Why Church and Church Folk Should Scare You

   Just because someone claims to be a "Christian" and attends church faithfully every Sunday morning and night does not make them a good person. I figured since Halloween is fast approaching in a few days, I'd offer a few safety tips for survival. This doesn't apply just for Halloween, but for all year long. This also involves spooks and specters that you probably won't be seeing anywhere on the streets dressed in costume. Not in your atypical Samhain attire, in any case.
   These people wear business suits, polo shirts, khakis, loafers, tennis shoes, glasses, closely cropped hair, and huge, shit-eating grins. They go to church whenever possible, do charity work, are in the Freemasons, love their parents, and some are even preachers.
   These people are not really people at all, you see, but monsters. They are the ones you should fear. At night they fantasize about rape, murder, molesting children, kidnapping, robbery, assault, and all types of bloodshed that baby Jesus would simply not approve of. But in their eyes, they can do no wrong---because they call themselves "Christians".
   Watch out for these people, because they are everywhere, infiltrating your schools, your workplace, and maybe even your home.
   Wolves in sheep's clothing...that is the red flag you should be watching out for this Halloween season, and all year long.

1) Beware preachers who spend too much time with little children. They are probably pedophiles.
2) Stay away from weird Southern "snake handler" churches. These usually turn out to be cults.
3) Don't believe everything someone tells you simply because they go to church.
4) Actions speak louder than words. If someone creeps you out and does creepy things, to hell with their "Christian" label. Get as far away from them as possible.
5) Just stay away from church period. Unless you want to die. Or unless you're attending a funeral, in which case someone's already dead, so I guess it doesn't matter at that point.

The Dark Passenger Rides Again

   I absolutely love the television show Dexter that comes on Showtime. However, I do not have Showtime and I never intend to get it because I consider most of their programming inferior. So I wait for it to come out on DVD and then I Netflix it or buy it, as in the most recent case with Season 5.

   I would consider this season to be the best one yet. For those of you who do not follow the show, I highly suggest you backtrack and check out Seasons 1-4 as well as Season 5. If you're confused about anything I'm about to say concerning this particular season, feel free to do some research so you're not left in the dark.

   I've always felt a bit of a kinship with Dexter, and I think that he is probably one of the most sympathetic and human characters ever shown on television. He berates himself constantly and considers himself a monster because of the people that he kills---but he kills people who truly are monsters. Child molesters, serial killers, and the rest of the low-life scum of the Earth become science projects for Dexter's table where he stabs them into their final oblivion.

   He cannot be considered a monster just because he kills people. He's a vigilante, most definitely, but with the legal system being as fucked up as it is, you can't blame someone for wanting to rid the world of shit. You also can't blame someone for trying to exorcise their demons the only way they know how. Some people drink, some people do drugs. Dexter just happens to murder people who murder innocents. He's doing the world a favor, so he cannot be considered a monster.

   He has also found avenues of showing affection and self-sacrifice, and even love. That's not something a psychopath is capable of in any form. He finds a love interest in this particular season, and her name is Lumen. For awhile, the audience is convinced that she is going to stay, be his partner in crime, and help him exorcise his demons while she simultaneously tries to be rid of her own.
  
   But then she finds that she is healed a lot sooner than Dexter, and her "dark passenger" is no longer with her anymore. So she leaves. And with her leaves a sense of stability, of Dexter finally being able to trust someone and know that a person can know the "real" him and not run away.

   I was overwhelmed with sympathy for his character after finishing up Season 5 with my boyfriend yesterday, and I really hope they bring Lumen back to Dexter. I think everyone deserves to have someone who they feel understands them. Even so-called "monsters".