Category: Uncategorized

 

There’s a pandemic happening.  Supplies will get harder to find.  But you’ll want certain things in order to mitigate risk when you go out in public.  Also, if you do get really sick- you may need to improvise treatment as you may not have access to a hospital.  So because you like to be prepared, here’s what you should get.

Preventative-  The goal is to not get sick in the first place, which is easier for some than for others.

DIY Masks-  Wear masks when you are shopping,  in spite of what the federal govt tells you to do.  The hoarders bought them all in January- so you’ll have to make them.  Fortunately, you can make ones that work well, and to do so you’ll need two materials, cut them and sew them together:  1) vacuum bags, and 2) elastic.  I bought both on eBay.

• Studies show that vacuum bags are a close 2^nd place material to surgical masks themselves
• Vacuum bags- get a good quality, name brand. Should be labeled as HEPA, hypoallergenic, N95
• Elastic- get ¼” width or close. In a pinch you can innovate with hairbands or maybe rubber bands but they won’t be as comfy.
• Comfy is as important as filtration, or else it won’t get worn consistently.
• I bought mine on eBay. From U.S based shipper, otherwise they’ll never show up.

Sanitizers-

• get rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and/or bleach. Still work great.  Put in a spray bottle and dilute as needed for cleaning surfaces or hands.
• Set up a station by your front door to make it easy to sanitize when you walk in.

Immune system

• Eat better. This is especially hard in times of crisis bc we turn to junk food when we are stressed.   Good foods help your body’s immune system.  Bad foods distract it.
• Take vitamins. Vitamin C, D, zinc especially.  Take them every day.
• Research adaptogens. These are supplements that have been traditionally used to boost the immune system.  They work better as preventatives than as treatments-.  Ginseng, schisandra, maca, rhodiola

Treatment-

In case you actually get the Coronavirus and its critical.  These are the things that will get increasingly hard to find.  Basically, you’ll need two things- supply of steady oxygen, and anti-virals.

DIY oxygen-   you’ll need a tank with built-in regulator and fill gauge, plus a mask.

• get a setup like they prescribe to folks with emphysema, user-friendly and plug-n-play.
• Chemically there’s no difference between ‘medical oxygen’ and regular oxygen- just be wary of very old tanks coming from welding kits.  Also, tanks are all stamped with a 10-yr timeframe and refillers won’t fill them back up if they are expired.  So avoid buying expired tanks.
• Regarding the size of tank- remember that you aren’t replacing the air we breathe so much as supplementing it. It’s not like a scuba setup where the air in the tank is the only air you are breathing.   Common misconception here.
• Get some masks that have a little reservoir bag that gets filled up, and when you breathe in that’s where the oxygen comes from. I got these on Amazon.
• Improvise with the regulator, tubing, mask design as needed.
• If you can, make friends with someone who can help you refill the tank. g. welders.

Anti-virals-  not sure how to help you on this one.  Lots of theories online as to what works.

• Some commonly-mentioned anti-virals: chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.  Do your homework because these are dangerous drugs with high toxicity and side effects.
• Before, you could order meds online from Canadian or Indian pharmacies, but not likely for a while going forward.
• Some natural medicines to consider are adaptogens, but if you aren’t familiar with herbal medicine then now would be a hard time to start.
  • Be reasonable with any alternative medicine. In my experience, herbal remedies usually work better as preventatives, and I would consider them a complement to western medicine as opposed to a replacement.   If I could get my hands on anti-virals right now, I would.  I still keep echinacea tincture, elderberry, garlic, ginger nearby for all kinds of ailments and this pandemic is no different for me.
  • Remember that when Tylenol reduces fever, it reduces your body’s intentional immune response. So be smart and work with your body instead of against it.

Conclusion:  Do your part to flatten the curve, be smart and be resourceful, take care of your family and be a responsible part of your community at the same time.   Don’t be selfish, don’t hoard, and don’t worry about things outside of your span of control.  Just do your part.

South Asia’s traditional caste system has been around for several millenia.  The idea that people are borne into their status in life- it seems offensive- an idea that we should reject if we believe in meritocracy.  But here’s another unpopular opinion- Caste societies have a rational, if exploitative roots.  They start with identifying groups of people who have fallen into a trap, and then taking advantage of them while they are caught.

• Poverty causes the Scarcity mindset*, creating a cycle of poverty with a foundation of short-sighted habits that once were effective in helping one survive, but now only serve to inhibit one to plan for the future.
• These habits, like any habits, are social- meaning they are passed along to friends and family.
• Therefore the concept of a “Caste” society has a legitimate foundation in recognizing the cycles that some groups are perpetuating, and serves to label them permanently as Losers instead of just people caught in negative, self-perpetuating cycles.

The roots of this problem likely starts in crisis.  Crisis is what disturbs our healthy equilibrium- our sense of moderation and discipline.

We were doing fine, walking down the modest path of slow-growing prosperity.  Slowly accruing wealth, getting exercise, working most of the week and then spending time with friends and family the rest of us.  Giving back to the community, developing hobbies and sharing them.

And along came a Crisis.  A flood.  Or mass layoffs.  Or a medical procedure that bankrupts us.  Or suddenly becoming the caretaker to someone else.  Some Crisis that levels our sense of balance with our money, our time, and our health.  How resilient are we in the face of this Crisis?

Crisis disrupts our healthy living;  Scarcity replaces our sense of disclipline as developed in good habits; and then Castes and predatory capitalism keep us in a state of Scarcity- fat, broke, sick, and desperate.

Resiliency ought to be measured in so many other ways than we see it now.  It’s more than Jobs.  It’s the fabric of our daily lives. Are we back to getting enough exercise?  Are we eating well- mostly vegetables, not too much processed crap?  Are we saving money again, do we have time for the people and activities that make our lives meaningful?  If the answer is yes- then we have Recovered.  We are Resilient.  But if we are still living on short-term measures- meals that come out of a box but take their toll on our health;  a budget that gets us through the month but at the expense of our retirement; a schedule that keeps us in our homes but defers all of their required maintenance; a job or two that leaves us too tired to socialized, and too busy to volunteer;   then we have not Recovered, we are not Resilient- and we are still stuck in the Scarcity Loop.

-dc

*for more info on Scarcity, check out the excellent book written in 2013 by Mullainathan and Shafir

Check out the latest community project to come out of our neighborhood in Texas!  Raising the Bridge (RTB)  is a nonprofit working to provide resources for local youth and they are heading up the garden design, fundraising and construction.  Check out their website here.

A recent survey indicated that there are over 900 homeless students in our city’s school system (and so certainly others that we cannot track).  What RTB is doing for these kids and others is crucial.  Thus Renegaid is thrilled to be collaborating with them in developing the garden and being a place to showcase ways to grow and process medications from many of the herbs at the garden.

 

 

It’s hurricane season, where TV coverage moves from one disaster-stricken town to the next.  But these crises began well before the weather forecasts.  Thousands of communities who have recently faced catastrophe have had to endure the collapse of their economic immune systems well before they were on the news.

But consider this slower and much more commonplace trends effecting those same communities, as well as virtually every other in the country:

• The replacement of local economies with distantly-owned corporations and franchises;
• the collapse of the local sales tax base through consistent and reckless tax breaks to big box stores;
• the disappearance of the middle class career and rise of the high-insecurity, no-future, low-wage temp job;
• the lean logistics of modern businesses with no space for disaster mitigation or community support

The hurricanes were for those communities merely the latest of a series of disasters to afflict them. A sober view of disaster recovery as a profession is that it will be required one way or the other:

• Faster in the case of floods or hurricanes;
• Slower in the case of urban decay and the failure of aging infrastructure.

And we are really only equipped for natural disasters- “Acts of God.”  Acts of Greed, or Negligence, or Poor Planning- are off the table as far as professional disaster mitigation is concerned.  The average American town or city lasts many times longer, decades longer, than the average Fortune 500 company.  Communities are built to be conservative; stable; responsive; supportive.  And yet they are being asked to do more and more while their resources are being undercut.

Community resilience starts with community prosperity, solidarity, and mutual aid for surrounding communities.  All of those starting points are undercut when the economic foundation of a community is swapped out and a corporate skeleton crew replaces it. It’s time to recognize the value of the City or Town as an enduring and resilient community- and broaden our view of the unnatural disasters which afflict them.

Note:  Renegaid is developing a new project regarding supplying health clinics in disaster which inspired this post.  I highly recommend you check out Herbalists Without Borders (Projects page) to see how they are supporting projects like this all over the world.

My mother used to give us herbal salves, tinctures and compounds when we were kids.  I remember them all tasting like grass and didn’t really take them seriously- until one serious infection in my 20s.  I had been testing water quality in one of the most impaired waterways in Missouri, Asher Creek.  In the course of wading around in the creek- I developed a painful and growing infection on my legs.  I went to a few clinics and had more than a few prescriptions for antibiotics- pills and creams- that all failed to halt the spread of the infection.  It turned out to be an anti-biotic resistant strain of pseudomonas.

I was losing sleep over this infection- it had this spiky pain anytime I brushed the skin, and a bone-deep ache as well.  It started to spread in little painful pimples in my shoulders and back.  I was out of options and expressed this to my mom one day over lunch.  Afterwards she ran me over to a healthfood store and shelled out some serious cash for a little jar of this herbal salve.  Where 6 months modern medicine failed- two weeks of this little jar kicked my immune system into high gear and I had the infection knocked out.

I’m not saying that the stuff is a cure-all. Or that all of modern medicine is overhyped.  Just that there is a balance between these styles of medicine that is not acknowledged.  Just as the shortcomings of medical trials which justify many new medicines are not widely covered as well.

SO what does any of this have to do with disasters?   A number of reasons:

• In a community in crisis, personal health takes a backseat to other priorities- and pharmacies may be out of commission anyway.
• This is a major time of illness and health hazards. Toxins such as black mold or asbestos emerging in the environment , and persisting through the weeks and months afterwards, when people are gutting their houses.
• Many immigrant populations look for healing outside of conventional hospitals already- this helps create access for them.
• Many vulnerable populations can’t afford Big Pharma rates

This was our experience in NOLA, actually.  From the  Common Ground Collective Health Clinic website:

The Common Ground Health Clinic started on September 9 , 2005 just days after hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. (..) The clinic started as a first aid station with the arrival of “Street Medics”, which are first responders that gained notoriety through mass mobilizations of the anti-globalization movement. The clinic was originally set up in a mosque, with space being generously donated by the Masjid Bilal.

Nurses, physicians, herbalists, acupuncturists, EMTs social workers and community activists came from around the world to volunteer at Common Ground Health Clinic. Since its inception, the clinic has served more than 60,000 patient visits – all at no charge to the patient. (link)

I saw the same medicine being used in that clinic when I spent time with Common Ground in 2006.  It helped me detox several months worth of the “Katrina cough-” something all the the residents and volunteers got, supposedly from all of the mold in the air. And 12 years later, that Health Clinic is going strong- serving the same residents.  The unique toxins stirred up by floods and hurricanes may have their counterparts in herbal medicine.  Any disaster recovery organizations dedicated to mutual aid should consider it as a part of the larger medic’s toolkit.

The needless function of disasters: They blow a hole, short lived, into the media narrative that people are selfish and stupid. That the free market solves everything. That every person is an island.

Because people step up after a disaster for a good 3-4 days, until exhaustion sets in. They react heroically, selflessly-  they share or liberate lifesaving supplies-  they coordinate critical missions to save lives. They are more than consumers; buyers or sellers; employees.  They’re part of a community.

And that’s kind of covered in the media.  But not really.  It’s mostly ignored actually.  It’s being ignored this very moment- in Puerto Rico and North Carolina and Houston..  but if you want stories on looting, price gouging, or roofing scams- that’s a lot easier to find.

It’s easy to see why.  Within 5 minutes of watching Corporate News the narrative is clear:  people are  selfish-  there are threats and disasters around every corner- this is all unfixable- so don’t bother trying- and you don’t owe the world a thing. Some stations pioneered this broadcast of mass cynicism- but at this point they’re all following suit.

Even the narrative of the reckless billionaires serves a purpose-  it tells us that if we can be useless to society, so can we.  It normalizes the abandonment of our obligations.  We don’t owe shit to our community.  We estrange ourselves to our own Main Street; neighbors; city council.

One thing is clear- this is a race to the bottom.  And when that race is over-  and the sociopaths take off with their winnings – 99% of us will be losers.  Our treasuries depleted; average household debt skyrocketed towards bankruptcy- national lands pillaged with the trees gone, oil pumped, water dried up.  That future is dead- sterile and hopeless.  Someday- we may shake our heads and call it a tragedy.  But it’s being actively perpetuated by those who could care less about the future- and who promote the narrative of cynicism as inevitable- and the narrative of of sustainability as a naïve or privileged.

True sustainability is for everyone- everything- it is a honest discussion about what we actually want in life and how we can all simplify those desires into something shareable.  It’s not about winning lotteries or being the best in the universe-  it’s about being good and a part of a solution.  That can be good enough and the rest of life’s joys and passions can still follow. That’s what I’m hoping to be a part of.

We don’t need a disaster to discover these potentials in each other.  All that violence and destruction- it should be needless.  It is within our reach to make it needless, because we can build that society without losing everything first.  And we have every reason to call on the media to showcase such selfless virtues in the stories that come out of them.   The corporate media has their narrative, but we don’t have to accept or or let it become reality.  There’s plenty of community journalists out there still.  People who share our narratives- and show us hope- and move us act.  Not just for 3-4 days after the flood until we are depleted- exhausted. But for 3-4 generations until we figure this out.

 

-david

Every time a hurricane comes we see news stories of the people who refused to evacuate.  They fascinate us in their stubbornness.  They are blasted in the news stories for their disregard for public safety, a critical voice overlaid videos of helicopters hovering over flooded neighborhoods to make rooftop rescues. We ask- Why didn’t you just leave when the call for evacuation was made?  Seems so simple.

So why don’t people evacuate?  If you think it’s that simple for everyone to pack up and leave when asked to, think again.  Emergency Managers study the populations that are most strongly affected in disaster- and the greatest impacts are for the most vulnerable populations in a community.  This applies during mandatory evacuation and continues well after the the damage has been done. Vulnerable populations often can’t leave even when it is mandatory- for a number of reasons including:

• They can’t afford it.  Don’t own a vehicle, can’t afford a hotel.
• They’re stuck- old, sick or disabled.
• Obligations to stay and offer support to someone in the first two groups.

A recent study corroborates this- ”in our study the average annual income of people who stayed was only $19,500, and only 54 percent of “stayers” had a car, compared to 100 percent of those who left.”  (NYT link)   People most often stick around because they are desperate- they don’t have the car to pack up, or the cash to spend for a hotel.

Another reason to stick around- those who feel they are called to do so to protect others. Although the media narrative is commonly that people stay because they are stubborn, stupid and reckless- these are not the reasons that people risk their lives. The authors of the study noted bove had this to say:

During survey interviews, survivors who stayed focused on interdependence, emphasizing themes of sticking together, religious faith and communal and family ties. In fact, over two-thirds of those who stayed explicitly discussed the importance of connections to others.

“We had a good community” one Katrina survivor in the New Orleans area said. “All the people here help one another.”  (..) These benefits may especially resonate with working-class Americans, who are more likely to think of themselves as part of a broader social network, with responsibilities to vulnerable neighbors; in contrast, members of the middle- and upper-class, who tend to evacuate, are more likely to think of themselves as independent families, free to come and go as they please. NYT (link)

There is a resurgence of civic pride as the clouds clear away and the floods recede- the way that communities self-organize and provide mutual aid during and after a crisis. We all catch glimpses of it after a disaster, in stories online and in the news.

So perhaps the Command and Control model for community crisis support doesn’t make any damn sense. You can’t force someone who is blind or wheelchair-bound to get up and evacuate.  And you can’t convince anyone that FEMA know the needs and vulnerable populations of a community better than the community itself.

The next hurricane that comes along, some people are going to be shelter in place, stuck in a horrible nightmare- and others are going to stick around to rescue them. Instead of blaming or forcing anybody, emergency managers would do a better job by supporting this phenomenon.  They ought to support vulnerable populations with no resources or transportation, and they should plan to support the heroes who stick around with a canoe and a pallet of water.

 

source: WOAY website

TV stations around the country sounded the alarm for reports of looting rampaging a Family Dollar and a Dollar General store in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence.  In the wake of Hurricane Florence-

NEWS ALERT – Moments ago officers arrested five individuals who broke in and looted the Dollar General at 5th & Dawson Streets. Charges are pending and those details will be released as they become available. (link)

Said to be “capitalizing on chaos,” the looters made off with what, exactly?  How does anyone capitalize on anything by looting a dollar store?  By definition- it is the last place you would want to ‘loot.  How do you know this?  Because Dollar General only stocks basic supplies.  Dollar General doesn’t sell high-end electronics- or high-end anything.

By definition- a dollar store is the best place to get basic supplies without risking a felony theft charge in the process. In fact, maybe these residents looted dollar stores for this very reason- they didn’t want to risk the perception that they were looting. Nice try but it didn’t work.  It’s the elites who write same the script for more than 190 local TV stations across the country.  And that script for the last two days and said- these savages are looting and capitalizing on chaos.

But in reality- these aren’t criminals, these are people trying to get basic supplies such as food, water, diapers or batteries?  It’s not possible to do otherwise in one of these stores- even Media Elites ought to know this.  Should we really be arresting people for taking supplies from a Dollar General after a hurricane?

The reality of what’s going on here doesn’t fit into the televised narrative of the savage looters who “capitalize on chaos.”  Let’s challenge news stations to get the full story here.  Were these residents taking critical supplies because their communities was shattered, roads flooded?  My guess from a thousand miles away is yes, considering there isn’t anything else to take in that store.  Maybe there is looting going on, and the media can get obsessed with the next story of savagery and opportunism after a disaster.  And they can pretend that it’s the residents doing the exploiting (“looters”) and not the insurance companies and real estate developers who can buy up entire blocks for pennies on the dollar (“businessmen”).

This is an easy one- and makes the media bias pretty blatant here.

 

 

Well-meaning outsiders crowd into a community to help after a disaster. Journalists, nurses, experts often with crucial roles to play- as well as stomachs to feed, beds to rest, showers to clean up, conversations to share at the local deli. The “space they occupy” in having these needs met will to some extent displace the space that community would critically depend upon after a disaster.

The same empathy that drove people to help may also guide the ways they take up space. Renegaid gives structure to empathy in “The Gangway. “

The Gangway is a physical space, at times- the temporary, self-provided trailers, food and supplies that outsiders will bring with them.  The thoughtful self-provisioning that has a net-positive impact on the logistical demands of the response and relief efforts.  In the Gangway, we bring in more resources than we take.  And we are thoughtful in providing to the Survivors the resources that they ask for, that in our professional capacities we can provide them.

Finally, The Gangway is an emotional space:  we understand that survivors experience a “falling together” that we as outsiders should not attempt to join.  It is not our crisis or our regeneration.  At the end of it, we will leave with the ghosts of the original residents- leaving behind an emotional saga that we only witness from the Gangway.

Why This Matters. Consider this account by one journalist of how she and her peers descended onto Sutherland Springs, TX after a church shooting there the day prior:

The media presence doubled the size of your grieving community, or so it seemed. You couldn’t park at the post office. It was jammed with news vans and satellite trucks, its lawn trampled by a half-dozen tents the big networks set up. You couldn’t get a quiet meal at the local cafe, where waitresses trying to get through their shifts were asked again and again to talk about the friends and family they had just lost.

It was miserably hot, even for Texas. But the gas station was out of sunscreen. We’d bought it all. It was an invasion. It was too much. (link)

The author contrasts her role as a professional observer and investigator with her basic empathy and humanity- arguing that there has to be a better way to chronicle disasters.  In other words, the space they occupied was too great.  One resident of the town had this to say about the journalists that week following the disaster:

They’re vultures, man. They don’t leave you alone. They just want their story.  It’s great that you want to hear our story but when you’re at a memorial you have no respect. You’re walking around with cameras shining in people’s faces. We’re not here for some festival.  We’re here because of something the likes of this town, Sutherland Springs, never thought they’d see. (link)

 Conclusion

Well-meaning outsiders crowd into a community after a disaster. Sometimes their role is crucial- often their role is not what they thought it would be when they rushed in.  Sometimes their aid is undercut by the impact that they have on the community’s limited supply of lodging, restaurants, and short supply. The space they occupy can be in many ways anticipated and self-met.  This model of balancing the criteria of mutual aid with empathy; expertise with humanity; support and distance- it give substance to The Gangway. In its physical, logistical and emotional gangway- we experience and we document a narrative of the restorative potential of communities in crisis.

Living out and promoting this narrative of human potential at all times, and not just after a crisis, should be our goal.