The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

First of all, let's just be clear: Even though childhood obesity is a growing problem (pun alert!) in this country, I refuse to be the guy tonight that gives out boxes of raisins. Probably I'll do the lazy, semi-cruel thing and put out an empty bowl with a ‘please take one' Post-it note posted to the rim. I really believe that disappointing kids by giving them nothing is better than disappointing them by giving them raisins.

Anyway, around eight o'clock or so, when all the children who aren't actually too old to be asking their neighbors for free candy are back home with their masks pushed up to their foreheads, their wands and batons set by their sides, their mounds of chocolate before them on the floor (their parents secretly stealing Milky Ways now and again) - it's the perfect time to sit around and tell scary stories.

Bill O'Reilly has a new book out - a memoir called A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity. "The year was 1957, the month September, and I had just turned eight years old," is how it begins. The next two words: "Dwight Eisenhower." Because every eight-year-old's life is informed by who's in the oval office. My favorite review of it so far is says,

while dotted with enough childhood anecdotes to qualify it as a memoir, it is essentially a self-help tract. "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity" is Mr. O'Reilly's effort to help you become more like Mr. O'Reilly.

This, in and of itself, is kinda scary. But O'Reilly's written stuff that's even scarier. The following, I say, should be the campfire (or fireplace) fare for Halloween. Originally published in 1998, widely re-released in 2004, Those Who Trespass is pretty much a slasher flick in prose. "O'Reilly billed the book as an ‘R-rated thriller,' " says Salon.com "that's ‘not for children, not for adults who find strong situations objectionable.'"

The main character's name - and I love this - is Tom O'Malley, and he's from Levittown, Long Island, which is O'Reilly's hometown. He's investigating a bizarre string of murders that's afflicted the media world. It seems that the single defining trait of Those Who Trespass is O'Reilly's penchant for imaginative homicides. One newscaster is killed when a spoon is jammed through the back of his mouth. Another has pantyhose stuffed in her throat before she is thrown off a balcony.

Here is a review allegedly written by Newt Gingrich.

Scarier still: 2005's The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families. The title sums it up fairly well...this is from Amazon's product description:

*  Can a kid wear an anti-gay T-shirt on campus?
* Does a school newspaper have the right to bad-mouth a principal?
* Does a mother have the right to eavesdrop on her daughter's telephone conversations?

Some of the answers will surprise you. Some will empower you. All will make you think.

I mean, yeah, Halloween's supposed to be scary on a fairly fundamental, superficial level - with haunted houses, horror movies, and alcohol-filled girls who aren't quite attractive as they think they are dressed really slut-like. But if you want a Halloween that's got psychological edge to it - if you want to talk about fear - then O'Reilly's ouevre is maybe the way to go.