'Duck and cover' is back

I did 'duck and cover' when i was a kid in school.. but we all knew it was a joke.. those were not going to protect us from the bomb.. just give us something to do till it came i guess.. wonder if those desks will stop bullets too....

I recall the 1-room school-house with a ready to retire school-marm of the old school.

We discussed this at length and all (except the real little guys understood the motive and process. We were all aware of the minimal risk of a nuclear attack but the same trick was appropriate for tornadoes. While all were aware that desks were poor protection----getting down to reduce exposure and timeliness was a key need.

We did not have a fatalistic notion about nuclear weapons.....she read to us extensively about the consequences of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks. In her view, line of sight was the biggest threat.....with fire being the threat. Her assumption of not being ground zero was reasonable.

I recall her declaration that although we were far from a primary target that from a continent away accuracy was doubtful---I think she really doubted the Russians expertise.....in retrospect I think she was right.

Well, I recall:

Yeah well! We are well aware you reside in South Park.

We live in the real world.

We did "code reds," or whatever they called it, a number of times during my last couple years of high school. The situation where there's a person who has entered the building with a weapon.
I always managed to be in one of my classes whenever we'd have any of the drills (code red, fire, tornado). Fire drills were annoying because it took ages to get down the stairs with a good portion of the people from 2nd floor all going down at once.
The real fun was when we'd have the code reds. My World Hist teach had a number of weapons in her room (grade 11 projects and donations 'cuz she was teh awesome). She had a couple of metal headed spears, a bunch of wooden shields, a shitload of wooden swords, an antique cavalry sabre, a styrofoam flail with really long and sharp nails coming out of it, a flail that had a solid metal ball (6 or 7 inches in diameter) among other things. When the principle would come over the PA system and announce it, we'd all just arm ourselves, go into a phalanx at the side of the door, if someone came in, they'd of gotten skewered.
She also had a grenade (hollowed out). So when we had a tornado drill (where everyone in the school had to crowd along the sides of the main hallway, gets very crowded) someone picked it up and asked if he could go downstairs and just chuck it down the hall, see how people reacted. He came to the conclusion that he didn't want to get expelled.

I'm not sure what hiding under your desk will do if there is a gunman running around, other than make it harder to run away if he comes into the room

dgthe3 Posted:



No doubt! With you narrow world view it never occurred to you:

1. If the intruder was in the room, you are less exposed on the floor and even the dubious shild of desks increases your chances of survival exponentially.

2. Part of the Code red is for the door to be locked and baracaded. With the potential victims prone among desks his chances of hitting anyone by firing a firearm through a door/window are almost NIL.

The real difficulty is this is a control measure which mitigates the losses while not addressing the main problem-----which is not firearms but murderous/suicidal people. PC will have to be abandoned to effect that.

good lord how old are you guys?

newfette Posted:





martin14 wrote:



good lord how old are you guys?

Old enough to know how and young enough to be able.

Well, living next to those compassionate humanitarians in the PRC, we occasionally have air raid drills. Sometimes it's just the sirens, but other times it involves shutting down all traffic, scrambling fighters and sirens. Hearing a siren going off at 6 AM or several f-16s ripping over your roof top isn't a reassuring noise(it isn't very good when it happens just as you start your swing either).

Duck and cover is as useless as tits on a boar or a quebec politician on an ethics commission. If you're going out in a mini big bang, you may as well have front row seats for the show.

Old enough to know how and young enough to be able.



very nice

Sherpherdsdog


I thought those clowns stopped baiting each other after Chang crossed over. You know both sides going out shooting up each others unarmed fishing boats, ships, and aircraft. Back in the 60's the Formosa Straits was the real proving ground for both sides newest air-to-air toys.

newfette


You really have no idea.

Last big sabre rattling was in 1997 when the Chinese test fired some missles that landed just outside of Kaohsiung Harbour, which was the 3rd largest container port in the world, at the time(now it's fourth).