Spooky Hallowe'en

Our school website contains a list of handy Hallowe'en safety tips, among them the old chestnut about inspecting kids' candy before they eat it. I suppose that wouldn't hurt, but it might be interesting to know that there has never been a case of random poisoned Hallowe'en candy. There have been a few reports of candy with pins, and apples with razors, but the vast majority of those were hoaxes or pranks.

Here are a couple of links from the valuable Snopes website:

Perhaps it seems harmless to continue repeating these needless warnings, but I think it breeds cynicism and fear, which we have far too much of. (Don't even get me started on "Stranger Danger".)

(I'm going to have to think further about the appropriateness of cynicism and/or fear with respect to Chinese candy.)