Ray Wallace, a creator of Bigfoot, died late last year.� His family subsequently revealed the origin of the hoax that at times since 1958 has enthralled a nation, enriched tabloid newspapers and sent hordes of Bigfoot Believers tromping through the woods of the Pacific Northwest in quest of the mythical creature.

No sooner had that exceptionally good one been properly dispatched, up crops the wacko Ra�lian cult and its "scientific" adjunct, Clonaid, claiming to have cloned a human (now two), proof to follow...well, probably not.� You know the drill.

That there are those among us who believe many impossible things before breakfast is not news.� While all humans share remarkable genetic similarities (including a disturbing number with flatworms), the department in charge of wiring brains has never been all that distinguished.� In addition, too many educators obviously got a really bad batch of left brain hemispheres and that hasn't kept reality meters synchronized.

Did the fairly standard cult commandment to have sex with the founder ring any Ra�lian warning bells?� Ra�l's darling little topknot and Planet 9 togs?� Dr. Bishop Boisselier's bare midriff and Bride of Frankenstein hair?

Before some of you were born, we had places called asylums and businesses called traveling carnivals.� People of the cult foundation persuasion who did not live in the former worked in the latter.� Now we have television, which empowers them to frolic all together before our very eyes.

It is easy to throw the stones of logic at such trifles as Bigfoot and the Ra�lians.� They are but whimsical diversions for most of us.� Absent the reality of unicorns and wizards, some of our species create them, others promote them for fun or profit, not enough of us say "stop now," and successive generations progressively lose the ability to discern fact from fantasy, on issues both frivolous and serious.

All erroneous information is not consciously perpetrated.� An illustrative case in point is America's homicide rate, a serious subject.� Significantly reduced since statistics began being compiled in 1931, virtually unchanged since 1960, low homicide rates have been the pride of police authorities across the country.� The result of fewer humans with deadly intent?� Preventive policing?� Higher levels of personal security?� Sorry, none of the above.

There's another relevant statistic, that for aggravated assault, which has risen 700 per cent since 1931.� Now, a data-packed study, led by Dr. Anthony Harris of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, indicates that the disparity between assaults that end in death and those that don't is almost certainly related to major improvements in emergency medical services, including ambulance efficiency.� Good work, Dr. Harris.� It's just too bad it appeared in an obscure journal, Homicide Studies, and is getting only peripheral attention.

One of Dr. Harris's co-authors on the study, Dr. Steven Thomas, an emergency room physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, has said, "I think the results are consistent with common sense."� Yes, they are.� But someone had to have the common sense to begin the study.� While most of us do not have the academic credentials of Dr. Harris and his colleagues, nor the grant money to study anything, we do have that common sense.� We just don't apply it all that strenuously.

As we enter a new year, beset with consequential political, social and scientific arguments, it will be prudent to ponder a lot of stuff which is not as it seems, not as it is said to be.� Voodoo economics, junk science in the courtroom and routine political demagoguery will require legions of intellectual thugs.� Just go ahead and set your common sense on red alert now.� You're going to need it.