Sharing the World with the Undead

http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/gallery-images/2011/04/Jenna_Kirsch__Bel_Air__MD_full.

Trick question: Which one is the zombie?

Keith Moon, The Who drummer who died in 1978, was invited to play at the upcoming London Olympics but, alas, the poor fellow was cremated before he could reanimate.

There are plenty of Elvis impersonators who could do the job — animated, reanimated and/or trapped in the past, I recommend that London look for a version of the King. Or heck, why not look for the King himself?

http://www.etsy.com/listing/76807172/cute-zombie-elvis-pendant-necklace
(This is a fun shop btw!)

“It was a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the
equal treatment of unequals.”

~ Felix Frankfurter

True or not true, I make the observation that we would never consider treating zombies as our equals. We would never read them their Miranda rights.

We’re pretty comfortable with our decisions at the extremes. It’s when we get nearer the mean that this proposition becomes tricky. Just to pick a random example: We let 15 year old girls get pregnant and then many of us attempt to be supportive. We coo over their babies just as we coo over the babies of responsible, married middle school teachers who carefully pick the time when they intend to deliver.

Small wonder these youthful zombie mamas keep having babies. We shower them with help and attention as a reward for their indiscretions. Then when the babies aren’t babies anymore we leave them to shuffle about in search of brains — or at least a few quiet moments to rest.

Our current obsession with fashionistas and reality TV is probably a way to avoid looking at the zombies. When we focus on fashion disasters, we can avoid thinking about anything of genuine importance. This helps explain why millions of Americans are reading about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

At the very least we can be pretty sure they’re not zombies. (Although I sometimes wonder just exactly what they are.)

I don’t know what this blog is about. Perhaps I will simply make an observation a day for awhile.

What defines a zombie? Lack of dreams, lack of motivation, lack of goals. The quest for meat is a mindless one, bereft of joy. If zombies have moments of triumph, well, those moments cannot be sustained.

By that definition, we have a lot of zombies running around. You really have to watch out for the ones in suits.