i'm kael's ghost

The 90's were a great time to be a witch.  Not a haggard, wrinkly old woman with a warty nose but a young, nubile, sexually hungry girl. For the most part, as long as these ladies, "played nicely" they enjoyed the full gamut of benefits of practicing the dark arts: power, beauty, money, fancy things, men, etc. On the other hand, their petty, childish, mean-spirited behavior was swiftly punished with deformity, loss of love, loss of status, and sometimes even death. While there is often some sort of religious lesson embedded within these stories ("Stick with god because dabbling in the devil's world is, you know, bad.") the greater message is seemingly more of a social nature, "women must behave themselves or else ." So where did this avalanche of witchy women begin? Possibly in the pages of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches  (1990) which birthed a teen version by  LJ Smith - The Secret Circle  (1992). And maybe even some honorable mention...

Typically, I want nothing to do with alien abduction movies. There's something about the obsessive paranoia and clear narcissism driving abductees that just, annoys me. They have some creepy blend of new age mysticism filtered through years of sexual repression or something. Maybe I'm too practical to buy into evil alien invasion stories. I simply don't believe that there's some advanced species kicking around the galaxy with so little  to do that they are busily scooping up humans and raping them. We're simply not that exciting. And really. Seriously. Why would they want this  planet out of every  possible option out there. If I'm to believe that there are intelligent races out there, roaming through space, I also have to believe that there are planets far more interesting than our own. Our chunk of rock isn't really that impressive. Tonight. I thought I'd try, again, to watch one and possibly - maybe - this time - learn to love abduction storie...