Book Club
 

Movie reviews are very bad, if they go beyond "It is good/bad."
There have only been a handfull of perfect movies ever. Almost every movie has some flaws. A review picks up on the flaws. If you read the review before seeing the movie, the flaws will stand out for you far more than they ever would have seeing the movie cold.

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
 

So that's where those ruffians running the streets with turkey basters get their ammo...

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
 

Threesome and a single or the natural hat trick?

Bonus points for both.

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
 

Can't you almost hear the SportsCenter coverage of this historic event?

How many times can Dan Patrick say "release ... rotation ... splash!" in one show?

Speaking of sporting news
 

Way to go Isiah!

The score at the Garden is right now 23-2, Houston. The Rockets haven't missed a shot, be it of the 1, 2 or 3 point variety.

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
 

Or Stuart Scott: "Spoo ya!"

Dick Vitale: "Dipsy-doo Spunkeroo!!"

Speaking of sporting news
 

34-23 as I type this. But you miss the actual point - the Knicks are newsworthy again.

I cannot wait for the trainwreck that happens when we get Wallace.

Crap
 

It is quite unpleasant to realize that you have a flat tire (undriveable) on your car when you are trying to leave work for the day. Drat.

Curious to know your reaction to this news story.

A neurosurgeon in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania was asked to speak to his son's fifth grade class about a 1875 painting depicting a surgical procedure. To illustrate several points, he brought with him a cadaver arm, which he opened at one point in the discussion to show students nerves, tendons and other parts. There was no blood.

One kid passed out and was sent to the nurse's office. Another five (of the 66 students present) left the classroom at various points because of the strong smell of formaldehyde.

About ten parents in the affluent Pittsburg suburb called school board members to complain. "[I]n hindsight, probably a letter should have been sent home and we will be doing that in the future," a district spokesperson said.

Pa. Boy Faints at Sight of Cadaver's Arm [Yahoo News.]

My own take on this is that the parents are overreacting and the district should do a better job defending the doctor. What's next, the parents have to send in permission slips for their kids to watch filmstrips about animal dissection? Part of the compromise of public education is that your kid gets exposed to things he wouldn't if you were homeschooling him. But that doesn't mean education policy should be set to the Pussiest Common Denominator. Especially when it comes to science and literature. I'll bet one of those kids whose parents think the presentation was "too graphic" for their child will think about going to med school because of what em learned that day. Your thoughts? Am I being too harsh because my nieces around that age would probably have been poking at the arm and saying "Cool!"?

As a parent, I'd want to know in advance if somebody was going to come in and play Show and Tell with parts of a cadaver... Not to say that I wouldn't let my kids view it, depending on their age, but I'd want the opportunity to discuss it with them and hear about the program for myself first.

I did the whole high school dissection thing, which was no big deal, but there's a reason I didn't go to med school and it's because the idea of working with or on corpses didn't do much for me... Some people are more squeamish than others or have perfectly sound moral or religious reasons for not wanting to participate in programs such as this. I say there's nothing wrong with having such programs, but make them voluntary.

Probably.

It's a severed limb, Atticus. There's a psychological separation between peering at a frog's intestines vs. the insides of a human's elbow.

Look, I understand a number (probably a good number) of 5th graders would've thought it's neat to see it. I might've thought so, too. I also see the educational point you're making.

But I'm not surprised that others were grossed out, and after the 4th kid passed out from the formaldehyde, it might've occurred to the doc to put the arm back in the box and called it a day. And, I remember having to get permission slips for all kinds of stupid shit at that age. Requiring permission to see a cadaver, or limbs thereof, doesn't seem to me like an apocalyptic abandonment of educational standards just yet.

ETA: Went back and read, and realized that only 1 kid passed out. Despite the factual flaws, I like my argument as it is.

lies
 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a friend's SO with another woman so I am not the nutso friend. I have seen guy friends with extremely hot women not their SOs when they were supposed to be out of town with "friends." But as I did not know the SO, I kept it to myself as it was none of my business.

I don't understand how any meeting with an ex could be so important as to do it without telling your SO. There is a reason you aren't with the ex anymore. I have old exes that I wouldn't mind catching up with but the desire to do so is now worth upsetting a current SO. I'm not sure how this makes me more likely to be lied to.

The big fight (if the SO finds out you lied about meeting up with the ex) will end, but there will be a crack in the relationship that may not be quickly or easily mended.

So why do it? What about the ex makes it worth lying about, much less risking hurting your SO?

Like they never saw a severed arm in a PS2 game

Oh, sure. When you put it that way, of course it makes me sound, um, unreasonable.

Fair point. Didn't mean to sound outraged by it or anything; I just surmise that about half of the "Kids today have no conception of real-world violence etc." comes from the antiseptic way in which they're raised, excepting of course cartoon violence like video games and movies.

As a Catholic with many elderly relatives who eventually proved susceptible to the charms of eternal life as a cadaver, I encountered a bunch of well-coiffed deceased people at various open-casket wakes and funeral Masses. Death wasn't exactly a friend, but it also wasn't something that only happened to bad guys in the movies. My parents didn't protect me from it. But when I got to college, I met a bunch of people who'd never been in the room with a body. I don't think that's a good thing.

But to my mind, this isn't about death. It's about science and medicine. I'm probably going overboard on the permission slips, but I have a lot of confidence in what kids can take.

Post this on Politics so I can nominate it for Board Motto.

If one of the kids had taken the arm and started beating people to death with it, maybe the people calling for game ratings and parental controls might be on to something.