going to get it. Doctors who make $150,000 dollars a year would never pay the price for a pizza that would allow a pizza cook to buy a little house and have health insurance and send his kids to college. Lawyers that make $100,000 a year would not want to pay twice or three times as much for childcare so that preschool teachers could have health insurance. People who make money at any of these RESPECTED jobs would never want someone to make a living at an UNRESPECTED job.

Remember: The only way that they can tell themselves from us is that they have a big pile of money.

THE HAPPY PROSTITUTE

You don’t hear much about prostitution these days. I’m assuming it still goes on. I don't get a newsletter or anything so I'm a little out of the loop. I know a few years ago there was some big-time senator that had a high-priced call-girl on retainer and got in trouble for it. That’s all I’ve heard recently. I’m sure prostitution is still illegal. It probably would have made a big splash in the news if they had legalized it.

Sweden has a neat twist on dealing with the problem of prostitution, they arrest the john, but not the prostitute. This makes sense to me. Studies show that it has significantly reduced prostitution in Sweden, also. After all, without johns, there is no need for prostitutes.

There is a tendency, in America, to either demonize or glorify the prostitute. The john is either treated as a weak man that was enthralled by this professional succubus, or a pathetic man that can’t find women for free. Either attitude demonizes the woman and lets the man off the hook.

The glorification of the prostitute is an American societal creation that seems to support the choice of the woman in her profession, but actually serves to further argue for the innocence of the man. In the film Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts plays a prostitute that somehow manages to service only really rich clients (without a pimp, mind you) and apparently is saving money to start her own business. She doesn’t do drugs, either. In the film Milk Money, Melanie Griffith plays a prostitute that gets hired by a 10 year old boy to be his dad’s girlfriend (which she somehow agrees to do!) and eventually becomes his mom. "Hey Jimmy! What does your Mom do?" “She’s a retired prostitute.” If it couldn’t get any worse, Rebecca DeMornay plays a prostitute in Risky Business that cleverly makes lots of money pimping for her girlfriends while blackmailing Tom Cruise(though I like the blackmailing Tom Cruise part).

The fact is that society, contrary to the movies, does not respect prostitutes at all. When is the last time you were introduced to a prostitute? Prostitutes, according to studies, have likely histories of sexual abuse as children. The majority of prostitutes are on drugs. Many of them are runaways. Some are probably abductees. Many end up murdered and nobody really cares that much. Rarely do you hear news stories and public outcry for the prostitutes that are murdered most likely every day in this country.

We, as Americans, just want to hear the good stories. The fake stories, played by a girl-next-door kind of actor. We love the story of the prostitute or the stripper or the porn star that is just working their way through a business degree. We let ourselves believe that this is the majority.

Remake Pretty Woman. Have Richard Gere play the john still, but this time have the prostitute played by a 18 year old male Vietnamese actor. Sorry. No one would go see that. We only like pretty white female prostitutes here. What fantasy land for hypocrites!

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 6. alternative energy.

Torches and wood fires are all well and good after the collapse of civilization--but fire is inconvenient at it’s best. You must always hold a torch--you can’t tuck it under your arm like a flashlight. You can’t install a dimmer switch on a torch. You can’t start a fire when things are soaking wet. You can’t turn down a fire to save the rest for later. For convenience and versatility, you need alternative energy sources.
There are a few that you can plan ahead with. Crank or solar flash lights are useful. Their charge is renewable and some are even water-proof. I have one with a 9 LED lantern and a built in radio. I have a rechargeable 2-way radio and a rechargeable short-wave radio with a built in light. These little gadgets are great, and I recommend purchasing a few. For larger alternative energy needs--we need to take it up a notch.
Now, if I had the where-with-all, I would install solar panels now. You can't beat the reliability of having a back-up power source like solar. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of cash, nor will I likely before the end of the world. I do have an idea on where to get it in desperate, lawless times.
Have you ever seen those electronic message boards by the highway, or those speed-limit signs that tell you how fast you are going? Those run on solar power. Always keep an eye for where they at an given time. When the end comes--just go ‘shopping’. It wouldn’t be hard to set them up and run anything you want off of them.
There are also going to be lots of abandoned vehicles at the end of the world. Many people will, or at least have tried to, have siphoned off the gasoline. This s fine. Who needs gasoline. It is dirty and loud to operate gas-powered generators. Anyone or anything that can see, hear, or smell will know where you are and what you are up to. Instead, collect the car batteries. If the lights were not left on, these should have some charge in them. Wire them together to power your perimeter alarm. You can run an electric space heater off a one for hours. Definitely a

worthwhile back-up source of alternative energy.
Collect some boards, black paint, PVC tubing, and window panes and you can build a solar water heater. Pipe the water through more conduit in your dwelling and you can stay warmer with the ambient heat.
Collect all the Sterno that you can. Sterno is an alcohol-based solid fuel that comes in a can. Pop the top and light it and it will burn with a hot, clean, invisible flame for hours. You can cook over it or use it to stay warm.
Hand-warmer packets are great to stockpile for emergencies. Open a couple and toss them into our bed-roll and snuggle right in there with those bad boys. You will be quite toasty. My wife and I did this to stay warm during the three days without heat in the ice storm of '98.
Candles, though seemingly simplistic, are a valuable asset. Again during the ice storm of '98, we found that we could significantly raise the temperature in our apartment by lighting a dozen candles. BE CAREFUL! Candles can be a serious fire hazard. There is no need to run out, either. Scavenge at art supply stores after the initial looting. I guarantee no one will think to loot the Crayons. You can melt them and make then into candles. Don’t forget churches, they have lots of candle if they’re the right denomination. Restaurants will have them, also. Party stores will have them AND Sterno also.
There are others. Think creatively. Just because we will be knocked back to the stone age, it doesn’t mean we have to live with fire alone.

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 5. gardening.

It is only March at the time of this writing, so it is still a little early to really work out in my garden--the ground still frozen and all. That doesn’t stop me from planning the garden, though, or starting some seeds right now. Fresh fruits and veggies are tasty and nutritious and you should learn the basics of growing your own now. Don’t let the end of the world be the end of your healthy eating habits.
Starting your own garden is fun and rewarding. You can have a garden virtually anywhere with the proper planning. Composting will be a must once the garbage collector stops coming, but don’t wait--start now. Take all of your fruit and veggie peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, weeds, grass clippings, brown paper bags, leaves, cow chips(poop), horse apples(more poop), and moose scat(yep, poop) and put it in an enclosed pile and let it rot. Turn it with a pitchfork and soon you will have the perfect homemade fertilizer.
Next yo will need seeds. You can save seeds from mature tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, herbs and such. You know those potatoes that you had from last harvest that are wrinkly and covered with sprouts? Well you can plant those, too. You can also keep a stock of high-end store-bought seeds, but they get old and don’t grow after a few years. Start these early inside near a south-facing window that doesn’t need to be boarded up(third story or attic skylight to be safe. Bury them in a shallow container of dirt and keep them moist until they sprout and then separate out the strong shoots to put into even bigger pots alone. They will get big and strong by the time it is ready to plant outdoors.
Choosing a site for your garden is the next important step. The spot needs to have as much sun as possible. There needs to be ready access to water(have rain barrels to collect rain water for the dry months) if the climate is such that you will need to compensate for poor rainfall. Make sure the garden is protected from animals and human vegetable thieves. A good size wood fence will keep animals out and keep nosy humans from noticing that a garden is present. Roof-top gardens are easily defensible, but you have to haul all of the earth--which is a lot of work. Large container gardens are great for city-dwellers, but you are limited in your amount of crop yield. Choose the option that best suits your needs.
Learn how to can and you can enjoy your produce year round. You, ll be eating homemade tomato sauce and dilly beans in mid-winter while your mutant neighbors live on raw rats and icicles. Potatoes keep well. So do carrots, turnip, onions, garlic, and squash. You can dry your own herbs for year-round flavorful cooking.
Plant some apple seeds and grow your own orchard. It takes 8-10 years but hey, you’re not going anywhere. It’s worth the wait because besides dry apple chips and canned apple sauce, you can brew your own hard cider. Hire on a few trusted hands for farm work and security and you can begin bartering with others for cool stuff like guns and ammo if you want, or solar battery chargers, fuel, swords and tools--you name it.
Who runs Barter-town? You run Barter-town.

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 4. homebrew.

The end of the world is going to be rough, and we will need to find a way to cope with the stress once in a while. Even nowadays stress is a big part of our lives. There’s nothing quite like a cold beer at the end of the day, a shot of whiskey at the end of a really hard day, or a glass of wine to wind done in the evening. Now, whatcha gonna do when the liquor stores are long empty and you have to fight zombies, robots, or your fellow humans-become-enemies? How are you going to cope with that stress if you can’t even sell insurance all day without needing a drink?
Unless you become a monk(which I’m not knocking because it is a perfectly acceptable end-of-the-world sort of vocation), you’re going to want a regular supply of alcohol. I know that I will not be able to handle the end of the world without it. So what do you do? You make it yourself, that’s what you do.
People have been making their own booze for thousands of years. Every culture has a preference because of the availability of supplies(which will become an issue again when import shops are history) and every area has their own variant. Distilling (to make liquor) is dangerous and time consuming, so I recommend fermentation.
There are many fermented beverages. Beer and wine are both fermented beverages that you can make yourself. I prefer hard cider and mead. Hard cider is made from fresh-pressed apple juice and mead is made from raw honey and water. There are books and pamphlets and web-sites that can explain all this easily. All you need to buy is some fermentation locks(you can also make your own) and a carboy (big glass jug). If you keep everything as clean as possible, you can ferment your cider or mead to 5% without adding sugar. If you have sugar(or lots more honey) you can add as much as you want and ferment it all the way to 14%. I live up north so apple trees abound. You can build a bee hive to attract bees for honey.
Careful, this stuff can give you a powerful hangover. But hey, a hangover is not the end of the world--and it’s nice to know that the end of the world is not the end of the hangover.

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 3. scavenging.

The word “scavenging” reeks of desperation. One may have visions of seagulls in the McDonald's parking lot or raccoons tipping over garbage cans. As civilized humans, these images are displeasing to us. After the fall of civilization, we may think better of seagulls and raccoons. After all, they are simply natural creatures that are doing their best to survive in a world that has changed around them. They are, in fact, both very adept scavengers.
Scavenging is both an art and a science. You must know what you need and how and where to find it--and you must be creative enough to think outside of the box.
Example: Suppose you require food. Where would you find it? Maybe you should march to the grocery store and, since civilization has collapsed, just take what you need. Right? WRONG! Do this and you’ll end up being somebody’s dinner yourself. This is exactly what all of the panicking, uncreative thinkers will be considering. You will get to the grocery store and there will either be a wholesale war going on or the winner of a war already happened and the victor will be waiting to pounce on the next hungry soul that walks in. Perhaps the victor(s) decided "Why move all this stuff? Why not just set up shop and stay here?" which is just what they’ll do. They’ll spend years defending that grocery store against the desperate, starving masses. Maybe they’ll be over run some day. Maybe not. One thing is for certain, you want no part of this mayhem.
With a little creative thinking, you can avoid this mess. All you need to do is think of a place that has food that people would not think of right away. Take your time. If you’re smart and it still takes you awhile to think of it, then it’s probably a good idea that others would overlook.
How about churches? They have pantries tucked in the back for coffee hours and such that tend to be stocked with non-perishable items. Find out where your local food shelf is, most people in your community will never have been there and will not think of it right away. Gas stations that only do repairs(not quick stops) generally have candy machines that you can break into when you don't have to worry about being careful. Re-check looted quick stops that have been cleaned out and look under the coffee counter. There are often back-up cases of sugar packets. Tanning salons and gyms will have vitamin supplements and/or protein powder, power bars, and bottled beverages. Re-check snack bars or fast food joints that have been looted and look big jugs of fryer oil that other people would not see as food but, of course, is very high in calories. Florists sell flowers, which you can't eat, but also often chocolates,which you can.
Make this creative thinking into a party game until the end. Write down the ideas and be ready.

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 2. guns?

There is something about the notion of the end of the world that puts one thought into many people’s minds--I NEED TO GET LOTS AND LOTS OF GUNS! For some reason, guns are perceived to be the answer to survival. What are you going to do? Hunt with them? Do yo know how hard hunting is? As a species, we’ve made it difficult for wildlife to live in numbers necessary to sustain us, plus hunting burns way to many calories unless you have lots of beer and potato chips back at camp. Besides, you can build traps to catch wildlife with little effort if you really can’t swear off meat. Give me canned beans any day. B&M maple and brown sugar vegetarian are the best! They’re packed with calories, fiber, and protein and I could eat them every day, plus, (if they’re on sale) $20 can buy you a month’s supply if you eat them for every meal. Pick up a large stock of One 'a Day vitamins for the rest of your necessary nutrients and you can eat virtually gun-free at the end.
Personal protection is another reason people crave guns when thinking of end times, but what are the real benefits? Zombies are easier to kill will a couple of machetes than with rifles or handguns. Aliens will likely have shielding against simple projectile weapons. Mutants don’t tend to care much about living or dying and tend to have enhanced powers anyway. Shooting a lot of other humans carries bad moral connotations and you may become a target by other gun nuts. Also, you will eventually run out of ammunition and get to the point where you have to trade candy to long-haired dirty kids that can’t talk for extra shells--it’s just pathetic.
So stock up on canned goods and lay low. The gun people will shoot each other or themselves before too long. You don’t need guns. If you want them, you can just take then from corpses after the fact.
Strike that…. reverse it. Buy lots of guns! (insert nonchalant whistling)

THE END OF THE WORLD FILES volume 1. got wood?

We all know the end of the world is coming--long dead, bearded nut cases have been telling us so for years. The scenarios regarding the end of the world are endless(ironically) to ponder. Luckily, scores of Hollywood writers and novelists have done most of the legwork for us. We could face aliens, zombies, mutants,robots, punk bikers in ass-less chaps, or high school English teachers leading armies or murderous marauders. There is also the possibility that the end of will be dull, dreary, and uneventful. Either way--you will need to be prepared.
You should not spend too much money preparing for the end of the world. After all, the face of the Earth could be obliterated by tsunami, sparing only John Cusack and his ex-wife(side note: my spell-check recognizes the word ‘Cusack’, huh.), and you will have wasted all those resources that could have given you so much enjoyment in the final days. Same goes for nuclear war. What if a bomb lands directly on your million-dollar fortified stronghold? Keep it cheap--keep it simple.
At any Home Depot there is a spot at the end of an aisle where they sell culled lumber. These are cut from longer pieces and sold cheap! Fifty cents a piece for four-foot lengths! Buy a bunch of these every few weeks and build something out of them that you will not need at end-times like a TV stand or entertainment center. You can use the four-foot lengths to barricade your doors and windows to weather then end-of-the-world riots. You can also burn them to stay warm. Build a big ugly box and load it up with canned goods! Throw a thrift store table cloth over it and forget about it until the end. Anyone who visits you will assume that you are just a very poor, amateur cabinet maker. This is good because you don’t want people to remember, at the end, that you have lots of stuff that they can steal from you.
If you don’t have a wood stove, then you will need a safe option for heating your home, after all, you didn’t survive this long so that you can asphyxiate yourself. Buy ten feet of stovepipe at Home Depot paint it. Put it together in a unique way and hang it on your wall. People will assume that you’re an artist. When you need it just convert your electric stove to wood. This voids all warranties, so only do it at the end. Most electric ranges have a smoke vent under the back, right-hand burner. Connect your stovepipe there and run it out of the window. Make sure there is a buffer space around the stovepipe as it exits the building to protect the wood or wallboard around it from catching fire. Remember: just because most of your kind is dead, fire safety is still no joke.
Now that you are barricaded and warm with a homemade hope chest full of canned goods(Don’t forget your Swiss Army knife, matches, and candles) you can relax and wait for a neat plot twist to develop!
..................................................to be contiued.

THE BELOVED DICTATOR

There are many things about this country I would change if I were the dictator. I say 'dictator' and not 'president' because I know I could never get anything accomplished with our present set-up. I would not be one of those mean dictators, however. I would be a beloved dictator. People would hang pictures of me in their homes without a mandate. People would salute me when I walked by, not out of fear, but because of my fab ideas and winning personality. Lets begin with all few ideas now and we will revisit this idea as my dictatorial campaign rolls on.
Idea #1: How do we fix heath care? This is simple, and we will fix many other things with the solution. The answer: abolish the insurance industry. Insurance companies make huge profits every year because they scare us into paying them tons of money just in case we get really sick. The fact is that most people with insurance do not get so sick that they use up all the money that they put in. The rest goes in the pockets of the insurance companies. There is more than enough money floating around in the insurance industry to provide simple, preventative care for everyone in this country if no one had to worry about the almighty profit margin. All of the out of insurance agents can get real jobs actually helping people.
Idea #2: How do we win the war on terror? Answer: Don't fight it. Trying to win a war against terrorism is like challenging the ground to a game of chicken while sky-diving. We used to be the terrorists back in the day when the British owned our country. How did that work out? There are always going to be more terrorists because you are just going to piss-off terrorists-to-be when you kill the existing terrorists. So unless you're prepared to kill everyone in the area and start over (which is probably illegal and gets you in the express line to Hell at any rate) you need a non-violent strategy. Here it is. Terrorists have followers and get more followers because of the respect gained from their supposed righteousness and probably a little fear. BUT WHO IS AFRAID OF JUST ONE MAN. You have to earn some credibility in order to lead others. Killing your followers if they don't follow gets you nothing but dead followers. Instead of fighting, lets use our best weapon: THE MEDIA. Whip up thousands of leaflets that show said terrorist watching Cinemax and drinking wine coolers with George Bush. Release films of him making out with farm animals. Immediately release a fake response to this having an actor play him and dig himself further in the hole with dozens of subtle slips of the tongue. I'm sure Quentin Tarentino would be up to it. The terrorists reputation would be toast in no time. Draft the cast of SNL. Get Speilberg in there with some CGI!
Idea #3: The drug problem. How do we solve the drug problem? Legalize everything, keep it from crossing state lines, and make drugs only available for sale at farmers markets. This includes alcohol and tobacco. Certain areas would have certain drugs and that would be that. Who would want to traffic heroin when you can buy some high-quality, cheap homegrown weed right here? We can keep big companies from making huge profits and ban advertising of drugs altogether.
Oh, I've got tons of ideas. You got a problem with this country and I will come up with a way to fix it. REIGN ON, OH BELOVED RULER!

THE TOILET

The toilet is possibly one of the worst inventions ever. It is as if the inventor of the toilet wanted to intentionally make it the most disgusting device ever created. The toilet is more disgusting than anything that goes into it.
Design-wise, the toilet is a real piece of work. There are dozens of nooks and crannies that filth can get into. It is nearly impossible to get it out without a toothpick and a cotton swab. Any moisture that gets on the seat drips down onto the rim and outside of the bowl. It takes over an hour to clean it enough to dirty it up again! Perhaps this was done intentionally years ago to waste a good portion of the average housewife's day.
Besides the many design flaws, flushing a toilet in America uses gallons of perfectly good drinking water and makes it undrinkable for millennia. One flush uses more water than the average person needs to drink each day to survive. Every time we flush a toilet in America, we may as well simultaneously flip off someone living in Sub-Saharan Africa.
What is the toilet doing INSIDE of our homes, anyway. Instead of pooping indoors, why didn't we just upgrade the outhouses a little? Why put the toilet right next to the place that we bathe or brush our teeth? Far better to poop as far away from where we do the rest of our other daily activities.
Public toilets are the worst(at least in the men's room). If you are lucky enough to be the first squatter that day in that restroom, you might not have a completely horrible experience. I say 'not completely horrible' because it is, after all, a public restroom and it is going to be a little horrible. Some guy always breaks off the coat hook on the stall door so you end up having to try to stuff your coat in the handicap rail by the toilet. There is plenty of graffiti to read, but most of it is unimaginative at best. Unless the restroom was power-washed or detailed by some janitorial ninja, there will most likely be evidence of past poopy smears below the paper dispenser which is always lovely.
It's the 21rst century for Pete's sake. Shouldn't we have self-cleaning, composting toilets or cool 'Dune' suits that recycle our fecal matter and such. When is modern science going to deal with this crap?

THE VEGETARIAN

It should be easy to be a vegetarian these days. Doctors approve of the dietary choice, it being lower in cholesterol and often higher in fiber and antioxidents--thereby lowering the risk of many cancers. Nutritionists have reworked the Food Pyramid in the past decade, putting fatty meats at the top meaning to choose them sparingly. Many fish now contain high levels of mercury, which nobody wants for some reason. And chickens, besides being really dirty animals, are raised in veritable concentration camps. Why not be a vegetarian.
The fact is that vegetarians are generally shunned or criticized unless they live in little vegetarian towns in Florida or California that us working class vegetarians simply cannot afford. Non-vegetarians come in four distinct classes:
Class 1 Non-veggies are the non vegetarians that simply do not care and it is hard to notice that they are even there. I like them best. They are most likely the majority, but you would never know it from the noise that the other three classes make.
Class 2 Non-vegetarians are obnoxious, but easy to deal with. You can simply hate them or ignore them. They act like eating meat is an American right that should be embraced by all much like our right to bear arms. They eat meat, and if you are not with them, then you are against them. They will always tell you how much they hate PETA. They love to offer you meat and then say "Oops!" like they actually forgot you were a veggie. They will eat meat around you with such gusto that you would think they were having sex with it.
Class 3 Non-vegetarians are the ones that say they are vegetarians, but then they will sometimes eat fish, or chicken, or even beef occasionally. It is like they want to quit eating meat, but all the meat they used to eat was spiked with heroin or crack and now they simply must have it occasionally. They, unfortunately, always fall off the wagon around a Class 2 Non-veg, giving them more fodder for their veggie-hating rants.
Class 4 Non-vegetarians could almost be nice people if they would just keep their mouth shut when they learn that you are a Veggie. Instead, they apologize fervently for offering you a bite of their Blue-fin tuna sushi. They apologize like they accidentally invited you to a Klan rally. They won't stop there. They will lie and tell you that they have been trying to cut down on their own meat intake.
Why is it so hard for people to come to grips with the fact that some people don't believe that it is right to eat animals. Do we threaten their lifestyle that badly. If vegetarians could all get together, I swear we could take over the world. Unfortunately, vegetarians can never unite. Some think it is fine to eat fish and chicken(fake vegetarians), others think that you shouldn't even eat eggs or dairy, and serious vegetarians(vegans) don't even think we should wear wool or leather or eat honey. All are distrustful of each other, which is a shame. Solidarity would do such good for the cause.
Until then, we much be satisfied eating veggie lasagne or pasta primavera whenever someone asks us to go out to dinner. Just order an extra couple drinks and you'll be fine. Luckily, there aren't many meat-based alcoholic beverages.

THE FRUIT

Every once in a while at a given gathering (possibly where they have salad or a sandwich buffet) some ultra-witty guy will bring up the notion that a tomato is in fact a fruit, and not a vegetable. This always makes me want to hold him down and force feed him a bowl of homemade tomato yogurt.
This all started because BOTANICALLY the tomato IS a fruit. Along with peppers, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, and so-on. Technically all plants are vegetation which makes the banana a vegetable. Who cares! The whole debate is stupid! Potatoes are tubers, carrots are roots, beans are legumes, but culinary-wise they are all veggies. Look up vegetables in the back of a cook book and you will find the tomato there and not under the fruits listing.
GOOGLE 'fruit' and I'll bet 'tomato'. is an awful long way down the list.
SORRY. They can't all be profound.