Fantastic beasts and where to find them

Leave the rooster, that's human interest! And thus do some stories (short answer: no, but thanks for asking) always find a home on the front page -- even, at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network, when the existential peril to the country is reaching peak Kenyan.

Fantastical creatures, in all fairness, are sort of a hereditary ailment of American journalism. Today's Freep, at least, has the excuse of bordering the same lakes:

But the party press has a particular fixation on certain moral fables made incarnate in the supernatural. Take it away, The Washington Examiner!

When Ben Carson, in his speech at the Republican National Convention, drew attention to Hillary Clinton's tribute to the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky (1909-72), no eyebrows ascended. But when Carson went on to invoke Alinsky's admiration of Lucifer, and tie Clinton to that community organizer, the guffaws began in earnest.

"So are we willing," Carson asked, "to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer?"

Anyone who has actually read Alinsky, I believe, would have to take the question seriously. 

Well, to be fair -- I'm still waiting for reports from some of you -- so would anyone who has actually read Milton (see, e.g., Jagger & Richards, 1968). But it's somehow reassuring to see the old guy keeping such august company.

Today at Vacation Bible School

What are those pesky Satanists up to now, The Washington Times?

Florida agreed Thursday to let the Satanic Temple put up a holiday display at the Capitol, effectively putting to end a First Amendment lawsuit being filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Women and children off the streets! What would the display have looked like?

The state had previously denied the satanists from building a display of an angel falling into the fires of Hell right next to a more Christian-themed one of a nativity scene. But the Americans United for Separation of Church and State — citing the Hobby Lobby case — said it would sue on behalf of the satanists, on the grounds that the state couldn’t constitutionally keep out a display it deemed “offensive.”

Maybe the writer meant "Christmas-themed*?" Because as Christian themes go, you'd have to say that angels falling into hell ranks right up there:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
 
... And the deuil that deceiued them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, for euer and euer.

It's kind of like Alinsky Fever -- you'd like to think the people who wave a book around and scream about the coming apocalypse would want to, you know, open the thing every now and then and see if the lyrics have changed.

(And no. You could say "denied their request to build" or "blocked them from building," but not "denied them from building.")

* A Little Drummer Boy falling into a lake of fire? Works for me.

Stop press!

Yes, Virginia, there is a planet on which the fourth most important story in the history of the world in space is "notes between Clinton, lib activist Alinsky revealed":

Previously unpublished correspondence between Hillary Clinton and the late left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky reveal new details about her relationship with the controversial Chicago activist and shed light on her early ideological development.

Fair 'n' Balanced cousins? Guys? Can I suggest that if you aren't already driven into paroxysms of rage at the mere sight of the secret, yellow and midnight hag, you're going to need more than a little light on her early ideological development to get there. Or maybe not.