Popular Culture
Plum Island and PIADC are the subject of a murder-mystery novel, Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille. DeMille has said, "How could anthrax not be studied there? Every animal has it." While addressing popular culture fears of a germ warfare lab at Plum Island, overall, the facility is presented as doing the job described by the Federal Government - research into animal diseases that would either decimate our national livestock or jump to humans and decimate us. The novel portrays the investigation into the murder of two Plum Island scientists. The motive,initially thought to be germs for terrorists or germs for a biotech company, is really the search for the lost treasure of Captain Kidd, who sailed the waters around Long Island prior to his capture. Kidd's treasure has never been found.
Read more about this topic: Plum Island Animal Disease Center
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)