Survival Skills and Jericho

I have a confession to make-- I don't watch a lot of TV. I just like to read. When Jericho came along it captured my attention like few programs have. Oh, I do love " Brothers and Sisters" but I'm sort of afraid to keep watching in case it gets cancelled. Anyway, when I watch TV I mainly watch for the entertainment. What I mean is that I take it at face value.

However, I was talking with some folks recently about blog topics and someone asked why didn't I write about how Jericho has raised awareness of the need for disaster preparations. I had to think about that for an hour. I started surfing around and reading various articles, posts, and message boards and was surprised to find how many people are interested in the subject. Which came first? The interest or Jericho?

Since I live near TVA I've always been aware of the possibilities of a disaster. I just never thought much about it. Imagine my surprise when I was able to post a message about Jericho on an Avian Flu board. Yes, lots of fans there. All this led me to thinking about survival skills in case of a disaster. I thought about Jericho and the lack of water, food, medicine, transportation, shelter, ventilation. What about heating and cooling, medicines, sanitation, communications? Guess I'd put Rich at Copywrite Ink in charge of all communicating.

I was thinking about all this and wondering how many people actually have the skills that would be needed to survive. I happened upon a very interesting post at JerichoRallyPoint just in the nick of time. Someone posted about SCA- the Society for Creative Anachronism. http://www.sca.org/
The SCA is a historical re-enacting group that recreates the Middle Ages. They are non-profit and educational.

I won't go into all the details here since they're on the website but I find this group fascinating. If anybody could survive a disaster it's these folks. Some of them forge their own steel weapons while others make candles or learn how to preserve food. Think about it. Could you make a fire without matches or a lighter? Could you kill, clean, & cook wild game? How about purifying water or preserving food without refrigeration?

Now I'm looking at Jericho in a different way. I try to imagine no heating or cooling system, no TV or computer, no microwave. That's depressing. So, I think I'm going to brush up on a few survival skills just in case.If worse comes to worse I suppose I'll make my way to Kansas. Skeet, leave a candle burning.


More info:
http://www.oism.org/nwss/
http://www.fema.gov/plan/index.shtm