SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods – a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Leading with a quote from Mike Rowe.
Jobs
There is a growing disparity in job outlook in the U.S. right now. For years, our pseudo indoctrination camps education system has hammered home the concept that a college education is mandatory and in many cases is refusing to grant diplomas for those who have not enrolled in a college. But there is a whole sector of high paying blue-collar jobs that continue to go unfilled. Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame). The interview was focused on “emojis” but ended on his advice about today’s young people interviewing for a job. I absolutely love his advice:
“If you can, put yourself in the chair of the person considering hiring you and say to them exactly what you would want to hear if you were them. Hi. It’s great to be here. Here is the deal. I will be early every day. I will stay late every day. I will ask you what I can do every day to make your life simpler. If there is a difficult task, I will volunteer to do it. I will do so cheerfully. In two years from now, I’m going to be sitting where you are.”
I agree completely with Mike on this one. If someone said that to me, I’m not sure I’d even bother checking references. “I’ll see you here tomorrow!”
Public indoctrination Education
Reader H.L. sent in this article on “14 Facts That Prove That America’s Absolutely Pathetic System Of Public Education Deserves An ‘F’ Grade” along with this statement:
“Home Schooling may not be easy, but it is the only way in America. There are several very good online K-12 curriculums, and home schooling parents have organizations that can be a help. They also get together with their children for outings, etc. So, the child is not isolated.”
TEOTWAWKI Lighting
Reader G.P. sent in this link on an innovative lighting system for third-world countries. I’ve seen alot of lighting solutions, but with the advent of the low power white LED, all sorts of possibilities have opened up. This one is a gravity powered light source that operates similar to how a weight driven pendulum clock works. A bag filled with heavy objects (like rocks) slowly drops, driving a small generator that lights the LED. It takes seconds to reset and a single loading will power it for about 20 minutes.
Venezuela
The rogue officer who staged a helicopter attack on a government building reappeared in an online video claiming success in his ventures with no collateral damage. Local reaction is mixed with many believing that he is a government plant designed to justify the harsher crackdown and tactics now being used by the oppressive government against dissenters.
o o o
Violent clashes are now a common occurrence in the country as the government attempts to crack down on the rioters who stormed the Venezuela national Assembly. The country is inching towards a civil war. In the three months that anti-government protests have been active, over 91 people have been killed in clashes with the police.
Survival Seeds
A SurvivalBlog reader brought our attention to the incredible variety of “survival seeds” packages that are available on Amazon. You might want to take a look if you are thinking about gardening or storing seeds.
Snowflakes
A SurvivalBlog reader sent this humorous article on George Clooney: Open Borders Advocate George Clooney Moving Family Back to Trump’s America for ‘Security Reasons’. I wonder if the irony of the situation has occurred to him yet?
As far as the snowflake George Clooney, I found it ironic he considers LA safer than France. With all of their gun control laws, and openly welcoming immigrants I was sure he was better off over there in France. We certainly didn’t miss him.
Refuse him at the airport and send him someplace safe like Mexico or Afghanistan.
People like Clooney will never get it.
I would prefer to purchase garden seeds from a concern that does pretty much just that. If you find a Rambo style knife on the next page over from the seeds, seeds and such are not the primary focus of the vendor.
Hugh – not so fast on homeschooling being the ONLY choice – I am a teacher at a Missouri Synod Luther Church School that ENROLLS (Meaning all children are welcome) vs. ADMITS (Meaning you pay alot of money for status) in order to put Jesus Christ into the kid’s lives. I teach religion & history to 7-10th graders, as well as outdoor education to 10th grade. In this class I teach them basic rifle and pistol marksmanship and safety, MO Hunter Education, and culminate with AR-15 firing. Also covered is outdoor survival (we do an overnight campout and find wild food, build a fire, etc.).
My World War II section last year entailed a 3 page minimum research paper that required a minimum of 5 BOOK sources, a 5-10 minute presentation of the topic using a graphic aid, robust use of foot/endnotes for the research effort – topics were: Battles of France, Britain, MIdway, Stalingrad, D-Day, Bulge; Generals Patton, Eisenhower, Rommel, Guderian, Zhukov, MacArthur; Weapon systems such as: Spitfire, ME-109, B-17, JU-87, M-4 Sherman, Panther, T-34, destroyer, carrier, FLAK88, M-1 Garand, M98 Mauser; culmination of the section was a Q&A session with a tin can sailor who had two DDs shot out from under him during battle in the war. We take field trips to the Omaha Zoo, St Louis Arch (as a culmination of Lewis and Clark study). This year’s trip will be to Hannibal, MO for a section on Mark Twain. We have chapel once a week and religion class every other day in our 4 day/week schedule. We will be adding archery this year and the discussion has begun regarding adding a rifle team. Yes – we actually make the kids write in cursive, but we are also beginning to have them construct websites to display their research work and thus teach them to put their resume online for finding a job in today’s tech-centric culture.
This is how a “school” is supposed to look. Please don’t write all schools off!
@Daniel
That is a quote from a SurvivalBlog reader “H.L.”. I’m not sure I would say it is the “only” option, but it’s pretty close. Certainly it is the “best” option. I’m making that statement from the perspective of someone who has advanced degrees in both education and special education and has worked in both the private and public schools as both a teacher and an administrator. As an Honors Physics teacher, I had many conversations with the local principle who was miffed that I would not submit my own children to the same public school that I taught in. Even as an “insider” where I had the power to hand pick which teachers would teach my children, I refused to participate.
I also sat on the board of a small “Christian” private school and saw many of the same issues. While my children did participate in that school for a number of years, we eventually ended up homeschooling because no school was able to meet my standards. It wasn’t easy, but it was the best option without a doubt.
All group school settings have issues regarding teaching the child in the best way for that child. In every case, you have to set a standard and the vast majority of group settings go for the lowest common denominator. Even the best group setting private schools can only standardize on the average (too high for the lowest student, too low for the highest student). Add to that issue the tendancy for teachers to “like” some students and “dislike” others and you have a setting where some students will fail no matter what. To teach a child to the highest possible standard for that child requires an individual attention level that is unachievable in a group setting. Traditionally, the only two ways to meet that standard were to home school or hire private tutors. Remember, you can’t separate out the different aspects of teaching your child. It is all connected.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
“And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deuteronomy 11:19
I wish I could of taken that class,but you probably wouldn’t of liked my report on the “nukeing” of two Japanese cities after they surrendered
I become frustrated with both the college is necessary crowd and the college is useless crowd.
First my personal experience with the subject. I was a high school dropout. I dropped out not because I disliked school or was doing poorly but because I needed to work to help support our family. I like eating so I worked. I started in fast food, then farm work, then construction, then the Navy during the recession of the early 80s which coincided with Reagan wanting a 600 ship Navy. They were hiring. I was working a pizza job because construction was way slow with double digit interest rates when the Navy called. Along the way I got my GED (just prior to the Navy), then in the Navy a BS in Computer Science going to night school. Most of my life I have been a cross between a blue collar worker and a white collar worker. I would shift from working on computers to repairing hydraulic leaks in the same week or even hour. I prefer blue collar work. Probably my favorite job is actually bucking hay with welding being a close second.
First my issue with the college is useless crowd. Despite there being many good blue collar jobs available currently, it is my personal experience and my observation, that the blue collar worker ALWAYS has a target on there back for elimination and for wage suppression. While this is also becoming true for some white collar work it is a decades long tradition for blue collar work. Also blue collar work wages are not keeping up with inflation. I was a structural iron worker (work I loved) for a short while 30+ years ago. My nephew is still an iron worker. Adjusted for even the published inflation values (which some would say are understated) he is making 25% less than I did 30 years ago with extra downward pressure coming from illegal immigrants. All the statistics bear out that the correct white collar jobs out perform blue collar financially. I know that I have made 100s of thousands of dollars more than I would have over the last 24 years since I got my degree than I would have without it.
Now the other side. The wrong college degree is totally useless. I know lots of young people with liberal arts degrees with enormous student debt with degrees in History or something (which I actually would like to have just for fun) that are working retail making nothing. They would have done much better going to trade school. But they would have statistically done even better going to Engineering school or getting a degree in some medical field. I personally know of no young people with those degrees who lacked good paying work in this last recession, while I watched those with liberal arts degree struggle right along with (perhaps worse than) electricians and carpenters I observed.
Both of my children are mechanical engineers. Both can virtually write their own ticket. Both had machining as part of their curriculum. My son at George Fox University outside Portland Or and my daughter at MIT in Cambridge Ma. Yes MIT requires classes in hand work. They are not elective. They physically build a lot of stuff. Ironically my daughter also learned to sew at MIT as part of one of her elective classes, something we had not taught her. At her current job she frequently does a fair amount of lathe work for prototype development. She was not competitive in one engineering job she was interested in because she did not know how to weld. I guess I should have taught her but my actual skills were probably not up to their standards.
College is not the solution for everything. A liberal arts degree might currently be worse than no degree at all. But the right college degree is a great hedge against unemployment and does boost your earning potential. All technical training (college or not) is useful IMO.
I think for a young person considering not attending college, they had better consider WHY they are not going to attend college. If they are not attending because they do not like to study or don’t like to take tests (which IMO is the most frequent reason) they are on the wrong path. If they are not going because they have a real desire to pursue another avenue and STUDY that skill set with all the discipline they would have had they gone to college they will likely do well.
From my experience, even if you are a very hard worker, it is not enough. You have to work at your career intelligently pursuing the right opportunities and training to give you a leg up or for that matter to stay employed at all. That applies to both blue and white collar work, but perhaps more to blue collar work.
Took me a long time to figure that out. I use to think if I sweat enough, I will win. That is only partially true. You have to sweat smart.
Always remember that target on your back and always be mitigating against that.
Pardon this long post. Did not know how to say what I wanted to say effectively in fewer words.
That was outstanding. It’s as if you were reading my own thoughts. Thank you.
Hugh – Agree with many of the things you say – much of my energy is spent in the exact problem you cite – I have taught 4 different math classes in the same period to meet the kids where their needs were – we have 5-10 class sizes currently, so we may be at as good a point in riding the middle ground in a class setting as is humanly possible – but yes, it would never match one on one in homeschooling. However – we often must “fix” failed attempts at homeschooling by parents that do not have the intelligence/schooling/discipline/consistency to properly/effectively conduct home schooling.
I am a USMA grad, so have a decent collection of brain cells and this is what it takes to run the small school that can adapt to each kids needs. You obviously have a better collection, so it would work even better to homeschool.
The religion/morals/ethics issues are what we provide in spades – and BTW – Mr. Beach does not hand out participation trophies! Much to the chagrin of our kids who have not grown into youngsters of character yet – but I keep after them!
As a former teacher/football coach, both private and public, the biggest problem with education in general, besides not teaching “true” history, is the teaching of thinking for yourself and problem solving! Schools teach a content and all you have to do is learn what the test are and answer them. To pick between the public and private, private is a little more disciplined, there is more parent involvement, and the get to tell the kids who CHRIST is!!! With out a doubt, the most important of anything learned! When I have grandchildren one day, I will home school or ensure they’re in a Christian private school. It’s really sad, that when I grew up, we all prayed and today the only thing you can do is allow the children to lead themselves to the “pole”. May our great GOD bless you all and I don’t know about you, but I sure am looking for HIS return!!!!
“In two years from now, I’m going to be sitting where you are.”
That’s still a little over the top unless you are interviewing with HRM people and not the boss. I can’t see anyone doing the hiring and firing in 2 yrs coming from in fresh to the workforce. Know who you are talking to during the interview and maybe say either “a few years” or at least 5 to sound motivated without arrogance.
I don’t have many regrets in life, my biggest regret is not home schooling my children. I know many that were home schooled and now are successful engineers, authors, business people. My children are successful in life, but they had to work very hard to get there. Especially with my daughter, when I asked her what she did in school today, I was shocked at the answers I got. Educate your children, HOME SCHOOL.