Against Day of the Dead

A City Commissioner in Henderson, Kentucky recently came up with a truly novel reason that her community should not host a Day of the Dead celebration. According to this article from local outlet 14News, City Commissioner Patti Bugg is opposed to the celebration because she is worried that somebody might "summon a loved one from the grave." Could she possibly really be worried about an actual zombie attack?

I mean, I suppose Bugg has every right to be worried about brain-eating monsters clawing their way out of cemeteries and running amok. But seeing as that has nothing to do with Day of the Dead, or for that matter anything that ever happens in real life, I would hope that nobody out there is taking her seriously.

Officials with the planning committee tell us it is a good opportunity for people to learn about Hispanic culture. But, a City Commissioner is speaking out against the event. Judge-Executive Brad Schneider says there has been a big increase in the Latino population in recent years.

City Commissioner Patti Bugg says there are other ways to educate the community. “I’d say 99 percent of the day of the dead is probably innocent. I think that’s fine," says Commissioner Bugg. "I think if you want to honor your loved ones. I think the only challenge is if they actually try to summons somebody else, you know, a loved one from the grave, then I think they’re asking for some serious stuff. As a Christian, I don’t think they can do that.”

Organizer Abraham Brown says the event is less about religion and more about educating the community about Latino culture. “It’s meant to be a celebration to remember our loved ones," explains Brown. "As I was saying before, whenever someone passes away, we wouldn’t hide their pictures. We honor them and we make sure we remember them. It’s just a remembrance celebration.”

So is it too obvious to suggest that this is exactly why people like Bugg need to be educated? As Brown explained, there's nothing about the Day of the Dead celebration that has anything to do with calling up zombies from the grave, or whatever it is she thinks she's talking about. The films of George Romero are fictional, in case Bugg is unclear on that point. Brain-eating fiends will not rise up to attack the living just because her community hosts a celebration where people remember their ancestors and deceased loved ones.

In fact, this idea is so dumb that it's hard to believe that even Bugg could be so stupid as to think that anybody animates zombies for the Day of the Dead. I suspect it's more likely that she just doesn't want a Latino celebration in her community for no good reason, so she concocted this idiotic objection.

I Suppose It Takes All Kinds...

You want to talk about frivolous lawsuits, it sounds like the man you want to talk to is Howard B Wright Jr. of central Pennsylvania. Or maybe he's just the guy to talk to about flat-out crazy lawsuits. Wright alleged in his complaint that the police were using "voodoo and witchcraft" to place him under mind control, and sued for $5 million in damages.

In a shocking twist, the court didn't believe him and the case was thrown out - even though he explained in an entirely reasonable fashion that the same people were looking to reanimate an army of dead police officers as part of an insidious plan for world domination.

Howard B. Wright Jr. claims in his rambling complaint that he was targeted for the paranormal attacks because one of his relatives was convicted for the slaying of a police officer during the 1969 York race riots.

“Wright’s allegations of witchcraft, voodoo and mind control are fantastical and obviously have no basis in fact or law,” Chief Magistrate Judge Susan E. Schwab wrote in urging U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane to give Wright’s suit the heave-ho. Wright, 42, of York, filed his complaint, along with about 100 pages of various photos, letters to state officials and other documents, in February.

As Schwab noted, Wright claimed that once under mind control, he had been forced to impersonate a police officer. There is a Walking Dead angle to the supposed conspiracy as well. “Wright alleges that the ultimate goal of the mind control is to use reanimated police officers to ‘take over the country’,” the magistrate judge wrote.

To be fair, there really are such things as mind control spells - but they really work more like mind-influence spells. Most magical effects are not deterministic enough to be accurately described as "control." The version of mind control that you see in movies or on television is not something magicians go around doing. As far as I know it's not even possible, at least to that extent.

And if somebody has a spell to reanimate dead police officers and turn them into an infernal army of the night I totally want to know how it works. I find it a little suspicious, though, that this allegation is being thrown around at the same time as the new season of Game of Thrones, which features a conveniently similar plotline involving an army of reanimated corpses trying to conquer the world.

Last Year for Zombie Nativity Scene

Here at Augoeides I have been covering the saga of Jasen Dixon's zombie nativity scene since it opened in Sycamore Township outside Cincinnati, Ohio in 2014.

Dixon was ordered to take down the display the first year, but the deadline he was given was the day after Christmas so it stayed up over the holiday. It returned in 2015 and the township again tried to get him to take it down. In 2016, the township finally gave up, but the scene was vandalized. Dixon set up the scene once more for 2017, but he has announced that this will be its last year.

Sycamore Township's Jasen Dixon said he originally wasn't planning to install the display this Christmas season. "But I get hundreds of emails from people, local fans," he told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "It's almost like a cult following."

Dixon installed the display complete with zombie Mary and zombie baby Jesus in early December. He said he'll put it in storage or sell it after it's taken down sometime after Christmas. When it debuted four years ago, the nativity scene made news worldwide and was met with both scorn and celebration.

Sycamore Township in previous years took Dixon to court for alleged zoning violations because of the structure built over the display but eventually dropped the case. Dixon's attorney argued the township was trying to suppress his freedoms. The township didn't issue any fines against Dixon last December and apparently won't go after him this year.

Dixon can count me as one of those fans. I think the whole thing is awesome. But sadly, I never was able to make it out to Ohio over the holidays, and since I won't be able to make the trip this year either I guess that means I'll never get a chance to see it in person.

The scene brought up some important legal issues regarding freedom of religion - in 2015, Dixon carefully studied the local regulations regarding lawn displays and conformed to them. The town came after him anyway, even though I doubt they would have done the same for a traditional Christmas display. They backed off in 2016, but that was after harassing Dixon over his display for two seasons.

Zombies Attack Indiana?

The only rule that a zombie apocalypse seems to follow is the same as that followed by Biblical ones - "no man shall know the day or the hour." According to the most authoritative horror films, a zombie plague can strike just about anywhere without much warning. Yesterday around noon, a radio station in Winchester, Indiana, began broadcasting an emergency alert warning of an impending zombie attack. The sheriff's department investigated, and to everyone's relief the alert turned out to be a hoax, probably perpetrated by hackers.

The broadcasts, which were “replayed frequently” on a Winchester station around noon on Wednesday, warned of the flesh-eating attack as well as a related disease outbreak from dead bodies, authorities in Randolph County announced on Facebook.

“There is no local emergency,” the sheriff’s department assured in a statement. “We have contacted the radio station and notified the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. Again there is no emergency or disease outbreak in Randolph County.”

After hearing the repeating broadcasts on station WZZY 98.3, the county’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management team reached out to the state’s DHS to see if it was a planned training exercise. Once determining that it was not, the station, as well as its sister stations, were taken off the air until they could regain full control, the sheriff’s department said in an earlier release.

Not everyone was buying it, however. “Stay vigilant, folks, odds are the zombies would go straight for the sheriff’s department Facebook account first,” one Facebook user cautioned in the post’s comment section.

See, I don't know if I agree. Zombies are not particularly intelligent, and the idea that they would understand social media is probably pretty farfetched. It's hard to imagine any of the slow, shambling creatures from Night of the Living Dead gleefully checking it's Facebook and Twitter, if you know what I mean. That's probably a good thing, since it gives humans a chance to organize in the wake of an attack - at least until the power goes out.

So there probably are no real zombies in Indiana, but if you happen to live in the Winchester area you may want to keep an eye out just in case.

Modeling the Zombie Apocalypse

A group of undergraduate students at the University of Leicester recent put together an analysis of how quickly a zombie apocalypse would overtake the planet. Using calculations based on zombie films and television series, they found that it would only take about a hundred days to reduce the current population of the world down to a mere few hundred.

In the new analysis, the University of Leicester undergraduates assumed that each zombie would have 90 percent success at finding and infecting one human a day, a rate that would make the zombie virus twice as contagious as the Black Death, the plague that devastated Europe in the 1300s. The researchers further estimated that each zombie could live 20 days without braaaaaains.

Assuming a starting population of 7.5 billion people, approximately the world's population today, the students calculated that it would take 20 days for a single zombie to start an epidemic of noticeable proportions. At that point, the pandemic has begun. Assuming no geographic isolation, in fact, the human population would drop to 181 by day 100, with 190 million zombies roaming around.

With some geographical isolation, the situation would be a tiny bit better for humans. Assuming the zombie virus had to spread through contiguous regions and that zombies were somewhat limited in their ability to travel (not leaving their current region until there were 100,000 zombies roaming there), human survivors would number 273 by day 100.

A more realistic model might assume that each zombie could find fewer human victims over time, the students wrote, because there would simply be fewer humans to find. "We have also not included the possibility for the humans to kill the zombies," they wrote.

There are actually a couple of reasons this model is not that realistic besides those mentioned, and of course besides the fact that the kind of zombies being discussed here were only invented by George Romero in the late 1960's. If you cut the likelihood of infection in half to match the black death, my guess is that humans still get mostly wiped out, just in a longer time frame. As we know, that didn't happen. The black death killed about a third of Europe's population, which is a lot of people, but nowhere near enough to practically wipe out humanity.

Zombie Nativity Scene Vandalized

For the last two years, I have been covering Jason Dixon's zombie nativity display. The Ohio man operates a popular haunted house attraction, and two years ago he decided to set up a nativity scene in his front yard using props from his haunted house. That is, zombies.

Predictably, his neighbors complained. Sycamore Township, where Dixon lives, worked to shut it down, but the sheer weirdness of the case generated a lot of publicity for his haunted house. So Dixon set it up again last year, and was met with similar complaints. This year, though, it sounds like Dixon's neighbors may have had enough, because the scene was vandalized Monday night.

Dixon’s display replaces religious figures with zombies, and the set’s “baby Jesus” figure has fangs and blood spilling from its mouth.

“We are not atheist,” Dixon says on a Facebook page about the display, which he claims is an artistic rather than a religious statement.

Dixon said he awoke Tuesday morning to find vandals had damaged the display.

The vandals had broken off the head from the “Mary” figure and kicked over other portions of the display and scattered items across Dixon’s lawn.

Now I know what you're about to say - knocking the head off is exactly what you're supposed to do with zombies. You know, before they eat your brains. And I suppose that's true. However, it does highlight that there are a lot of jerks out there who apparently feel the need to mess with anything strange or unusual. To be fair to Dixon's neighbors, it also is true that visitors might have been responsible, since the scene does draw a lot of attention in the news.

Personally, I think the whole idea of a zombie nativity scene is hilarious, and I hope Dixon persists in his efforts to keep the zombies in Christmas. It is, after all, a noble calling.

Zombie Hunter Arrested

The crime scene in North Saint Paul looked absolutely nothing like this

Here's a story that hits disturbingly close to home. Huffington Post reports that a man was arrested just across town in North Saint Paul after firing an AR-15 rifle into a home. The man told police that he was hunting zombies, which I guess are supposed to be on the prowl in an otherwise ordinary Twin Cities suburb. The bullet broke a window, but fortunately did not injure anyone inside the home.

Amid a growing wave of creepy clown sightings, arrests and anti-clown violence, Ryan Stanislaw is taking us back to a simpler, more innocent time. You know, when a zombie apocalypse was the cool thing to have nightmares about.

Stanislaw was arrested Saturday after allegedly firing into a home while “hunting zombies” at around 5 a.m. in North St. Paul, Minnesota, Fox 9 News reports. Police say a bullet from an AR-15 rifle shattered the window of Ken Quaale, who was asleep at the time.

Luckily, the bullet narrowly missed Quaale’s head, ricocheting off the walls of his bedroom, he said.

Stanislaw, 24, allegedly told police he was simply out “making sure my neighborhood is safe” and that he was aiming at “a zombie.” He was also carrying bullets marketed as anti-zombie ammunition.

Wow. Just wow. The article goes on to state that Stanislaw has no history of mental illness, which I highly doubt. There's also no mention in the article of whether or not alcohol was involved, but I suspect that it probably was. Either that, or the undead really have started hunting the living in North Saint Paul, pretty much the last place you would expect to find them.

But then, maybe that's been their plan all along.

Zombie Nativity Scene Returns

Last year's zombie nativity scene generated so much publicity and online traffic for Ohio haunted house operator Jay Dixon that he decided to set it up again this year for the holiday season. And, just like last year, officials in Sycamore Township are determined to shut it down.

Dixon reviewed the local ordinances and concluded that he could legally set up the display without a permit as long as it took up less than 200 square feet - according to him it takes up about 65. He applied for a permit anyway, just to be sure, which town officials promptly denied. Dixon is being threatened with a fine of $500 for every day the display remains up.

According to Sycamore Township officials, Dixon needed a permit for the macabre display this year. But when he applied he was turned down, and now he faces a fine of $500 per day for every day he leaves it up. Having gone through the same situation last year before dismantling it, Dixon began soliciting donations earlier this year to cover the expected financial sanctions.

Friday night on his Facebook page, Dixon wrote: “We were going to take it down, decided to leave it up, all the lights are re-hooked and open for business just no roof. Let’s see what happens.” According to Dixon, his request for a permit was denied because local authorities said his display violated the town’s zoning code by taking up more than 35 percent of his front yard.

“I got all the paperwork and how it was wrote out, and it says as long as it’s not over 200-square-foot that I can have it without a permit, and it’s about 65 square foot,” he explained, adding that he thinks the council hates the zombie theme. “I think it’s the theme,” he explained. “It just rubs people the wrong way. That’s why they’re coming down so hard on me.”

Of course it's the theme. I'm willing to bet that if somebody set up a traditional nativity scene that took up their entire yard and was bigger than 200 square feet, town officials wouldn't care one bit. I realize that traditionalists consider the concept tasteless, but I think it's funny. And I don't see why the law is being applied against Dixon in a discriminatory manner.

It's not clear from the article whether the "less than 20%" requirement is a regulation that Dixon missed in his research or if town officials are basically making it up to get rid of the display. From the photo, it looks like un the former case he might be able to shorten the fence in front, move "Mary" and "Joseph" closer together and squeeze the two "wise men" under either side of the roof, which would take up substantially less space and look about as effective.

I don't have the time to drive out to Ohio to see it, since the drive is something like fourteen hours from Minnesota. But if it were here in my home state, I would definitely want to make sure I checked it out before it was taken down.

Zombie Nativity Scene Must Come Down

When Jay Dixon, the manager of a popular Ohio haunted house attraction, wanted a nativity scene for his front yard, he used what he had available - lots of Halloween decorations. The result was what Dixon called the world's first zombie nativity scene. Zombie enthusiasts loved it, but his neighbors and local officials were not amused. Dixon was recently ordered to dismantle the scene, with officials citing a rarely-enforced statute.

“The neighbors don’t like it. My father hates it and anything bad that happens he blames it on that,” Dixon pointed out. “On the average we probably get 30 or 40 cars stop and taking pictures, getting out with their camera. People that follow zombie movies and stuff like that love it,”

But just days after WXIX spoke to Dixon, Sycamore Township township ordered him to take it down or face legal action. Town officials claimed that Dixon was breaking the rules with a structure on the front side of his yard, and a display that took up more than 35 percent of the area. But Dixon said that he wasn’t buying the explanation.

“I’ve lived here for 15 years and I’ve never had a violation of any kind,” he insisted. “It’s a holiday decoration. I know if it was a real pretty nativity scene they wouldn’t be saying anything.”

The good news is that Dixon has until the 26th to take down the scene, so it will remain up through the Christmas holiday. The story has also likely generated a lot of notoriety for his haunted house. But it just goes to show that when it comes to Christmas, anything alternative tends to be targeted by the political establishment using whatever means they have at their disposal. I'm sure Dixon's town has others who put up huge displays, but it seems that as long as the displays are Christian they get a pass.

Night of the Living Dead Santa

While I'm generally a fan of low-budget horror films, I never have really gotten into the whole zombie thing. George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was an inventive piece of work that broke new ground and pretty much created the modern zombie myth, but much of what followed was simply derivative. It's rather telling that 28 Days Later was hailed as a brilliant innovation in zombie storytelling because it had zombies that moved fast instead of slow.

Now I'm not pointing that out to slam the latter film, which as I see it did its best to change up the old trope. There's just not a lot you can do with zombies - they're mindless, bloodthirsty, contagious monsters. In fact, that's kind of the whole point of Romero's original vision. But I guess I'm one of those viewers who likes my horror villains to have some personality. After all, if they do, they usually get all the best lines.

At any rate, here's one more reason that the zombie thing is a bad idea, and for me it's close to home. Over the weekend, a drunken zombie Santa showed up at a home in Saint Paul, frightening two teenagers before vomiting and passing out.

A 14-year-old boy was doing the dishes when the door opened. He turned to find a man "dressed like Santa," but with "a zombie head. The boy immediately ran out of the house to tell neighbors and call police, while his 16-year-old sister locked herself in the bathroom and phoned her parents, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported. When cops arrived, they found the jolly, undead old elf sleeping in his own vomit and booked him for trespassing.

Saint Paul is just across the river from where I live in Minneapolis, so obviously a Twin Cities zombie outbreak would be of great concern to me. The wayward zombie Santa didn't actually eat anyone in the house, though there's no report on whether or not the vomit contained fresh brain matter, and so far there's fortunately no sign of further contagion.

But is this where zombie hysteria leads? Do we really want a world in which the only presents Santa brings our children are fear and puke? I hereby call on the perpetrators of all this zombie nonsense to cut it the hell out before somebody gets infected and develops a taste for fresh brains.

Ebola Zombies

Could the zombie apocalypse be underway in Africa? According to this story from Liberia, two victims of the ongoing Ebola outbreak died and then came back to life. There's nothing in the article about rotting flesh, infectious bites, or a mindless, all-consuming hunger for fresh brains, but the tale is creepy nonetheless.

Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county.

The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba. But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief.

The New Dawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

The reality here is that Ebola is not always fatal, and people do sometimes recover after being near death for some time. Odds are that the two women's vital signs had declined to the point where they appeared to be dead before finally overcoming the disease and reviving.

Still, even without the zombie angle it's plenty creepy to consider that these two victims were almost buried alive. Clearly the doctors who declared these two dead need to do a better job of assessing their patients.

Truck Thief Pursued by Zombies

The walking dead are on the loose in Temecula, California. At least, that's the claim made by Jerimiah Hartline, who stole a truck in an attempt to flee from the undead monstrosities. Hartline led police on a wild chase during which he crashed the truck several times and injured seven people as he tried to escape both the law and the shambling zombie menace.

The California Highway Patrol says Hartline stowed away in the truck in Tennessee and stole it when the driver got out at roadside scales near Temecula, Calif.

The CHP says after Hartline caused several crashes, the big-rig overturned on Interstate 15 and spilled its load of strawberries. Seven people were injured.

CHP investigators say Hartline told them he had to speed and swerve because he was fleeing from the walking dead.

There you have it, folks - clear evidence of the coming zombie apocalypse. The creatures who pursued Hartline were not stopped by police, nor were they witnessed by anyone else on the scene. Clearly these monsters have developed the power of invisibility that only Hartline can see through, which means that they could be seeking fresh brains just about anywhere and in the process spreading their foul plague far and wide. Today Temecula, tomorrow the world - and in the ensuing chaos there won't be nearly enough trucks out there for everyone seeking refuge to steal.

The Singing Zombie

There's a famous story from Haiti in which a man believed to be dead returned to his family, claiming that he had been turned into a zombie and forced to work on a plantation for years. Family members were at first skeptical, but eventually came to accept that the man was who he said he was. He seemed to have some sort of cognitive impairment, but given his ordeal that wasn't seen as surprising. As it turned out, though, evidence finally came to light showing that the man was not who he claimed to be, but rather a different individual who had assumed the identity of the deceased. This discovery cast doubt on the man's entire story, which included a number of outlandish elements that conformed to zombie folklore but were supported by no hard evidence.

One would think that this sort of confidence game would not work if the person being impersonated was a famous celebrity, but as it turns out someone is trying to do just that in South Africa. A man turned up last week claiming to be well-known folk singer Khulekani "Mgqumeni" Khumalo, who died in 2009. At a public appearance, he recounted a bizarre tale reminiscent of the one told in Haiti years earlier.

"I am Mgqumeni. And I know that some of you might not believe, but yes, it's true – it is me," the man told his audience. He said he had been a victim of witchcraft and that the zombies had forced him to sing and eat mud during his ordeal. He claimed to have woken up in a field in Johannesburg last week before finally making his way back home.

"I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies. It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters," he said. Police reportedly resorted to using water cannon in an attempt to contain the crowds vying to catch a glimpse of the man.

So could it be true? Could South Africa be the home of mud-eating zombies dredged forth from the grave? As it turns out, South Africa is a much more modern nation than Haiti was back when the original story was being spun, and evidence of the man's duplicity was much more forthcoming.

But a police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said fingerprint samples had proven the man's claims to be false. The suspect was due to appear before Nquthu magistrates' court yesterday.

So there you have it. No South African mud-eating zombies in sight. On the other hand, given Mgqumeni's fame it's pretty amazing that anyone would have the nerve to try and pull something like this off. Not only that, but as you can see in the photographs above the man bears only a passing resemblance to the deceased singer. The real Mgqumeni is shown on the left, while the imposter is shown on the right.

Zombie George Washington?

Here's a bizarre story from the early days of modern science. George Washington is best remembered as the hero of the American Revolutionary War who became the first President of the United States. But according to a new book by Holly Tucker called Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution he nearly became our nation's first zombie following his death in 1799 at the age of 67.

But Washington's body was not buried immediately after his death. The president may not have feared death, but he did fear being buried alive. Before he died, he commanded his secretary, Tobias Lear, to make sure that he would not be entombed less than three days after he died. In accordance with Washington's wishes, his body was put on ice until it could be moved to the family vault.

That's where the story gets a little strange. The morning after Washington died, his step-granddaughter Elizabeth Law arrived with a family friend, William Thornton. History best remembers Thornton as the architect who created the original design for the Capitol building, but he was also a trained physician, having studied at the University of Edinburgh. Although he did not practice medicine for much of his life, Thornton always had a keen interest in the workings of the human body, and he suggested a novel method for resurrecting the fallen warrior. Thornton told Washington's wife Martha that he wanted to thaw Washington's body by the fire and have it rubbed vigorously with blankets. Then he planned to perform a tracheotomy so he could insert a bellows into Washington's throat and pump his lungs full of air, and finally to give Washington an infusion of lamb's blood. Friends and family declined Thornton's mad scientist offer, not because they thought his solution impossible, but because they felt the nation's first president should rest in peace.

"A little strange" seems a mild description under the circumstances. If these were really the sorts of ideas floating around the medical community at the time, it would seem that the novel Frankenstein, published in 1818, was more firmly rooted in the scientific ideas of the day than is often recognized. It certainly is true that Luigi Galvani's discoveries in the 1780's and 1790's regarding the effects of electricity on dissected animals suggested to the popular imagination that resurrection of the dead might not be a far-off scientific achievement.

But the real question horror fans want answered is a simple one - if Washington had been successfully reanimated, would he have developed a taste for human brains?

Zombie Apocalypse - The Graphic Novel

The Centers for Disease Control have managed to create a viral Internet sensation with their "zombie apocalypse" campaign. It turns out that reading about how to prepare for regular disasters is boring, but if you throw zombies into the mix all of a sudden people start finding the same material incredibly interesting. I guess werewolves were the new vampires and now zombies are the new werewolves. Or something like that. The CDC is continuing this highly successful campaign in a graphic novel that is now available on their website.

The comic book went live on the CDC's website on Friday, with no fanfare. It has already been a hit at New York's ComicCon, a gathering of fans and creators of comic books, graphic novels, games, and other media. There, Ali Khan, director of the CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, passed out copies and spoke on a panel titled "Zombie Summit: How to Survive the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse."

"They went like hot cakes," David Daigle of the preparedness office says.

The comic begins with a couple, Todd and Julie, watching a news story about a strange virus that causes slow movement, slurred speech and violent tendencies. The newscaster says the CDC recommends the public avoid those with symptoms, gather emergency supplies and make an evacuation plan.

Todd checks the CDC's website where he finds information about the new zombie virus and a list of items he'll need for an emergency-preparedness kit. Just then, an infected zombie neighbor shows up at the door and tries to attack him.

The scene shifts to the CDC, where scientists are working around the clock to create a vaccine. In a cameo appearance, the CDC's Khan barks, "No, tell CNN I'll call them back later…" into a phone as a Dr. Greene calls the Strategic National Stockpile to prepare to release its supplies of medicine.

You can find the graphic novel here. I figure it's all a good thing, since disaster preparedness is useful whether or not zombies ever show up at your door and the information presented by the CDC is stuff that everyone should be familiar with. Let's just hope it's not being disseminated in advance of a real zombie invasion of which the rest of us are as yet unaware.

Bristol Issues Zombie Attack Guide

Apparently all of England is not as unprepared for a zombie invasion as Leicester, which was confronted with an outbreak of the undead only a week after admitting there was no plan in place for handling one. The city council of Bristol has released a guide that includes the explanation of a coded zombie alert system and instructions for residents on how the walking dead can be safely killed. Bristol is thus leading the way for the entire United Kingdom on this issue.

The document shows the best way to kill those bothersome reanimated corpses. It outlines a four-stage alert system following an invasion and says codewords will be used to provide secret instructions to the public.

The brief also includes details of how people can equip themselves with weapons, such as stun guns and protective suits.

Bristol city council has set out the advice in response to a Freedom of Information request.

In its ‘Contingency Plan For Handling Zombie Outbreaks in Bristol’, it says the moment to get really worried is when infections hit 30 per cent – or ‘zombie pandemic level’.

This is when you’ll need to kill a zombie correctly, and the public is reminded to fully disconnect the brain-stem from the body through blunt force or full head removal.

But it might be best just to head for a council building, where somebody might know what to do.

Some of this information is actually useful, even to a fan of horror films like myself. For example, I had no idea that zombies would be susceptible to stun guns. I guess there must still be some sort of electromagnetism still running through their nervous systems that can be disrupted as opposed to phlogiston or industrial radiation or spirits or any of the other possible explantions offered by popular media. I will say that even if I had one, though, I'd be worried about getting close enough to use it for fear of infection.

As I've mentioned previously, the risk of mass zombification is low, but nonetheless it's good to have a plan. You know, just in case.

Zombies Strike Unprepared Leicester

This is exactly what I warned them about. Last week the English city of Leicester admitted in response to a Freedom of Information request that it had no plan in place for dealing with a zombie outbreak. As if to mock the town's lack of preparation, over the weekend a horde of the undead abominations converged upon the city's civic offices.

Robert Ainsley, the self-described 'concerned citizen' who submitted the aforementioned letter to Leicester council, had stated simply: 'Having watched several films it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for.

'Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion?'

Representatives for the authority replied to him with an admission that they have no specific references to the living dead in their emergency plans, though they noted that the inquiry had made them chuckle.

As news of the correspondence spread across Facebook and the social networking sphere in general, James Dixon took it upon himself to organise Saturday's 'invasion'.

It saw 'a small gathering for friends' expand as dozens of 'zombies' gathered at Leicester's clock tower and shuffled half a mile from there to the civic offices.

The undead then pressed themselves up against the HQ as passer-by Chris Porter filmed the event before uploading the results to YouTube.

Fortunately this was only a prank and the zombification in question was neither contagious nor permanent. But it serves as a warning to all who dare to dismiss the zombie threat portrayed in popular films as mere fiction.

Jason Miller posted recently asking whether or not his next book should be on "zombie sorcery," citing the recent popularity of the walking dead. Personally, while I appreciate the groundbreaking horror films of George Romero, the director and screenwriter most responsible for the modern zombie mythos, I have to admit that for the most part I don't really get the appeal. Maybe zombies really are the new werewolves - I never understood the appeal of those either.

England Unprepared For Zombie Apocalypse

When the United States Centers for Disease Control published their plan for handling a zombie apocalypse, others around the world started to think. Were their nations as prepared as the United States? This is an important, even critical question. If we are to assume that a zombie outbreak would be a worldwide phenomenon, it should go without saying that the first people to get their brains eaten will be the low-hanging fruit - that is, citizens of countries that dismiss or even mock the possible dangers right up to the end. If this report from the English city of Leicester is typical for the rest of the nation one of those countries could be the United Kingdom.

The correspondence from a worried member of the public basically outlined how lacking the city's provisions are for dealing with a zombie attack: 'Having watched several films, it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for.'

Signed 'Concerned Citizen', the letter continued: 'Please provide any information you may have.'

'We've had a few wacky ones before but this one did make us laugh,' Lynn Wyeth, head of information governance, told the BBC of the letter.

'To you it might seem frivolous and a waste of time... but to different people it actually means something,' she added of the information request.

'Everybody has their own interests and their own reasons for asking these questions.'

Although she granted she's unaware of specific references to zombie invasions in the council's existing emergency plans, Ms Wyeth said some elements of them could be applied if a 28 Days Later-type situation were indeed to arise.

To put it bluntly, in the face of a real zombie apocalypse it would rapidly become clear that people like Ms. Wyeth are contributing to the problem. While mass zombification is statistically unlikely, the consequences of it occurring are so extremely dire that preparations should be made. The English may feel that their island nation is protected on the grounds that since zombies don't breathe they also don't float and can't swim, but this ignores the possibility that the agent responsible for the conversion could become airborne and thus easily sweep across the Channel.

Here's calling on the British government to assemble a plan for dealing with a zombie apocalypse as the Centers for Disease Control have already done here in the States. The lives they save could very well be their own.

CDC Issues Zombie Apocalypse Guide

Do the Centers for Disease Control know something the rest of us don't? With only two days to go before Harold Camping's Rapture, the CDC has posted a guide to surviving a zombie apocalypse. Perhaps there's a clue in the Book of Revelation, in which we are told that when Jesus returns the dead will rise from their graves. Now I realize no theologian has ever predicted that the dead who rise will do so as brain-gobbling rotting monsters, but then the CDC has a pretty substantial research budget that most churches lack.

'There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for,' reads the post. 'Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That's right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e.

'You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.'

An 'emergency kit' is the one thing everyone should have in their house, apparently, 'including things like water, food and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or, in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored)'.

The kit should also be stocked with medications, duct tape, a battery-powered radio, clothes, copies of important documents and first-aid supplies, take note.

Note also that there's no mention of stockpiling gold or survival seeds. And the absence of shotguns, perfect for making the head shots that in the movies are the only way zombies can be killed, is a telling omission. Maybe when the undead are raised by Jesus head shots can't stop them either.