Oh, the Horrors! - Zombies, Batman, and Social Security

There seems to be an increasing amount of horrors in the news over the past few years. And I'm not talking about Lindsay Lohan or Kim Kardashian. I mean regular people committing heinous crimes on other people that make them seem like monsters from a horror movie. Cannibalism and murder is nothing new. It has been common for thousands of years; since the beginning of mankind, really. But lately, either the crimes have come under closer scrutinization, or they have been evolving into more gruesome attacks. And it seems to be happening more frequently. From mass shootings to zombie-like attacks, there has been an increase in horrific crimes, and it isn't likely to cease anytime soon.


Obviously, as the population of our world grows larger and ever more rapidly, crime will become more frequent with more people. And if the economy continues to decline, it will become even more constant, and even more severe. But the scary thing is, this increase in crime is happening right before our eyes. We all heard about the mass shooting at the Batman premier in a movie theater in Colorado. But the fact that he had enough weapons and ammunition to break into Fort Knox makes it all the more serious. 3,000 rounds of ammo for two pistols, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle, and 350 shells for a shotgun. Oh, and a knife. All of which were bought in the two months prior to the shooting, including the guns themselves. What was he planning to do with all those thousands of rounds? Surely, he didn't need over 6,000 bullets to shoot up a single movie theater, right? And on top of all that, he rigged his apartment with enough explosives to blow it sky high as soon as someone opened his door. Now he's trying to look like he's insane, with his orange hair and blank look in his eyes. Well, even though he may be insane, but he sure knew what he was doing, and it is inexcusable. The man needs to take a ride on Old Sparky.

After that Batman incident, there were a few more slightly similar, but much less severe, incidents. One guy was on his way to kill his boss, who fired him 10 years ago, after watching the Batman movie. And several people screamed out during other Batman showings about shooting up the theater. But there were no more murders, as far as I know. Still, this behavior is ludicrous, and the offenders should be punished with more than a slap on the wrist. And then there's been the multitude of school shootings, which I don't really need to discuss, as these tragedies have been more and more common lately, and there needs to an end put to this insanity.

Speaking of insanity, let's turn our attention over to zombies, which we all know to be a fictional creation. But, is it really? Zombies have actually been a figure in folk lore for a couple hundred years at least, with certain cultures believing the dead can come back to life. There are also cultures that believe a drug can turn a person into a zombie, or that a witch can kill a person and possess their dead body to put them to work. The fictional cannibalistic zombie, on the other hand, comes from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which was inspired by Richard Matheson's I am Legend. This type of creature is what we consider zombies to be nowadays, and is what the Zombie Apocalypse is centered around. But, perhaps it is not so fictional as we think. Look at the recent incident in Florida, where a man was found eating another man for no apparent reason. It was deemed the attacker was under the influence of bath salts when he decided to go chew the other man's face off. And that's not all. The part that got zombie enthusiasts psyched was the fact that police shot him several times, but he did not stop until he was shot in the head. As we all know, head shots are the only way to kill a zombie.

There's another zombie incident that I read about recently. This one was in Shrewsbury, MA. In this story, a man walked into his elderly parent's home to find his mother dead with half an arm missing. Horrified, he continues into the home and finds his father covered in blood, and gnawing on his mother's detached forearm (which also had some fingers missing). The old man claimed the attack was in self defense, and that she was not his mother anymore, whatever that means. The younger man says he recently brought his parents to this country from China because his father was showing signs of dementia.

So now we have zombies caused by bath salts and dementia. Are these just coincidences? Or is it only the beginning? Consider this: Last year, the Center for Disease Control put out a Zombie Apocalypse guide (http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/), because of the "rise of zombies in pop culture", or so they say. But do they know something we don't know? Zombie enthusiasts claim the Zompocalypse will begin with some sort of virus, as in the movie 28 Days Later, or a consumer product like bath salts, rather than the dead rising from the grave. And with more and more diseases on the rise recently, it's a possibility, albeit a rare one.

There's one more thing I wish to speak of, and that is about the Social Security Administration. There has been much talk over the past decade about Social Security being bankrupt and going away, even though we all put a generous portion of our paycheck into that account. Well, they haven't done away with it yet, but perhaps they are preparing for it. Recent reports show that the SSA have purchased 174,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition. (For those of you who don't know, hollow point ammunition is not allowed to be used for international warfare because it causes too much damage to the body). In addition to that, the Department of Homeland Security has requested 450 million bullets, and that HS and SSA have been running exercises together. What do they need so much ammunition for? Are they preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse or something? They claim it's for training and security. But there's some speculation that what they are really preparing for is the meltdown of the economy. In other words, it is believed that they are getting ready for a civil war, which is much more plausible than a mass virus turning people into zombies.

So what exactly is going on in this country? Is there a plague of insanity spreading? Or is it just the Zompocalypse? Or is it that we are approaching the point of a civil war, and we all should be arming ourselves for defense? Or, perhaps this is nothing new to the world, and we are just overreacting to all of excess news coverage. What do you think?