Uncivil Defense

Just watched the end of the 2010 version of “The Crazies”—one of the latest entries in the “fast zombie”-style movies of recent years—and aside from the typical huge number of plot holes in any zombie movie it ends as many zombie movies do with a nuclear explosion to wipe out the infection. The two main characters are speeding away from the afflicted area in a big rig, listening to the last thirty seconds of a countdown (presumably they’ve seen zombie movies), asking each other repeatedly “Do you see anything?”

Now, apart from the fact that a truck speeding away from—well, anything—isn’t going to cover even a mile unless they’re going 120 miles an hour, so perhaps it might be a good idea to get the rig pulled over and hunker down rather than be hit by the shockwave while you’re moving at full speed, anyone should know that you don’t look at the nuclear explosion.

A couple of generations of children had that drummed into them. I took an afterschool class taught by the former head of local Civil Defense when I was in third grade. “Duck and cover” may be a joke but you don’t look at the sun unprotected and you don’t look at the nuclear explosion.