BLUF: There are a lot of things that I agree with the Liberals on, but their path to get there seems wrong.

Starting at the top left corner, and working my way clockwise…

Should people working 40 hours a week be living in poverty? The simple answer (and the leftist answer) is no. If you’re working full time, you should be able to afford to live. That seems like a no-brainer, right? The problem is that there are different levels of “working 40 hours a week.” We currently have a huge number of decent paying jobs available in this country, which do offer a “living wage”, but people simply don’t want to do them. At this point and time, the vast majority of jobs out there do pay enough for people to support themselves and their family. Leftists prefer to bring up the “extreme poor” end of the deal (and to be honest, the Right sometimes seems to only see the “extreme wealth” side of things), and ignore the vast majority of people in the middle. I would love to see the country in a position to pay everyone a “living wage”, but the bottom line is, not every job can afford to do that. If you want to earn more money, don’t work at a job that can’t pay you what you need. Of course, the Left wants to point out huge numbers of inner city people who are living in filthy, tiny apartments. Do they exist? Yes, they do. But frankly, a lot of the people who are living that way do have the ability to improve themselves. They simply choose not to.

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There’s a lot of stuff going on with Trump these days. Multiple law suits, a presidential run, and of course the carnival row of his arraignment. I’ve been asked what the Left thinks of all this, because it’s hard to get information from The Other Side due to media bias. Well… okay then.

Caveats: I’m definitely not Republican, but I’m definitely not Democrat either. All opinions expressed are my own unless I’m linking to someone else, which will be properly indicated. And I don’t like Donald Trump, but don’t think he’s the “devil” that some on the Left paint him to be.

Right now, I’m seeing attacks on the judge in Trump’s NY case, both because he donated $15 or $20 to Biden in 2020, because he presided and some people think that’s a good reason to send death threats. People are reporting that there’s no way Trump will get a fair trial in NYC. Christopher Buckley likens the entire thing to Trump putting the citizens in jail. There’s a lot of crowing about how Trump is claiming to be not guilty of all 34 charges brought against him. There’s a fairly high level of apparent joy that Trump’s “sleaziness” is being brought into the public light.

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FIRE!

Fire is one of those things that it’s important to know about in emergency situations. You want to know how to get it started, how to keep it going, how to bank it overnight, and how to use it to do various things. You also need to know more than one way to do each of those things.

Making fire is probably the one that stumps most people. There’s this tendency to fall back on “oh, I’ll use a lighter”. I’m guilty of it myself, to a certain extent, and I almost always have a lighter on me somewhere. But lighters run out of fuel, and they get wet, and they can get lost. So what happens then?

Knowing how to make and use char cloth is one path to fire. Having or knowing how to find dry tinder, even in went conditions is another. There’s also flint and steel. But what do you do once you have those ingredients?

This is a picture of the cheap striker I got through an online cheap-ass place called Temu. I think I paid $1.98 for it. It has a ferro rod, a striker, and a blow tube, all in a neat little kit with a neck strap.

Did you know that when most ferro rods arrive, they have a coating on them that you need to work through before you can get a decent spark? Something to know. Something I did NOT know until this afternoon. I learned.

Do you know how to get a spark from flint and steel, or ferro rod and striker? Do you know how to get the spark to be where you want it? It’s not nearly so easy as one might think, and it requires a bit of practice in optimal circumstances before you get into an emergency.

Luckily, it’s not expensive to practice. You can make char cloth out of any old cotton (denim jeans, old tee shirts, kids’ spit up cloths, you name it) or linen. Here’s a good video on making it, with some wonderful side info. And another website with good pics.

Okay, so now you have char cloth. What about tinder? Technically you don’t need both (char cloth IS tinder after all), but knowing how to find or make tinder is as important as knowing how to make char cloth. After all, if you have the means to make char cloth, but no fire, then what do you do? 🙂

Tinder can be anything that’s very small and very flammable. Tinder is smaller than the tiny sticks you use to get a fire built up. It’s fine and light and fluffy. As an example, even in wet climates, if you can find a cedar tree, you can scrape the underside of the bark for a feathery soft stuff that makes great tinder.

Tinder’s job is to catch your spark. That’s it. Now you have a spark, and it’s glowing, and you need to add more fuel to it. Larger pieces of tinder, such as very fine branches from pine trees, can be added. You can make feather sticks (thin, dry sticks that you ‘feather out’ with a sharp knife or axe) to help you make the spark into more. You blow on the ember in the fluff of tinder, and hopefully, the ember becomes smoke, and the smoke becomes fire. Take your tiny fire and add it to the previously laid base of your fire.

There are many ways to build that base, such as log cabin and tipi style. Practice, so you know what works best for you, in which conditions. I tend to use a log cabin style when building fires in dry weather, but I find tipi works better when it’s wet. Awa taught me how to use a military poncho as a cover while building a fire in the rain.

Being able to get your spark to the right spot differs depending on what method you’re using to make a spark. If you’re using a ferro rod, most people’s instinct is to hold the rod over the tinder, then push the scraper down it. Unfortunately, this can cause your spark to go wild. A better way is to hold the scraper in place, and pull the rod up along it. Give both a try, and see what happens. Practice!

When you’re using flint and steel, you want your tinder in your hand, and you spark toward that. And that takes a LOT of practice, and you’ll probably skin your knuckles a number of times in the process of learning. I’ve been doing flint and steel work for about five years, and I’m still terrible at it. I’m passably good with a ferro rod, but I can’t possibly know that I’ll have one on hand, so… I practice with flint and steel.

So, what if you don’t have a ferro rod, or flint and steel, or a lighter? It’s time to use friction. But friction is the least easy method for making fire, even though it can be effective. This is another one that really requires you to go and do it, practice it, and use it on a regular basis in order to perfect it. And all that practice must be done before the emergency, because when you’re in the midst of it, you won’t have time to be putzing around with learning new things.

This site discusses several methods of making fire using friction: bow drill, pump drill, hand drill, and fire plough. And then there’s this great article on Instructables, which adds more to the list: the two man friction drill, and a fire piston, in addition to instructions on the ones at the first site.

So… go add to your skill set! 🙂 Have fun in the process, and impress your friends. Stay warm, stay dry, and learn.

As some of you know, the area of the world where Awa, J.kb, and I live in got slammed by heavy snow recently. The official total snowfall for my spot was 40 inches. We got 40 inches of snow in less than 48 hours.

As a friend of mine said, there’s just no time when 40 inches of anything is enjoyable.

It was heavy, wet snow. Normally I’m out doing a lot of the work at moving snow, but I have a knee injury at the moment, and it was deemed unsafe for me to do so. Instead, I ran the house, which was kind of fun.

We lost power early on in the morning. That was good, because it gave me all day with natural light to get prepared for things. I brought out my lovely antique oil lamps, and brought down my solar camping lantern and my rechargeable bike lights (I don’t use them on a bike, but do have them for walking at night or for when I’m camping). My stove is a gas stove, so I can cook just fine without power (the oven shuts off for safety’s sake). I actually planned out a more complex dinner than usual, since I had the time, and the stove aided in heating the house.

The house will keep from freezing just fine with the wood stove alone. I admit, I prefer having at least some oil heat, because the heat from the wood stove is centered in an area of the house that the water pipes go under, to keep them from freezing. That means that the areas we sleep in tend to be REALLY cold. Still, we made do.

We moved snow. We cooked, and ate. Eventually, we moved all the stuff out of the fridge and into boxes in the snow. My deep freeze will keep fine in this kind of weather pretty much indefinitely, and for a week or two even in warmer weather, so I wasn’t worried there. I started a sewing project that I’d been putting off for months, to the joy of one of my kids (Viking hood trimmed with rabbit fur, great for storms like this).

So what’s so special about my house?

We prepare for power outages. We’ve always lived in areas that were prone to them, because we don’t like living in big cities. We live in suburban or rural areas, with one main line feeding dozens of farms or well spaced houses, and that line inevitably goes down because of accident, freezing rain, trees, snow, or what-have-you at least a couple of times a year.

What I don’t really talk so much to the kids about is that I also prepare for emergency outages of the longer variety. If power went down for several months, life would be more difficult, but not tremendously so. Having it happen right at this point and time is actually ideal, because I’d have plenty of time to grow my garden and raise a few clutches of chickens before the stored food ran out.

Electricity isn’t necessary to me. It’s a convenience, and I do love it, but it isn’t necessary. The only reason my phone went on at all during the whole snowpocalypse was because my boyfriend was checking in on me occasionally (he lives 30 minutes away) and because I have friends who might have needed help which I wanted to be able to render. I didn’t play games (though I did take some photos).

Our neighbors had their genset going about 5 minutes into the storm. It must have gobbled down a couple hundred dollars worth of fuel in the 36 hours it was running, and the noise announced to the entire neighborhood that they obviously had (literal) money to burn.

I have a genset. I could have dug it out and hooked it up. It would have kept the fridge and hot water heater going, allowing us to have hot showers more easily. That’s it’s main purpose, really, because everything else we can do just fine without electricity. I didn’t see a reason to dig through all that snow, though. Even if the power outage had lasted as long as Eversource suggested (’til that Friday 6pm), I wouldn’t have bothered. Only the threat of the deep freeze defrosting would have gotten me to turn it on. And maybe not even then. Still, when the kids whined about not being able to charge their devices, I suggested that if they wanted it that bad, THEY should dig out the genset. They decided reading by candlelight was the better option. I concur.

GFZ talks about “grey man” quite a bit. Don’t be noticed. Don’t stand out. Blend in with everyone in your surroundings. That’s why I don’t want to run my genset. It’s loud. It lets everyone know you have power, fuel, money, and probably tons of food. I don’t want that kind of thing advertised.

I don’t know if y’all have seen The Last Of Us yet, but there’s a scene in there with a prepper dude, waiting for the gov’t to clear out. He waits for FEMA to mark his door as empty, evacuated his town, and drove off. He waited a bit, came out cautious, cleared the area quite well, then quickly went about the business of getting everything he needed from locations that had obviously been previously selected and planned around. Then he went home and sat down to a lovely dinner of steak and potatoes, with nothing more on his mind than taking it easy.

That’s my goal. I don’t yet have a sub-basement set up, where we can hide from FEMA. It’s on the list.  But I’ve no problem quietly slipping off into the woods while our area is cleared out. We’ll come back when they’re done clearing, and settle back into comfort. I’m not interested in living out in the woods, dealing with cold, wet, bugs, and dirt. I plan on staying in my nice, comfortable home that works just fine without any electricity at all. I’ll sleep in my warm bed (which was ridiculously warm and comfy despite there being no heat at all upstairs during the storm, I might add), and sleep well.

Being prepared for the power to go out is the difference. If your preparations are “turn on the genset”, then you really aren’t prepared. Eventually, fuel runs out. It only works if the problem in question is very short-lived. It’s useless as a long-term survival strategy. Heck, it’s useless in any survival situation that lasts longer than the gas currently in the tank at your gas station. So learn how to do without.

If you’re in a house where you can run a wood stove, you’re basically set. It provides heat, a cooking surface, and a central place to congregate. If your home isn’t really set up for a wood stove, but you have a portable one on hand, you can always rig a board in a window, to allow you to run the chimney outside. It’s not a perfect answer, but it will do in an emergency.

If you’re in an apartment or rented dwelling, though, you may have no ability to do that at all. You have to get creative. A tent in your living room for sleeping in will help hold in heat at night, especially if you pile yourself and all your family, including pets, within. Dogs make great space heaters. Setting up one room as the “warm place” will also help. Use military poncho liners or quilts to block off all other rooms, keeping all the body heat in one place. It’s possible to get an indoor safe propane heater, but if you do, I highly recommend also picking up a carbon monoxide alarm that runs on batteries. It’s not likely you’d run into problems, but safety is important.

How do you cook, if you have no electricity and no gas stove? With the wood stove, it’s easy. It’s already hot; just use the heat to cook with. In that apartment, however, you probably don’t have that ability. A single burner butane camp stove is a wonderful answer, and the fuel keeps well from year to year (remember to use up older ones first). They’re safe to use indoors, and you can crack a window if you’re concerned. Propane camp stoves can also be used, but be aware that they are much more prone to leaking, and should not really be used indoors.

You can also cook outside. If you have a balcony, you can use charcoal to cook in cast iron safely enough, or even use a very small rocket stove for cooking. Of course, you can do that out on the lawn of your apartment, too, but I don’t suggest it. Advertising you have food, fuel, and knowledge is not a good thing.

Water is the other big issue for all of us. City water will usually continue to flow for quite a while, even in a power outage, so you can usually fill up containers from the tap if you feel like it’s going to drag on for a while. There are bags that you can put into your bathtub and fill, for instance, or you can pick up water cubes that stack (a better idea, as you can move them easily). If you’re on a well, it may stop providing water when the power goes out, but you should be able to get water manually. Be aware in advance, though, if it’s a modern well it may not take a bucket. You may need a special “skinny” container to pull water up from within.

What about light? Solar lights have come a long way. They’re small, efficient, and easy to charge. I have a compact solar lantern that I can use wastefully each day, because I know it will charge even when it’s only partially sunny. I have other lights that can be charged with electric, and I can use my solar array that I charge my phone from. Oh yes, I have a solar array that can charge my phone, my small emergency lights, a fan I use in my tent, and a handful of other things.

There are dozens of other things to talk about, when it comes to preparing for emergencies, long or short. I know I am always learning new things, adding to my knowledge base. I am not an expert. I’m just a curious and keen person who likes to learn stuff, especially when it’s useful. And there’s the rub: knowledge.

Knowledge is the one thing you may not have time to gain if something Really Bad [tm] happens. You can be unpracticed at something, and figure it out as you go along. But if you don’t know it at all? You’re screwed. So learn what you can. Test yourself. Turn the power off at the main junction to the house and go without for 48 hours. Find out where your holes are. Patch them as best you can, at the fastest speed you can safely and securely do. I recently decided that I don’t know enough about trapping, snaring, and foraging. I’m taking classes this summer from a master forager who lives in my area, in order to help fill that gap. I borrowed books from Awa about trapping and snaring, and I’m about to go practice.

This is what you can do, right now. Fill gaps. You won’t know where your gaps are until you actually put these skills to the test, however. So go camping with a light load. Turn off the power to your house. Go for a hike with only what you can carry, and see if you can forage enough food for a meal. PRACTICE.

BLUF: Would Senator Roberts be upset if drag queens were teaching firearm safety or prepping, instead of reading to kids?

SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 7-51-1401, is amended by adding
the following language as a new subdivision:
“Adult cabaret performance” means a performance in a location other than an
adult cabaret that features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers,
male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient
interest, or similar entertainers, regardless of whether or not performed for consideration;
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 7-51-1407, is amended by adding
the following language as a new subsection:
(c)
(1) It is an offense for a person to engage in an adult cabaret
performance:
(A) On public property; or
(B) In a location where the adult cabaret performance could be
viewed by a person who is not an adult.

Awa has talked about the law of unintended consequences on several occasions. We all understand, too clearly, just how laws can “drift” unless thoroughly vetted for good language. The above is an example of a law which is horrific in its language. When you go to read the entire section of this law (Tennessee Senate Bill 3), as this now reads, it drips unintended consequences.

I understand what the purpose of the law was. They wanted to stop the whole “drag queens reading to kids” thing. I’m going to admit, I really don’t know why. Senator Roberts says it’s to stop kids seeing obscene things. Until Senator Roberts is also going after most of evening television and pretty much all movies these days, I don’t see that it has much reality to it. To make a law to stop only one specific type of performance, without addressing obscenity at all, seems disingenuous.

If the problem is that men in women’s clothing doing non-sexual things is in and of itself overly provocative, then we’ve got to outlaw judges’ robes, graduation robes, kilts, sarongs, and any number of other items which I’m morally certain were not intended to be included in this. Why, you ask? Because you can’t find a legal definition that draws a difference between a man in a dress, and a man in a kilt, without getting into legal messes like “well it’s cultural”.

If the problem is people doing sexual things in front of kids, we already have laws to stop that. If there are people in outlandish clothing doing sexual things in front of kids (and cameras, and parents, and librarians), then why hasn’t someone reported it? I’ve heard of men dressed as women reading to kids, but nothing sexual or perverted (even by my own obscenely low standards). Now, I have heard of so-called trans kids abusing and allegedly raping girls in the school bathroom, and that’s definitely Not Right by any means, but it’s not the same thing, and that’s not what the law appears to be about.

The thing is, the above is NOT the problem. The problem is that some people have gotten their panties in a wad over the idea of men dressing up in women’s clothing to entertain kids under some VERY specific circumstances. Since they can’t figure out how to make a law that stops that type of entertainment, they’re creating bad laws that have unintended consequences galore.

Under the current law, Klinger from MASH would be outlawed. The movies Tootsie, Dumplin’, Some Like It Hot, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Victor Victoria, Mrs. Doubtfire, half of Shakespeare’s plays (if done with gender roles as they “should be today”… ALL of Shakespeare’s plays if done as they were done at the time), Yankee Doodle in Berlin, Bringing Up Baby, I Was A Male War Bride, La Cage Aux Folles, Yentl, To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, and dozens (if not hundreds) more can’t be played in a public theater or performed as plays. Most of British comedy shows are right out. Half the cosplays (female Malcolm Reynolds, for instance) are gone. Bob Hope must be rolling in his grave.

Let me be clear. If someone is grooming or diddling little girls and boys, that person should be shot, drawn and quartered, covered in honey, and left on a hill of fire ants. Every single groomer and diddler I’ve met so far has purported to be a straight male and has been vehemently against all things not “hetero normative”, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some drag performers out there who are perverts. And if they are, they should be prosecuted. Or handed over to the parents, cousins, uncles and aunts, etc. I’m good with either.

But that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a group of politicos getting upset because people in more swag and satin than most women can handle are managing to entertain kids. I’m not sure how they got from that, to “every drag performer is a groomer”, but that’s happened somewhere. It smacks of the same stuff I heard in the 80s, about how “every gay man was after young boys”, and “Dungeons and Dragons will make your kids into immoral wretches who do drugs and cause destruction and rapine”, and we all know those were outright lies.

So what is the point of the law? The purpose is to restrict performances and free speech. Admittedly, it’s speech and performance art that the senators in question find offensive, but we’ve established time and time again on GFZ that personal offense is NOT a good enough reason to enact a law.

Since you can’t enact the law as currently written, without interfering with the art above, without inadvertently making it illegal for women to wear pants and men to wear kilts, I think I can safely say that this is a bad law. The attempt to stop the behavior that some senators dislike MUST be centered in Constitutionally correct mindset, or it is bad. This law is not Constitutional.

The First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The above law specifically abridges (infringes) upon the freedom of speech. Worse, it attempts to make a certain class of people illegal. It’s okay to not LIKE them. But they do have the right to exist.

Let’s not forget the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And of course the Fourteenth:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Everyone knows the Second. A lot know the First (or think they do). But these others seem to be forgotten, at times. In what way is this Tennessee law not abridging (infringing) upon the privileges of citizens? Is it not indeed depriving an entire class of people of life and liberty?

I don’t have to like men (or women, though the senators seem to have little or no problem with THAT) in drag. Whether I do or not doesn’t bear on this at all. It is the law itself that is unconstitutional, by its very nature. I get that a bunch of people really don’t like drag story time. By all means, don’t let your kids and grandkids go. Keep them home, and read to them yourselves! Frankly, if enough of us were reading to our kids at home, it probably wouldn’t have become an issue to begin with.

But don’t make up laws that pretend to protect children when that is not the result, intended or otherwise. That’s just not cool. It’s just as “not cool” as playing word games to restrict (infringe) upon the right to keep and bear arms.

I believe in keeping people I don’t like out in clear sight. Let’s take Nazis and people claiming to be such. I don’t want to ban them. Beyond being unconstitutional to do so, it also doesn’t actually achieve anything. It simply pushes them underground, where I can’t keep an eye on them. I want them to feel comfortable enough that they make mistakes that they CAN be prosecuted for, thank you very much.

Hagar

Welcome to another episode of Hagar ranting about something that affects Left and Right equally. I’m talking about our women folk. I realize it’s not PC to use that term, but FTITCTAJ.

Most of the women I know are afraid. They’re afraid to walk at night. They’re afraid to walk in public spaces. They’re afraid to go to their car after dark. They’re afraid that big, scary men might do bad things to them.

This leads to women walking like prey. Yes, you read that right. The vast majority of women walk like prey, like something that is bred to be preyed upon.

What does that mean? It means that women walk hunched over. They walk with their head ducked down. They don’t make eye contact. They actively attempt to make themselves look small. They avoid interactions in public spaces. They clutch their bags to their bodies. They shuffle their feet, look at the ground, and are both hyper-fixated and horridly unaware of their surroundings. It’s awful.

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B.L.U.F. – This is a subject that I think we could achieve a middle ground for, if the loudest and most extreme could just be removed from the equation. As it is, we’re going to end up even more polarized than ever. I apologize in advance for the VERY LONG and rambling nature of this missive. It’s hard to write, and I’m doing my best.

***

Abortion is a terribly touchy subject. I hate talking about it, because I really don’t have any interest in fighting over it. However, it’s a topic which I almost definitely have a “more left” stance on than anyone else on GFZ, so I will share.

First and foremost, Roe Vs. Wade was a terribly written law that should not have stood as long as it did, if at all. That it was overturned was inevitable. That doesn’t bother me. The idea of States being able to ban abortion entirely does bother me, but not too much so long as interstate travel for medical care is still allowed.

I would love to live in a world that didn’t require abortions. However, I live in a world that has rape, incest, accidents, and medical problems. I don’t foresee a change in that anytime soon, no matter how much I hope. That means that I can never be 100% against abortion. As long as there’s a chance that a living, breathing, adult (in body if not in mind) woman could be harmed by carrying a child to term, I have to support at least some cases of abortion.

I got pregnant when I was 19. It was most definitely an accident. I was on the Pill, and he was wearing a condom, and we both screwed up somehow. At the time, in my very misspent youth, I was actively drinking and using drugs frequently, and I was not eating well. I was malnourished, stressed, and in physical/medical distress. I won’t even go into my mental health at the time; suffice to say it was dismal. I found out at 5 weeks. I agonized over the decision, because I had suffered several miscarriages (likely a good thing, I say now as an adult with a large number of years under her belt… at the time it was devastating). I had to be honest, though, that any child I had at that moment would have been undernourished, likely exposed to a large number of chemicals (before I found out), and would have lived in extreme poverty. I chose to abort the child. By the time I managed to get in for an appointment, I was just shy of 12 weeks along (remember that for later in this discussion). That was over 30 years ago. I still mourn that child.
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