Lock-Down vs. Duck-and-Cover
The Hobbled Wife e-mailed this link about an upcoming lecture at MHS called, Lecture One: The Cold War, "America Under the Atom" Allan Winkler " Saturday, October 22, 2005 " 2:00 PM
The old "duck and cover" makes me think of today's Lock-Down drills they have at my kids' school, and what impact it will have on this generation. Many of the 1950s and 1960s look back on the duck-and-cover drills and talk about how that Cold-War attitude shaped them as persons. This seems especially common amongst artists (read 1960s pop stars). The even had some old duck-and-cover footage in the recent PBS Dylan documentary.
What effect will practicing for a lock-down - - essentially a school-shooting incident - - have on today's kids.
When America developed and dropped two atomic bombs in 1945, it irrevocably changed the world. The U.S. government faced a new world order rife with threats while it tried to sell the peaceful promise of nuclear energy at home. Filmmakers conjured nightmare images of mutated animals and insects preying on the innocent. Everyday Americans constructed fallout shelters as their children learned to "duck and cover." All the while, scientists were producing bigger and better bombs that altered our ideas about defense and diplomacy. In this lecture, Allan Winkler examines anew how learning to live with the terrifying power of the tiny atom transformed nearly every aspect of American life.
The old "duck and cover" makes me think of today's Lock-Down drills they have at my kids' school, and what impact it will have on this generation. Many of the 1950s and 1960s look back on the duck-and-cover drills and talk about how that Cold-War attitude shaped them as persons. This seems especially common amongst artists (read 1960s pop stars). The even had some old duck-and-cover footage in the recent PBS Dylan documentary.
What effect will practicing for a lock-down - - essentially a school-shooting incident - - have on today's kids.
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