The Pagan New Year has passed, but that doesn't mean that we're done with the Horror of bad storytelling that plagues us every year.

I just got cable, and I have to ask: What's with all those ghost stories and horror movies where anything good is unredeemable, vulnerable, and generally painfully stupid? OK, we've all laughed at the lithe young women who take off their clothes (ostensibly to wash them) and then get killed. I mean, it's a movie cliche. But I'm talking about the deeper cliche: that the supernatural has no positive side whatsoever.

The only angels that sell tickets are angels who battle to the death with demons. And the uglier the demons the better.

I wonder what it is? Our obsession with mortality and fear of death, making us unable to see the supernatural as anything but horrific? Our addictive need for adrenaline kicks? Our secret fear that if we open the door of our psychic abilities, it will be the end of everything we know -- and we translate that anxiety into a projected demon on the other side?

I don't know. All I can say is: phooey! Silly Gory Stories. We love them. And they're killing our ability to imagine anything -- except the safest and most banal experiences of the everyday world -- as natural.