Open Lines

Date: 03-25-11 
Host: Ian Punnett 
Guests: Open Lines, Buck Wolf, Steve Murdock 

Filling in for George, Ian Punnett hosted a night of Open Lines. Bob in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, reported watching six orange globe-like UFOs line up in the sky and perform an aerial ballet. He said the amazing encounter was witnessed by his UFO group, which meets every year on the second Saturday of July in Dundee, Wisconsin. Bob also claimed to be in telepathic contact with an extraterrestrial UFO commander called "Eve," who expressed her desire that mankind stop waging war. Stefan from Chico disclosed seeing a UFO that appeared as a "huge triangle of light" in the skies over Southern California. 

Lee in East Brunswick, New Jersey, shared a bizarre dream in which he found himself riding in the passenger side of an old gangster car with no driver. The car drove through fog on the wrong side of the road and ended up at house with white picket fence. Inside was the world's first gumball machine, a woman who told him he hadn't been there in a while, and a man sitting on a couch petting a black sheep, Lee revealed. The man's teeth looked like little people and there was a shiny bowl of raw meat on the floor with steam rising from it, he added. Lee said he did not know what any of it meant. 

Drew from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, phoned in with his theory that the 1969 Moon landing could have been both a real event and a hoaxed broadcast. According to Drew, sets of the lunar surface were constructed so NASA could cut away in case the astronauts encountered something, such as alien artifacts or technology, that the government did not want the general population to see. Dawn in Vancouver, British Columbia described her encounter with bigfoot on a windy road in Canada. Seven years old at the time, Dawn recalled seeing a creature that stood 7-ft tall, covered in reddish hair, with a slender but stocky build. 

Weird News & Population Shift
In the first half-hour, weird news editor for AOL News Buck Wolf (book link) briefly commented on some recent strange stories, including Sammy Hagar's alleged alien abduction (article), a world record attempt by a man who can rotate his feet backwards (article), and a new blurry video that purports to show "Knobby," the North Carolina Bigfoot (article). "[The figure in the video] looked like a guy who wandered out of costume party perhaps looking for the bathroom," he observed. Wolf also mentioned how he got Larry Harmon's Bozo the Clown thrown out of the International Clown Hall of Fame (article), and the time he interviewed an Italian cabbie named Adolf Hittler. 

During the next 30 minutes, Steve Murdock, director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University, discussed population shifts in the United States. Over the last century, the number of people living in the South and West has increased from 38% to 60%, while the population in the Northeast and Midwest has declined from 62% to 40%, Murdock explained. There has also been a dramatic change in the racial and ethnic composition of America. According to Murdock, during the past decade the non-Hispanic white population grew by only 2.3 million, as Hispanics added 15.2 million, African-Americans 3.7 million, and Asians 5.3 million. 

Website(s): 
hobbycenter.rice.edu 
Book(s): 
The Wolf Files: Adventures in Weird News 
Applied Demography in the 21st Century 

Zombie Invasion Politics
Date: 03-26-11 
Host: Ian Punnett 
Guests: Daniel Drezner, Steven Yeun 

Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, joined Ian Punnett for a discussion on how humanity might respond to a worldwide zombie assault. Drezner makes three assumptions regarding the undead: 1) the only way to kill a zombie is by destroying its brain; 2) a zombie's only desire is to consume live human flesh; and 3) if a human is bitten by a zombie, he will eventually die and become one. Given the aforementioned threat and the likelihood it would quickly become a global problem, Drezner explained how various theories of international relations would deal with it. 

The concept of anarchy (in this case, the absence of a world government) is a foundation for the school of thought known as realism, Drezner noted. For realists, national governments are supreme and must rely on their own capabilities when facing an external threat, he said. Realists are concerned about how much they can gain relative to other nations, and would be profoundly skeptical about a cooperative international war against zombies, Drezner added. He likened realists to the the characters presented in Night of the Living Dead, who, rather than working together, broke into factions and fought over scarce resources in order to expand their own spheres of influence. 

Unlike realism, adherents of liberalism believe cooperation is possible, even in an anarchic world, Drezner revealed. Certain aspects of the liberal paradigm would aid in the spread of the living dead, but they would also be very active in trying to eradicate the undead, he explained. Liberals would likely form of a multi-lateral counter-zombie organization designed to regulate and combat the zombie menace, Drezner said. Neoconservatives, on the other hand, would be suspicious of such an international institution, he continued. They are apt to recognize that flesh eating ghouls represent an existential threat to humanity and would recommend an aggressive militarized response, Drezner said, adding that neoconservatives would also expand the fight to places 'friendly' with the undead, and as a result would undercut global unity. 

According to Drezner, affluent democracies are better equipped to deal with an undead invasion than authoritarian states. Countries that have decentralized authority, quick local responses, lower population densities, and good healh infrastructures would be in the best position to survive a zombie apocalypse, he noted. The United States and Canada are well prepared for such a catastrophe, he said, though his personal preference is New Zealand. 

Walking Dead's Steven Yeun
In the first half-hour, Steven Yeun briefly spoke about his decision to become an actor and his role as Glenn in AMC's TV series, The Walking Dead. The story chronicles the struggle of a group of people trying to survive in a world overrun by the undead. "It's not about how many zombies you can kill in a day... the real fear comes from what is the person next to you capable of that you didn't think he was before all of this happened," he said. Yeun hinted that next season the small band of survivors will find themselves on Hershel's Farm, where his character could find romance and a reason to live. 

Website(s): 
danieldrezner.com 
amctv.com 
Book(s): 
Theories of International Politics and Zombies