Okay, there’s nothing amusing about a real-life emergency. That said, however, there is usually something amusing to be found whenever a government agency takes a stab at preparing the public to face an unknown future hazard.
The old Duck and Cover film of the cold war is a cult classic now, making us howl with laughter — the idea that children could be made safe from nuclear fallout if they would only crawl under their school desks and cover their faces. But of course this iconic piece of propaganda was taken very seriously at the time… 
Nowadays, the US government has gone online with their Ready.gov site for what satirists delight in calling a whole new generation of “scare mongering in the style of the old duck and cover.”
Try to absorb as much of the radiation as possible with your groin region. The current world record is 5 minutes, 12 seconds.
“The fun thing,” says the parody site SafeNow.org, “is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean anything!”
And of course they thoughtfully supply a few tongue-in-cheek “interpretations” of emergency instruction graphics… Yessir, it’s good to know that we haven’t forgotten how to laugh at our fears!
, satire
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