Yeah, any time someone starts going on about how Ebola or ISIS or Those Bad People We Disagree With are making this the Most Terrifying Time Ever, just refer them back to this little ditty about how to prepare yourself for an atomic attack.
Yeah, this is what I grew up with, kids. Except that by the time I was in school, even though we still did duck-and-cover drills, everyone knew that nobody would survive a nuclear war (or that those who survived would "envy the dead," as it was so charmingly put).
Not sure why so many of my generation have lost that perspective, but it sure helps me not worry quite so obsessively about the Menace du Jour.
(h/t +Alex Clark-McGlenn)
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Sometimes I think people miss having something big and concrete to worry about. Like we have a preconceived narrative of good and bad, and having some big menace supports that.
I used to practice at home. I was absolutely convinced that I would only be safe if I could figure out how to cover my neck completely. What can I say? I was a small child afraid of being killed by a bomb. They were stupid drills. The lucky kids got to go into the corridors instead of trying to fit under their desks.
@Ellie – Yeah, given that our classroom had a wall of mostly windows, hiding under the desk was not going to help all that much.
Global warming has civilization-ending potential, but in small steps. Not dramatic enough to capture the popular imagination, alas. And it doesn't funnel money to the military-industrial complex like the nuclear threat did.
+George Wiman I thought about climate change in this context, but it's such a long-term problem ("The Russians may nuke us … in 2090") and there's no real face to put to it (Koch Bros. aside), so it makes for a poor enemy to get wrapped up in.
Of course, those are the ones who end up kicking your butt.
By the time I was in school, the Duck and Cover drill was about surviving an earthquake, not a nuclear attack. Only marginally more useful, I might add.
Well, in California, yeah, the earthquake part of was emphasized, but it I can also recall specific mention of air raid / war considerations in my early youth.
Duck and cover for an earthquake is a pretty decent idea — falling lights and ceiling tiles are a likely injury item. Even with more serious building collapse, being under a desk or table is better than … well, not being under one.
Duck and cover is a very good idea in a nuclear attack. In any explosion, far more of the blast area will be partial destruction than full destruction.
alexfurber