Emergency Preparedness & Risk Registers

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 26th Nov 2018

In September of this year, a number of gas explosions in the Merrimack Valley (Massachusetts), devastated 40 houses, and resulted in thousands of persons being displaced from their homes. As of November 2018, California wildfires have caused nearly $3 Billions of destruction, making it the most destructive wildfire season ever. Both of these hazards (one accidental, the other natural) – as opposed to threats where malicious intent is prevalent – have impacted the lives of thousands in the US, in a very short period of time. Both were emergencies, in that they took those involved by surprise, and were unexpected,...Click To Read More

Routines

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 19th Nov 2018

One of the things I talk about regularly when discussing self-protection and personal safety is the importance of routines and habits i.e. developing routines that become second nature and are performed without thinking; in the beginning, such routines have to be actively adhered to, however this takes mental bandwidth, and so where possible it’s better to have them as things which run automatically in the background, and engage with our conscious mind at appropriate points e.g. I have a routine I run through when entering/exiting my car and my house – which have different actions depending on time of day,...Click To Read More

Mass Killers and Environmental Factors

Gershon Ben Keren

Tue 13th Nov 2018

If the roots of mass-killings/active shooter incidents are biological, and/or psychological then to prevent such events we need to work at the micro-level, dealing with the individual – either testing and/or assessing them for warning signs — however if such incidents are the result of factors within the (potential) killer’s environment, then to address mass-killings, we need to affect societal change. Much is often made of mental illness, and the underlying biological causes, behind the motivation to kill e.g. the “holes” in Kip Kinkel’s brain which reduced his cognitive abilities and were a pre-indicator of Schizophrenia, or Charles Whitman’s brain...Click To Read More

Skills and Attributes

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 5th Nov 2018

To the untrained eye, Judo would seem to be a martial art that requires a lot of strength e.g. to pick someone up and throw them, means that at the very least, you must have enough power to be able to lift the other person’s weight. However, Judo and throwing is about the taking of balance, and isn’t about “lifting” – my twelve-year old who is half the weight of me can throw me with little effort, when he breaks my balance. This wasn’t always the case. When he first started learning Judo and hadn’t yet got the hang of...Click To Read More