Part of my philosophy is being prepared for violence. The way of the warrior is one of protecting one’s self and one’s family from harm of all sorts: natural disaster, emergencies, and the threat of violence from others. Phil Elmore, founder of the Martialist, has an approach to martial “arts” training that I concur with: self-defense is not a sport. It is not a game. The objective is to neutralize any threat with minimal risk to oneself and others. In other words: it is not about fighting “fairly.”

Phil is an ordinary guy who seeks out the most pragmatic, sensable solutions to self-defense issues. His website is quite a trove of useful information along those lines. I’ve already paracord-wrapped my “tactical flashlight” using advice from one of his articles. Purusing his e-zine and associated forums is time well spent.

Katrina was supposed to be our big wake-up call. “We weren’t going to make the same mistakes again,” we told ourselves. “Next time, we’ll be ready.” June first is the beginning of the new hurricane season, and for all we know, it will be another doozy. So, how are we doing on those preparations?

Of coastal residents recently surveyed:

• 56 percent don’t feel vulnerable to a hurricane or related tornado or flooding.
• 60 percent have no family disaster plan.
• 68 percent have no hurricane-survival kit.
• 83 percent have taken no steps to make their homes stronger.
• 13 percent said they might not or would not evacuate even if ordered to leave — leaving tens of thousands of residents at grave risk.

There are few signs to indicate we are much better off than we were before. Even worse, we might be more vulnerable. In a recent CNN.com article, “The Army Corps of Engineers recently admitted that construction on floodgates and levees will not be finished when hurricane season starts June 1.” Federal, State, and local governments are still in the process of making their plans and changes, when the season is practically on top of us.

So, what can you do to prepare? Here is an overview of preparedness steps by the Red Cross. This seems like it should be old hat to us South Louisiana folks, but apparently it isn’t. Let’s try to wake up before the next “wake-up call” hits us.

As you may know, I consider emergency preparedness to be a spiritual value. We owe the people around us our ability to take care of ourselves and take care of them, too, in times of need. It is a subset of what I categorize here as “sustainable living.” It is a category that has been sorely underrepresented here. I have only one article so far in that category and it is about honey. (It is an extremely valuable one, though. I have had a few testimonials since writing it about honey’s incredible effectiveness in wound treatment.)

Lately, I’ve been researching heavily and I have found some very useful resources which I will be telling you about over the next few weeks. The first of these is a wonderful little site that focuses on survival equipment called Equipped to Survive. It features reviews of equipment and, probably its most valuable asset, a very active forum frequented by extremely knowledgeable and experienced people. I highly recommend perusing this forum for its many nuggets of survival wisdom. The forum members use a variety of specialized acronyms, and no explanation of what they mean, so, as a resource to those who might want to visit, I’ve compiled a little glossary of the ones I’ve figured out:

ETS - Equipped to Survive. That’s the name of the website / organization.

EDC - Every Day Carry. One who is equipped for emergencies usually carries some minimal equipment everywhere they go and at all times. THis is often the stuff in a wallet or on a key chain.

PSK - Personal Survival Kit. This is a small kit that one carries when in the wilderness and has on them at all times. It is an EDC when one is in the outdoors.

SAK - Swiss Army Knife. A very common component of EDC’s.

BOB - Bug Out (or Bail Out) Bag. This is a bag of stuff you need to support yourself for 72 hours in an emergency situation, such as an emergency evacuation. Some Emergency Preparedness sources call it a “72-Hour Kit.”

FAK - First Aid Kit.

RSK - A small folding knife designed by the website’s founder Doug Ritter.

SAR - Search and Rescue. A lot of the folks on this site are first responders or rescue workers. There are basically two kinds of SAR kits - a “24 hour kit” for work on an SAR mission, and a 72-hour kit that is for a base camp and is almost identical to a BOB. Many BOB’s also function as an SAR kit.

The website is, I admit, mostly a bunch of guys talking about their favorite toys. Many of them take pictures of their PSK’s and post them, for example. But, I fit right in as I love to talk about my toys, too, and the things you can learn from these folks is priceless.

Honey as a topical treatment for wounds is an ancient technique that is being rediscovered by modern medicine, and seems to work wonders when modern treatments fail.

There are now many published reports describing the effectiveness of honey in rapidly clearing infection from wounds, with no adverse effects to slow the healing process; there is also some evidence to suggest that honey may actively promote healing. In laboratory studies, it has been shown to have an antimicrobial action against a broad spectrum of bacteria and fungi.

When I started reading about this, I was simply amazed. It seems that, perhaps because of our over-dependance on antibiotics, there are many resistant strains of pathogens. Honey can work where other topical treatments have failed.

In a randomised control trial 26 patients with postoperative wound infections had their wounds treated with honey and 24 had their wounds washed with 70% ethanol and povidone iodine applied [75]. The group treated with honey had infection eradicated and achieved complete healing in less than half the time compared with the antiseptic-treated group.

These seem very compelling reasons to keep plenty of honey around. As an advocate of self-sufficiency and disaster-preparedness, the usefulness of honey for both medicinal purposes and sustenence, and the fact that it keeps pretty much forever in storage, make it very attractive.

Here are practical considerations for using honey as a topical treatment from Dr. Molan’s article on worldwidewounds.com:

The amount of honey required on the wound relates to the amount of fluid exuding from the wound diluting it. The frequency of dressing changes required will depend on how rapidly the honey is being diluted by exudate. If there is no exudate, dressings need to be changed twice-weekly to maintain a ‘reservoir’ of antibacterial components as they diffuse into the wound tissues.

To achieve best results the honey should be applied to an absorbent dressing prior to application. If applied directly to the wound, the honey tends to run off before a secondary dressing is applied to hold it in place.

Honey will not soak readily into absorbent dressings. Soaking is facilitated by warming the honey to body temperature and/or adding 1 part water to 20 parts honey to make the honey more fluid.

In some situations a ‘blister’ of honey can be held on a wound using an adhesive film dressing. Honey can be used to treat cavity wounds in this way, although this approach is not suitable for heavily exuding wounds.

For moderately to heavily exuding wounds, a secondary dressing may be needed to contain seepage of diluted honey from the primary dressing. An occlusive dressing such as polyurethane film is best, as an absorbent secondary dressing tends to draw the honey away from the wound surface.

A low-adherent dressing helps prevent the honey dressing sticking to the wound in cases where this is a problem. This dressing is placed between the wound and the honey dressing, but must be porous to allow the antibacterial components of the honey to diffuse freely into the wound bed.

Alginate dressings impregnated with honey are a good alternative to cotton/cellulose dressings, as the alginate converts into a honey-containing soft gel.

Any depressions or cavities in the wound bed need to be filled with honey in addition to using a honey-impregnated dressing. This is to ensure the antibacterial components of the honey diffuse into the wound tissues.

Honey can safely be inserted into cavities and sinuses. It is water-soluble and easily rinsed out; any residues are bio-degradable (honey filtered in processing does not contain any foreign bodies). For sinuses with small openings a catheter on a syringe filled with honey is an effective way of applying honey.

Since infection may lie in the tissues underlying the wound margins, honey dressings need to extend beyond the inflamed area surrounding a wound.

Note point number 9, that honey can be “inserted into cavities and sinuses.” Read: “This stuff can even be used to treat gunshot wounds.” It absolutely amazes me.