Voodoo for Dummies

I am not a vindictive person. Most of the time.

I tend to believe in universal balance: cosmic payback and reward, karma, our amazing ability to forget how angry/bitter/hurt we really were at such-and-such a time.

But on those occasions when you've been greatly wronged, wouldn't it be nice to have something satisfying and empowering — oh, say, voodoo — to turn to?

This from a guest columnist for the Toronto Star, in a tongue-in-cheek review of three new books purporting to teach voodoo skills to the masses. OK, the books seem to be tongue-in-cheek too, but does voodoo--or Haiti, for that matter--need any more dubious press?

And will these books--which are all being carried by Amazon.com, btw--provoke a Ghettopoly-style outrage? Hope not, since that will simply give these silly things more free publicity--as I'm probably doing by blogging about them in the first place.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR.