David Bloomberg
Boo!
Scared ya, didn't I?
Welcome to the time of year when ghost stories are taken more seriously, witchcraft is eyed suspiciously, and kids get massive sugar highs. Of course, by the time you read this, it should all be over until next year (Ok, Ok, so I'm running a little late again).
Surprisingly, there has been relatively little in the way of Halloween-related articles (in past years, I remember stories about witches who could make copy machines work better, for example), although WICS Channel 20 has a series of mini-pieces on "Central Illinois' Most Haunted" during their news for a few days. That doesn't mean there have been less articles of interest to REALL. Quite the contrary -- REALLity Check is overflowing this month but not with the standard ghouls and goblins fare.
Indeed, I find the item I picked on the most this month, the views professed by a school board candidate, to be scarier than any monster from our imaginations. Vampires may scare us, but people with anti-scientific and anti-critical thinking views who are put in positions to force those views onto others are the real terror.
Speaking of such powerful terrors, our next meeting (Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln Library) features the recent Frontline show examining claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). Please note that this is not the four-hour-long show which looked into recovered memory claims a few months back, but a new show done by the same person. I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard it is extremely well-done (let's put it this way, I saw a message on the nets from a person who believes they've "recovered" memories of such abuse -- after watching this show, he's begun to question whether or not his "memories" are real).
Incidentally, for those of you who are receiving this issue of the newsletter because you attended the recent ISTA conference, I sent you each a letter and put in the incorrect times for our regular meetings. We generally meet on the first Tuesday of every month, so if your letter said something different, ignore it.
For everybody, our December meeting will not be on the first Tuesday, as the Library is busy that day. Right now, we have December 13 scheduled, but we may decide to have a lunch meeting instead. We will, of course, let you know in the next newsletter.
/s/ David Bloomberg
