Thursday, November 15, 2012  Living with the Zombie Apocalypse
My whole life I have loved science and science fiction
especially those old 1950s and early 60s sci-fi flicks. For the
most part, they took themselves and their audiences seriously,
and assumed some scientific and political literacy among the
general population. They were wonderfully paranoid and fed off
our fears--legitimate ones, at that--of a nuclear holocaust or,
at least, of a Commie take over.  My elementary school years,
especially during the Cuban missile crisis, left me strong and
fond memories of "duck and cover" exercises, and of wondering
whether a school desk, even one solidly built in the USA, would
suffice to ward off the effects of the latest Soviet H-bomb.
After these exercises, many of us boys would gather and
speculate on how the world would look after a nuclear exchange.
Each of us had a different vision in accord with the latest sci-
fi picture seen. Some saw the end as a variation of "On the
Beach," and pondered how they woul