Here it is, from Glenn Garvin at The Miami Herald, “Scared Out of Our Wits by Halloween,” detailing how we can make ANYTHING into a danger — candy, costumes, childhood, fun. An equal opportunity for all different factions to fight for the “safety” of our children!
17 Comments
The link doesn’t work.
Link- http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/21/3703116/scared-out-of-our-wits-by-halloween.html
@Pat Robetson
“Halloween is Satan’s night”
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
🙂
Lol, good article, love some of his observations.
“most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.”
That explains my inability to stop eating Halloween candy. Those Twix bars I steal from my kids start calling my name late at night and I must sacrifice them.
Visions of Wicans working the assembly lines at M&M Mars make me smile. Demon candy, I love ti.
Unless parents stand up to the schools, and communities, their kids are going to lose out. Their grandkids are going to lose even more. And by the time they have great grandkids, Halloween will be nothing more than stories of what grandpa and grandma did as kids.
Just like the stories walking to school. Playing in the woods. All things that future generations will not have.
Oh for pities sake, really??? every time I think ‘society’ can get more absurd, it does…
“Oh for pities sake, really??? every time I think ‘society’ can get more absurd, it does…”
Did you see the HS parent in Texas who filed a bullying claim because his sons football team was crushed 91-0…
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/sports/Parent-Accuses-Football-Coaches-of-Bullying-After-91-0-Win-228712141.html
I assume Lenore will be reporting on this.
Some of my Dad’s best stories were about Halloween in the early 1950’s (he was born in 1940). He, his brother, and several cousins would put shaving cream on cars, steal corn from neighboring fields, and stay up very late the night before Halloween.
My Dad was an attorney for fifty years, one of the cousins was also a respected attorney. My Dad’s brother was a respected doctor. The runt of the litter just because he was younger is working as a computer programer.
He said none of the parents knew where they were or what they did. They were well known in town because all the parents owned a clothing store (no longer in business) near the Hill School in Pennyslvnia.
I have friends who are anti Halloween, I think it goes along with letting your kids watch classic cartoons. Sit down and watch Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all those Looney Toons – not the ones now, the ones from the 70’s. Racism, sexism, innuendo, all of it’s there, kids don’t get it so they don’t care! If your household makes Halloween about cute pumpkins and fun costumes, then Satan isn’t welcome at your house and he’ll go somewhere else. Plenty of people are welcoming him in…
I think the last non-silly safety issue around Halloween was the furor over those rigid plastic masks that looked super cute but were impossible to see out of. They and the trash-bag-like flapping plastic costumes they came with were banned, more fitted fabric costumes are now the thing, you can actually look like the superhero you’re trying to be, and everybody’s happy, at least down at the sizes where a girl can just get a “boy’s” costume if she wants to be Girl Iron Man in a “real” Iron Man suit instead of an “Iron-ette” in a little flippy skirt.
But nowadays it’s like anything related to your precious offspring being outside in the dark without you is a source of terror. I ran across a whole set of articles the other day in which “scientists” solemnly compute the calories in the entire! quart!! of candy!!! brought home by the average child and predict fatty fatty doooooooooooom. (The ridiculous accusations and officially sanctioned bullying of people who are oh my god visibly FAT going around EXISTING at ordinary decent folks as if they thought they had the RIGHT to is a whole ‘nother blog’s worth of stupid.)
Loved the quote about Daphne…it’s so true! If a kid dressing up as a girl was going to portend him growing up gay then we have a whole lot of hobo’s (can I still say hobo?), Power Rangers, Ninja’s and others coming of age soon.
A devout Christian or God fearing person is NOT going to be cursed by Satan for putting up Halloween decorations and allowing his kids to go trick or treating, any more than an atheist will be blessed by God for putting up Christmas decorations and exchanging presents with his family. A holiday is a holiday is a holiday. It’s an excuse for a celebration!
Christians can call Halloween “Fall Festival” if they want to and atheists can refer to Christmas as the “Celebration of the Winter Solstice” if it so pleases them. But when all is well and done, the proper name for each one of these holidays is Halloween and Christmas respectively so let’s not ruin their OFFICIAL names. Because to me as a Christian, Christmas is a very special holiday, but to a Wiccan, Halloween might be a special holiday. To most generic people however, they’re just holidays ready to be celebrated and they can call them what they want!
@John: Christians were historically opportunistic–doubtless realizing that if you took away their celebrations, *potential* converts weren’t likely to become *actual* converts. So you had the Roman holiday of Saturnalia (December 17 on the Julian calendar), or the Celtic holiday of Yule (December 21), became Christ’s Mass… or eventually, Christmas (December 25). And–to get back on point–the Celtic holiday of Samhain became All Hallow’s Eve (Hallowe’en, October 31) and All Saints Day (November 1). 🙂
About that evil candy – guess we are safe. We give out micro popcorn and pretzels!
“Loved the quote about Daphne…it’s so true! If a kid dressing up as a girl was going to portend him growing up gay”
Gay? My first thought was the poor kid could be genderdysphoric and using Halloween as the only day of the year to feel ‘right’.
I may have to start reading his column, I had to chuckle and shake my head at the sad reality he outlines. Thank you for finding it and sharing!