Sharing the World with the Undead

Why do they take the head off the turkey? Where do the heads go? I want to find the secret head repository. 

The Cremation Amendment will be a good start, but we still need to prepare. Preparedness — because those zombies aren’t going to kill themselves. We need at least one more amendment.

It occurs to me that allowing Congress to approve the Secretary of Zombie Affairs, as is commonly the case with presidential appointments, creates a possible problem that needs to be formally addressed. Just as we once created an amendment to allow the President to move the site of the U.S. government in an emergency, I believe we will need an amendment allowing for immediate appointment of a Secretary of Zombie Affairs. In fact, that whole congressional approval requirement may need to be amended to allow for emergency appointments during apocalyptic times. If zombies eat the Secretary of State, we can’t sit around waiting for enough members of Congress to battle their way through the streets to begin arguing about the next appointment.

The Emergency Presidential Appointment Amendment obviously ought to be approved as quickly as possible. We can’t wait around like we have with the electoral college for the next Al Gore. There should always be a few working brains in the U.S. government.

A harmless museum in Europe somewhere? Or a repository for the undead? At what point do the dead cease to be dead? I don’t know and neither do you.

We need an amendment requiring cremation of all the dead. Just to kill (and cremate) two birds with one stone, we might link this to an amendment eliminating the electoral college, requiring that the U.S. Presidential candidate with the most votes be the automatic winner. The President will naturally nominate the Secretary of Zombie Affairs.

The preceding translation ought to give us pause. If rendered correctly, we again must face the possibility that our zombie model has been overly simplified. This zombie is planning. This zombie shows problem-solving skills, like the raptors turning doorknobs in Jurassic Park.

On the other hand, the zombie’s comments also suggest a solution to a problem that no doubt many of us have been curious about. After we lock Uncle Sid or Cousin Thug Wannabe in the shed, how do we feed them? Clearly we don’t want to unchain the shed door.

Mice and rats seem the obvious solution to our problems. Reptile owners across the United States have been feeding mice to their pets forever. All you need to do is drill a little hole in the shed wall.

Now mice? Just like soft-shell crabs. They are hard to catch, though. I have been thinking of breeding them.

Nahhwmm eyzz? chuhzz lahhy zuhvv zjuhll guhrrvvs. Zayrr ahhrddd gahdgezohh. Ahhvv=uhhn zihnghhihnuvv vreedihnzzuhhm.

Cats are like sunflower seeds. It’s mostly not worth the work to get to the food.

Gahhrrhhllll zzuhhnnvurr zeezz.Ihzz ohzzlee nuhh uhrrduhh ihhrk duhh guhh duhh vooodh.

Or could this actually be a distant galaxy taken by the Hubble Telescope? A crystal resting on black velvet in Austria? That’s one problem with science as we know it nowadays. When astronomers first discovered that the sun was in the center of the solar system, they were able to present their proofs and fellow scientists were in position to check those findings.

But when we see a picture taken with an electron microscope, we end up taking a lot on faith. Suppose the above paragraph had allegedly been written by James Smith, M.D. How would you know if James Smith existed? I’m sure he does. It would be nightmarish tracking this fellow through cyberspace, I imagine. How do we identify reliable sources of information?

Like the problem of the water fountains (if you go way back in the blog, the technomagic of the times was attacked previously — I may address important topics more than once) this question of reliable information needs to come more front and center in our consciousness. We rely on the internet and televised news, in particular, without always vetting the information coming our way. I’ve strayed into the serious here, which I mostly avoid. But as I listen to the information on Benghazi, I naturally stray to the issue of zombies. If the zombies started to take over downtown Portland, and the government dropped the ball (or simply got blindsided), would you be able to rely on subsequent reports about Portland? What do YOU think?

Do you know how to light a lantern? How to keep one lit? Do you even have a lantern?

A musing inspired by the recent extreme weather on the East Coast: Earlier I made fun of those people who were angry because the ground would not spout gas after the power went out. This has led to some reflection on my part, though. We live in a time of magic. We have grown up in a time of magic, so much so that many of us take our environments for granted. We push a button. Water spouts into a fountain. We push another button. Invisible waves heat our leftovers. We enter a dark room. We flick the switch. We then start moving a little plastic curvy thing around to get to this mysterious thing called Itunes.

Here’s the question for readers: The power goes out. Really out. The zombies have made repairs impossible. What do you do then? Having a generator is obviously a good plan but that generator is only buying time for awhile, keeping the magic alive through another piece of magic called a generator.

How many of the daily devices that populate your life do you actually understand? Obviously it’s not practicable to try to learn how to construct all of the electric/electronic genies that grant our daily wishes, but I would suggest that a little time in the library or bookstore might be a good idea. Too much magic is not necessarily healthy — and it’s all magic until you understand the mechanisms under the surface.

Why are there so many words on this word search?

Wayyyrrzzurrr zzohmnee wuhrrzznn zihhwurr zzurrnghzh?