Scott LaFeehas an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune playing off Stephenie Meyer’s 2005 novel, Twilight, of which the movie-version opened Friday to blockbuster crowds. “The mythology of vampires extends back into the scary mists of time. Five thousand years ago, Mesopotamians fretted about Lamastu, a winged creature whose name meant ‘she who erases.’ Lamastu liked to suck the blood of young men, leaving them diseased, sterile and prone to nightmares,” he writes.

“Vampires are society’s go-to ghoul, an ever-useful, if ironic, reflection of the shape-shifting issues, concerns and fears of the times they haunt.”

You can read the article in full here: Society Can Count On Vampires