Now teenage girls swoon over the impossibly sensitive and chaste modern-day vampire guys, who swear off human blood and suck only animal blood. I am surprised PETA doesn’t get on this flagrant abuse of helpless animals, but the animal control folks are tickled pink, I bet.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula

They couldn’t stand sunlight, which could kill them. So they only moved about by night. None of this new-age sparkly effects we see nowadays.

They without exception attacked only humans for their blood. Any sex would do, but Dracula in the movies seemed to have a taste for the ladies. And of course the victims, once bitten, would also become vampires. (The sexual connotations here are pretty obvious, but alas lost in today’s abstinence-only vampire ethos. How bloody dull.)

They were technically undead, neither alive nor dead, but somewhere in between. Of course, they were immortal. And creepy. Unlike bon vivant immortals like The Highlander or dashing and glib, yet strangely shy Edward, vampires just suck the life out of a party. If they had any social skills at all while alive, centuries of walking around at night biting people in the neck pretty much burned those skills out.

They could transmogrify into bats, defying both biology and the conservation of mass, for quick escape. Their strength, on the other hand, did not approach Superman-like levels. I’m not sure what would happen if Dracula were hit by a car, for example. I do know what would happen to the driver, however. Instant blood donor!

Aside from exposing them to sunlight, the only other way to kill a vampire was to drive a wooden stake through his heart. (BTW, I failed to mention that vampires in my day seemed only to be male. What happened to all those fair maidens, once bitten, anyway? Hmmm.) A Christian cross would also make them shrink back in fear. Making an undead fellow actually dead was generally very difficult. Centuries of practice evading mortal avengers gave vampires a real advantage in a fight, making for some great suspense in the movies. Nowadays it never seems to cross the minds of winsome vampire lovers like Bella that perhaps dashing and glib, yet strangely shy Edward might be a lot happier dead. Being undead is just a lifestyle choice, after all, so whatever.

(And am I the only one puzzled by why Bella’s creator chose her name, given that a famous Dracula actor was named Bela Lugosi? Is it a joke, or just an oversight?)

It’s Hallowe’en, and one of the tropes of the holiday has been scary villains like Dracula, ashen-faced and looming in black evening clothes, staring meaningfully at someone’s carotid artery. Vampire movies were chilling (OK, some were also deliberately funny: “I don’t drink …. wine.” . Don’t change the subject.), worthy of watching late at night on October 31st. Vampires were staples of haunted houses, along with the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster, skeletons, mummies and ghosts.

Now we have emo vampires like Edward. Who the hell is going to be scared out of his pants by a dashing and glib yet strangely shy 20-something GQ model? Will little boys clamor to dress up like Edward for Hallowe’en, so they can scare the little girls? It just won’t work. The girls will just fall in love with them.

In this festive holiday season, we need to remember its time honored tradition of scaring us shitless. It’s time to put the creepiness, ghoulishness and menace back into the vampire. They are not supposed to be socially acceptable, or politically correct, or even abstinent. Send Edward and his woosy brethren and sistren back to the graveyards, and bring back Nosferatu and Dracula! I think if you pull out the wooden stakes, they come back to life … or undeath … or something.

Happy Hallowe’en.

I mean, really don’t like Hallowe’en. (Hint: They’re the same people who are the first to cry, “There’s a war on Christmas!”)

A few weeks ago, right-wing windbags Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh suggested their adoring fans celebrate an “Obama Hallowe’en,” by taking candy OUT of the trick-and-treaters’ bags and telling them that’s what socialism is all about. So funny, these guys.

Then, I heard about this lady, from Florida of course, who might be channeling H.P. Lovecraft instead of God.

Some tidbits:

The idea that Lucifer/Satan/the Devil is the negative counterpart of God is part of Manichaeism, a Persian belief system that influenced some Christian heretics early on. So, Daniels is reaching way back into history for her theology.

Also, the idea that evil spirits were abroad during Hallowe’en is a pagan tradition that predates Christianity’s arrival in the British Isles. More ancient theology superstition.

Except she wrote this in A.D. 2009.

More excerpts:

Folks, if you want safe, witch- and curse-free candy, drop me a line. I can have it shipped from China, where no one celebrates Hallowe’en. We have no “fetishes” to attract those nasty demons.

And more:



Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.

The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:

* Sex with demons
* Orgies between animals and humans
* Animal and human sacrifices
* Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
* Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
* Revel nights
* Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
* Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Words fail me.

Not the books used by Satanists. No indeed, though I reckon you can bring them along. The Amazing Grace Baptist Church intends to toast such “perversions of God’s word” as

NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.

For good measure, the church near Waynesville, NC, also plans to add “Satan’s music” to the pyre.

such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contemporary Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

and non-Bible books, too :

We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

It’s a veritable Hall of Fame of pentecostal/fundamentalist writers! Billy Graham? Oral Roberts? I mean, I don’t like any of these people, or subscribe to their beliefs (well, except for Mother Teresa, maybe), but seriously, aren’t we getting a little carried away here?

When I was reporter in western Kentucky, I covered a record-burning at a local church. This was around 1980, and the vinyl and CDs (I dunno, did they even have CDs then?) going to the fiery furnace were what you would expect — heavy metal, hard rock — and some you wouldn’t — pop schlock like Olivia Newton-John. (Apparently, they didn’t appreciate her hit single, “Let’s Get Physical.”)

Countless other churches have had book-burnings, but Pastor Marc Grizzard’s is the first I’ve heard where they intend to incinerate Bibles. Grizzard is one of those narrow-minded Christians who worships the King James version of 1611 as the only True Word of God™. Anything else more recent is heretical.

If you wade through the church’s poorly designed website (created by someone the pastor actually recommends, no less), you will find that Grizzard knows no ancient Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew, and is actually kind of proud of it. (Yet another example of the anti-intellectual strain of Bible-thumpers rife in the USA.)

I know very little, but that doesn't matter. God said in Psalms 12:6-7 "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever."

One does not need to know Greek or Hebrew to understand God's Word. God has promised to preserve them, not man. If the preservation of God's Word was left up to man than we would mess it up. That's what we have with modern versions. But divine preservation is God's promise to give us his pure words and we have that in the KJV. God's Word is not lost or hidden somewhere. We have them today for the English Speaking people and that is through the KJV.

To say that one has to know Greek or Hebrew to have God's pure and perfect words is to say that God Almighty is not capable of preserving His Words in our English language. My God is capable of doing whatever he chooses to do, but it seems that many so called "scholars" today has a god that doesn't know any language other than Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. I can't speak for their puny little gods. My God created the languages, including English.

If I catch his meaning, the only true inspired word of God in English was the KJV. The other, later translations, based on a wider variety of original texts and archaeological evidence, are the spawn of Satan.

So what if people can understand them better.