Did you know? ‘Duck and cover’

[chihuahua]

(An excerpt from the rough speech prepared for Chinese Government Officials regarding the Triangle of Life) History:

‘Duck and cover’ was created as a political, and propaganda tool during the cold war. The problem is that In the United States it started as part of an advertising campaign to calm the populations from fear of nuclear warfare. TV commercials were made to promote ‘duck and cover’ with ‘cute’ jingles sung to the theme of ‘duck and cover’. This had very little basis in logic or reason; for example, one of the commercials had a ‘cartoon’ , ‘animated’ family in a clearing of the forest. The father, mother, son, daughter and pet dog were having a picnic. They had a blanket spread out on the ground with sandwiches and other picnic treats set upon it. They were happy. All of a sudden, a flash of brilliant light, appeared in the distance. They all new it was an atomic explosion. They all continued to smile because they knew how to be safe. The boy lead the way by lifting the blanket and sticking his head underneath. The father smiled approvingly and put his head underneath the blanket. The rest of the family did the same. The dog even stuck his head underneath, next to the boy. The scene changed to a view of them all under the blanket smiling at each other, in complete safety. The musical jingle continued to singing the words that ‘duck and cover’ would make you safe. The Dept of Civil Defense adopted ‘duck and cover’ in their publications concerning Urban heavy rescue ( this manual was essentially a ‘grown –up’ adaptation of the boy scout manual on tying knots and using walking sticks; however, it told you to ‘duck and cover’.). This was 1952.

In 1952 Television had not yet been tarnished. Everything that appeared on Television was taken as absolute fact. The propaganda was set. Mission accomplished. Duck and Cover was not created as a means to save lives during building collapse. It is not being challenged by the ‘triangle of life” as a new and improved means of surviving building collapse. It was created by a marketing Dept as a propaganda tool to calm the population during a time of potential political unrest. Duck and Cover as a safety procedure is statistically a complete failure. This is why 98% of the population dies during building collapse

Things have changed. ‘Duck and cover’ has been ‘burned’ into the minds of the populations from mandatory teaching and drills, in schools. The children are taught, to drop to their knees and crawl under their desks. During structural failure this results in almost 100% death. A survivor becomes a Television celebrity because it so rare for a survivor to exist.

The ‘duck and cover’ process is perpetuated by bureaucratic intransigence. Everyone knows how difficult it is to change something that is ‘burned’ into the minds of a population by a bureaucracy who initially had an objective of convincing a population for political purposes and then became its own ‘victim’; as the children, themselves, grew up to become the bureaucrats.

Galileo had a similar problem, in convincing people; that the earth was not the center of the universe. The bureaucracy, at the time, being the ‘Catholic Church’ thought it would lose credibility if it admitted that God had not made man and 'man’s home', the Center of the Universe.

Again, Columbus had the same problem convincing ‘the establishment’ that the world was not flat and you would not sail-off or fall-off the edge of the world if you traveled to China. Columbus was right. When I came to China I did not fall of the edge of the world. It was the promise of wealth that convinced the King and Queen of Spain to finance Columbus’ quest not truth or science. .