I’ve Got an Assignment for You

Usually on Fridays I post the Friday Links, where I collect current links from various websites that deal with subjects relating to horror or the bizarre. I’m not going to do that this week because I’ve found something else that will horrify you to your very core, and it’s far more affecting than any fiction you’ll ever read.

Attorney, radio show host, writer, and now television personality Mark Levin made his 50-minute interview with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry free to watch on his website LevinTV. Dr Pry is a national expert on the subject of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), and the interview covers what would happen if an EMP were to strike the continental United States. In short, anything with a microchip would be fried and our civilization would be thrown into utter chaos.

I grew up during the Cold War, and I remember how anyone who prepared for the aftermath of a nuclear war was ruthlessly derided as a kook, a crazy, a nutjob. Having a personal nuclear fallout shelter was considered the height of lunacy. This contempt for preparedness has carried through to today, where people who learn so-called “primitive” or survival skills and stock up supplies in case of disaster are called, somewhat patronizingly, “preppers.” Preppers are a little less-contemned here in Florida, where most of us have a hurricane kit, but go anywhere else in the country, especially the northeast, and you’ll find that the very notion of self-reliance in an emergency is laughed at.

I used to laugh at it, too.

I don’t have a personal background in preparedness. My family never considered it when I was young. The notion of learning survival skills, of stockpiling water and food and even weapons in case of a long-term emergency simply wasn’t discussed. It wasn’t relevant to our daily lives. Fortunately it didn’t become an issue, but that’s not because we were prepared. We were just lucky. And luck always runs out.

Later I started to read about it, and I learned that disaster preparedness isn’t irrelevant. It doesn’t have to be a joke. Whether you live in New York City or London or Paris or Tel Aviv, taking your safety and survival seriously is, actually, one of the best things you can do for yourself. Especially if you have a family.

This isn’t a thing you have to do all at once. The next time you go shopping, buy an extra can of something you like to eat. Maybe an extra few cans. Bottled water is cheap, get some of that, too. Amazon will ship stuff to you if you don’t have a car. You spend money on cigarettes, on coffee, on TV and movies and restaurant meals, don’t you? If you can afford that, you can afford to set aside just a little bit of funds for your survival, too. Imagine how stupid your Blu-Ray collection’s going to look when you’re rationing toilet water to drink.

Shameless plug: I talk about survival preparedness in my book The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse. Yes, I put it in the context of something that can never happen, but I do discuss hardening the exterior of your home against assailants, what should go into a bug-out bag, and other serious subjects. And it’s got lots of cool illustrations of zombies.

Say the North Koreans don’t set off a nuke 30 km above Nebraska and blow out every electronic device from Canada to Mexico. What’s the worst that happens? You spent money and time preparing your family for disaster. That’s not so bad, is it?

So my assignment is for you to watch the show. It’s 50 minutes out of your life. You’ll learn things you didn’t know before, and it might spur you to take your life into your own hands just a little bit more.