LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In the early hours of Wednesday morning, more than 1,400 Los Angeles police officers, some in riot gear and HAZMAT suits, mobilized in force to clear the Occupy LA protesters from their camps in the park around City Hall. More than 200 demonstrators were arrested in the mostly peaceful eviction. As officers flooded the area just after midnight to dismantle the two-month old camp, Police Chief Charlie Beck praised the LAPD and the protesters for their restraint. But critics of the police action, including some City Council members, found the presence of riot gear and HAZMAT suits superfluous. They also took issue with the massive concentration of officers deployed to the scene, which totaled nearly 15 percent of the overall force. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stood by the decision and reiterated the need for adequate back up. Surprisingly, he found unexpected allies among the city’s criminal population. Area rapist and unregistered sex offender, Luther Earle Waylon, boasted that Wednesday morning had been the most productive day he’s worked since Rush Week 2009 when UCLA raised tuition, leaving fewer witnesses loitering around the campus.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Embattled presidential hopeful Herman Cain told his staffers Tuesday that he is reassessing his campaign after allegations surfaced Monday about a 13-year affair he carried on with a Georgia woman named Ginger White. Many analysts have already written Cain off as a viable contender, leaving him to fester at the bottom of the heap with Rick Santorum, who recently embarked on a new tour across the nation to ask voters if they knew whether he was still running in the GOP race.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Although the mayor’s office released a public apology Friday for the accidental pepper-sprayings and beatings sustained by Black Friday shoppers whom police had mistaken for Occupy protesters, county officials announced Monday that more severe tactics will be used to suppress the demonstrations. “Dreadful as the incident was,” said Mayor Manny DiPresso, “it validated that the Occupy movement has become a more dangerous threat to San Narciso than originally believed. I’ve been consulting with F. Chester Greene, our own Republican candidate for president, who has proven to me that these protests are nothing short of internal terrorism. In fact, only two of the ten Occupy SN protesters have been verified as county residents. That means other factions are invading our town in a violent attempt to undermine our economy and our way of life. At this point, we can’t ignore the fact that nothing differentiates these radicals from the terrorists who masterminded 9/11. They will be treated accordingly.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) --Horror befell the suburban serenity of Bennington Vale late Thursday night when police mobilized after a Thanksgiving dinner sponsored by Yoyodyne Financial Services to suppress Occupy San Narciso demonstrators as they slept. SNPD spokesman Ren Williams explained: “This has become routine procedure around the country. There are fewer protesters about late at night, which makes it easier to infiltrate their camps and expel them.”

“We certainly support the rights of citizens to peaceably assemble,” Williams continued, “but as the CEO of Yoyodyne Inc. astutely pointed out, overnight camping is illegal in the county. It’s also a very serious crime, under the category of vagrancy. Often times, we’re required to hold down sleeping campers, pry their mouths open and shoot pepper spray down their throats. Otherwise, they’ll keep right on sleeping and breaking the law.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Five members of a small and sometimes militant African American rights group in San Narciso County were trampled to death Friday outside the Gottsgeld department store in Santa Calcetines’ Buffum Plaza Mall. The concept for the protest was born when national broadcasting station TBS announced that it would be showing “The Wizard of Oz” on what is commonly known as Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving when retailers unveil their biggest bargains of the year. According to Lionel Tyrone Lincoln Green -- the head of San Narciso’s Angry Black Revolutionaries Against Caucasian Aristocracy, Despotism and Black Repression Association (ABRA CADABRA) -- the Thanksgiving holiday represents one of the worst examples of white oppression and entitlement in America next to San Narciso County itself.

“The first feast, so to speak, may also have been the nation’s first Last Meal.” -- Abel Wharfinger

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Although the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition in America traces its roots to the seventeenth century, historians believe earlier celebrations existed on the continent as far back as 1598, when Spanish explorers in Texas gave a feast of thanks at San Elizario. Similar events were also documented in the Virginia Colony. Abel Wharfinger, the dean of History at San Narciso College, said: “The Pilgrims likely witnessed a type of Thanksgiving feast prior to their journey overseas while they were staying in Leiden. There, annual services were held to observe the end of the 1574 siege. This event probably served as the influence for the holiday we now celebrate. Although our Thanksgiving is not entirely original, we’ve recently discovered something about it that is.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Republicans cried foul after President Obama held a press conference Wednesday at the North Portico of the White House to issue two Thanksgiving Day pardons. The ceremony drew protests from all of the 2012 GOP candidates, who decried the official order as an abuse of power. Obama tied the event to a series of executive actions he’s been taking recently to jump-start the economy, and which do not require congressional approval. “Well here’s another one: We can’t wait to pardon these turkeys,” the President said. After some initial confusion, Obama clarified that the turkeys in question were two flightless birds being spared their places on the holiday dinner table -- not Bernard Madoff, Jack Abramoff or Scooter Libby.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Today begins the second annual performance of The Tank Players’ original production, “Miracle on State Street.” The musical play, which runs through December 22 at the Buffum Plaza Arts Center in Santa Calcetines, re-imagines the holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street,” but told from the perspective of a group of damaged people in contemporary Chicago. The McDonald’s Thanksgiving Parade, formerly The State Street Holiday Parade, provides the backdrop of the story, just as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade propels the events that unfold in the film “Miracle on 34th Street,” which the theater’s owners have described as “the inferior and now cliché basis of The Tank Players’ show.” Performance times and ticket prices can be found at the venue box office, the Tank Players’ website and on our Community Events Calendar. Continue reading for a review of the play by contributing theater critic Delwyn Blodsnogger.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Last week, Congress incurred the ire of food activists, conscientious parents and the USDA by declaring that pizza is still “a vegetable” for the purposes of school nutritional guidelines. With the Super Committee at an unsurprising impasse and the economy continuing to stagnate, finding ways of cutting government spending remains at the top of lawmakers’ lists. During the financial crisis of the 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan tried to reduce school lunch funding by classifying ketchup as one of the required servings of vegetables. It was cheaper than broccoli, peas or greens, and children would eat it willingly. But as the Reagan Era of Reason gave way to the left-leaning lunacy of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, spending returned to dangerous levels. Critics point to Clinton’s enactment of NAFTA, which allows cheap foreign farms to drive up the price of U.S. agriculture, and Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity movement, which mandates that children eat expensive produce, as the kind of pricey socialism ruining the country.

MOSCOW, Russia (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Researchers at Lomonosov Moscow State University reported Thursday the discovery of what they believed to be the notes for a lost Tolstoy novel, but admitted Friday that their celebrations were premature. Sergey Vissarionovich Vasiliev, the project’s leader, said a tourist from Crimea had purchased the two items at a used bookstore in Podolsk, a town in Moscow Oblast. She handed the documents over to the university for analysis days later, sensing they might be early drafts of a novel in progress by Tolstoy. Vasiliev said: “She seemed to be on to something. The manuscripts provided exquisitely tedious details of complex lineages, with an incomprehensible wealth of genealogical data that far surpassed the family histories [Tolstoy] created for ‘Anna Karenina.’ The intricate and sometimes onerous preponderance of historical data was presented with the stoicism one often sees in Russian literature, lending itself to our unique sense of existential dread and love of long, boring lists that span hundreds of pages. In our excitement, we failed to dissect the materials as diligently as we should have. As a result, we issued a false report.”

Vasiliev’s team apologized to the literary community after confessing that the two manuscripts turned out to be an old Saint Petersburg phone directory and a copy of the 1959 Soviet census.

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Actress Demi Moore and her husband Ashton Kutcher, a commercial spokesman for a brand of inexpensive cameras, announced the dissolution of their six-year marriage Thursday, ending one of the most widely followed May-December romances in Hollywood. In a statement to the press, Moore said: “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have decided to end my six-year marriage to Ashton. It’s difficult to be a woman, a mother and a wife. Honestly, having to be all three for one person has become a little creepy and spiritually exhausting.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In 2008, then presidential candidate John McCain alluded to the rise of a third political party. More recently, the cantankerous Arizona senator, also known in some circles as “He Who Shall Not Be Named...President,” has hardened his views on the inevitability of a three party system. McCain said: “All these big government federalists, they’ve done nothing for the people. Well, we’re fed up with feds and fancy-pants fat cats.”

Some pundits who share McCain’s vision believe the conservative Tea Party will produce a viable presidential candidate, but McCain disagrees: “That’s a movement, not a party. Nothing to get excited about. But then again, at my age, having a movement is cause for a party -- if you know what I mean.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Atlas Productions, the company behind the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” agreed to replace 100,000 copies of the film’s newly released DVD after sickened fans discovered the discs riddled with errors, which led to a flood of vitriolic complaints that crippled the company’s servers for hours. One executive described the venomous correspondence as “so much hate it made Frank Miller’s opinion of Occupy Wall Street protesters seem quaint.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Several Alaska Airlines travelers were shocked to open their meal trays and find copies of Psalm 9:2 staring back at them. Even as a private sector company, the air carrier accepts millions of dollars in tax payer money each year. Critics claim that passengers outside Judeo-Christian faiths may find the lack of separation of church and business offensive. However, representatives from the airline say the company has offered various biblical snippets on its flights for about 30 years. Summer Wren, a senior public relations officer for Alaska Air, explained: “An overwhelming majority of our customers have indicated they appreciate the gesture, and those who don’t are not forced to read it. Besides, most people in this country are Jewish or Christian. People of other faiths probably don’t speak English anyway, or are Muslim terrorists, in which case their reaction to seeing the psalms makes profiling just a whole lot easier.”

Wren elaborated that the fleet’s religious pamphlets now serve a mission critical business purpose, and should be taken seriously.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The small but steadily blooming Occupy San Narciso movement -- currently nine people strong -- has not been viewed by area police as much of a threat, and few businesses in the county have taken the ad hoc protests seriously. But that all changed Friday when a new faction of Occupy demonstrators claimed their first life near the Mendocino Falls district. The nine official Occupy SN members disavowed any affiliation with the group that killed an unlicensed produce vendor at the freeway on-ramp by Vineland, where Hobo Gardens -- the county’s dedicated, “extro-urban” transient community -- intersects the North Viaduct area -- the ownership of which San Narciso continues to dispute.

“It’s not about the terrible things these other people did, it’s about what Joe Paterno didn’t do.” -- PSU Board of Trustees

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Beleaguered Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno, had anticipated ending his career at the end of the 2011 season. But the university’s Board of Trustees made the decision for him when they fired the legendary coach late Wednesday night amid growing public furor over the school’s handling of a child sex abuse case. Although PSU administrators allowed Jerry Sandusky, Paterno’s assistant coach, to fellate and sodomize young boys on campus between 1994 and 2009, and while they turned a blind eye to Athletics Department officials who hindered investigations into the case, the Board decided that Paterno represented the greatest threat to PSU’s recovery and should therefore serve as the face of the child abuse scandal.

“He’s just bad luck,” Board members announced, reading from a prepared statement Thursday morning. “Voodoo. And we don’t need that kind of obstacle in our way as we try to move past this tragedy and destroy Nebraska on Saturday. Go Lions!”

ANAHEIM, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- This past Sunday, November 6, marked the fifth unofficial Harry Potter Day at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif. According to the organizer’s website: “Our event draws Potter fans from all over the Southland and far beyond for a day of mirth, mischief and magic! The elves are hard at work putting together this year’s festivities, which will include a scavenger hunt (of sorts) the likes of which you’ve never experienced before.”

Upon entering the park, costumed fans of the boy wizard franchise enrolled in “classes,” at which point they received their scavenger hunt lists. According to Disneyland representatives, the event was intended to help promote socialization among “potential pariahs and shut-ins.” For those Potter fans unlikely to fully integrate with American culture, Disney had also hoped to provide a nurturing platform to help them transition into the inevitable Renaissance Faire lifestyle awaiting them in their 40s. Unfortunately, a day meant for magic and merriment ended in tears and heartbreak.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Joe Paterno’s nearly half-century career as head coach of the Penn State football team will end soon following a child sex abuse scandal involving his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, who was arrested on seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and numerous other charges, including aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of a child.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- By November 27, Catholic parishes in English speaking countries will witness a small but pivotal revolution. After that date, church goers will begin using a new translation of the Roman Missal, the official instruction book for administering rites and prayers during the celebration of Mass. Confronted by centuries of criticism over shaky interpretations of texts not originally written in English, an international committee labored under a Vatican directive to more closely align phrasing and semantics to Latin. Dioceses around the globe are preparing wary priests and parishioners for one of the biggest transformations in Catholic worship since the 1960s, when the Second Vatican Council enacted several amendments in the liturgy to modernize Mass. But the announcement has met with backlash from countless members of the clergy, who claim that the nonsensical alterations will jeopardize the individual faithful’s “personal encounter with the Lord,” an expression the Church said will now be referred to as “deity detente and acculturation.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The nation’s oldest Roman Catholic newspaper has riled gay rights groups by posting an editorial claiming that the devil may be responsible for homosexual attraction. The paper, which is run by the Archdiocese of Boston, concluded that “scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil.” But religious LGBT advocacy groups condemned the piece as an extreme position promoting ignorance and bigotry, violating “a fundamental belief of our faith; that all people reflect the Divine image and are beloved by God.” They also found it hypocritical.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A woman from Irving, Texas, accused of killing her 6-year-old son and leaving his body on a Maine road pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Friday. Investigators said the woman killed her son at a New Hampshire motel, drove over the border to Maine in her pickup truck, and then left the body on the roadside, covered in a green blanket. The cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation. The suspect told police that she had dosed her son with cold medicine before smothering him with a pillow. She also stated that it took four minutes for the child to die.

When asked why she killed her son, the accused said, “I caught him stealing cookies from the cupboard. He was a criminal, so he faced the ultimate punishment. That’s how we do things in Texas. Perry for President in 2012!”

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- An enormous asteroid known by astronomers as 2005 YU 55 will pass closer to Earth than the moon this coming Tuesday, causing consternation and grave concerns for scientists. “It’s the first time since 1976 that an object of this size has passed this closely to the Earth,” said Leo Biederman, who made the grim discovery. “I’m very worried. Ever seen ‘Deep Impact?’ The economy is in the toilet, federal spending is out of control, all wages and prices are frozen, the first black president’s popularity is spiraling down the toilet as he vainly attempts to keep control, and the panicked population places all its hopes in some far-fetched venture called the Messiah to save them from a global-level catastrophe. Let’s just say I’m not making any plans after November 8.”

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A 35-year-old man from Jacksonville, Fla., was charged Tuesday with 26 counts of cyber-related crimes for hacking. The suspect was arrested on October 12 by federal agents after an 11-month investigation. His victims include Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera, and additional people identified only by the initials B.P., J.A., L.B., L.S., D.F. and B.G. Because of the explicit nature of the photographs, authorities worry that the unnamed celebrities may turn out to be Beth Grant, J.J. Abrams, Larry David, Laura San Giacomo, Dave Foley and Brad Garrett. “If nude pictures of these individuals leaked to the press, I can’t imagine the extent of the damage. I’d say half of the American public would need some sort of grief counselling or PTSD treatment,” one FBI official said.

Photo courtesy of Urology

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A local attorney, Randy Cowlmouse, shocked doctors at San Narciso County General on Wednesday morning when he came in complaining of extreme pain and swelling in one of his testicles. Dr. Samuel Saahboehns, the facility’s senior medical director, initially expected to find himself facing a case of severe epididymo-orchitis. “My urologists were fairly certain that ultrasound scans would locate a tumor of some kind, hopefully benign,” Dr. Saahboehns told reporters. “None of us was prepared for the image that appeared on the screen.” Indeed, all attending members of the staff described themselves as astounded to find a human face staring back at them.

“We’re still analyzing the face, which we extracted during the biopsy, but I think it proves an age old theory about men being controlled by their genitals. I mean, there’s a little man living in this patient’s testicles.”