Animal pancreases, a meat grinder, alcohol, and ice

Glenn Beck has been really cranking up the apocalypt-o-meter lately. Allapundit considers that certain something about Beck in “The end of America is nigh, maybe.”

[I]f you’d asked me which media star’s most likely to turn survivalist, move to the mountains, and start doing his show from a lead-lined bunker, there’s no doubt what the answer would have been. There’s something “off” about Beck in a way that’s not true of other chat-show hosts, although that’s not necessarily a criticism….

Nothing [Beck and his guests are ] saying is terribly implausible, frankly — except maybe the idea that in five years NYC will look like Mexico City or Baghdad — but because the tone of Beck’s show is always somewhat febrile, it’s hard to know how seriously to take any of it.

I know at least two people who are taking it very seriously. One is the guy who bought 81 Cans of Spam in preparation for a terrorist attack. The other is a terrified mother by the name of Marie who posted a query about making homemade insulin at Free Republic.

I'm sure most of us are thinking along the lines of survival lately and doing our best to prepare for the worst (while praying that the worst doesn't happen).

Along those lines, I have a serious problem to face if our western civilization ceases to be civilized.

My son is a Type 1 diabetic. He needs insulin to survive. Period. It cannot be controlled with herbs, exercise or diet. It's an autoimmune disease which has killed off his insulin-producing cells. Even if he ate nothing, his blood sugar would scream out of the normal range.

There's a story called "Cheating Destiny" about a diabetic woman who survived a Japanese internment camp by her husband making home-made insulin. For two years he made insulin and ended up saving many more lives than just that of his wife.

Does ANYONE here know how he did it? Don't get me wrong: I don't want to know the complicated, requiring-specialized-equipment way to make insulin. I want to know the details of how Banting and Best did it with nothing but animal pancreases, a meat grinder, alcohol and ice.… I'm never going to feel secure until I know how to do this.

That’s just so cruel. Glenn Beck makes millions by airing his febrile delusions and scaring people like poor Marie, who is now so frightened about the post-apocalypse availability of insulin that she's determined to learn how to distill insulin from animal pancreases, just in case.