The Secret Life of Zombies

Zombies are largely misunderstood. Based on your popular culture from the early 1900s and so on you would think we are nothing but flesh starved cannibalistic maniacs. This is not the case. I, for instance, have been residing in Appalachia for the past ten years. living in a radio free zone with people who are more worried about Electromagnetic pollution than having their faces eaten off by some crazed "zombie". And when I eat someone, it's usually the old or sick (and the occasional lost hiker) and since no one has computers or cell phones I just forge a note saying that old grandma went to die in the woods. They morn and accept it, moving on. I have a test for flesh, but I assert that it's no different than your taste for cow (but I digress and my point is not to freak you out but simply express my point of view).

You see, I am a peace-loving, flesh-eating zombie and I feel that in America I have a right to be heard. I read your message boards on Fox News and MSNBC, some of you deserve to get eaten with your spiteful comments, but as irascible as I am I could not live without defending us, Zombies. We do communicate with each other, there are several Zombie support groups, all online, however. We are alone and often sad. We even watch your zombie movies, while I am ingratiated for the toughness with which I am portrayed I am ultimately saddened by the savage you must think me to be. In your movies I cannot talk and yet you see here I can communicate quite well (Although I am using my creation to translate my speak to your speak as my words are quite unintelligible to homosapiens, of which I no longer consider myself a part). 

I suppose at this point I should introduce myself, my name is Dr. Morto and I was a biologist who studied micro-bacteria which could control dead ants in the rainforests of South America. It is not so odd that this work infected me or several of my compatriots, but it is odd how we have each reacted to this, should I say, gift. Some of my compatriots would like to attack, creating the very post apocalyptic world with your movies so portray. Much like your own preppers, they have been amassing a growing number of, how do we put this gently?, converts?. Forgive me if that is not the right word, in any case, I do not want a war and my food is quite abundant in this part of America, so I feel no need to fight. 

Anyways, It is getting late and my limp and discolored loose-fleshed face is best disguised at night, so I must tend to my sheep and possibly find a stray person wondering around the trail, but I hope to discuss my secret life with you more, in an effort to explain the truly misunderstood and secret life of Zombies, or as I like to simply say Bacterially Enhanced Humanoids, in order to prevent impending doom to us all.

Sincerely

DM. 

Freedoms and Opinions

Maybe it’s us. We refuse to make the hard choices. We too often exchange clever rhetoric for critical thinking. We often adapt a political party mantra without internal debate. At some point we, as people of the US, have to take responsibility.

We are lazy with our politics. We are lazy in general. At some point we have to recognize that black and white solutions do not always exist. At some point we have to sit down and have a real conversation about where we are going and why we are going there. We have to be willing to admit when we write opinion as law, and sacrifice freedoms in exchange for comfort. And then not.

We have shifted our political focus to social grievances that are a matter of personal or religious opinion, while ignoring simple freedoms of which we all have a stake. We would rather argue about the laws of who can marry who, over when it is okay for a domestic partnership and when it is not, over the constitutional amendments denying equal rights to all people with whom we may or may not agree; than to agree that every person regardless or religion, color, or creed has certain freedoms that no majority can take away. We seem to forget that while we may not agree with what someone says or the style in which one lives our country was founded on their right to say such things and live in such ways, especially when they are no harm to us, or our community. In essence, we have shifted our focus to talking about small government while suggesting laws that create the opposite.

We have allowed ourselves to be held hostage to political parties. Forcing us to choose wholly what side to be on. We have chosen to ignore facts and in exchange only accept those opinions to which we already hold. We accuse anyone who has the gull to disagree of using lies to prod our impenetrable walls of shaky truth. We hold so tightly in our arrogance and ego of being correct that we are unwilling to recognize viable solutions that meet in the middle.

We have allowed ourselves to be blinded into a quick fix mentality when success takes time, dedication, and hard work. Our need for instant gratification at the expense of time has caused us to backtrack on progress and ignore our future. We refuse to recognize that if we can only see one side of an issue than we are ignoring the flaws in our own argument. If we think that we are always right than our own arrogance sets its self as a trap upon which we will be ensnared.

We have become cynical. And as such we have surrendered our choices, thinking that we can make no difference. If congress is at a 9% approval rating it is because we have ignored our responsibility to keep congress honest. In a country so large it is hard to remember that it is one vote multiplied thousands of times by our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, and our family which makes millions.

We were founded on being a country of multiple groups of people who were willing to work for freedom. And indeed, freedom takes work. We have a flawed system consisting of flawed people voted upon by flawed people. Freedom does not occur overnight and neither does failure.

I truly believe that in politics, as in life, moderation and balance is a necessity and the definition of reason. By attaching ourselves to one specific political party we only trap ourselves to accepting one way of thinking and therefore blind ourselves to alternative solutions. I implore you to vote for you, vote for your family, vote for your neighbors, vote for your co-workers, vote for your state, and vote for your country. Do not solely vote for your party.