On last Wednesday's Loose Women, the panel - made up of one Jane Moore, Brenda

Edwards, Gloria Hunniford and Carol McGiffin - had a discussion on Halloween, its
effects on every generation and the possibility of banning the celebration.

The aforementioned group of ladies began their discussion by mentioning the Jeffrey
Dahmer-inspired costumes that have been found on the Internet. While the costumes
are indeed offensive, making light of a horrific cannibal, in reality, the costumes
themselves are not sold anywhere and are not worn during Halloween.

Another point that the panel raised is that Halloween originated in America. That
is not true, as it is actually a Celtic tradition, hundreds of years old that's
been celebrated in Britain.

Carol McGiffin, during the discussion, has also stated that adults who go all-out
for Halloween don't do it for their children, but do it instead to 'beat their
neighbors' and that Halloween trick-or-treating is teaching kids to extort things
from people. For the adults who go all-out on Halloween to 'beat their neighbors',
it is only a harmless competition that can create truly spectacular masterpieces of
artwork, light shows and memorable moments. As for teaching kids extortion, it is a
possibility as, for example, you can learn how to fly a plane using just a flight
simulator, there is no real evidence that trick-or-treating has actually taught
kids extortion.

Finally, Carol raised an excellent point in that anything can be offensive nowadays
when it comes to costumes, including simple ghost looks. If you seek to be offended
in anything, you will surely find offense in everything. However, there is a fine
line between being genuinely offensive and being offensive for ridiculous reasons.