Undead for Fun and Profit: Part II

In Part I,  you were regaled with historical anecdotes that used monstery bits of folklore to fill in the blanks where science had yet to play the field. 
Today, we have our brand of magic - SCIENCE!


SCIENCE!

"That's not magic, stupid!!" is what you're thinking.  Do YOU know how your computer or car works?  Do you understand the mechanical and computational minutia that goes into making these technomantic devices function?  Yeah, it's magic. 

And...Did anyone ever think it odd that one of the undead is teaching children how to count?  

Anyhoo…..

In our uber-technocratic lifestyle, the undead can still be useful.  Zombies are strangely HUGE right now.  A few years ago, you'd only see them at Wal-mart or Starbucks, but now they're EVERYWHERE! 

A few groups have capitalized on this necrosis nuance: some with noble pursuits and some with shallow intentions. 

This ad is from Trueswords.com.  They're an online retail site that sells - yeah, you guessed it! - swords (and such). They've put together a plethora of products marketed towards the zombie apocalypse.   Aside from the selection of kukris, most of these products are just normal hum-drum camping products. With strategic use of their (fictional) legion of the undead, they hope to spur sales. 

I have to give them credit; no one WANTS to buy an emergency camping blanket.  But - hey! - if it's for the zombie apocalypse, it’s cool!  Not that I'm claiming immunity to this pop-culture marketing ploy. Quite the contrary, it makes me want to run out and purchase  a crap-ton of camping gear that I know I'll ever use (except for maybe X-treme Cosplay!).  Luckily, I have a spouse who would repeatedly shank me in the skull if I came home with post-apocalyptic camping gear.  [tangent: new extreme camping – Postapocamping!  Burning Man, here I come!]

Okay, that was the shallow, free-enterprise side of the story. Now, for your consideration, I present Zombie Squad! 

Zombie Squad is a non-profit organization that devotes itself to being prepared for natural disasters.  They're like the Boy Scouts, just without those handkerchief-bola-tie things.  Their line of thinking is, "If you're ready for the zombie apocalypse, you're ready for anything."  

Seriously, the hell is that?

Remember in Part I, when I talked about pre-industrial bumpkins using the supernatural to explain medical/psychological issues their society didn’t know how to dope out??  It's like that, except - now - we're using the undead as an excuse to prepare for "natural disasters," something that our society lacks the attention-span for.    Kudos, ZS.  Kudos. 

The Zombie Squad mentality even infected [huge pun] the CDC last year.  Check it out. Notice the addy: cdc.GOV.  No fringe groups here.

I think the CDC can make the claim of being the only federal government entity-thing that has a sense of humor.  Which brings up my final question…..

…Think it would be in bad taste to have vampires talk about HIV??