It's the Law

Powdered wigs, the Council of Trent and Beowulf aside, something out there wants our hides and we're not counting on the gen-Xers to save us. Evolution has a nasty penchant for doubling back to clean up its' messes, and humanity has created one helluva mess.

The onset of this year's influenza season has turned All-Hollows-Eve into an all too real nightmare for many Americans. The young, 3-6, the elderly, 65 plus and those at risk due to health factors have been put in harms way by the unfortunate but predictable failure of an English firm's inability to produce a "safe" vaccine. American foreign policy, bent on rewarding Tony Blair's hapless allegiance to the Bush administration's war in Iraq, leaves us woefully bereft of "Homeland Security" where it counts, the health of our citizens.

SARS, influenza, mad cow, Asian bird flu loom as starkly terrifying reminders that we are, after all, what we eat. When in fact was the last time anyone accused a vegetable of threatening our very way of life?

This Halloween might be a time to consider which is scarier a future of "Franken- Food" a-la-Micky Dees and factory farming laboratory experiments or a bowl of your great grandmother's pumpkin soup.

Have a hoary Halloween and a very ghoulish nightmare.

By the way, for those of you wondering, Jude Law is just one of our favorite vegetarians.