More Than Sympathy for the Devil

Each year colleges and universities, during their commencement exercises, award honorary degrees to varied luminaries of varying degree of notoriety or merit. And usually there's some citation or title to go with it. Hey, that gets luminaries as graduation speakers.

Let's consider a not-as-yet honored luminary: old Satan himself. Which institution will get around to cite the Old Boy? Shall said institution award him the Doctor of No Laws degree, or the Doctor of Inhumane Letters degree? Maybe a Doctor of Divinity degree would be too ironic.

Now while the U.S. Constitution bars the government from awarding titles of nobility or other trappings of old world royalty, they could take advantage of the Devil's weakness for titles by giving him a new-fangled title, like Coach of the Year or Old Poody Pants! After all, previous ones like Lord of the Flies and The Prince of Lies went over big and he is one vain dude, like he came out of Hollywood! How about Vlad the Inhaler or Sower of Alternative News? Mystical Deflater of Footballs or Dubious Dude of Discord could catch on too.

In short, play on his vanity. By making it sound flattering and official, he will bite.

Pro tip: This is exactly what two of the minor demons, Belial and Beelzebub, did to get themselves ahead in their own devilish way. After all, to the winners of this game of suck up go the most Devil's Food Cake or Deviled Eggs!

And it is not entirely out of sorts for newspapers or magazines to catch more Lords of the Flies by using honey than vinegar! A few well-placed articles might mollify any inclination to declare them 'Enemies of the People.' [I might point out in passing that this title is similar to and may have originated from a play by Henrik Ibsen with a similar title. Is this a plagiarism issue?]

After all, this business of suck up goes the other way, too. It was none other than Winston Churchill who flattered the press excessively by referring to them as 'The Fourth Estate!" The press, including possibly The New York Daily News and The Sun, has delighted in this term ever since. Flattery will get politicians anywhere with newspaper people.

And this might serve as an operational plan of sorts. Like ju-jitsu for dummies! Oh my.....is this a potential book title in my future?