Are Zombies real?

[HamdenRice]

Poll question: Are Zombies real?

Just curious about your views.

[saltpoint]

1. I'm thinkin' no.

[varkam]

2. I hope so.

I mean, I hope that they are the old school, shambling, noisy Romero zombies - because then a zombie apocalypse would be kind of fun. If they're the '28 Days Later' zombies, though, we're all screwed.

[liberalpress]

3. Sure. Time of the Season was a great record.

[madrchsod]

4. you know you have to youtube when you mention a band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5IRI4oHKNU


one of my fave 60`s brit bands

[Meshuga]

5. I say, "Is 7 up?"

Yeah.

[HamdenRice]

6. 6 "yes" votes, but 4 seemingly "no" responses ??? nt

[moggie]

7. The "yes" votes are from zombies

Zombies mostly lurk: they don't have a whole lot to say.

[Lint Head]

8. Dick Cheney

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Ive read of a fish that people sometimes eat

that makes them appear to be dead but they are really alive. Apparently it has been used in one or two instances in the Caribbean to kidnap someone who was then forced to work as a slave laborer. Not exactly the classic zombie tale, but close enough.

Here's a quick synopsis from Wikipedia--sorry, but I'm late for work and don't have more time to find another source:

Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder is composed of dissociatives such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subject to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice.

Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis, unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to neurologist Terence Hines, the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of the nature of the reports of Haitian Zombies is overly credulous.<5> Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

[HamdenRice]

10. That's kind of what I was getting at...

The thread about Africa had me thinking about the fundamental difference between "religion" (like Christianity) and "witchcraft/magic/sorcery/superstition" especially as it applies to African and Afro-Caribbean traditional practices.

I was going to use zombies as an example of a point I was going to make, but I then was curious whether everyone was aware of the phenomenon.

When Davis made his claims in the mid 1980s, it was quite electrifying, and had a big pop cultural impact here. At the time, I had just finished reading Zora Neal Hurston's anthropological account of her trip to Haiti including the first documented academic study of the zombie phenomenon. Doonesbury had a running story line for several weeks in which the Duke character had been turned into a Haitian zombie.

:rofl:

Then I thought that most DUers might be too young to remember it -- so I thought it would be interesting to ask.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. I remember Duke the Zombie cartoon

and I've seen documentaries about the pufferfish and zombie connection back in the '90s.

[Meshuga]

11. Someone spoiled the shutout

Damn, one anti-zombie vote.

[Taverner]

13. Pshaw! What else would you call a Young Republican?

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. Define zombie

Do you mean "zombie" in the pharmacological sense? The psychological sense? The Hollywood B movie sense?

[ZombieHorde]

15. Of course their real, what a silly poll.

[cosmik debris]

16. It seems to me

It discriminates against those who are life-impaired.

[ZombieHorde]

17. You are absolutely correct. Next thing we will hear is that people need to be alive to hold office.

Although not our proudest example, Cheney has proved otherwise.

[cosmik debris]

18. I just hope that they don't ban Zombie marriage. n/t

[SidneyCarton]

19. Of course not...

After as Dolly Parton said... "Why shouldn't they be as miserable as the rest of us."