Prepare for the Worst

Survival and Evasion School, Weekend Whats, Feel Good Friday

In addition to copies of my passport and other vital documents, my go-bag has a spare AppleTV, individual Metamucil packets (they don't call it a go-bag for nothing), a Ziploc baggie of artisanally roasted free trade coffee beans, and enough prescription anti-anxiety pills to tranquilize an elephant for a decade. I was pretty sure I was under-prepared before reading about people taking wilderness-based survival and evasion courses. Now I'm really sure. Though, after a few weeks in dystopia, I imagine I'll be able to trade a couple teaspoonfuls of the Metamucil for anything from gold bars to heavy weapons. NYT(Gift Article): Getting Ready for the Worst. Just in Case. "In the chilly dusk on a recent Saturday, nine people were creeping through the California hills. Their faces were painted in shades of green, yellow, brown and black, so that they blended into their surroundings. Moving uphill through thickets of trees, they tried to be silent, as if not to draw the attention of some unseen enemy. They were conscious of every breath, every dry leaf that crunched underfoot, every snapped twig. These people were not military personnel. They were just civilians — biotech workers, a masseuse, an entrepreneur — who had decided to spend a weekend preparing themselves for a war, societal collapse or some other calamity." (With an outlook that bleak, I have to assume they're NextDraft subscribers).

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The Aud Squad

"A new treatment approach for tinnitus is called bimodal neuromodulation, which targets the brain by stimulating two sensory systems. In a device called Lenire, patients wear headphones and a mouth device every day for an hour for at least six weeks." A very interesting look at what tinnitus is and how it might be fixed. WaPo(Gift Article): Scientists may have the key to treating tinnitus: Retrain the brain.

3

Buying the Farm

"Residents worried it could be a front for foreign spies looking to surveil a nearby Air Force base. One theory held the company was acquiring land for a new Disneyland. Now the truth was standing in front of them. And somehow it was weirder than the rumors. The truth was that Mr. Sramek wanted to build a city from the ground up, in an agricultural region whose defining feature was how little it had changed. The idea would have been treated as a joke if it weren’t backed by a group of Silicon Valley billionaires." But not everyone wanted to sell. We can't be sure if there will ever be a new city in Solano County. But we can definitely be sure that this part of the story will be made into a limited series for Netflix. NYT (Gift Article): The Farmers Had What the Billionaires Wanted. (Usually, the opposite is true.)

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Weekend Whats

What to Watch: There's a very common type of TV shows these days. You could call them murder comedies. They're light murder mysteries that always have an investigator that happens to be on hand to find the killer among a group of people confined to a particular area. Sometimes it's an island. Sometimes it's a mansion. In the case of Death and Other Details on Hulu, it's a boat.

+ What to Protect: For obvious reasons, this is great time to follow and support Protect Democracy and sign up for their newsletter: If You Can Keep It. Check out the latest edition: How it could happen here. The authoritarian playbook for 2025 (and what to do about it).

+ What to Doc: Outside of a moon landing and some Super Bowls, the finale of M*A*S*H was the most watched TV show ever. It completed its first season as only the 50th most popular show. But then TV execs put it on after All in the Family, and the creators evolved show in many ways that changed it, and TV, forever. All these years later, I still remember the characters, the key moments, and even some of the smaller scenes. M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television is on Hulu, Disney Plus, and elsewhere.

5

Extra, Extra

Me, Myself and (Bib)I: "Although Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu." And that focus is bad for peace, bad for Biden, and potentially good for Trump. Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): Netanyahu Is Turning Against Biden.

+ Bedlam Chops: Man whose name was taken off the ballot in Colorado for inciting bedlam on Jan 6 urges the Supreme Court to put his name back on the ballot to avoid bedlam. Tim Scott is the latest GOP leader to prove there is no bottom. Tim Scott to endorse Donald Trump.

+ Rust Never Sleeps: "A grand jury has indicted Alec Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge in the deadly shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of 'Rust,' months after prosecutors dropped their case against the actor over her death." (This is the case that wouldn't end.)

+ Scraping By: Well, the House managed to do the impossible (by today's standards). They're keeping the government open until March! (Just when you think they'll go broke, Congress scrapes together enough cash to get through the next few months. Finally, they're reflecting many of the people they serve.)

+ Baby Saved: "Washington, 18, was on the phone with a dispatcher when she saw the baby, lying on top of his father, move his head — the 9-month-old was alive. Having just seen three people shocked to death, she decided to try to save the boy." A baby lived because an Oregon teen couldn’t stand by after she saw 3 people get electrocuted.

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Feel Good Friday

"The Los Angeles school district runs a shop that maintains and repairs the 80,000 musical instruments used by students in the district. Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot made this short documentary about the shop and the people who work there, some of whom have been broken and repaired themselves." The Last Repair Shop.

+ Good girl! Officer enlists a Michigan man’s dog to help rescue himfrom an icy lake. And, Good boy: dog saves Philadelphia neighborhood from potentially explosive gas leak.

+ Vermont State Police troopers pulls off incredible rescue after girl falls through ice into pond.

+ How Michael Glenn, a 16-year-old high school student, saved his town from becoming a news desert.

+ Girls, ages 13 and 14, save tourists from riptide in Barbados.

+ 'Dead Man' Comes Alive After Ambulance Hits Pothole In Haryana.