The article as presented seemed like a disjointed, poorly considered hodgepodge. But I strongly suspect it started as a longer and hopefully more coherent article, which was then brutally dismembered by an editorial death squad. The writer often doesn't have control of the final piece, and so may deserve a little slack. YMMV.

As a lightning rod, though, it sparked a lot of thoughtful and interesting comments.

I respect your mindset. Maybe we're a little different. For me preparation is like gambling; it's a game of probabilities. You only have so much budget and so much time, so you take care of the most likely emergencies. For me these are the annual tornadoes and floods that pass through my area, in addition to blackouts (sometimes extended), car breakdowns, robberies, etc. (I *almost* got robbed last year, but I did experience the other stuff.) Do I think a societal collapse is absolutely impossible? No. But my budget doesn't stretch that far.

It doesn't seem important to me whether I am "one of them." Some people seem to feel that the doomsday preppers are the butt of a joke, and so perhaps if I identify with them I'd see what the problem is. I've appeared in news stories before, and I've learned that the picture always gets distorted in the process, sometimes by a lot. Given that, I'd say the article's treatment of preppers ain't half bad. If the objection is that the article does not start out assuming catastrophic preparation is worthwhile, well, then that's a problem of changing public opinion, isn't it?

Ireckon,

It would be my thought that the article was written from the perspective of someone who was on the outside of our group. That it was written by someone that was obviously looking in at our group from the outside. Often when reporters do articles on groups they come at them from the perspective of someone on the outside. Even when articles were done on me and other groups I am a part of the writer referred to my groups as "they" and "them." This was simply because the writer wasn't at all part of the group that I was a member of.

With that said not matter what is written about groups or society sub-sets there is always a part of every report that makes members of the group wince and cringe as they read it or watch it.

To me the article will have served it's purpose if it got at least one or two families to think about how to become more prepared and it helps them at lest once.


Tyber.

The article seems pretty fair to me, insofar as it focuses on a certain portion of the prepper phenomenon. The tone does not strike me as patronizing or judgmental. It is informative. I thought the article ended on a nice common-sense note.

There is something of a preparedness continuum and we all fall somewhere on it - from the peops who may satisfy the Ready.gov 72-hour to those of us with a month or two of supplies, with BOBs, and those who are equipped for years on their own or can be self-sustaining indefinitely.

That continuum largely conforms, in my mind, to what the prepper anticipates as the likeliest threats - with natural disasters on the lower end of prepared to armageddon subscribers on the higher end.

The latter certainly are more fascinating from a media perspective.