I recently subscribed to Mother Earth News and just received my first copy. My timing was good, because this is the first issue in which they address Y2K. Im sure I will get some good self-sufficiency info, but I dont have much confidence in their Y2K knowledge. The editor discusses the "religious hope and fear" of 1000 AD, and likens it to "the hysteria surrounding the Y2K computer problem" He describes the problem and says that massive worldwide pandemonium is feared. "Some of this alarm is perfectly well-founded, and it does bring into relief not only the foolishness of the programmers who failed to take this problem into consideration years ago, but our strange, very nearly religious dependence upon these systems to keep the world spinning." He goes on to say that ignorance and mythic fear surround the dilemma, and that supposedly responsible industry professionals are pointlessly frightening people with phrases such as "total collapse of infrastructure" and "the end of society as we know it." He tells us the TV will be "flooded with millennium evangelists and hucksters holding their hand out and banging the apocalyptic drum," but your car will start and bread will toast on January the first 2000. "Amid the occasional computer glitches" we might have an opportunity to assess and simplify our lives. He assures us that Mother Earth News will provide information on how to "ride out the Y2K gale, but we will *not* jump on the foolish and futile panic wagon." He describes this issues features, including an article that reviews the basics we need to be happy, and says that article is "the start of what we hope will be an antidote to Y2K Chicken Littles. Our bet is that the sky is likely to stay right where it is."

I also went to CompuServes Y2K forum today for the first time, and while I didnt spend a lot of time there, it appeared to be mostly filled with people assuring each other that things were fine and the bad stories are all hoaxes or their authors are ignoramuses. I think Ill continue to spend most of my Y2K Internet research time right here on this forum.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), December 16, 1998

Answers

Check out Countryside magazine; they are running a series on Y2K, preparedness/homesteading issues starting with July/August 1998, and will start your subscription with that issue if you so request.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), December 16, 1998.

Karen, Do they have a web-site?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 16, 1998.

Countryside's website http://www.countrysidemag.com

-- Steve (csymag@midway.tds.net), December 16, 1998.

Funny - this type of multiple infrastructure faliure due to simultaneous failures of a technical nature seems right up the Mother Earth people's path. Survival through (or even just mucking through with minimal harm) this kind of thing (no power, no water, no sewage, possible loss of support services) would appear exactly their strength.

Interesting that the editorial position (editor plus writer) of the Mother Earth paper sticks exactly with (against ?) the common liberal fear and dislike (hatred, loathing, despising, air-of-superiority, etc.) against religion. Look at the multiple references against "ignorance and mythical fear", "religious hope (of failure maybe?) and fear (of the "end of the world" maybe?), and also against the sly cut against Pat Robertson's CBN "...hucksters holding out their hand and banging the apocalyptic drum".

I hope the remainder of the articles improve as promised - but they (Mother Earth) have apparently already decided who is "chicken little."

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 16, 1998.

Mother Earth News is firmly in the DGI category, reflecting its New York Madison Avenue ownership. (It hasn't been published out of NC for at least a decade.) If you really want some useful information from Mother, Pearlie, find a used book store that carries back issues and look for copies from 1970 up through about 1985, before it turned to the yuppie suburbia market. As noted in a previous post, Countryside magazine has seized upon y2k and is putting out some good information. The realities of magazine publishing mean that jd's y2k comments will seem a little dated to regulars on this forum, but the magazine is pure gold as far as I'm concerned.

-- jdclark (yankeejdc@aol.com), December 16, 1998.

Mother Earth (MEN) used to be a very good magazine. Back in the 70s.

Then they "sold out" to some big NYC conglomerate and I am not sure just *who* owns the magazine now. They turned "yuppie puppy" and their self-help stuff now is about "How to Make Your Own Socks Using Spiffy Sock-Making Machine" type stuff. Or, "How to Tune Up Your Own Mini-Van Without a Mechanic".

I have every MEN mag. from #1 up to about mid-80s. I am now using these as reference material to refresh my aging hippie mind on how to do stuff like I used to know how to do it when I lived in the Northern California mountains on a gold mining claim, waaaaaaay off the grid and waaaaaaay far from town.

I think "Backwoods Home" magazine is far better, if you're looking for truly self-sufficient ways to do things. I admire the editor of BH too. He lives in Oregon, off the grid (makes his own 'lectricity) and runs the magazine from there (or at least he used to.....). They have a web site at http://www.backwoodshome.com/

Just mho.

Bobbi ----<-----<<<-------<@----------@>-------->>>------>------ New!!! PowerPoint slide show -- "Y2k: Where are we now? Where are we going?" Check it out at http://www.buzzbyte.com/ ----<-----<<<-------<@----------@>-------->>>------>------

-- Bobbi (bobbia@slic.com), December 16, 1998.

Hi Bob, where's DICK.

How could that stupid, in denial MEN dare try to be objective. Blaspheme praise the lawd. Don't they know there's circulation numbers and 10,000 gallon water bag advertising in thet thar panic citchiation. I'm hotter n' a Jalopino pepper in a Volcana that a mainstream publication would try to encourage readers not to panic.

Pearlie hon, maybe y'all could think about blaming management instead of them dang programmers. Ya know I hear tell that the programmers told the big fellas bout the citchiation way back when JBD was just a lil ol munchkin.

I gots ta skedaddle now but y'all have a nice day now y'here

-- Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts (jim1bets@worldnet.att.net), December 18, 1998.