They'll be at the supermarket checkout counters for another six weeks, at least.

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.written/c/ZJt-EL2wKXU

Anyone have any reliable numbers on the percentage of Americans who believe ghosts actually exist? (I'm talking here exclusively about the Casper category of apparition--"Friendly" or otherwise--rather than Ghosts of the Holy variety (which would put the number around 85%, the approximate portion the domestic population we often are told that polls find are G-d believers of one sort or another).

Meanwhile, I couldn't care LESS--or as the marginally-witted so reflexively and frequently say, "I could care less"[!]--what is the number of Americans who think VAMPIRES (at least of the human rather than bat variety) exist.

Actually, maybe I COULD care less! That is, based on the volume of vampire--or zombie--material Hollywood has been churning out this century, I fear the number is WAY north of even 5% ! (The IDEAL figure, of course, would be 0%.)

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

Well, it's one thing to believe in the Un-Dead - but there ARE people who get a kick out of drinking blood.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/real-life-vampires-exist-they-are-scared-admit-their-practices-doctors-180955877/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-the-real-life-vampires-of-new-england-and-abroad-42639093/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/15/real-life-vampires-interview

Oh, and remember that TIME cover story on angels, many years ago? (I think that's where I learned that angels are NOT supposed to be spirits of the dead.)

Anyway, from Gallup, in 2016 (trouble is, it doesn't say whether the people they asked understood the above distinction):

https://news.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx

....Gallup asked the question that includes the "not sure about" option in random rotation with questions about belief in four other religious concepts: angels, heaven, hell and the devil. Americans' belief in all of these is lower than their belief in God, ranging from 72% who say they believe in angels to 61% who say they believe in the devil, with 12% unsure on both. Belief in these four concepts is down at least marginally from when last measured in 2007, following the same pattern as the trend in belief in God using this question format...

Y'know, I DO remember that Time cover story all about angels! Clearly! (I laughed at it, mostly.)

And in those days, I recognized both Newsweek and Time as the finest weeklies, newsmagazines or otherwise. And absolutely indispensable show-prep for us commercial newstalk call-in radio loudmouth hosts.

I mourn the (effective) demise of magazines--or at least widespread magazine reading--almost as much as I lament, say, that neither Einstein, Asimov nor Sevareid are around anymore to at least explain if not indeed shepard us through this constantly-confounding century.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida