Monday, 21 SEP 2015 :: Survival and Muslims

It's after midnight, so it is officially Monday... I decided to enter this post and check it off my list.  I have been thinking of things to write all weekend.  I have been reading articles I printed, read in the latest INC Magazine I just received, and have been too long on Facebook over the weekend.  There are so many topics to think about, topics I would love to discuss in more detail, but that would take too long.  Today (tonight), I will just have to pick one, or two...


In the area where I live, media stations are advertising programs about emergency preparations for the "big one" - an earthquake over 9.0 and the tsunami that might follow it.  I want to watch the PBS program advertised for the 1st of OCT, then I heard about a news program focusing on the same topic. 

What has affected me is the statement made in one of the commercials -- that people would be on their own for possibly TWO WEEKS or more in the event of a large disaster.  I don't think my current preparations are equal to that long of an emergency situation.  I decided I better watch the program and make a list of things I can do to make sure I have the right kinds of food, etc. 

I have been "roughing it" again this month as a way to make myself use the stored food I already have.  I am trying to figure out what kind of meals I can make with the kinds of foods I have.  It hasn't been easy.  Now I want to figure out a better supply of foods and I have the two week time period as a focus for my efforts. 

Two weeks is a long time. 

If you need a gallon of water for each person for each day, that means 14 gallons of water for one person.  I figured out that half of that would be for drinking, some would be for cooking, and you would need water for cleaning (dishes, tables, hands, etc.) and bathing (with a washcloth).  When I had my kids I use to buy gallons of milk and always fill them with water and store it for emergencies.  I stored as many as I had room for, usually under the kitchen sink. 

I don't buy gallons of milk anymore.  I purchased some bottled water for personal drinking, just to make sure I had some form of emergency water.  I think I need a new plan for emergency water.

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I noticed the media has been using a single comment from Dr. Carson to kind of fry him or agitate others.  He said we shouldn't have a Muslim as the president of America... and in a way, he is right.  Their goals as Muslims are to destroy America.  It wouldn't be a good idea to have one as our President.  But Obama isn't a practicing Muslim, that I know of.  He was raised as a Muslim, or in an environment with Muslims.  (I haven't followed the discussion about him that closely, I'm not sure how deeply his personal affiliation with the Muslim belief system goes.)

It made me think of my past and present lives... I was raised Catholic, but I am not a Catholic anymore... I am a Christian.  I can better understand Catholic issues and perspectives because I was raised as a Catholic, but I am no longer affiliated with the Catholic religion.  My family is still largely Catholic, but not all of them are still Catholic.  Some have become Christians.  Some aren't practicing Catholics.  I don't really know all of their spiritual states today, we haven't shared time or conversation in years.

So President Obama may know about the Muslim belief system according to what he was raised with, but I understand he is a Christian now. 

I am thinking that the media is taking Dr. Carson's statement out of the context it was given in.  If violence occurs because of media coverage, would they be responsible for inciting it?  I am wondering. 

It seemed like a mini hate-fest when the media reported about the man who talked about Muslims and the President at a Trump campaign event.  We don't need this kind of media-based thought creation.  We just need reporting of the facts.  Along with the Trump sound bite, we had carefully chosen responses by Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton.  It's easy to read into a single audience comment/question what you want it to become... and to say you would have handled it differently.  I am wondering why it was reported in the first place...

If I start to critique the whole mess, I will be here for pages and pages...  I don't want to do that.  I just hate the way our information is manipulated to create an opinion instead of reported and left for the reader, viewer, hearer to create their own opinions of what is going on in our country and the world. 

It might be a true statement to say that the problems we face may, in part, be the result of media choices.  If we want to save this country, we need the media to return to the information source we have always depended on.  I know they are struggling with their own financial issues, but all of us will be going down together unless we find a better way to handle these problems we face.

Without a moral foundation, there is nothing that tells us something is right and something is wrong.  If we don't want our guide to be GOD and the Bible, what will it become?