Monday, February 09, 2015
Newsweek publishes glossy "Off Grid" for doomsday preppers
Supermarkets and pharmacies are selling a mag-booklet “Off
Grid: Exploring the End of Life as We Know It: Are You Prepared?”, published by
Newsweek. It’s a little strange to see Newsweek, which stopped printing its
magazine, go for the Doomsday Prepper crowd. The Introduction (and editing, I
guess) is by Les Stroud. The book has 96 pages, heavily illustrated, full
sized, glossy.
There are three sections:
Shelter, Sustenance, Survival.
The Shelter section starts with a chapter called “Helter
Skelter” about wood shelter construction, moves to a piece about lessons
learned from the Bedouins, and then in a piece called “A Place Out of the Sun”. There is a technology-free zone near the
Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, where residents, to move there, have to
agree not to use cell phones or WiFi. I
have never heard of such a community (except for some “intentional communities”). I last visited the are in May 2013 and it’s
true, in many mountain areas of West Virginia, my cell phone doesn’t work.
The book goes on to have a chapter on ham radio. It then
covers a lot of areas obviously important to survivalists.
If we blow civilized living, either because of an
unprecedented sudden national catastrophe, or because of a man-made one from
our enemies (or even our government, as in the NBC series “Revolution”)
I don’t think I belong in such a world or would have
anything to offer it. Not my genes.
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