Large Fierce Mammal

A fire breaks out in your kitchen. You have and are permitted to own a fire extinguisher that is more than adequate to stop the blaze, but prohibited from using it in favour of running away to let the Fire Department handle the situation. An hour later, your house is rubble, and both your wheel chair bound Grandmother and your Cat are dead. Sad, but it’s the way of things.

Is this a realistic scenario? No. It’s quite ridiculous actually, and yet it’s the way too many Canadians see the matter of self defense, whether or not a firearm is involved. All human life is sacred except your own.

In truth, most people really don’t understand the burden of responsibility they carry for their own safety and survival, and the commonalities that link every threat to life and limb. In truth, most people have accepted the idea that no matter what happens, all you need do is call “Them” and “They’ll” take care of it. If it’s bad, “They” will figure out what to do about it. News flash – YOU are “THEM“, because when the shit hits the fan, and you are standing at ground zero, running away may not be an option. The time to get tuned in is NOW.

Reality remains Reality no matter how angry that makes you, and one doesn’t need to look far for evidence that much of the population prefers to live as though things are actually the way they simply wish them to be.  The assumption is that publicly funded agencies and organizations exist for the betterment and protection of individuals, which could not be further from the truth. The list of people to whom you actually matter is very short indeed, and if you’re, “… doin’ it right ….”, you know them all by name.

I’ve spent the past 30 years of my professional life working as a security consultant with clients ranging from government agencies at all levels, commercial and institutional organizations large and small, to private citizens. That includes, but is by no means limited to, designing and personally administering training programmes in self-reliance, wilderness living skills, firearms safety and marksmanship, swordsmanship, personal security, fire alarm technology, the Incident Command System (ICS), emergency communications policies, practice, and procedures, and emergency scene management. It is from this background and depth of experience that I’m speaking today.

In the field of emergency management, we refer to the “four pillars” (4P). As defined by no less than Public Safety Canada (PSC), these are:

• Prevention and mitigation: Prevention and mitigation refers to actions taken to identify and reduce the impacts and risks of hazards before an emergency or disaster occurs.
• Preparedness: Preparedness increases the ability to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies and to recover more quickly from their long-term effects and involves actions taken prior to an event to ensure the capability and capacity to respond.
• Response: Response refers to actions taken during or immediately after an emergency or disaster for the purpose of managing the consequences.
• Recovery: Recovery refers to actions taken after an emergency or disaster to re-establish or rebuild conditions and services.

At its core, the 4P concept is foremost about preventing the excrement from striking the ventilation appliance, but it carries forward to what you’re going to do when the Dread Prophet Murphy comes to call.

Hand in hand with the 4P, and most particularly in concert with those aspects of it that kick in after all prevention and mitigation efforts have failed, we have the Incident Command System (ICS). ICS Canada defines it thus:

The Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized on-site management system designed to enable effective, efficient incident management by integrating a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure.

The ICS is used to manage an incident or a non-emergency event, and can be used equally well for both small and large situations. (emphasis added)

ICS grew out of military origins, but today it’s used extensively by public safety agencies and event organizers who need to juggle and coordinate the most efficient use of resources in getting a job done. However, as pointed out in the highlighted portion of the snippet above, this could be your kid’s birthday party, the building of a house, hosting a performance by a major music star, fighting a forest fire attended by 50 different response agencies employing air and ground assets, containing an active shooter situation, or searching for a lost puppy. The strength of ICS is the clarity that comes from breaking a complex, fast moving situation down into manageable portions with a clear chain of command and control.

I have a long standing personal and professional respect for the Police, Fire, Paramedic, and Search and Rescue personnel I’ve known and worked with over the years, but it would be a miraculous day when any one of them could say they were standing at the scene of an emergency incident at the exact moment it transpired, and with all the resources necessary to put a stop to it. Instead, they go when they’re called by those who are first on scene. The philosophy I have always taught and personally embraced is that the most effective first responder is a trained citizen, and the role of those essential ones I prefer to call Professional Responders would be better defined as, “Thanks. We’ll take it from here.”

Advice for the citizenry that is provided by such organizations as Emergency Preparedness Canada as well as Provincial and Regional Emergency Management Organizations encourage people to position themselves to be independent of assistance from professional responders for up to 72 hours in a large scale emergency or disaster situation. I would ask, why stop there? Does not a self-reliant citizenry represent the best of all worlds?

In the next few weeks I’ll be expanding on these realities as I make ready to present a series of educational events aimed at people who want to understand preparedness and bring self-reliance into their life. Stay tuned and get ready to sign up for local sessions!

I’m in the throes of putting together a new Self Reliance Course series, and as usual, the Daemon that lives in my head pooped … I mean popped … out a poem. Behold …

Ode to a Home Invasion

By LFM

My door was locked. You didn’t care.
You kicked it from the frame.
The two of you, and one of me –
You saw this as YOUR game.

You hurled your taunts as breaking in,
You talked about my Wife,
And of the things you’d make me watch
Before you took my life.

Such fury in your entrance,
Met with silence from within.
Now one skull rolls across my floor,
The other’s cleft to chin.

Source: http://livenerddierepeat.wordpress.com/tag/telekinesis/ (click the image to enlarge)

Last evening Mrs. LFM and I watched the most recent episode of Supernatural. There was a scene in a private club for witches, and as the camera followed our stars through a room, it passed over a well turned out couple who were engaged in a game of chess using only their minds to move the pieces. Each was sitting in a decidedly tense and uncomfortable posture, staring fixedly at the game board, and the ambiance of it all made me wonder why you’d put yourself through so much stress and strain just to do something more easily effected by more orthodox means.

That got me thinking about how movies and television depict telekinetic powers – they’re either completely effortless, or enough to make you bust a gut. More often than not, they come most easily to the bad guys, and harder to the good. That was when this popped into my head, fully formed, and I started laughing. One of those things that had to be noted down then or be lost forever. I’m not sure if you should be thankful or not.

Mind Games

By LFM

You think it’s smooth,
Yet takes much strain,
To move a thing with just your brain.
I called a book from off the shelf,
And doing that, I shit myself.

By now it should be well known that I hold Crows and Ravens in the highest regard. They’ve inspired me more than a few times, and hold every promise, as with any Esteemed Friend, of continuing to do so. I have stood enthralled in the teeth of gale force winds, watching Crows swoop, spin, tuck their wings and plummet – seeming to body surf the maelstrom – all the while calling joyously to one another as though proclaiming, “Watch me! Watch me!”

A few months ago, Mrs. LFM and I were stopped at a traffic light while in the process of making our way out of Halifax. There was a strong steady wind coming from hehind us, and just as we came to a stop we observed a Crow coming in from our left, low over the trees and moving fast across the wind. Abruptly, he turned sharply left so the wind was behind him, visibly accelerated, and then executed a perfect barrel roll  before flying off cawing the accomplishment to the world. We always feel honoured by displays such as this. Those that require us to be in the exact place and time whereat Nature will bestow Her favour.

Dogs and Crows share a common trait in finding joy from wind, water, and snow. In winter, our Dogs become frisky in the extreme at the first sight of snow covered ground, plunging into snow drifts with abandon, biting it, swimming on their sides in it, and sliding down embankments. So too do Crows, and to brighten your day, I invite you to watch the fun that follows. Thanks to my Esteemed Friend Jim Keating for bringing it to my attention. He thinks they’re really sorcerers posing as Crows, but you’ll just have to make up your own mind.

MV Miss Ally (Source: facebook via CBC News) – click the image to enlarge.

The search for the 13.5 meter (44 foot) fishing boat Miss Ally and her crew of five young Nova Scotia fishermen began last Sunday night when the Rescue Coordination Centre began receiving signals from the vessel’s emergency locator beacon (ELB). Designed to activate on immersion in salt water, the ELB signals from Miss Ally showed her to be 120 kilometers southeast of Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Sea state at the time would have subjected the boat and her crew to 10 meter (33 foot) waves driven by hurricane force winds in sub-freezing temperatures. No radio broadcasts were received from the crew before or after the ELB turned itself on.

The crew of Miss Ally (Source: facebook via CBC News).

Elements participating in the search included two Canadian Coast Guard vessels (CCGS Sir William Alexander and CCGS Earl Grey), a CC-130 Hercules, a CP-140 Aurora (Canadian variant of the Lockheed P-3 Orion), and a CH-149 Cormorant helicopter from the Royal Canadian Air Force , an aircraft contracted from Provincial Airlines by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, two United States Coast Guard aircraft, and several merchant vessels. At no small peril to life and limb, the crews of these vessels and aircraft did their duty with diligence right up to the moment when they were ordered to stand down late last night.

I grew up in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. A town that built its fame and fortune on fishing. A town that named its hospital “Fishermen’s Memorial” and that has an imposing monument on its waterfront, crafted of tall black granite monoliths arranged in the shape of a compass rose and inscribed with the names of those of its mariners who have sailed over the horizon never to return. Each name takes up so little space, and yet the size of the monument is striking.

Deep ocean fishing is an unbelievably hazardous endeavour, and I’ve written a bit about that previously in an earlier article. Even in this day of satellite navigation, emergency locator beacons, infrared scanning, radar, fast all weather aircraft, and all the rest of the magic, deep ocean fishing remains among those pursuits from which even the best prepared of practitioners may not come back alive.

Much criticism has been, and continues to be, leveled at the decision to withdraw official participation from the search, and declare it a missing persons case now under the auspices of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Many comments I’ve read echo a common sentiment – How can you cancel the search and abandon these men after only three days? This sentiment is understandable, but it does not reflect the reality of a situation such as this.

We are a week way from the end of February, a time of the year when water temperatures in the north Atlantic are at their coldest. The crew of the Miss Ally would have been equipped with immersion suits – otherwise called “survival suits” – to slow the onset of hypothermia. Slow. Not prevent. Every second in the water lends urgency to the search because we are working on borrowed time. Based on the time a distress signal is received, and a presumption that the crew were wearing survival suits, it’s not hard to calculate how much time we have before a rescue mission turns into a search for remains. We factor in a generous margin for error, hoping against hope, but there comes a time.

This sounds harsh, but the realities we’re dealing with in cases like this are harsh. If you’ve even once been in a situation in which your own survival depends absolutely on you and you alone, you’ll understand the grim reality of this. Continuation of the official search has lost its urgency because time is no longer of the essence,  and under current conditions, would be needlessly risking the lives of the brave men and women we’re going to need whole and healthy the next time somebody actually needs saving.

The tireless research team at the LFM Institute have just announced their findings in the matter of the unprecedented resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. They hasten to add that they name it unprecedented because exhaustive – even Herculean efforts – have proven that there is no prior record of Pope Benedict XVI ever having previously resigned from the Papacy.

Put simply, our team started where they always do – Australia. Yes, they went straight to The Axis of Awesome. In the face of such Truth, what Pontiff could even hope to prevail?

“Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those niggas waiting outside with guns? They know you ain’t got one.” ~ Chris Rock

Chris Rock uses the word “nigga” the way I use GU (Great Unwashed). All considerations of race, social status, or job description notwithstanding, an asshole is an asshole, and nobody should put their security against assholes in the hands of another asshole.

When Mrs. LFM was in her last year at Dalhousie University, we rented an apartment for a year that was both within easy walking distance from the campus, and likewise close to all the down town action spots. If I had to define perfection in a city, Halifax would qualify because if you’re not allergic to walking you can get everything you need from it at a transportation cost measured purely in shoe leather.

Not even approaching being city folk, we still have to make the 100 kilometer run from our rural nest into the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) weekly because of business commitments, and sometimes combine that necessity with a date at one of the assorted purveyors of victuals that have attracted our admiration. 100 kilometers is a good distance. It puts an hour’s worth of highway between what the city can give us when we’re in the mood, and what we really need.

We’re not the types to crave the club atmosphere, preferring pubs, but now and then while we still lived in Halifax, after a dinner out we’d stroll further down town and visit one of the bars. In the course of that, there was an incident involving one specific establishment that I’ll relate here as an introduction to the reason I’m bending your ear here today. (more…)

In last week’s edition of Worldly Wisdom Wednesday, I spoke of the The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse, and identified it as but a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners. Moving forward from there, let’s dig a little deeper.

Why are Manners important? Because they garner approval from society, as well as from individual members of it, and in this they must be sincerely expressed because for them to be falsely so is the pinnacle of falsehood. To be steadfast and forthright is respected. To be found to have been simply posturing is most decidedly not. In this, we can see that just as The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse is a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners, Manners are in turn a subset of the larger Discipline called Communication.

Creatures in Nature express themselves in predictable ways so that others of their kind, as well as others of unlike kind who may be considered interested parties, may know their intentions. This is in keeping with the Way of the Wild, as also is subterfuge to confound understanding of intention. Man is by no means the only animal capable of subterfuge, but he has demonstrated an interesting uniqueness in developing the ability for an individual member of the species to successfully confound its own understandings of its own intentions.

As often as not, this phenomenon manifests itself out of a motivation that is not intrinsically bad. When what is and what one wants to be are deemed to be unacceptably different, therein lies a motivation to merge the two in favour of the latter, and this is in keeping with the Way of the Wild. Where trouble ensues is when the want fails to take into account what is, and the utmost folly grows from refusal to believe that what is actually is at all, accepting in its stead only that which feeds the want. Alas, you will never find a folly so profound as to be in lack of gurus preaching its “truth”.

This affects, and afflicts, Human relationships with each other and everything else. Even those things that are what they are because we made them so. That having been said, I’ll direct you from here – not for the first, and certainly not for the last time – to a consideration of that wondrous thing that is the True understanding between Human and Dog. In this lies a shining example of what I’m talking about.

My burden in this profound lesson is lightened thanks in totality to an article published today by our Esteemed Friend Silvia Jay to her Mindful Leadership blog. We’ve referred to and quoted Silvia’s Wisdom before, she often honours us with her insights, and both Mrs. LFM and I feel this latest piece to be exceptionally insightful. Read it here and meet us back here next week. As always, please comment!

Last year I published a poem here in celebration of Mrs. LFM’s birthday. Today we celebrate another, and if you’ve read what I put here yesterday, you’ll know this to be an unusually special one.

Today as a blizzard swirls around us, I’m building on the foundation of last year with two more verses dedicated to the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and another that’s about to happen to that other wondrous thing called US. Happy birthday My LOVE.

A snowflake’s born in regions far
From where it’s meant to light.
It seems to ride without control
In random windblown flight.

But random isn’t what defines
Where snowflakes come to rest.
Their destiny will bring them home
On paths that can’t be guessed.

You see, wherever snowflakes land,
On ground or upturned face,
No snowflake can be said to find
A wrongful resting place.

Nature blessed me with this Truth,
She gave a gift to me –
My Snowflake landed in my arms,
Right where she’s meant to be.

And, glorious morn! This natal day
That marks my Snowflake’s birth
Rides in on wint’ry wings of snow
And brings a gift to Earth.

A host of happy snowflakes dash,
And rattle every door!
Proclaiming news that soon there’ll be
One glorious Snowflake more!

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of an event for which I will be forever thankful to the Universe – the birth of my Beloved Diana, half a world away in Poland. Nearly a year ago, I commemorated her birthday with a poem. One of many she’s inspired, and will come to inspire.

Yet this year of Life with her is even more inspiring, for let this stand as Official Notice, and so be it known to all ye here, that we Large Fierce Mammals are with Child!

Back on 24 September 2010 I published an article here with the title Announcement of My Conception had Its Own Theme Song. Today we’re laying claim to that wonderful tune, with the most heartfelt dedication to the three of us. We’d be honoured if you’d sing along. Take it away Engelbert.