The day of the living dead

People love a good apocalypse, especially when it involves zombies
GAIL COLLINS

It appears that a lot of people believe the world will come to an end next Friday, possibly during a zombie apocalypse.

Now that I have your attention, let's proceed with a discussion of how various accounting principles are influencing Congressional negotiations over the "fiscal cliff."

Just kidding! We are going to talk about the end of the world and the zombie apocalypse. Honestly, this is a big deal. The web, which always knows what is really important, is full of it. Panic buying has popped up in Russia. At an anti-terrorism summit meeting in San Diego this year, law enforcement officials got to see a demonstration on what to do in the event that Southern California is taken over by zombies.

Also, there have been quite a few recent developments that might well be interpreted as a sign of the end of days: The 5,125-year-long Mayan calendar stops on December 21; scientists report the discovery of an elephant that speaks Korean; and Rick Perry says he might be considering another run for president.

All right, the elephant has a very limited vocabulary. But ever since the world failed to come to an end in 2000, apocalypse aficionados have been looking at December 2012 because of the Mayan calendar thing. I believe the zombies were added on simply because, right now, zombies are really popular. There's a high-rated zombie TV series, The Walking Dead, a whole bunch of best-selling zombie graphic novels, and an upcoming Brad Pitt movie, World War Z. The movie isn't being released until June, which suggests that Brad Pitt doesn't have much faith in the Mayans.

What is it about zombies that everybody likes so much? As villains, they aren't particularly well-rounded. They don't plan, so the plot options are pretty limited. You can't develop a forbidden relationship with one. You don't see a handsome male zombie fall in love with a teenage human and then announce that sex is out of the question because of the threat of neck-biting and, therefore, all he wants to do is cuddle and talk about feelings.

... contd.

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