The Modern Refugee
How far could you run if you really had to? The historical answer to that question has been provided by the refugee, who was literally running for his life. Today the word “refugee” is typically applied to people from the Third World traveling thousands of miles, sometimes in commercial aircraft, to Europe, Australia or North America. This database shows the volume of refugee flows between any two countries. One can readily observe from the database that refugees from Turkey, for example, flee to Germany or the United States, as do people from Togo in Africa.
But the iconic image of a refugee is that of someone in much greater distress; that of a Western European fleeing advancing German panzers in 1940, or vanishing into the endless spaces of Russia in the mid-1940s. Between 1939 and 1946, millions of people fled to what they believed to be a temporary place of safety, though this was often comparative and sometimes illusory. When the fighting stopped in 1945, these desperate groups were called displaced persons. Historically, refugees covered far shorter distances. Their near term goal was simply to get out of the path of immediate danger.
In the last months of World War II some five million German civilians from the German provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia fled the onslaught of the Red Army and became refugees in Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Saxony …
During the same period, millions of former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated against their will into the USSR …
At the end of World War II, there were more than 5 million “displaced persons” from the Soviet Union in the Western Europe. About 3 million had been forced laborers in Germany and occupied territories. The Soviet POWs and the Vlasov men were put under the jurisdiction of SMERSH (Death to Spies). Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans, 3.5 million had died while in German captivity by the end of the war. The survivors on their return to the USSR were treated as traitors (see Order No. 270). Over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Nazis were sent to the Gulag.
The agonies of the Indian partition and the millions displaced by fighting in the Chinese civil war are other examples of short-distance refugee movements. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the population shifts associated with it, were also titanic. Even today the short-haul refugee can commonly be found fleeing conflicts in the Third World. Who flees to Ethiopia? People from the Sudan. Who in his right mind escapes to Pakistan? Answer: people from Afghanistan. Safety and security are comparative. The ultimate short-haul refugee is the partisan, who faced with the alternative of death, runs into the nearest forest or wilderness to fight back or escape notice, like the Jewish holdouts of the Lithuania.
Clearly, the modern long-haul refugees, miserable as they might be, still rely on motorized transportation, shipping or the airlines to move. This is in stark contrast to the short haul refugees, who arerunning from an imminent threat, deprived of vehicle, home and much else. In those circumstances, the mode of movement devolves to the lowest tech.
Probably the lowest tech, short of ambling around on bare feet like our ancestors from a 100,000 years ago involves escape with a handcart.
Going My Way?
France 1940
The handcart is the bottom of the barrel; the only thing left if the gas stations are closed, the highways are blocked by burning vehicles and the railroads are all shot to hell. It’s where you put grandma, or the baby, or the wife if she breaks a leg. In capable hands the handcart offers a surprisingly robust way to travel across country. One American family traced the movements of their ancestors to Utah to the handcart convoys of the 19th century.
Most of the people in the Christian Christiansen handcart company were Scandinavians (Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes). They numbered about 330 souls, including a girl with a wooden leg and a 60-year-old blind woman. Because the Perpetual Emigrating Fund was exhausted, the emigrants had to purchase their own outfits with pooled resources. They had 68 handcarts, 3 wagons, 10 mules, and 1 cow. The cow soon died but others were purchased along the way. Likewise, the travelers purchased a fourth wagon and oxen to pull it. Elder J. P. Park, a Scotsman, was the company captain, but he had to communicate with his charges through an interpreter because he could not speak nor understand their language. Also, he was reportedly unsympathetic towards them. “The less said about this unfortunate choice of a leader for such a people as us,” wrote an emigrant, “the better for him.”
Bound for the Promised Land
The best kinds of handcarts, it turns out, are not the supermarket trolley types, but those that are pulled like rickshaws. You can build your own, as shown here, or you can buy these marvelously engineered devices from Germany, where they are made from converted bicycle trailers. The bicycle trailer equipped with the proper handles, is come to think of it, probably the most efficient pulling gizmo ever devised.
The story of the modern short-haul refugee has serious gaps; one is the part played by the convoy and escort. In every movement towards a terra incognita in hisotry, there has always been the need for a guide and mutual aid and protection. Little has been written about how the World War 2 era refugees organized their movements we know from literature on modern long-haul refugees that a people smuggling industry eventually emerges to facilitate their movements.
Fortunately we have more data from people movements in an earlier era, who were not at all shy about describing their convoying and security practices. The classic example is the wagon train. “A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. In the American West, individuals traveling across the plains in covered wagons banded together for mutual assistance … Overland emigrants discovered that smaller groups of twenty to forty wagons were more manageable than larger ones. Membership in wagon trains was generally fluid and wagons frequently joined or left trains depending on the needs and wishes of their owners.”
The wagon train is a classic convoy. The phrase “circling the wagons” is commonly used today, even though few stop to think of its origins.
Refugees have not been seen on any scale in the Western world since the end of World War 2. With any luck it will never again. But the current world crisis has eroded our confidence in the unshakeable permanence of the post-war boom and peace. Should a crisis of such apocalyptic magnitude ever come again, then the handcart, canned food, sleeping bag and firearm are likely to be as important today as they were in the 19th and 20th century.
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
“Refugees have not been seen on any scale in the Western world since the end of World War 2.”
800,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Muslim and Arab countries between 1947-1950s? One of the great forgotten (or repressed) stories of the century.
I had read of a gold rush emigrant who pushed a wheelbarrow, all the way from Missouri to California. But most of the early pioneers on the California and Oregon trails walked, even if they had wagons or pack animals to carry their gear and food. The wagons were too desperately uncomfortable to ride in for very long over rough terrain. And by the end of the journey, the early parties had usually eaten their draft oxen, and arrived on foot, carrying their children, as I wrote in “To Truckee’s Trail”. The Stephens Townsend Party, the first to bring wagons over the Sierra Nevada eventually was composed of only eleven wagons. Only have the party of fifty or so were men, the rest were women, children and babies.
The journeys of the Mormon handcart companies were epic – a testament to faith and endurance, which most people outside of the LDS church have never heard about. There is a book just out that I reviewed a couple of months ago that tells the story of one company which started too late in the season – True Sisters, by Sandra Dallas. Readable and heartbreaking -
http://www.amazon.com/True-Sisters-Sandra-Dallas/dp/1250005027/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341938275&sr=1-1&keywords=true+sisters#_
Back in the 19th century Mormons learned some valuable lessons about the transitory nature of peaceful life and the need to be prepared for the worst. Those people were put on the run several times before they migrated to Utah so when that trek was made, hard though it was, it was done under good organization and loss of life was kept to a minimum. Mormons have ever since been encouraged to store food and other essentials for use in an emergency. They are told that they should have enough to last a year but any amount is better than none. Firearms aren’t usually mentioned but I know for a fact that these are a part of many a good Mormon’s cache. Plus the church has established a network of store houses and distribution centers where food and other materials are stored. In the event of a really catastrophic collapse the Mormons will be among those able to (or least with a chance to) weather the storm.
During the needless, frantic evacuation of much of the East Coast of the U.S. due to the approach of a hurricane in the summer of 1999, there were a great many “refugees.” It was a total mess.
Jacksonville, Brunswick, and Savannah evacuated at the same time as areas that were 150 miles or more further south and much closer to the storm. This represented nothing more than officially driven hysteria. Most community leaders ordered evacuations simply because everyone else was doing it. Essentially none of the areas evacuated in the southeast U.S. really needed to do so based on the actual storm track.
I avoided the clogged main thoroughfares and navigated the back roads, enroute to Augusta, GA. At one point I crossed I-16 and saw a scene right out of a Godzilla movie. They had closed the Interstate to eastbound traffic and had all four lanes full of cars going westbound.
Godzilla would have caused less hysteria. At least some people would have been going the other way, to get a look at the monster.
Does Denise Rich count as a refugee?
The railroad imho seals off the modern age from the ages that went before by collapsing distances. I was clued into this 5 years or so ago when I went to Casper Wyoming and took a side trip to Independence Rock. There pioneers from the 1830′s to 1870 left their initials on the rock as they journeyed by wagon train westward to Oregon and California. Many died. All went willingly in pursuit of a dream. The trail closed down in 1870 after the last railroad spike was driven in at Promontory Point in Utah–and the railroad to california opened for business.
Movies and tv from the 1920′s to 1960′s celebrated this pioneer migration. But no more. The Mormons still remember it.
For Americans whose ancestors in America date to before the railroad, imho thoughts are already turning to the age — decades from now — when the first great off world migrations begin.
5. stephen b
You caught that too. The Ultimate limo liberal fleeing one step ahead of the tax man.
If 0bama gets his tax the rich plan across, unemployment will shoot past 10% by November. The left has yet to connect Small business, employment and wealth creation. Romney might be correct in that he doesn’t need to do much to get elected. Just stand aside and watch the Won self destruct.
I suspect the first crop of “refugees” from America will charter air transport to avoid explaining all those suitcases full of money. Some will own their own airplanes. Only in America. I predict a land boom in Costa Rica.
Well, you can’t take it with you and if the choice is between the gobermint stealing it and a Lexus LFA then Zoom Zooooom is the word;
http://www.lexus.com/LFA/
How many small business owners will just decide to cash it in? All that worry, sweat and those 100+ hour weeks loose their flavor when the gobermint is taking it all.
I sympathize with refugees. Considering that I live in Afghanistan, I think of this stuff on a daily basis. If everything here goes [more] pear-shaped, I’m in a pickle, no doubt. No evacuating from the roof of the US Embassy for me. Made the “mistake” of marrying an Aussie…I doubt the bureaucrats from the State Dept will let us both on the Black Hawk and there’s no way I’m leaving without him. Fortunately, we have enough Afghan friends that we could probably get to the border of…crap, Tajikistan? Uzbekistan? Turkmenistan? Pakistan and Iran are out of the question and I wouldn’t bet on China either.
Maybe we’ll just have to grab our shotgun and the .45 and pull a “Man Who Would Be King,” becoming the rulers of a newly liberated nation – Wakhan. Afghanistan’s silly little panhandle has been a pain in the *ss for geographers anyway, so I’m sure no one will miss it.
Today turns out to be the 75th anniversary of Spam.
One of the darkest secrets of today’s hip and cool society is that Spam is eaten, in secret shame, by many more people than care to admit it. On the other hand, if you were ever to become a refugee, a few boxes of Spam would come in handy.
In Korea, where Spam was introduced as a war-vintage food item, Spam became an uprated indigenized product.
Culture is funny in that way. Spam in Britain became a Monty Python skit, and the symbol of all that kitsch. The Koreans, by contrast, decided they liked it and improved on the product.
Speaking of which, there are now a surprising number of people who don’t know how to operate a can opener or open one without the pull up tab. The trick of course is to get a broad knife, like a Kabar, punch a hole in the can and rock it back and forth until you literally saw open the top of the can. There are a surprising number of skills which people no longer have, though doubtless they’ll figure it out when the need arises.
Spam would be awesome for a refugee lunch box. I think it’s likely its respect by Koreans is due to its usefulness during that post war recovery period, kind of when everyone was a refugee “in place”.
Sailboat, anyone?
The sea is a harsh refuge, but bounteous and life-giving, as well.
Nothing wrong with Spam. When I lived in Hawaii, I learned that Spam is still practically revered in the islands, a holdover from WWII and 70′s fuel shortages that limited the amount of fresh meat coming from the mainland. I could go for some Spam musubi, Spam fried rice, or Spam kim bap (Korean Spam “sushi” rolls) right about now.
I’m going to have to go see my local Kabul pork dealer to see if he can get me some. I’ve managed to find bacon, authentic Polish sausage, pork ribs, and whole suckling pigs (during Ramadan, no less) here in Afghanistan, so I see no reason why Spam can’t be procured.
In 1997 there was a reenactment of the Mormon trail. It began in Omaha, Nebraska and ended in Salt Lake City. Over 10,000 people participated at different points – wagon trains, horse riders, handcarts and walkers. I believe it was filmed and broadcast on PBS for a while.
My brother was one of 11 people that walked the entire distance. To say that he and many others learned valuable lessons is a gross understatement. He was put in charge of the rear of the walkers/handcart group. One of the first things he told me is that if you are in decent shape – a person can easily out distance a horse over the long haul. Almost every day there were bitter arguments about who got the best camping spots. The handcarts and walkers would *always* beat the wagons and horses to the designated camping spots. Unfortunately, the film company wanted to show the “sexier” wagon trains coming into each town so there was always a conflict.
He told me how the horses would overheat, get infections, break legs and just die for no explainable reason. Along small towns across Nebraska and Wyoming the wagon train would stop and there would be a small celebration of sorts. At one of these celebrations in front of the local school with all the children watching – a horse suddenly passed a *huge* amount of gas, groaned and then fell over sideways. Dead. The kids cried. My brother laughed…
The wagons had the same problems as the horses plus the added complexity of broken parts and an absolute nightmare of a time in deep mud on hills. The handcarts would outdistance them with little issues. It was reported on the news at the time when, upon arriving in Salt Lake City, the wagon train had to decend a steep hill. A wagon lost control and had a speedy and wildly spectacular crash severely injuring some people on the last day. It made good film. What was not reported was the driver of the wagon was trying to beat the handcarts into town so he was driving like crazy down the hill. The handcart people, figuring they had nothing to lose, stopped listening to the film company on the last day and just “went for it” in order to be first.
My brother is still close friends with those other 10 people. I think three were women. They are all in their early to mid 40′s, are still in shape and know what is needed to lead a refugee group.
Also, of interest to me, was the few farmers that came out to meet the wagon train somewhere in Nebraska. They had family farms for many generations and smack in the middle of a couple fields were several marked graves that their families had been taking care of for decades. It turned out the graves were of old Mormon pioneers buried along the trail.
Can opener – See the wikipedia for P-38 can opener, one of the marvels of modern engineering technology. Put 3 or 4 in the emergency food stash.
Bush meat. Took a medium truck company (6×6) to the field for training. Those guys run from snakes. I had no idea. In the infantry units, if those guys see a snake, it’s mean time before fire (MTBF) is about 4 minutes. They all reach for their bayonnets & K-bars, and the ill-fated snake has to run the gauntlet. It will be skinned and over the fire within those 4 minutes.
I liked Spam. We had it at regularly at boarding school in the late forties and fifties. In those days real meat wasn’t great and Spam was easy to eat, tasty enough and many of my co-inmates didn’t like it so I could get theirs!
When the Monty Python skit was on I always had that kind of embarrassment you get when your friends are joking about something you feel you should defend but don’t want to seem out of the group.
I don’t know whether it is time or just the quality but the last time I had Spam, about twenty odd years ago, it didn’t seem so good. Same for tinned corned beef, doesn’t seem to have the same yum factor these days.
I’ll bet many — or most — of us come from refugee stock. My mother’s side of the family has had generations of fleeing in its lineage. They started out as Huguenots fleeing the St. Bartholomew massacre in France by going to what is now Germany. The family fled Germany (still not a nation at the time) in the form of an ancestor who was — get this — a Catholic priest (it was the 1848 upheaval). They became Russians, and fled again in 1917-18 for you-know-what reasons. One branch ended up in Yugoslavia, where they were bombed by the Germans, and then fled to . . . Germany. That’s right. There was war-related work there for the women, and a stint in Vlasov’s Army for the men. On their way to their new refuge, their train was strafed by the allies. At war’s conclusion they had the good sense to marry their daughters off to American GIs, one of whom was my father.
Although you can eat Spam out of the can, which no doubt a refugee would, to get every calorie out of it, to get the yum factor back, you need to fry it. A cast iron pan coated with a little oil does the trick because Spam itself renders.
Use moderately high heat, because the ideal fried Spam is slightly caramelized on the outside but leaves the interior just a tad pink. An 1/5 inch is about the right thickness. Then when it’s done right, put the slices in a platter and spoon some reduced pineapple syrup (from the can too) or a half teaspoon of honey over it.
Then if you are really set, consume it with some hot rice and fry an egg to go with it (in the pan you fried the Spam in) and serve up with a hot mug of coffee. It may sound funny, but I think you’ll find it hits the spot.
Speaking of C-rats, what is the shelf-life of Spam. In the 1970′s, we were eating C-Rations canned in 1950′s (Korean Conflict). They stored so long because they were irradiated after canning to destroy bacteria.
Seems like they had a problem with Apple Sauce. Those cans were occasionally swollen with gas produced by botulinus.
I rember eating that something close to that wretchard. If IRC, w/pineapple chunks instead of w/the juice.
Not all migrations are made by refugees. For example, the migration of African Americans northward was not fleeing the South but seeking better jobs in the North. The migration of ex-pat retirees from the US to Mexico is not fleeing hard times here but rather seeking a lower cost of living. These are not refugees. When you consider past means of transport, you confuse refugees with migrants.
The Mormons might be considered refugees because they were fleeing religious persecution, but the pioneers who were part of wagon trains were not. They were reasonably well-off people seeking opportunities for land ownership and business prosperity not available in the existing states. They were not driven by hardship. Those wagons and supplies cost a lot of money, as did buy-in participation in a wagon train. Building the wagons and stocking them, making arrangements to leave all took time and planning and was not done on the spur of the moment. This isn’t a matter of people being driven out of their homes –exceptions may be Southern soldiers fleeing Westward at the end of the Civil war and freed slaves seeking new homes in the disorganization of the aftermath of the war. Those who walked the Cherokee trail were involuntary refugees, not the pioneers.
I also wonder why you assume it is the wife who will be breaking her leg? That fine old movie “Westward the Women” would disabuse you of such stereotypes about pioneer women. I don’t believe they wore 5-inch heels in those days.
Ann Barnhardt is predicting a Red Dawn type scenario–Puntin on the right coast, Chinese on the left coast. I’m always impressed with those more paranoid than I am.
Remember, if you use a wheelbarrow, make sure the tire’s inflated.
I dont wonder much about how far I could push a handcart full of SPAM anymore. I do wonder if the MB is going to be smart and industrious enough to figure out how to disassemble the pyramids. How many plagues were supposed to befall Egypt?
Save the rice and use hash browns instead. You can fry them in the same pan. Less to clean up. Breakfast of Champions.
It’s most assuredly not always the wife who breaks the leg. Many women of European stock are enormously powerful. Your six foot one inch, 160 pound Australian woman in good shape is mighty specimen. I remember working with a woman at a client’s who was over 6’3″ and a good 200 pounds. She would literally darken the doorway. I was reminded instantly of Katrinka in the Toonerville Trolley series.
Early on in Australia I was writing an app for a celebrity catering company and their head of marketing was an extremely competent and beautiful lady whose size was so imposing that her nickname was The Mighty [followed by her name]. Her stated height was 6’2″ but it might have been more than that. From a moderate distance perspective made her seem like your ordinary magazine cover girl. It was only when she approached that you saw she more like a small building.
The convention is (was) to regard women as the “weaker sex”. Maybe it’s true in broadly statistical terms within a population, but for an individual man taken from the distribution, there are likely to be any number of women who are actually far stronger than he is.
while we’re wildly off the topic, a connecting flight through Amsterdam couple of months ago. Blond-haired women over 6 feet tall seemed to be the rule rather than exception at all of the concessions in the terminal.
Somehow the Dutch have stealthily become the world’s tallest people according to wikipedia.
I can attest to the fact that when food is a tad scarce, a pan-fried Spammich is a luxurious belly-filling feast. I’ve avoided it ever since, but have retained a wary respect for the stuff.
What’s with the refugee post? Does Wretchard see something coming? Should I get that visa now to New Zealand?
wretchard wrote: “It was only when she approached that you saw she (was) more like a small building.”
hence the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBx6mAWYPU
note the top comment: “If you listen to this while walking down the street, you will start to walk cooler.”
“… since the end of WW II”… hey! – what about the 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010 that some UN agency insisted were a sure bet… oh right… down the memory hole…. and their graphically rich maps were so pretty!
Snowbirds are climate refugees. In a more true sense, the people displaced by Katrina were climate refugees. Many of them never went back. I would imagine people may be rethinking their houses in the hills given current fire conditions and chronic drought in the Southwest. As the cost of water increases, we have replaced plants with rocks in our yard, directly due to climate warming. It would take more for us to actually move, but if we couldn’t afford AC or it were sporadic that would be a big incentive. Heating has also been costing a lot more back East. So I wouldn’t mock climate refugee predictions. These are small changes, true, but I am only familiar with the US and not what is going on worldwide, where I understand some islands have already been depopulated due to rising sea water. People do move when drought occurs — I think we are mainly quibbling about how many and are there more than before, not whether there are such people as climate refugees.
I think part of the cognitive dissonance thing meeting the brick S.H. girls is the conflict between signals and expectation. When images clash, you have to wait a second to adjust. Just today, Barney Frank wed his “husband” in the Democratic Party nuptials of the year. Both “grooms” were wearing designer suits. So if you’re sitting there looking for the “bride” and waiting for the white gown you experience a momentary disconnect.
A cocktail or two may settle things, but you may have a fleeting turn, until your eyes re-focus.
Although there is no reason to expect it, there’s (with me at least) a brief moment of shock when you discover that a savagely bearded, monster man is actually gay, even when reading about it. The jolt, I expect, arises from the juxtaposition of the image of hirsute mountain of muscle juxtaposed with the puckered red lips which are featured in the photo.
When you happen to take a seat beside a huge, powerful yet feminine woman, a similar kind of dissonance occurs. For at one level there before you is a women all decked out in fashionable clothes, with the hankie and the delicate shoes, makeup, etc. But at another level you can’t help but notice the pithy arms, the mighty shoulders and the corded muscles. One part of you — the civilized human being — is taking in one signal and treating her in her social role, while your limbic brain is in sheer panic from the proximity of an extremely powerful animal– somehow our instincts remember these things — who were she to forget the hankie and the veneer of civilization, might easily reach out and throttle you without your having any realistic prospect of defense.
Maybe it’s the same feeling as having a pet tiger. You are on the one hand, amazed by the silken grace while every instinct in your body suggests that you put as much distance as possible between yourself and 500 pounds of gristle.
29- The only plausible climate change would make people and penguins trade places, not fight for territory. Any continent on earth could become like Antarctica in the event of an axis realignment- an event that may or may not occur naturally.
A good cart should be seaworthy and able to cut through ice.
“where I understand some islands have already been depopulated due to rising sea water”
What utter BS.
If EVERY bit of ice on the planet earth melts, Sea Level raises about 100mm. That is a little under 4 inches. DROWNING Islands are a lie told by AGW nutters.
Give it up. The massive fraud is over. In another decade, those promoting AGW will be standing trial.
Sally @ 30: “… I understand some islands have already been depopulated due to rising sea water.”
Depends on the time-scale, doesn’t it? 10,000 years ago, the Americas became an island when rising water swamped the land bridge between Siberia & Alaska. The human population on the American ‘island’ has been rising ever since.
Oh damn! That does not fit the Al Gore ‘Pay Lots of Taxes to Save the Planet (& Al’s Bank Account)’
model of modern Anthropogenic Global Warming.
I respect with your earlier comment @ 20 that men can break a leg as well as women. That’s a fact. Now let’s all work together to keep Wretchard’s blog a junk-science-free zone, where facts prevail.
Wretchard #17:
Fried is the best way to do Spam. I used to like to take it, cut it very thin, and fry it up like bacon. Or perhaps cut some to 1/4 inch thickness and get it all nice and brown on the outside.
Then one evening in 1979 I came home from work, fried up some spam and ate it – and then within a couple of hours came down with the same flu that a friend and coworker had earlier that day. No more spam, never again. There is something about seeing what you recently ate streaming past your nose in semi-liquid form that ends its desirability once and for all.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled dining.
W,
It is said, that the name SPAM came from the sound of a pig hitting the bottom of an elevator shaft. Right before it is scooped into cans.
Spam provides a handy can. Useful for a refugee.
stephen b 5.
Good call. Renouncing US citizenship to avoid taxes results in a Permanent Bar on ever reentering the United States. Claiming you changed for lust ideology stupidity or because you are a Baldwin carries no such restriction. We should impose a special 100% tax on all income sent to such persons from a US entity or person.
You may have to adapt your spam requirements to local conditions. At a Costco in North Miami Beach I bought several dozen cans of Vienna sausages made from chicken. They fulfill the main requirements, shelf life and caloric density, and sit in the trunk of my car in case there is ever need to head for the hills. Not that there are any hills. Every once in a while I am on the road and get hungry enough to open a can. It’s nice to know that they taste good if you’re hungry enough to eat them. Probably a lot of things do.
Sally @ 30: – my remarks were flippant in tone – but I certainly do mock THAT UN climate refugee prediction – produced at enormous cost and then quietly scrubbed after someone looked at the real “arithmetic” round about 2009 …
otoh: Environmental degradation is real (albeit principally local rather than global – e.g. severe soil erosion in very large areas of China counting as local).
As to those unfortunate islanders, if you’re living on a small, remote island and thinking of bugging out – it probably makes not a jot of difference to you whether your island is sinking (as islands will do) or the seas are rising and, if so, even less whether they are rising due to shifts in wind patterns or some other climate change. You want out!
I imagine data exist on this point; but my guess is that most of those who did not return to NO after Katrinna- simply wanted out – principally due to the exceedingly corrupt and dysfunctional city and state government (and consequent economic prospects) – and not because Bush failed to “tackle” “climate change”. They were in no sense “climate refugees”. They were political refugees – simply voting with their feet.
@RWE #35:
I had a similar experience involving pickled herring, blueberry pie and ice cream. I couldn’t eat pickled herring for many years after that, but eventually I came around. There is hope.
Epignosis @14,
I suspect you do not know hte half of it. The P-38 does not rust or go dull. I have been using the very same one for almost forty-two years now, as my only can opener, and it is still as sharp and effective as it was in 1970. I’ve got several back-ups squirreled away, but I see no sign this first one will go dull ever. I hope to take it with me into the next world – just in case.
7. S
If 0bama gets his tax the rich plan across,
Nice pun
The Chinese wheelbarrow.
Another possible transportation device.
http://www.google.com/search?q=chineese+wheelbarrow&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADRA_en#hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&rlz=1I7ADRA_en&sa=X&ei=ILP8T_D6ItPNqAGowrCMCQ&ved=0CFgQvwUoAQ&q=chinese+wheelbarrow&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=3469f4ad21ccc902&biw=1024&bih=702
Fritters, every Wednesday.
Thursday was the kitchen staff day off and for evening meal we had bread, beef dripping, Marmite and cheese.
55 years and some things just stick in your mind as though it was yesterday.
7. stoicheion “How many small business owners will just decide to cash it in? All that worry, sweat and those 100+ hour weeks loose their flavor when the government is taking it all.”
It is happening right now in the least business friendly state in the union.
A dad in our home school hui is shutting down his multigenerational lighting business because the state has discovered and demanded fees and taxes that he did not know he owed.
Some forty plus people will be out of work. He says he will never employ anyone again.
My forefather came to this country with nothing but indebtedness. He was not fleeing Scotland so much as going where the opportunities were.
To me refugees are those who choose not to fight for their rights. Me and mine may perish but it won’t be while on the run.
Refugee-by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Oh, and he has another one too.
I won’t back down- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Pretty much sums it up for me. Look em up on You Tube if you want but I have them on CD. Sounds real good on the surround sound turned up to max. I am a blues man actually but listen to just about anything but kRap.
Remember, the only easy day was yesterday…
I can see the appeal of SPAM under certain circumstances, but for general canned meat uses I prefer corned beef. It has less salt per calorie, assuming the labels are telling the truth, and a nicer texture. On the other hand, I hail from the Commonwealth of Nations, so perhaps I am biased towards it.
JFS @ 46: He was not fleeing Scotland so much as going where the opportunities were.
But maybe that’s deep in the human psyche. If your forefather came here before about 1870, he came to a land with an open frontier (with apologies to the indigenes who might have thought otherwise!).
Much of human history involved spreading out of Africa into open lands (with apologies to Neanderthals who might have thought otherwise!).
The conquest of land by empires, religions, fads and fashion are common themes in history and today.
Staying home and fighting increasingly viciously over decreasingly significant issues – who needs it. Beam me up, Scotty.
Bruce Sterling, in the scifi novel Schismatrix, treats the issue, the protagonist runs from many situations – and survives. You’re not a refugee if you’re just light on your feet. Maybe.
bookmarked!!, I like your web site!
there’s a good movie that relates populations fleeing the German armies in north of France
“Les jeux Interdits”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQt2RqRV0AA&feature=related
Jonathan #38 and #40:
Sometimes I think it would be best to only eat stuff you don’t like so not to risk becoming disgusted with the stuff you do like. That probably is indeed a good policy if you think there is a good possibility of getting sick soon. And sitting next to a guy on the bus who is ill would be one clue. But I did not know I was but 4 hours behind him.
I use chili and beans for my emergency supply. I have something like 42 cans of it stored away and I’m trying to rotate through it with an eye to shelf life while replenishing it.
I guess if I had to store away enough food for a year, I would buy 500 pounds of whole wheat flour, 20 pounds of yeast, several gallons of olive oil, and 365 cans of chili and beans.
Epi #14, Rurisk #41:
Back in the early 80’s when I was a program manager I had a firm provide a quote in which they would have sold me two P-38 can openers for only $3,000. And they were just ordinary P-38 mil spec can openers, too, although to open rocket engine igniters rather than C-rations.
Stoich #33:
In some cases the islands in question have substantial phosphate deposits, the result of thousands of years of sea birds going to the bathroom there. So the islanders have sold off the very soil under their feet to fertilizer companies and – shazam! The islands are sinking! They must be, because there is so much less land now than there was before! Sh*t happens, but when it unhappens, it’s worse.
JoeB #13-
“One of the first things he told me is that if you are in decent shape – a person can easily out distance a horse over the long haul. a horse suddenly passed a *huge* amount of gas, groaned and then fell over sideways. Dead. The kids cried. My brother laughed…”
About a dozen years ago I started doing wilderness pack-in trips, to places in the Rockies that were really remote, and had never been logged, and had no roads, just foot/horse trails. The trips I’ve made there have been a revelation to me. Commenter Charle #6 understands the role of the trains in ending this time of humanity, a mere 150 or so years ago.
Before trains, the furthest you could go in a day on land was 50 miles, and that would be if everything went perfectly and you wore a horse/horses to a nub, or death. More realistically, twenty five miles to thirty miles in a day, for four days at most – and then at least two or three days of rest for the horses. It took a while to manny up and load the horses in the AM so you really couldn’t get going too early if you were part of a pack train. You had to travel where there was water and food for the beasts. And they get sick and die and throw shoes etc with some frequency. And predators find them tasty.
A trip from Boston to NY in colonial days would take a week if you travelled with a horse or two, perhaps less if you took stagecoaches which could swap out for fresh horses more frequently. This explains in part the delay between November elections and inauguration – votes travelled slowly.
Travel by ship was of course much faster but not terribly useful to get to Utah from Ohio.
Wretchard wrote:
“When you happen to take a seat beside a huge, powerful yet feminine woman, a similar kind of dissonance occurs. For at one level there before you is a women all decked out in fashionable clothes, with the hankie and the delicate shoes, makeup, etc. But at another level you can’t help but notice the pithy arms, the mighty shoulders and the corded muscles. One part of you — the civilized human being — is taking in one signal and treating her in her social role, while your limbic brain is in sheer panic from the proximity of an extremely powerful animal– somehow our instincts remember these things — who were she to forget the hankie and the veneer of civilization, might easily reach out and throttle you without your having any realistic prospect of defense.
Maybe it’s the same feeling as having a pet tiger.”
Nah, Wretchard. Make her your teammate.
Unfortunately, I don’t have my sailboat anymore. I used to have the sailboat and a 4WD Jeep Cherokee so I could get to the marina. That was in the late 70s. I had an office manager who was Mormon and she was a great source of info on storing red wheat and how to mill it. Now, I’m probably too old to escape. I also had a couple of weeks of freeze dried food, left over from a sailboat race. I don’t know what happened to it but I doubt it would be edible now.
Planning for the worst is a good idea as long as there is a chance of Obama winning the election.
I have a sailboat with 80 gallons of drinking water on it. A lot more than is called for on such a boat but water is important. I keep flour, rice and beans and cooking oil. I like Spam (Spam Spam with a side of Spam for me) and concur with Wretchard that it best when fried. It approaches steak quality for me but it also harkens back to the meals of my youth that equate to comfort food. One of my favorite meals as a kid was chipped beef in white sauce over potatoes. That and tuna casserole. I think I am going to order twenty pounds of Spam. That ought to round out any 3 months of tossed Seazar salad… and beans for sprouting,
I have been reading this blog since its inception. It is one of the most insightful, authentic and meaningful works on the web. I am very sensitive to our host’s theme trends. This post is a major endpoint that begins with perhaps the three conjectures. Keep in mind, there is no delusion or paranoia anywhere to be found over the years here. So, my suspicions are now confirmed – the design margins have been exceeded, the Russians are sending warships to Syria, the Islamists are destroying Egypt, China is deflating and bursting, the USA is bankrupt, our military is overextended and landlocked in the Hindu Kush and we have a complete moron as president running the free world. What could possibly go wrong? Not enough spam! That is what Wretchard is telling us – I am in Cleveland right now so I will never ever find enough spam.
Since I have one more post left;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_%28food%29
SPAM is SP_iced HA_m. Created by Hormel in 1937.
Somebody needs to look up the date it was first marketed. We’ll call that it’s birthday and have a party. When I lived in the PI our maid used to make Banana Fritters and SPAM Fritters. She would cook(fry) them together so they shared flavor.
OK, I’m RTB Winchester.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
There are no veiled warnings or dark hints in this post. The whole thing sprang from an idle thought: where would you go if you were a refugee? That is actually the whole key to the problem because refugee can’t run very far.
So if you assume that you wake up one morning and nothing works. Not the TV, the cell phones, not the Internet nor anything and when you run on down to the gas station you find the fuel’s been used up, then what’s left?
You start wondering: where is there help? Suppose your brother has a spread. Or you know a man with a sailboat. Or suppose that you are part of a religious community or a reserve officer. So pick a destination where you are most likely to find help or answers.
You will probably hook up with neighbors who are going roughly in the same direction. Given the limited amount you can carry, you might create composite groups. An ideal group would contain a nurse or a doctor, maybe an engineer or homebuilder, if there’s a soldier or cop that would be good too. I think this is probably the way refugees back in World War 2 must have thought. They probably constituted themselves into movement groups.
I haven’t looked but maybe someone (maybe I will) should create an app that allows people to contact and constitute a group whose enclosing radius is no greater than two miles. Maybe they don’t even have to meet, just have the app assign them a fixed rally point and password on activation or doomsday, whichever comes first. It occurred to me that one of the great weaknesses of modern society is that we don’t actually know our neighbors any more. Our friends on Facebook or at work can be far away. In an actual emergency, it comes down to two blocks on either side of you, or some similar distance.
How to bridge this social gap? That’s the question. No doubt in a real emergency there’ll be an incentive to find out.
How to bridge this social gap?
I think it’s called a church.
Or better yet a mosque, already conveniently built in the shape of a fort.
Though if you’re going to the mosque, you might leave the Spam cached elsewhere.
Hutsul @ 55: “… the design margins have been exceeded … What could possibly go wrong? “
Quite! In the mid-1930s, there must have been lots of people who saw that things were going to end in tears. But there was not a damn thing they could do about it, and history took its painful course. That thought keeps running through my mind.
My wife has made it clear that, once the power goes out & the water stops flowing, the only place she is going as a refugee is the Afterlife. And quickly! She has no interest in living in a world without the conveniences of civilization.
For those of us who plan to survive The End of the World As We Know It, cans of spam are good — but they will not last forever. Sooner or later, we will need marketable skills to survive. Pig rearing, for example. Fire starting without matches, for another. I expect we will be eating Long Pig by that stage.
#43 Langley
Thank you for the reminder. Being Chinese, I am embarrassed that I did not remember this. Believe it or not, it will be used. Our local TEA Party sponsors a monthly Preparedness Breakfast where we share ideas and make presentations on field expedients to use to make life easier if there is a disruption of normal life for any length of time; regardless of cause. While I have been mostly working with solar applications [heat grabbers for home heating, solar cookers easily converted from old home satellite dishes, and right now I am building a solar oven] the problem of cargo transportation in the absence of other means has not come up. It will.
In return, let me pass on a link I found in the search for a number of low tech alternatives.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/site-map.html
Not everything there is of immediate use, but there are a lot of old tech solutions for some problems that will arise. And if nothing else, they are fun to look at.
#27 Mick
What’s with the refugee post? Does Wretchard see something coming? Should I get that visa now to New Zealand?
I suspect that he, and pretty much everyone watching the world today, has a feeling that it may get hungry out, conditions may get retrograde, and perhaps a bit Hobbesian. Being ready may not guarantee survival, but it improves the chances, not only for yourself, but for your loved ones. As far as a New Zealand visa …. there are downsides to NZ. You may have your reasons for going there, but may I suggest re-evaluating?
Subotai Bahadur
Ditto on frying the spam. I like it thin sliced with crispy edges. I don’t eat it a lot but I keep a small stock of it. It makes a great add in for brown rice, beans, and other stuff you want to add some fat and protein to. For some reason I’ve been having trouble finding canned corn beef in the stores lately. Every once in a while I get a craving for a delectable blend of meat and gravy served tastefully over a shingle (SOS). While wandering through Walmart while waiting to get a prescription filled, I came across a dump of long term storage food in a plastic bucket. $63.+ for a 4 person 72 hour food supply in a resealable plastic bucket. When you start seeing stuff like that in a Walmart…..
I remember reading about the US Marines in the Banana Wars between WW I and WW II in Latin America. They regularly chased down “Bandits” who where horse mounted while the Marines where on foot.
sally@30
Put a bunch of ice cubes in a glass of water; mark the level of the water in the glass; let the ice cubes melt and then look at the water level again. You will see that the melting ice cubes did not change the water level at all. All the floating sea ice in the world could melt over a short period of time and the sea level would not change. Only land-borne ice masses that melted would add extra volume to the world’s oceans but I believe would only cause sea levels to rise by insignificant amounts.
———————————————-
Being raised on foods like spam I know that spam never dies. Its best before date is coincident with the end of the universe. Spam quality is determined by how quickly it springs back into its original succulent plumpness after being compacted. The faster the recovery time, the higher the fat content and the better it fries.
Kinda of a continuation of #60 [still counts against my total];but some additional thoughts based on what posted while I was writing.
Mention was made of the Mormon office manager. As far as I know EVERY state has at least one Mormon canning facility. We have two here, and our Preparedness Breakfast group uses them. They can their own goods they grow, and sometimes have them for sale. But the main use is that as far as I know, so long as you are invited by a Mormon, they will let you can your own food items for a very nominal fee. Don’t think just canned peaches or something like that. If you are storing red wheat, vacuum sealing in #10 cans lets it last functionally forever. Same if you dehydrate your own produce [I have apricots in my home made field expedient dryer right now]. Dehydrating reduces the bulk and weight and lets you store a LOT in a can. And if you want to share or trade, it is a lot easier to hand over a can than break into bulk storage. Oh, if you are storing wheat or other grains; y’all BETTER have a grain mill in your supplies. The Mormons will gladly give advice on food storage. Nota bene: YHS is NOT a Mormon, but I know a lot of them. We get along just fine, even though I am not of the Judeo-Christian persuasion.
#55 Hutsul and #57 wretchard
I also see a thread there, albeit I agree that it is not conscious. I am assuming that in this venue Wretchard writes like most writers I know [including myself]; i.e. when it is ready, it comes out. Frequently you have no choice of what comes out and you have no way not to write what is ready. I think that he is thinking on deeper levels than he realizes himself.
Wretchard, if you come up with that app, let us know. It will come in handy.
Even if you are NOT planning on leaving, or going far; survival is not a matter of an individual or single family. You need a group, you need enough people to allow a certain amount of specialization, enough to control and use a survivable homestead area that includes a safe area for non-combatants, and to be able to mobilize a reaction force for offense or defense.
Cities are not survivable. Too many Pink Tribe Wolves and Sheep with no Sheepdogs, and not enough Gray Tribe. For those who do not understand, see : http://forthecognoscenti.com/2012/04/20/tribes-by-bill-whittle/
Small towns, where there are relationships already formed are the best, so long as they are not near cities.
#59 Kinuachdrach
For those of us who plan to survive The End of the World As We Know It, cans of spam are good — but they will not last forever. Sooner or later, we will need marketable skills to survive. Pig rearing, for example. Fire starting without matches, for another. I expect we will be eating Long Pig by that stage.
Might I note that certain skills, amongst others, will be essential and possession of them will give entree into most communities in such a time.
1) Medical skills including field expedient measures.
2) The ability to make gunpowder and associated weaponry.
3) The ability to manufacture alcohol, both as a trade good and for various industrial uses. Brewing beer is a subset, keeping in mind that beer was the standard beverage before water purification was standard.
4) The ability to manufacture containers, especially watertight containers for storage. Ain’t gonna be no tupperware.
5) The ability to work in metals.
All of these can be used directly and traded for things you cannot make.
Not all TEA Party groups have Preparedness Breakfasts, or some equivalent. Check and see if someone in your area does. If not, maybe help them start one.
Subotai Bahadur
@Hutsel- Syria is a place for terrorists to die and Russia is making that happen. The Egyptians are our guys, China is basking in the New Society, US wealth and military are as strong as ever, and the president is a moron controlled by pretty smart people – although they do have severe psychological issues, all of them.
In the event of a societal collapse causing my family to seek safer environs I plan to ditch my automobile and (somehow) acquire a string of Mongolian horses, three or four border collies, and a large flock of sheep.
The Mongolian horse is one of the most extraordinary creatures in God’s creation. I have studied them extensively and in doing so have become convinced that, in the event of a global nuclear holocaust, two animals will for sure survive: the cockroach, of course, and the Mongolian horse. Those rugged little equines are just so hard to kill. They can survive in the worst conditions. And they are scary, foxy smart.
OT,
It is going to get crowded in the Med with the Russians sending a flotilla from the Northern Fleet to Tartus.
Putin’s interest is in buying the Turks by promising them a slice of the new gas fields between Cyprus and Israel, and simultaneously preventing Israel from developing the fields. If Israel does then energy prices collapse, Europe is freed from the Kremlin yoke, and decades of investment by the KGB in Islam as a threat to the West goes down the drain. Expect the US Navy under Obama to do nothing to stop the Russians.
Also just for fun. Does anyone care to speculate on how this big honking target from the UAE, the first helicopter hotel, might be used in the next Gulf War, assuming air superiority is established?
#66 Blast From the Past
I will agree with your first paragraph wholeheartedly. Mind you that the process of delivering that slice may be problematic for the world.
The hotelicopter [Russian Mil V-12] is indeed unique. There were two built. One ended as a demonstration of the impossibility of flying though dirt. The other is, and has been for years, in a Russian aviation museum. The “Hotelicopter” is an online April Fools joke dating from 2006.
I do wonder about the “big honking target”. Figure radar cross-section like a flying supertanker and the radar strobe effect from those rotors and the turbine intakes…
Subotai Bahadur
There was a flight from the US cities after 9/11, and we saw some move here. I live in a remote mountain valley, beautiful place. Americans showed up, bought places out of town. They expected more of the same and didn’t want to be anywhere near. If someone wants to make a splash they are going to go for a highly populated city. Small towns would probably be ok.
I quite expect to see social breakdown in many places. The powers that are will entrench themselves, maintain themselves. There won’t be resources for policing or security outside of the select areas. It will come down to social cohesion, neighborhoods, small towns making do, keeping themselves safe. In my town the local police made a habit of taking troublemakers out of town and telling them to not come back. But many places have none, and things will go badly.
The center will suck everything to themselves until there is nothing left. The edges are getting wider and thicker all the time. They don’t realize that power only is given to them for mutual benefit, and when the benefit only goes one way, they rely on force, but there isn’t enough of them.
These fools have no idea what put them there and how to maintain it.
#63 Subotai: Could I add a 6) A good carpenter?
SB 67,
I know. Just thought we needed some fun. Maybe Jetski Commandos in James Bond Tuxedos could accompany it. I could see having a drone Lighter Than Airship, ie a Blimp, within a fearsome frame, designed to float over enemy positions and get every unit to open up and say “Here I am.” Can’t you picture Mahmoud Dinnerjacket pointing and saying “It is balloon!” or “Da plane. Da plane?“
Wretchard #17:
Thanks for another great Belmont Club recipe!
Many of us are probably already members of small local informal groups. but don’t realize it.
We and some friends have “progressive dinners” that have unintentionally created a small group with a variety of skills whose members are all within walking distance.
Our progressive dinners include four couples who live within easy walking distance (max 10 minutes) of each other. They take place every three months, summer and winter. Couple #1 does the appies and couples 2,3 and 4 walk to their house. Couple # 2 does the salad so we all walk to their house. Then we walk over to couple #3′s house for the mains and finally to couple#4 for dessert. Next time, the courses are rotated between the four couples.
It takes us six to seven hours to progress through all the courses and to progress from house to house. There is a lot of discussion and different wines and beers are drunk but no-one is driving so who cares? Thinking about our combined skills we have the full range of medical, technical, hand tool, heating, lighting, food growing and preserving, weapons construction, seamstress, musical and other skills that we might require in dire straits.
Progressive dinners are a great way to create small groups of people who are close by and who possess important basic skills.
Over a wider spread of neighbourhoods we also have other social groups. There is “The Happy Gang” which is about 30 strong and “The Bag Ladies” who are about 20 women. When you think about it these small groups are already lurking about.
The P-38 can opener is a great device and used to come 4 to a case of C-rats (from memory). They never wear out and seem to keep getting sharper.
But there’s one thing better. The Australians added a beer bottle opener and a spoon to the P-38 and their version works very well.
I used to use Spam a lot when backpacking. The longer you are away in the mountains the better it tastes and it’s so concentrated it’s worth carrying, along with a small bottle or two of Louisiana hot sauce and some beans and rice.
“Survivalism” at its least is a practice that teaches self sufficiency and discipline in the accumulation and utilization of resources. If TSHTF that Picasso isn’t going to do you much good unless, in the case of Guernica, that it informs you of your fate. The study of Kendo on the other hand teaches discipline and martial skills in a world where swords will not likely prevail. Pick your poison then drink it. I’ll have a V6.
They key to survival in any event is organization. Individuals are unlikely to do well as the first gang or mob that shows up and is desperate enough is more likely to swamp that lone survivalist as run from him no matter how well armed he is.
Going back to the Mormons – they have more than storehouses and farms but also a long-established organization that ties the various congregations into networks of wards, stakes and areas. These can function quite well to supply and defend the community if necessary. Mormons are doctors, pharmacists, carpenters, machinists, farmers, mechanics and a fairly sizable percentage are or have been in the military. My father-in-law retired as a full colonel from the Air Force. He later became a bishop in an LDS ward in the Florida panhandle. They were hit by at least one hurricane back in the 90′s and he was placed in charge of relief and cleanup activities performed by the church. The LDS volunteers were among the first on the scene and supplies were delivered in a matter of hours from local storehouses and within a few days from storehouses in neighboring stakes and even from out of state storehouses. He ran it like a military operation using ward buildings as shelters and distribution points. This kind of thing is quite common where there is a significant LDS presence in the midst of a natural catastrophe. So they have experience with these kinds of things. I know of no situation where it was necessary to actively defend against predations by looters or mobs but I am quite certain they could do it if they had to.
Informal breakfasts or meetings where matters of survival and mutual cooperation are discussed are a good thing. I do not expect there to be a Mad Max kind of scenario but I would not be surprised if there was fragmentation along the lines of blocks of states, individual states and possibly cities or counties making themselves de facto independent of central authority. And this will mean some degree of chaos and breakdown in transport and communication. Hopefully none of this will result in severe disruptions and mob violence but it could. Networks established for mutual support and defense in such times would be a very good thing indeed.
Before you need an Engineer, you will need someone who can cook without using a microwave.
Sally @ 76 — Cooking without a microwave? Definitely needed! Also, cooking without a gas or electric oven. Brings us back to the value of the ability to start a fire once all the matches are gone.
Survival courses tend to teach that it is safer to eat animals than vegetables — some native plants cause sickness. Also, animals don’t need to be cooked (sushi, anyone?), although cooking definitely increases the total food value from the dead animal. There may not be many vegetarians left after the Collapse.
W@9 re SPAM.. We have a food dehydrator. Spam (original or turkey) cut into strips then dehydrated to taste is great. Herself developed it and loves it more than me it think.
Also, the PT 39 official C ration opening tool is always a handy device, and suitable for carrying in wallet (folds flat) or on key ring.
ta
There are those of us, of a very advanced age, (my Spouse is 84) who encountered Spam early on.., .No wheel barrows or stocks piles here, No point to it..Been there done that…Enjoy this blog & comments,the wit & intelligence, stretch & educate..
This post reminds me of the descriptions of Kuwaiti refugees fleeing Saddam’s occupation in P.J. O’Rourke’s “Give War a Chance”.
“The rest of the traffic coming toward me was made up of refugees. I guess I’d expected them to be pushing all their belongings in baby carriages or something, the way movie newsreel refugees always were when I was a kid. That type of refugee would sizzle and pop open like a weenie on a grill in this climate. Besides, these were affluent refugees-at least they had been until recently-in Chevrolet Caprice Classics, 200-series Mercedes, Peugeots and BMWs. And they were very modern refugees, people making a run for it not because Stukas were strafing villages but because their bank cards wouldn’t work in Kuwaiti cash machines anymore. ”
Anyway, another form of transport for your low-tech refugee, the Viet Cong/NVA bicycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_Vietnam_People's_Army_logistics_and_equipment
In my mind the odds of an apocalyptic crash requiring long term survival skills, at least here in the US, is far less than the odds of winning the lottery.
Since great wealth, the kind with overseas accounts, could at least get you transport to someplace better and enough for you and yours to live on maybe a lottery ticket every week is just as useful as large stockpiles of stuff and a cabin somewhere. So instead of spending all that money on expensive ammo and freeze dried food it might make more sense to just buy lottery tickets or bet it on something else with a big payoff. It is a gamble either way. With the lottery even if the crash doesn’t come you still might end up rich. I guess you could eat all the SPAM and shoot the ammo eventually but then the next day the zombies could finally attack.
Guys like Mitt Romney dont need a case of SPAM in case of catastrophe. They will be sipping wine on a beach somewhere if it all hits the fan.
Most real refugees just didnt get out in time or had noplace else to go. Wealth is no sure bet either, didnt help the Iraqi Jews I mentioned earlier because the drive to push them out began with government confiscating all property and accounts (and some were very wealthy). They survived because they had someplace to go, Israel, even without the money. That is a unique situation which I do not think exists for any other people or nation.
During WWII my father was commanding officer of a mortar regiment on the front from 1942 to 1945. All this time Spam was their staple food and was called “American Help” or “Second Front”. Without it Soviet government would not be able to mobilize practically all male population to Army, since millions would be needed to stay in their villages to produce food for army. These small cans allowed to put in trenches much more soldiers.
Oh, I am late to the party on this and only got to #32 or so before I had to comment. Thank you all – I haven’t laughed outloud like this in a while – the story of the reenactment of the Morman trail by JoeB and the entries by Wretchard on Spam and the description of mighty tall women were wonderful and delightful. I’ve had one of those nasty chest colds where laughing sets off a bad cough bout, but I count it worth it – the news has been so damned grim – what a joy to visit here and listen in. My thanks, everyone. Knight1
Throughout the discourse in the comments section, the need for certain skill sets has arisen more than once. I offer the following for your consideration. There are some good suggestions in there for those who have not yet thought this all the way through.
http://iiipercent.blogspot.com/2012/07/basic-violence-preps.html
Wretchard @17 and Joan @71 (how symmetric is that?)
When frying the Spam, my I suggest using a bit of left-over coffee to deglaze the pain, scraping up all the crusty bits and cook over moderate heat till it becomes Red-eye gravy.
Sergey@82:
Soldiers on foot in cold weather burn a lot of calories. They could probably inhale the Spam straight from the can during a Russian winter. I wonder though if they developed any variations on Spam preperation?
Also on the cart thing: http://www.theliberator.be/handcart.htm
A big thank you to those who provided links for handcarts, etc., as well as others for surviving. I’ve been wrestling with those issues – thinking I had to have a variety of options and methods depending on whichever it comes down. Appreciate the insights.
Re Spam – when we taught Community Emergency Response Teams – and discussed the 72 hour kit (really should be 2 weeks) – a fellow instructor advised Spam as his favorite comfort food…
My Dad was a POW of the Japanese, taken in the PI and survived, coming home with receipes adapted – one of our favorites is canned cornbeef, broken into bite-size pieces, fried in a pan with a bit of oil and diced green onions – two bunches – a couple of cloves of garlic. At the last minute, throw in a raw egg and scramble well. Serve over rice with soysauce. OH, fantastic! And cheap!
Speaking of can-openers; check here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener)
The Australian/New Zealand version is longer and provides better leverage. It comes with a bottle-opener notch, the handle-end is formed into a spoon (of sorts) and the other end has a hole so you can put it on a lanyard.
In shiny new condition, they also make a very effective fishing tool. A few extra holes for attachment of ganged hooks and a wire trace and away you go. Added bonuses: they wobble and flash AND the opener blade makes a tiny “tinkle” noise when dragged through the water.
If you are careful, you can still open cans with your barramundi lure.
Love the Spam talk. Thanks for the ideas everyone.
Folks all over the world have long figured out that Spam and [good] tinned corned beef can become much more than mere survival rats to be grimly choked down with Tabasco. Necessity being the mother of invention, they can be turned into thrival food. Heck! A can of Spam is going for $3.99 here. It has apparently transcended ‘cheap’.
One of my clan’s fav ways of preparing Spam is to dip thin slices of the famous pink slab into beaten egg and then drag them through some seasoned bread crumbs before pan frying them up, just short of crisp…Whether as a side with breakfast, or in a sandwich, it’s the next best thing to bacon – which can come in a can too.
Pan-fried [cubed] Spam is also pretty darn good with mac n’ cheese, or slivered into a kind of a mac-cheese-egg-onion casserole – Corned beef is especially good in this. Then there’s campfire simmered Spam coconut curry (Madras) over bamboo steamed rice. Yummm! It ain’t just the hunger talking.
…And then there’s DAK ham.
Anyway, it’s amazing just how much peace of mind can be gotten out of an affordable stash of tinned meats, rice, and beans. Just add some dehydrated and/or freeze-dried veggies, assorted spices, and some imagination, and folks of limited means -who are squared away with water and fuel- can postpone the need to leave the castle to trudge on out through the zombies and wait in line at some centrally-located .gov relief site.
So in a funny roundabout kind of way, Spam equals freedom.
;^)
MyFoodStorage-dot-com seems to be a Mormon-connected factory-warehouse-distributor offering a selection of survival foods, small efficient emergency cook-stove-in-a-can, water filters, and most interestingly, durable card-board boxes with mylar (I think) liners and caps, each holding FIVE GALLONS of water. (Very low shipping, and several incentive deals on already low prices…)
Interesting thing about those boxes – in event of radioactive fallout, you could create a (relatively) safe room inside your house by stacking a good number of water-filled boxes. They appear to be about 12″ by 12″ by 32″ and are described as weighing about 40 pounds when filled with water. You might need to stack about 5 courses of 50 boxes (6 feet high) for a small room. At 40 1bs. per box, filled, that works out to something like 12,000 pounds. Clearly, this would need to be on a concrete slab, or a well-reinforced floor, if there’s a crawl space.
But the boxes ship empty, so you would fill’em AFTER you receive them, maybe after stacking.
Anyhow, I seem to recall that a couple of feet of water serves to attenuate the radioactive flux from the fallout. A few sheets of 7/8″ plywood as a top, covered with canned goods would help shield radiation from above. In addition, 300 boxes times 5 gallons is a pretty good start on long term water storage!
This will definitely interfere with Bridge Night in the living room…
Is there a way to post images here? Send ‘em to Wretchard???
(I know someone who saved 2-liter drinks bottles for five years, planning to build a couple of walls for a shed gluing them together like a honey-comb, with water and food coloring to make “stained-glass” patterns inside.)
“Refugees have not been seen on any scale in the Western world since the end of World War 2.”
Perhaps this article doesn’t encompass ethnic cleansing, so
800,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 don’t count? The U.N tallied 1.1 million by 1951.
toadold@86:
Grain porridge is the second essential food for a refugee. In cold climate the optimal is buckwheat. It keeps you strong longer than anything else and never makes you bore with. At least, this is my experience from ski crossing Arctic tundra near Polar Urals. For ten year in a row in such trips lasting 2 or 3 weeks each, this was our only food (supplemented with butter or canned meat). Very simple to cook and almost impossible to ruin. A big economy of fuel, too. Just bring to boil and wrap in hermetic pot in sleeping bag or down-padded coat. In 20 minutes it is ready.
91. Edward:800,000 Palestinian refugees
Actually those are just called Arabs living in the Palestine area since there was no Palestinian state at the time. And of course the current one is just a construct by Arafat the Thug and Carter the Feckless to serve as a contiuous grievance generating machine. But hey, don’t let a few facts get in the way of a useful narative.
speakeasy I would add that the arabs were pleaded with to stay, but the governments of the adjacent arab nations told them to flee because they were going to annihilate all life in israel (drive them into the sea) and then they could return to a judenfree land.
those arabs turned refugee made their choice and it was to hope for the deaths of all the jews. they were not driven out by the jews.
thier were millions of jews driven from arab ancestral homes and all their belongings money, homes and businesses confiscated by the muslims.
I would look for a huge future refugee problem of cataclysmic proportions when the islamists ramp up thier control of countries in the middle east and start the pograms against christians mainly in egypt and syria
SpeakEasy @93
To pick a bone:
Leave Carter out of the PLO equation: it’s a KGB/ Central asset pure and simple. FYI there is a new history based upon the KGB’s in-house files. ( It’s a massive dump more embarrassing than Wikileaks. )
In crystal clear, black ink, the KGB’s gambit is laid out.
Arafat was their rat.
===
As for the Peanut: he ‘OWNS’ the Ayatollah. That’s a sin far, far worse than Clintons. There is a tenth ring in Hell awaiting to render him.
===
I don’t know WHY it gets so little mention — but once the British let it be known that the Palestinian partition ( 1948 ) would be based upon actual residents, ALL of the adjacent muslim lands encouraged/ ejected the poor into Palestine.
And, of course, at that time Jews = Palestinians in all topical writings.
Turning muslim Arabs into ‘Palestinians’ was a 1960s event.
Even after the 1948 partition and war the lands west of the Jordan were NEVER referred to as Palestine ( because of its Jewishness-ish ) but, instead, as Trans-Jordan.
Now we’re told that Israel must cough up the West Bank — yet it is NOT to be returned to Jordan!
Likewise, Gaza, previously tied into Egypt, is not supposed to go back to that obvious link.
Instead, hair brained schemes exist to tie Gaza to the West Bank — even though it is now obvious that they’ve got separate governments that hate each other more than Israel. (!)
Gaza always existed as the arm pit of the area. There are no cultural anchors there. Any realistic peace has to entail the elimination of Gaza and the displacement of its Arabs to better ground. That might be Jordan — but logically the Sinai makes more sense.
Whatever exists in Gaza can be replicated 100 kilometers to the west on the Sinai coast. Since everything built has come at the expense of the West — Gaza is a perverted ‘vacation local cum terrorist outpost’ — the residents can be just as busy doing nothing — surrounded by nothing.
=====
There is no mechanism that will EVER make Gaza a viable, economic polity.
That has to be addressed. 45 years of dependency is enough.