SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

VISITORS – FROM BBC:   At least 5,600 supporters of so-called Islamic State (IS) have returned to their home countries as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria, a new report says.  The Soufan Center, a US-based think tank, says 33 states have reported arrivals in the past two years.  The figure includes half of the estimated 850 people who left the UK.  The report says the returnees - most of whom are imprisoned or disappear from view - will continue to present a security challenge for years to come.   At least, under Trump, this is being taken more seriously.  And you can take it seriously, at the risk of being called a racist.

DEEP THINKING IN UNIVERSITIES – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A Christian student leader is demanding an apology after a poster distributed by Kent State University asked if stating “You need Jesus“ could qualify as hate speech.  The public university’s Center for Student Involvement created and circulated the poster on Twitter last week. It was designed to promote an event on free speech issues as part of Kent State’s KENTTalks, which are intended to “provide a safe place for discussions and transformational experiences for our student body” and promote “civil discourse.”  Silhouetted activists on the posters hold a range of placards with messages, overlaid with the rhetorical question “free speech or hate speech?” Alongside provocative expressions including “No More Gays,” “Women Need To Serve Their Man” and “Build a Wall,” the fourth placard bears a nonviolent, basic expression of the Christian faith: “You need Jesus.”  One of the great myths is that universities are places of great intellect and thought.  Not always, my friend.  Maybe sometimes.  A little.

TALK ABOUT MISPLACED PRIORITIES – FROM USA TODAY:   Kellogg's will be redesigning Corn Pops cereal boxes after a complaint about racially insensitive art on the packaging.  The Battle Creek, Michigan-based cereal and snack maker said on Twitter Wednesday it will replace the cover drawing of cartoon characters shaped like corn kernels populating a shopping mall. The corn pop characters are shown shopping, playing in an arcade or frolicked in a fountain. One skateboards down an escalator.  What struck Saladin Ahmed was that a single brown corn pop was working as a janitor operating a floor waxer. Ahmed, current writer of Marvel Comics' Black Bolt series and author of 2012 fantasy novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, took to Twitter on Tuesday to ask, "Why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor?  This is teaching kids racism."  Okay, change the cereal box, but it won't save a single black life in Chicago.  Poor sense of priority.

October 25,  2017