The Point of Privilege

I start with "I love my job." I get to think about structural poverty more than probably anyone else in the city. But at the same time, I often get frustrated because I see systems of discrimination and systems that propel income inequality and because I see them and can't stop them, I feel I am sometimes allowing for the system that I don't agree with.
   An example is the idea of an internship academy. I love the idea that younger people are being taught how to make the most of their internship experience and given some leadership skills to help them excel. However, the way in which these students are selected is by referral and good grades. This means the system is set up to reward those who already are succeeding, instead of helping those who need more attention to get to a similar position. I don't like this at all. With something as simple as a change in a selection policy, we could be doing better. But the argument is that it is easier to do it this way, and policy change demands debate which can potentially dissolve a group that could do more good by staying solvent. It is easier to stay the same than increase the impact.

I am assisting with a group who has a substantial amount of money to spend that could go either way. At this time, there is great opportunity if we keep our eye on the goal economic equity. Economic equity is not the same as economic equality, but can work towards the same goals concurrently. To minimize the economic inequality of a region makes the place more solvent and makes it easier for economic development to have the goal of making all people's lives better, not just the few at the top by supplying labor.

I keep thinking back to the idea of fairness. "The doctrine of fairness asks: If there must be some or even considerable inequality in society, why not seek a society where problems such as poverty are distributed randomly, rather than being disproportionately located in specific populations such as African Americans and women?" The doctrine of fairness means that there is equality of opportunity. It does not mean we shouldn't really be working for equality, but it is a first goal that policy should think toward if they are going to make measurable progress.

As the program has this available privilege of spending money (which really the whole foundation model does) their responsibility should be taken even more seriously. If we are not the ones to model responsible behavior, who is? Who will use their privilege for good if us.

When I see internal policies or behaviors that consent to inequality - whether framed as just bad customer service or racism - I become even more impassioned and frustrated when I have no outlet for changing things. I can't change an individual's behavior, but I have learned from some empirical studies that if you make the right behavior easier than the bad one, people will chose to be good. Usually. So that is our task. To make the right decision easy and the wrong decisions hard through systems. If I have accomplished anything this last year, I hope that a legacy of "right" is what I leave behind.

Writing to right

I've had a bad day. Well, not really. I've been in a bad mood despite having a reasonably good day. I get excited reading through all the jobs I am qualified for and would enjoy doing, but I am too tired at the end of the day to apply for any of them. My resume is in order, but writing the cover letter, and tweeking the resume for each job description to highlight why I would be good at that job is very tiring. I am not scared I won't have a job come November. I know I have rent covered for Nov, and December, but I don't know what I am going to be doing for Christmas because traveling back to Idaho may not be on my agenda since I may be moving across the country, either north, south, east or west. Being in the midwest means there are only more directions I could go. Deciding what jobs I could really be happy to do is also hard. Lots of non-profits have great missions I agree with, but few really speak to me. And which ones have the option for graduate school? It is all mixed up in my head as to my future, but I'm sure I'm going to make the right choice. Being young, with no major bills, having everything that fits in my car, and being free to move wherever opportunity may take me is just as scary as having no options. I wish I could just find the right job in Wisconsin. That would be the easiest choice. Milwaukee or Madison is where I need to go. Minneapolis is up there too, but I doubt I fit the Humphrey Institute as well as I would like. I want to go where I can be an anthropologist, where I can use my thinking, but have clear enough job duties that I can accomplish something tangible. My job now is good work, but it isn't always easy to tell what a good day is. In other jobs, with clearer objectives, it is so much easier.

Eating grapes has made me have a sugar high. Or I may be allergic to them and this is my body going into some sort of shock. Just writing this makes me feel better. Not an insightful blog post, but just something so I don't have to look at the last story about robots anymore.

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

"Markets opened lower this morning after stocks plummeted yesterday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points and S&P closed down sharply. This is just the latest in a series of wild swings in financial markets in recent weeks."

I think it is part of the robots' evil plans. First they tank the economy. That, of course, makes people insecure, which is dangerous. Then those people riot and commit crimes against other people, which is the real warfare the robots have against humans.

It is so much easier to get them to kill each other than to do it yourself.

Good plan, robots... I've got my eyes on you.

The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Lottery

I don't enjoy gambling. I live in a town with several casinos and don't really have any interest in using them for gambling. I've never even bought a lottery ticket before. Maybe a scratch game once or twice, but never a lottery ticket.  Until this week.

It started as a joke. The odds are incredible, but for 48 million dollars, I thought, "why not this once" I've read about how for some people in poverty, playing the lottery is a type of remittance. While it is a small amount to pay out regularly, the sudden infusion of cash ($50-$200) is how they pay for those things they need irregularlly - like new clothes, technology upgrades, and stocking up on personal items or entertainment devices.

Buying the lottery ticket didn't start as a savings plan; it was entertainment. I was surprised by the amount of entertainment that it gave me. It was a tangible thing , this piece of paper, that induced dreams. [The only other piece of paper that inspires such dreams is my voting ballot.] What would I do with 48 million dollars? Daring to dream that big is a place far from the economic reality of my life, and of anybody's life. I spent time dreaming aloud, something that doesn't get to happen often for people trapped in the tyranny of the moment that is poverty.

Then today, I was reading up on current US policies related to asset building and it reminded me about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

"Despite the curtailed policy agenda, the Fiscal Year 2012 budget includes a set of policies and proposals that allocate $519 billion in resources to asset-building activities. An additional $65 billion in funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, while not explicitly asset building programs, presents resources that individuals and families can devote to saving."


There is this continuing question in the EITC funders world [and middle-class sensibilities] of why people don't always use their EITC for its intended purpose of family asset building. There is evidence many many families use it to pay off debts - something which is responsible, but that still isn't asset building for the future. Then it dawned on me.  To people living on under $12,000 a year, their tax return is like winning the lottery.

When you think about what you are going to do with your tax return, you dream. You dream of the things which you know are out of reach on a regular basis. You plan on buying cars, televisions, movies, entertainment, restaurant food, vacations, ect. ect. Five-thousand dollars in one lump sum might as well be a million dollars. People in poverty often get unfairly judged for this behavior and called "irresponsible spenders."

While I could imagination how to split up my $48 million dollars so I could live modestly for a lifetime, I still dreamed of what $$ could do that I can't do now. It was a lot of fun.

Take that fun away by talking about asset building won't persuade people to change their behavior. What we need to do is develop a positive dream of the possibility of a secure life. We as a society, and as social service agencies, don't always give people a goal of what to be, only of what NOT to be.

With a new American Dream, maybe then tax returns won't be treated like we won the lottery.

Methodology that Counts in Poverty Alleviation

I was looking for methods of finding common indicators about poverty, and found this. I LOVE this article’ methodologies. If I was independently wealthy, I would just go around the US and do these for folks. But first I’d need some more statistics training and some GIS skills.

Developing a Regional Poverty Profile 

Poverty is relative to localities. We can tell when people are starving in other countries, but in America, poverty is hidden and part of perception. It is hard to measure something in peoples perceptions.  If we can’t measure this real poverty, how do we know our programs are going to be useful by those who they are intended for?

Here is an example of how to use this regional poverty profile in poverty alleviation. In their example study, they showed that being poor, not-so-poor, and not poor mean slightly different things in the three communities. In one places, not being poor was strongly statistically associated with being involved in a trade. They showed 83% of non-poor households were professionals or traders, whereas in the other comparative areas, only %52-53% of the not-poor were professionals or traders. In the other contrasting area, owning land and property was much more prominent means of acquiring “well-being.”  We would be able to see what the people who live in poverty think would work to make their lives better, not use the top-down method of the school, or IWD telling folks how get a “good job,” what that job is, and how to improve their lives.

“Different ethnic groups may have different value systems that, among other things, could influence their perceptions of well-being and poverty.” By building on their existing perceptions we can be sure to have programs that work for the people they are intended for.

Using their quantified knowledge WITH real measures of  industry/sector or work, hours, wage, property ownership, plus access to affordable food and public transportation we could see if something like having a bank account or a car is really a measurable asset to the relief of poverty. We could also know what types of employment would actually benefit folks – not make assumptions that all jobs are good for all populations. “Jobs” are good on the aggregate, but it isn’t “a rising tide floats all boats” for folks in poverty. This can help find the right river for them to put the boat into.

 I think this is especially great on a neighborhood level, both in the flatlands of DBQ and all the way out to Dyersville/Ashbury. How do they define well-being differently than the flatlands? What would benefit their economic success differently, and how do you quantify it? I just love this paper! I hope the ISU people can use it as a base and build policy ideas around it.

This method could also be used to include data that it leaves out, like the source of income for people in poverty, how they spend their money, or measuring the economic inequality of an area -which is a little controversial because Americans don’t really want to know this and feel bad about them doing well.

I've Lived an Interesting Life.

I've been to all but 3 states
I lived in a tent for a summer, in TX and in Idaho - doing archeology
I've lived with a gay legislator from MN for 2 weeks
I've lived with environmental activists
I've moved over 1k miles away to a strange place
I have an art degree - and was an assistant designer in los angeles
I was at the inauguration of our first AA president - where I randomly met people I knew from Idaho.
I was a news director for a local NPR affiliate.
I've met the president - in NV
I've gone to Mexico to do environmental work - and lay on a beach
My best friend lives in another continent!
I've organized a protest with over 500 students
I've been married - and divorced.
I went to Muppetfest
I was a crisis counselor and saw horrific violence
I've worked at a women's center and met some amazing survivors.
I was youth organizer of the year for the state of Idaho
I've won the governor's volunteer award in Iowa
I worked against Michelle Bachman
I elected Mark Dayton - and helped a great female candidate along the way
I survived the 2010 election.
I've gone whitewater rafting
I've jumped off a cliff because everybody else did - and broke my foot
My hair has been blue, pink, purple, green, orange, red, yellow, and white
I've had clothing I made worn by celebrities
I've been on the front page of a national blog (Daily Kos)
I've won scholarships
I've been on the honor roll
I graduated at 17 from high school
I've lived in a Peace House with hippies (Love you David and Matt)
I've been vegetarian
I've had a Dominatrix
Been in Love - had my heart broken
And am practicing for a flash mob.



Things I still want to do
Shave my head
Learn to sing
Be in a play
Teach sewing lessons
Go to India and France
Visit those last 3 states!
Go for an extended bike-ride (several days)
Buy car from the dealer
Have my own garden - and know what I am doing

My VISTA Soapbox

Talking to other VISTAs (there are 4 of us in this town) I also find this VAD lack of context to our anti-poverty task to be annoying.

One of the major complaints I have with my state VISTA program (not my site) is that they don't have an organize plan or framework to fight poverty. They have not been able relate my work into a context to shows why my work needs done. I thought we were fighting a war! I would expect there to be a better plan.

I don't just "get" how starting an art project for kids fights poverty, or how building houses fights poverty, or how planting trees fights poverty. In fact, I find too much of the work VISTAs are recruited to do is more like charity. Charity gets on my nerves.

Paulo Freire writes "In order to have the continued opportunity to express their 'generosity,' the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. And unjust social order is the permanent fount of this 'generosity,' which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity."

No offense is meant to my VISTA brothers and sisters who are helping Habitat for Humanity, but that program is a perfect example. One of my best friends got a great deal from building a Habitat House (leadership skills, community connection, stable housing for her family, ect.) but she needed a habitat house because of the inequality in our education, justice, and social systems. I value the work, but to me, treating a symptom isn't VISTAs role, although it is a highly valuable thing. But all these "re-stores" they are trying to open all over the U.S. come from the fact that structurally, the construction industry is not good at making houses. There is so much waste that they want to find a "generous" (and sometimes green-washed) way to dispose of it.

One of my sister VISTAs works for a project that plants trees. I love it! Trees are awesome. But she never could tell me how her work was VISTA worthy. Eight months later we were all reporting our projects to the state commissioners on volunteer service and half-way through her presentation she explained how if you plant a tree on the south side of a home, you can save up to %30 of the energy costs. I get it now. It is just annoying that it took 8 months to learn. Also, while I value the project it doesn't get at the structural problems of why poverty continues to exist in one of the richest nations in the world. It is another way of treating the problem. As we learned from PSO, money is not the primary thing that people in poverty suffer a lack of.

I love this quote from one of the VISTA alumni pages. "VISTA Motivation - They knew something was wrong. They could see where the system broke down for parts of society. One way of getting at that was VISTA. The most successful Volunteers were able to see their role in balance to the situation. They understood bureaucracy and its nonsense and their own limitations. They still got up everyday and went to it."

We exist in a context. Early VISTAs did more direct service because it was the direct service that helped them find the flaws in the system. They are the ones who went on to fight it in other systematic places. Those are my heroes.

But when I came to my state, they couldn't explain to me how I fit into a state strategy to fight poverty. From my observation, they have a milieu approach. Throw enough glitter and some of it is bound to stick. My service site, however, couldn't answer that question,either, when I started. By asking for an answer we've moved the program and the entire non-profit forward. We are now working toward a strategy that puts all of our partners in context and has shared community goals. It helps them understand their personal power in the goal of fighting poverty and injustice.

I think most people, in the hearts, understand their work is valuable as fighting poverty in some way. The problem is that they are never asked to write it down and put in on a chart so everyone can see it. Maybe they are afraid if they have to say it aloud, it isn't working for what they want it to do, but they don't want to stop. And some of it is just dogma. That's what I really can't stand.

I wish the state was taking the same initiative to explain our purpose in context to a strategy of solving poverty.

Robot War Anthropology

From Bad 'Bots, Bad 'Bots, Whatcha Gonna Do?
"Which is why, a week after the war ends, I'm sitting cross-legged in front of a Rob survivor that's spraying the floor with holograms and I'm writing down everything I see and hear.
I just want to make my way home and have a good meal and try to feel human again. But the lives of war heroes are playing out before me like the devil's déjà vu.
I didn't ask for this and I don't want to do it, but I know in my heart that somebody ought to tell their stories. To tell the robot uprising from beginning to end. To explain how and why it started and how it went down. How the robots came at us and how we evolved to fight them. How humanity suffered, and oh god did we suffer. But also how we fought back. And how in the final days, we found a way to face Big Rob himself....

The machines came at us in our everyday lives and they came from our dreams and nightmares, too. But we still figured them out. Quick-thinking human survivors learned and adapted. Too late for most of us, but we did it. Our battles were individual and chaotic and mostly forgotten. Millions of our heroes around the globe died alone and anonymous, with only lifeless automatons to bear witness. We may never know the big picture, but a lucky few were being watched.

Somebody ought to tell their stories."

It will be the anthropologists. Not because anthropologists know the subject, because we are our own audience.

The Poor are the Purest Conservationists

So, for AmeriCorps Week we camped out at the farmers market to tell people about AmeriCorps. As were were sitting there, friends of mine from the Getting Ahead class were coming by and we were chatting. I noticed they all had bags of clothing with them. Lots of bags. Then I remembered that it was St. John's "Open Closet" day.

Twice a month on Saturday from 8-noon, they have a free store. I need a new pair of shoes, and even $10 is outside my budget right now, especially since my bike repairs are going to be like $50, so I thought I'd run over and see if I can find some shoes. What I discovered is the culture of poverty.

For example, when I first arrived I couldn't get into the store because a family of like 8 people, who I would observe as being Latino because of their skin color and that they were speaking Spanish, were coming out the door. Each had a bag or two of the clothing. Inside were several more, mostly women, carefully picking through the clothing. The clothing was only roughly sized so it took a lot of work to pick out goods. There were lots of men's and women's jeans, and modest price-point clothing.

By looking at the brands of clothing available, and the types that had been selected for the store, the people giving to St. Johns were lower-middle class. The brands, although mostly 10 years old or so, were from places like JC Pennys, Sears, and those kind of retailers. Even in the suit section [I also was looking for work clothes] were unlined and mostly polyester. Quality clothing is made of linen, cotton, wool, or would be a polyester crepe, not a polyester twill. Anyway, this is the story of two classes.

I wrote a paper in college about how thrift stores are like archeological sites. In my research (although this never got into the paper by the end) I read this book about the beginning of thrift stores. Thrift stores are recycling. They are part of a system. At the top, clothing is designed and built. The clothes are produced and it takes energy and planning to get them to the right stores in places all over the world. It takes oil, both in transportation, and oil to even make the polyester. Oil is controlled by those with the most power and money. The power feeds itself oil in these clothes. The middle class consumption of it is immense. It is the primary consumption.

Well meaning people know they consume a lot so when styles have changed, bodies have changed, and they recognize they have excess, they cast away their clothing in a culturally appropriate way - a type of philanthropy - by giving it to Goodwills, Salvation Armies, and non-profits so it can be re-used by someone not on the same consumption level. This is a second generation of the energy of oil.

So, if you think about it, people - not just the trendy hipsters - but the people whose situation dictates they shop or get clothes from these free stores are the ultimate conservationists. It isn't the people with low-incomes who drive out to Asbury to the Goodwill. The poor shop local out of necessity.

The ones I observed there were all complaining because of the rain. They had walked there, children in tow in second-hand strollers.

The sad part is still how oil prices most directly affect people in poverty at the same time as they are saving it. Fluctuations in transportation costs and that unpredictable fluctuation represents a higher percentage of their total income. Of my total income.

So, as I was leaving the store (with the one item that I could find up to my standards, but sadly not a pair of shoes) another woman and her 2 kids was also leaving the store. I think I paid attention to her because last night at Dubuquefest, my friends were talking about the huge number of disfigured and inbred-looking people who were there. I knew several of the people they were pointing out from Getting Ahead and Hillcrest Wellness Center. I stood up for the people I knew, but I think I should call out that negative judgmental behavior from my friends more.

I mentioned in passing that I hope she didn't have to travel far in the rain. She said it wasn't far. Her shopping cart/stroller was filled with bags of clothing. I asked if she needed help carrying the stroller up the stairs, and she accepted. As I was leaning down to help pick up the stroller with the baby in it, her other daughter was holding an obviously second-hand doll. She was really proud of this polyester (oil) and plastic doll she had just got. This doll had been loved by someone else and now it was going to be re-loved by her. That doll is a the ultimate form of oil conservation.

Stories from Poverty

I have been under the impression that the goal of one of my programs is to remove some of the barriers to mainstream financial institutions so families can build assets. It is also to re-engaged those who may have accounts but don't know how to use them to build assets. People who are in poverty (both situational and generational) nearly all fall into these two categories. These are who programs like mine have targeted in other cities and been successful with.

I sent the marketing team some Pew research and 2 other case studies of un-banked and under-banked people in markets that also did programs like ours. The audience is women, often with young children, 20-35 year old, new Americans (some people call them immigrants), minorities, and people who live in densely populated areas. We can point to the neighborhoods on GIS census maps.

My envisioned target population fits squarely in the disengaged people focus of VISTA work. The suburbs doesn't even show up on the maps of where our disengaged populations live.

I knew there was an underlying middle-class ethnocentrism but I chalked it up to the those involved being removed from the realities of poverty. It isn't that they don't care, they do care a whole lot, but they don't have the language to even talk about the situation. The new marketing plan is like something out of The Ugly American.

Here is another true story of what it is like in poverty, one from this evening.

I had a drs appt today. I'm lucky enough to have insurance, but I don't really understand how it works. I'm really fearful that if I go to the doctor for a follow-up it won't be covered because the insurance only covers 1 doctor visit a year. To pay my co-pay, of all $5, I had to break out my parking quarters and change purse. I got strange looks from the receptionist, but I paid it and I don't have to be afraid of being short $5 in my bank account.

Then I had to go to HyVee to fill a prescription and ran into a friend of mine from the Getting Ahead class - a current Circle Leader. While I waited for my prescription, we were looking at treats she could take to an event her daughter was involved in at St. Lukes. She was going to have to use her food assistance credits to pay for it. She is about 3 months pregnant. She was borderline diabetic before the pregnancy [the link between poverty and disease, ESPECIALLY diabetes is very very strong - stronger than race and disease], but because of the pregnancy she is  now full-on diabetic. We were looking at the sugar free options and comparing unit prices. Sugar free treats are far more expensive. We weren't comparing unit prices on half-gallons of ice cream, it was unit prices of the more expensive but single-serving options. She could buy 5 seventy-five cent 3 oz cups-the cheapest minimum amount-instead of the $2 more for a far more economic purchase. But she wasn't going to spend the extra $2. In addition to this joke of unit price "savings", diabetes now puts an extra burden on monthly finances. So does the pregnancy. She can get pre-natal medical care before the baby is born, she can get WIC after the baby is born, but the diabetes and its exponential corresponding costs and pressures on her financial situation are eternally playing out in the grocery store line.

Life in poverty is a melee of negative situations. For Teresa it is  negotiating parenting responsibilities, social concerns [what would people think if she said she couldn't contribute to the community center's event that her daughter has been involved in for several months - she would lose social prestige- one of her few assets] budgeting her minimum nutritional food assistance credits, pregnancy, and a new frightening health concern.

But my friend, Teresa, is left out of the new program's picture of prosperity. I breaks my heart.

In another note, this is the same Black woman who has been used as an example of the success of another program about the mom who started out in a Getting Ahead class with her kids in foster-care. Now  she is trying to go back to school, and has had her kids returned to her. I think her goal of getting a job when she is 3 months pregnant is unlikely because she would have to tell the employer she will need a few weeks off come November.

My co-worker Jodi is also expecting in November. It is amazing how different Teresa and Jodi's pregnancies will be.

When Poverty and Unemployment Are Misdiagnosed

http://takingnote.tcf.org/2011/05/when-poverty-and-unemployment-are-misdiagnosed.html



This is a really good read. My adviser from college is a Medical Anthropologist who does a lot of work in this field (cultural barriers to healthcare and nutrition.) She does it in rural Idaho, and in central and south America. Surprisingly, rural Idaho and Central American poverty have a lot in common.

This article makes me upset. I just got back from the grocery store and I looked through my cart and as I checked out I was thinking "I'm not buying much food" thinking I was getting groceries for 2 weeks. When the bill came up, it was just over $90, which is just over half of the $172 a month I get in food assistance. I only got 4 bags of groceries. I didn't buy any candy, soda, meat, or carbs except one box of pasta. It isn't that I don't have enough food, but living like this creates habits that are undermining of healthy behavior.

Through the "assistance" program we are also unintentionally being taught to live hand-to-mouth. Food assistance is calculated on minimum nutritional standards. The program is set up that way so that a bad few can't abuse it. Even if my great idea comes true of somehow helping people nutritionally plan out the spending of the assistance they get, they will never have an at-home food safety net if they get the minimum nutrition.

Coming from, what I think was pretty middle class, I grew up with parents who were children of farmers. We always had a 2-yr supply of food at the house. My parents were Mormon, so some of it was apocalyptic preparation, but even as a faith tradition it comes from the history of farmers having a food storage as an asset in case agriculture failed. When I was a kid [and even in college when I'd go eat at the Restaurant of Dad], it insulated our family from food insecurity.

Sure, I can buy the 20 pound bag of rice or potatoes, but the percentage of my food assistance money that it cost means I have to trade it for broccoli or apples. This echos my complaint that unit price means nothing to someone living in poverty.

This also makes people receiving assistance most at-risk for food price changes due to the fluctuating price of gasoline. Transportation costs effect the price of the fresh and most nutritional food first and most dramatically. Maybe I deserve to only eat rice and beans [I chose to be poor, right?], but honestly, I take pride that I live in one of the richest countries on the planet. I think I deserve to eat the apple. Removing my choice to pick to eat an apple is an insult to my very cultural identity as an American, and robs me of my dignity.

I've thought about using the food pantries in town to begin building a food asset in my home. The pantries give away the types of supplies that end up in the back of the cabinet anyway. They are a valuable community asset. The liquidity of that asset is still a barrier. They are only open during the middle of the day 3 days a week. Have a job and you lose access quickly.

Geeze, I hope most people don't over-think this stuff like I do, or I'm going to have to start a support group. Oh, wait, that is why we have Getting Ahead - a poverty recovery support group.

How to talk to your kids about the Zombie Apocalypse.

It is ever parents' responsiblity to prepare their children for the zombie apocalypse, unless of course the kids are just being bred for food for the parents. For those who don't see their fat children as food, this book can help.

"We’re sure you already know this, but May is zombie awareness month,  which means there’s no better time to start preparing your kids for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. It can be hard to start a dialog with your kids about what to do once the infection spreads, because you can’t talk about it without exploring the possibility that you will become infected. Author Matt Mogk wrote That’s Not Your Mommy Anymore: A Zombie Tal, to help you teach your children how to figure out whether or not you’ve become a part of the zombie horde. And, more importantly, what to do if that happens. So what are you waiting for? Order a copy and teach them all about zombies – it’s the right thing to do. $8"

Zombie Ants!

Yes, dead ants reanimated by a fungus in their brain. Luckily, it is not transferable to humans, as far as we know. But stay alert.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tropical-fungus-in-thailand-rainforest-taking-transforming-carpenter-ants-into-walking-zombies/story-fn5fsgyc-1226052753828

Zombie House WIN!

But is this portable?

1 in 50 US troops in Afghanistan is a robot.

Robot Apocalypse Sign.

"Afghanistan is a country where you might be hard pressed to find a working elevator, but if the latest numbers are right, you could have a good chance of running into a robot - that is, if you're on the front lines."

1 in 50 US troops in Afghanistan is a robot. Terrifying.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/04/last-look-war-of-the-machines/