Whoops Apocalypse and the Zombie Zeitgeist part III

I think in America there has been an uneasy feeling for a long time. I think on an almost unconscious level we know our culture doesn't quite work. We are a land of great opportunity, but not for all. This uneasiness shows up in many places, sometimes in our political yelling matches, where the most disenfranchised will attack each other in an attempt to keep their crumbs from the proverbial pie; sometimes in our response to the latest threat to our life style, and other times in our movies. I'll save the political analysis for a later post. Right now I want to look at our threats and our movies, especially zombie movies.

Remember Y2K, or the Hale bop comet, or last year's hype about 2012? Are Americans inherently crazy, or are we just prone to conspiracy theories? These events, or nonevents, weren't conspiracies in the purest sense, but in a bigger sense they offered the same things to the theorists. If you believed or believed these events would have a great terrific impact on the world you were privy to special knowledge. For a brief moment you were pulled from your day to day tedium thrust into the middle of a whirlwind of possibilities. And of course the terrific events seemed very real and very possible because some scientist had unearthed the truth; they had found the hidden message of the Maya or the secret alpha omega computer code. Just having that special knowledge put the holder above the rest of us. In a nation where everyone strives to be exceptional this knowledge is a tiny step towards exceptionalism.

It's more than just our need to be exceptional that encourages us to believe the doomsdays. Maybe it's our cultural roots that drive us towards armegedons. I think a majority of Americans are predisposed to believe the world will end, it's part of our cannon of religious beliefs. Even though many of us do not believe in Judgment day I think it has created a meme firmly bedded in our psyche, next to the boogey man, and Darth Vader.

Even that kernel of a thought isn't enough for us to have so firmly accepted all the potential armegedons we seem to believe possible. I think they have mixed together with another nagging subconscious remnant, the realization that our current consumer model doesn't work.

This idea nags its way to the surface periodically with the latest doomsday and frequently in our modern cinematic myths. The zombie zeitgeist was born with the launch of Dawn of the Dead; it was the first zombie flick to really latch on to the popular imagination. It followed the same basic plot of its predecessor. A Zombie apocalypse with survivors trapped fending for themselves against an army of Zombies. It was also different from Night, the survivors were trapped in a mall, and the zombies, while menacing, were very human, wandering through the mall, looking for flesh, instead of bargains.

Besides the visual metaphor of zombies in a mall think about the bigger metaphor: zombies are us, only slightly different. They are different in the sense that they consume only one thing and they will eventually consume it until it is gone. We on the other hand consume everything. Metaphorically at least the zombies are the ultimate consumers, they have no need to eat, they’re dead, and yet that need to consume drives them like a plague destroying everything in their path.

Just like us. That’s why we have the zombie Zeitgeist now; we are terrified of our own reflection. That’s also why we so easily believe this week’s apocalypse de jour. On some level we know overconsumption as an economic model was a bad idea, but we’re afraid to even mention such blasphemy.

With both zombies and conspiracies we know they offer us a chance to start over, and maybe get it right this time.

Related Articles

• WRUP: Our zombie apocalypse arsenal (joystiq.com)


• Top 5 Fighters Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (fighters.com)


• Comic Book Review: The Last Zombie #1 by Brian Keene (seattlepi.com)


• ZombieFit Classes: Survive An Impending Zombie Apocalypse (manolith.com)


• 'World War Z' Movie: Brad Pitt To Star In Adaptation Of Zombie Apocalypse Novel (huffingtonpost.com)

Frodo the Radical

I think most can tell that I'm getting frustrated with Obama's lack of action on several points. I knew when he ran, and when he was elected, that he was fairly moderate in our very narrow political spectrum, but I also knew that the little lean to the left was better than continuing our death spiral to the right. I had hope that we might even get a new deal. I had hope that our moderate president, might be pushed left by the overwhelimng support he had. I had hope that maybe the congress or the senate might pass progressive legislation and he would at least support it. All of my hopes aside I "knew" he'd at least return the rule of law. I was wrong on even that front. Maybe Jon Stewart is saying it best.

Parasites, viruses, and baterica, oh my! Real life zombie like ailments.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Someone tweeted me s link to this article today. It's a little freaky all the modern ailments that resemble the Romero esque zombie virus, but I think it's given me some ideas for a zombie story. I feel my muse stretching a bit. Maybe she's willing to try and take a bit out of this one.

On a side note, I'd like to hazard a guess the author of the following piece is in their twenties. Zombies haven't really dominated Scien fiction or horror for more than about 10 years. 10 years can feel like a life time when it's half of yours.

Zombies have dominated science fiction for years. But they don't actually exist, right? Wrong. There are several real-life diseases that could make you act like a zombie.

If we're going to talk about zombie-like diseases, we first need to decide what the symptoms of being a zombie actually are. Obviously, the big one - you know, being literally, actually (un)dead - isn't something with any real world medical parallels, so we'll just have to restrict ourselves to diseases that make people act like the walking dead. That would include traits like rotting or dead flesh, a trance-like state that would rob people of any sign of higher cognitive function, an inability to communicate in anything more than moans and grunts, a slow, shuffling gait, and (if we're really lucky) a taste for human brains, or at the very least the desire to bite people.

Is there a single disease that can do all that? Well...no. But there are a whole heap of diseases that can do quite a few of those, and that's plenty terrifying enough. Indeed, let's start with the most horrific possibility of them all:And now for the rest of the story.

Related Articles

• Why Zombies. Seriously. (danpatterson.com)


• 5 real diseases that could make you act just like a zombie [Zombie Science] (io9.com)


• WWZD: What Would a Zombie Do? Spinner Folder (neatorama.com)


• Book Review: Zombie Brittanica by Thomas Emson (writer.fitzhome.com)


• Smoking likened to being eaten by zombies (adweek.blogs.com)

Telegraphs and Chats Twitter May Have Uses.

I'm not the biggest fan of twitter and I know I think it's about as useful and not as cool as the telegraph. I've also said I'm interested in learning about it. I came across a post about the uses of twitter
Here are the important parts of it.
If you place a # before a twitter search or a tweet it makes it easier to search. Here's the explanation from the post.

"'For instance, if I were interested in everything about the television show Glee, I could go to search.twitter.com and search for #glee. That search would return every post that includes #glee in the tweet. The hashtag helps eliminate superfluous posts, like I get a sense of glee every time I see a baseball score in which the Yankees lose. That tweet has nothing to do about the TV show."

While searching twitter may not be prove that useful chats might. Apparently you can use twitter to chat in real time with like minded people. Here's one that looks interesting, provided my fiction muse ever returns.
#fridayflash is a flash fiction critique group. Write a piece of flash fiction on your blog, then post a link with the #fridayflash hashtag any time Friday.

Or this one:
#writechat, each Sunday from 3-6 pm (ET), with a different topic each week related to general writing.

I'm beginning to think that there maybe be some real uses for twitter after all. I know not everyone fancies themselves a writer. If that's you you might try #yourinterestschat to search twitter. I have a feeling that in the age of narcissism you can find a twitter group for everyone.

The Men Who Stare at Amobeas

Wired just ran an interesting story about Darpa plans to predict the future. I am intrigued. I love it when science and mysticism join forces.


So I know it's not really mysticism, but isn't predicting the future what mystics and Shamans and weathermen have tried to do for centuries?

Either way it is an interesting read.

Right now, preparing for new viral threats means looking to the past, creating hypotheses based on how pathogens have changed before. Now Darpa wants to reverse that strategy: test every possible outcome, to create a prophetic almanac that warns of viral mutations and outbreaks in advance — giving scientists the chance to change the course of the future before illness strikes.

The Pentagon’s far-out research arm has been zeroing in on the danger of mutating pathogens, and the corresponding problem of drug resistance, for years now. The agency is already funding tobacco-based vaccine production, a seven-day plan to thwart biothreats, and prescient viral infection detectors. And they’ve even set their sights on psychic medics, with a 2007 program that sought to turn docs into all-knowing illness predictors.

Now, Darpa wants the powers of premonition to wipe out viral threats altogether. They’re hosting a workshop for a new program, called “Prophecy,” that’ll develop methods to predict the rate, location and likely mutations of viral agents.

Read More

TED Talks

Some of you may have noticed the links to Ted.com I've posted here and on face book a few times. A friend asked my what Ted was. Since I just found out about, I thought I'd been out of the loop or something, and that everyone knew about it.

Ted was a private invitation only conference where the world leaders in many fields were invited to speak to the leaders in other fields. They could give an eighteen minute talk or presentation about their research or their field, or in the case of artists they could perform for eighteen minutes. It was a great idea encouraging experts to be able to network with and cross reference other experts.It's the printing press all over again.

The ability to exchange ideas freely and easily created the renaissance. We could use another renaissance, and Ted seemed to be helping with that. Except it was ivory tower exclusive. Not only did you have to be an intellectual giant to present, you had to be one to be in the audience as well. Ted fixed that.

All of the Ted talks are posted online and available for free to anyone with internet access and the desire. It is maybe one of the most amazing websites I've ever seen. I know everyone is super busy, but what would happen if you took eighteen minutes a week and devoted to learning from the experts? Or that little time the check out a great performance. TED

Zombies Infestation Map.

I know zombie awareness month is over, but this just arrived via my twitter, so I thought I'd share it. It's a little obvious, but fun none the less.
Source: Online Classes